Includes stuff about anything where feedback causes the system to adapt, including the systems of nature, those that are man-made or cultural, and those of the human mind.
Sometimes Dilbert creator Scott Adams comes up with some really amusing blog posts. This one is one of them. Unfortunately it’s mostly amusing because it’s true. I can only hope that this is just the same relatively tiny group of vocal and stupid people that I see commenting everywhere. If not, our future may be …
Just in case you were wondering. š I don’t know the context of that quote, but I’m very concerned about the science deniers in the US. It seems that, despite mandatory science classes in high school, most people still don’t understand science. Conservatives seem to think that science is like religion: convince enough people of …
Continue reading ‘“Moon *Not* Made of Cheese, Physicist Explains”’ »
Remember that wooden “spaceship” I mentioned a few months ago? Well, it has almost completed its journey, and I’m happy to say that the astronauts survived without major conflict for the full trip. Of course, they knew in the back of their minds that it wasn’t the real thing, so the stress wasn’t as bad …
Continue reading ‘“Wooden Mars ark voyagers set to step out on Earth”’ »
I always wondered at the popularity of zombies in popular fiction. They have no skill and no intelligence, and they move very slowly, their only truly horrifying trait (other than their dire need of cosmetics) is that they won’t stop so long as they can move even a single digit in your direction. It requires …
Continue reading ‘“We like zombiesā¦ because we *are* zombies”’ »
I saw something in a science fiction book once (I don’t recall which one, but it might have been David Brin’s Earth, though I can’t locate my copy of it now to verify that). It described a young man’s first encounter with a printed book, after spending all his life with a World Wide Web …
Hm… could the world of Darrell Bain’s The Pet Plague be far behind? š Or more seriously, the brain enhancements of Peter F. Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn trilogy, or any of a dozen similar science fiction works? Scary stuff, but ooh so exciting, too.
Beautiful. Simply beautiful. I’m going on the possibly-naive assumption that most rich people got that way honestly, and deserve everything they’ve earned (though not the ridiculous tax breaks they currently enjoy), and that it’s just a few crooked ones who are using their ill-gotten gains to manipulate the political system and screw the rest of …
Continue reading ‘“‘Cookie Monster’ Offers Best Explanation Yet for Occupy Wall Street”’ »
Sorry, conservative politicians. You can’t use cyberspace as an excuse to continue your campaign to involve the US in a major war every twenty years or so. But don’t be too disappointed, it wouldn’t kill enough young men to satisfy you, or be very lucrative for your weapon-manufacturing backers, anyway.
As mentioned previously here, autistic people tend to interpret things as black and white, all-true or all-false, no shades of gray allowed. That’s almost certainly why many of us are drawn to working with computers, because computers “think” the same way. Nice to see someone recognizing that as a strength and putting it to good …
Continue reading ‘“Autism Traits Prove Valuable for Software Testing”’ »
Some fascinating brain research on how the ready availability of Internet porn has changed things for younger generations — and more importantly, the medical reason why: […] Your brain didn’t evolve to handle today’s erotica-at-a-click. It doesn’t just see videos; it perceives endless fertilization opportunities, and it will use its dopamine “whip” to make sure …
Continue reading ‘“Porn Then and Now: Welcome to Brain Training”’ »