Wired has an article up on America's long history of botched executions. Two weeks ago, things went horribly wrong with the execution of Clayton D. Lockett, a 38-year old Oklahoma man convicted of shooting a young woman and burying her alive. After executioners initiated what was meant to be a lethal injection, Lockett began writhing … Continue reading It really is time for the death penalty to go
Category: Society
Beasts of the Southern Wild
This morning I saw a captivating movie called 'Beasts of the Southern Wild' about a little girl living with her father in a shanty town on the south Louisiana coast. It's a haunting tale of people living in the most wretched circumstances imaginable, but still finding satisfaction and happiness in life. The little girl's name is Hushpuppy, … Continue reading Beasts of the Southern Wild
The value of history
Tom Chivers has a particularly misguided post up The Telegraph arguing that science is better than history. Given how under siege many in the humanities feel themselves to be today, this post is unnecessarily adversarial. Chivers does claim to recognize that history is a valuable endeavor (albeit limited in his view), but argues that if you … Continue reading The value of history
TED and unrealistic expectations
Benjamin Bratton's TED talk appears to be getting a lot of attention: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo5cKRmJaf0 The Guardian also has a transcript. It seems to me that Bratton's talk can be summarized as, you're all not thinking hard enough, not making real impacts, and allowing yourselves to be satisfied with too little. I think Bratton has some good … Continue reading TED and unrealistic expectations
Huffington Post commenting policy
So, just before making the last post, I discovered that HuffPost had changed their commenting policy, now requiring that people reveal and verify their real names. HuffPost had previously promised that they would grandfather older accounts out of this policy, but have apparently rescinded that promise. I understand why HuffPost is doing this, but I … Continue reading Huffington Post commenting policy
SelfAwarePatterns 