Neuroscientist Kenneth Miller has an interesting post at the New York Times discussing the feasibility of mind uploading: I am a theoretical neuroscientist. I study models of brain circuits, precisely the sort of models that would be needed to try to reconstruct or emulate a functioning brain from a detailed knowledge of its structure. I … Continue reading The feasibility of mind uploading
Don’t forget calories, just don’t focus on them as the only important thing.
James Hamblin has an article in The Atlantic, published last year, advocating that dieters should focus on eating healthy foods, and not worry about counting calories. The proposed new FDA nutrition labels make the calorie number larger. That seems like a mistake. Focusing on calories puts the emphasis in the wrong place. The biochemistry is complex, but the … Continue reading Don’t forget calories, just don’t focus on them as the only important thing.
Evidence of liquid water found on Mars
Rather than attempt to write about this, I'm just going to embed a couple of tweets from NASA. https://twitter.com/NASA/status/648523470070923264 https://twitter.com/NASA/status/648527086299316224 Water, of course, is the elixir of life. The probability of some kind of life existing on Mars seems to have just increased.
Snowden’s answer to the Fermi Paradox and its assumptions
The Fermi Paradox is the question that, if the conditions for life in the galaxy are as ubiquitous as they appear to be, so that there should be hundreds, if not thousands of alien civilizations out there, then where is everyone? Why have we found no evidence for any for those civilizations? And why aren't they here? … Continue reading Snowden’s answer to the Fermi Paradox and its assumptions
On ad blocking
Nilay Patel has a piece at the Verge on the availability of ad blocking plugins for the web browser in the new version of iOS. She has an interesting theory of what motivated Apple to allow ad blocking, that it was essentially to attack Google's revenue model. But the overall piece seems to take the … Continue reading On ad blocking
Odyssey writing podcasts
A while back, I did a post noting the podcast Writing Excuses, an awesome resource for aspiring science fiction or fantasy writers. This weekend, I discovered another podcast that I had inexplicably missed until now. The Odyssey Podcasts are excerpts from their writing workshops, an exclusive and intense writing work camp for select beginning SFF … Continue reading Odyssey writing podcasts
Time to change how we refer to American Civil War events and institutions?
Historian Michael Todd Landis has a proposal at the Historical News Network advocating that we should change the names we use to refer to American Civil War related events and institutions. The old labels and terms handed down to us from the conservative scholars of the early to mid-twentieth century no longer reflect the best … Continue reading Time to change how we refer to American Civil War events and institutions?
Thoughts on knowing and targeting your audience
Writing can be a tricky business. Whenever you do it, it has to be with an audience in mind. When I do blog posts here, I'm usually aiming for a general audience. I try not to assume that my readers know obscure scientific or philosophical terminology. That's a decision I've made, hopefully one I've lived up to. … Continue reading Thoughts on knowing and targeting your audience
Mad Max: Fury Road – Wow!
This week I watched the movie Mad Max:Fury Road. I had heard a lot about this movie, that it was incredibly action packed, that it had stunning visuals, that it put every other action movie to shame, that it had in fact re-defined what it means to be an action movie. Pretty high praise. With a … Continue reading Mad Max: Fury Road – Wow!
In search of an objective morality
I've had a few conversations lately on morality, and it strikes me that I haven't written about it in quite a while. The discussions focused on whether there is any objective morality, or any objective definition of good and evil. This is an age old question. It occurs to me that we can break moral … Continue reading In search of an objective morality
SelfAwarePatterns 