Archive | 15 September 2011
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Pop Quiz
Ok, this one should be easy. What is wrong with the following quote from a blurb in yesterday’s USA Today? The Class of 2011 logged the lowest SAT reading scores ever, while the combined reading and math scores hit their lowest point in 16 years, the College Board said today. Just over 40% of the […]
Climate Change Consensus?
From FoxNews.com yesterday comes a story about a Nobel Prize winning physicist withdrawing from his professional organization over the politics of climate change. Dr.Ivar Giaever resigned due to the American Physical Society‘s official statement of policy on the subject. Giaever was cooled to the statement on warming theory by a line claiming that “the evidence […]
Is SpongeBob Corrupting Your Kids?
Well, not just SpongeBob, but fast-paced kids programming in general. A study out of the University of Virginia suggests that short exposure (9 minutes) to fast-paced programs (the study used SpongeBob as their example) had a significant effect on cognitive tests immediately after. Most studies I have heard of compared long-term effects of watching such […]
Civil Disobedience
Amazing story of sacrifice and civil disobedience. A story about this woman’s father, who for much of his life has been a forger of official documents. It started as a member of the French Resistance as a young man under Nazi occupation, but continued through the years. The talk is in french, with English subtitles, […]
An Uncanny Robot
Intriguing piece at PopSci.com about a new generation of humanoid robot. Below is a brief video of the robot in action. A little uncanny how human it seems at times. The picture at right shows the robot “undressed” (left) and dressed (right). There has been some discussion about how much life-likeness people will take before […]
What to Do with Hackers
Misha Glenny says we should hire them! He also looks at where they come from, and cites their formation of hacking skills before their moral development was complete enough to prevent a fall into cyber-crime. He claims that many of them would be willing to work with legitimate industry, but they are lured into the […]
No Longer Normal 