In August of 2009, I bought a Kindle. I was immediately quite happy with it (see “Impressions and advice from a new Kindle DX owner“), and I continue to be so these two and a half years later. My Kindle has become a major part of my reading world as a whole, particularly as a…
Category: Science & Technology
Utopia or dystopia? Corning’s viral video “A Day Made of Glass” envisions “a shift in the way we will communicate and use technology”
Ironically, just as I’m preparing to abandon Facebook within the next week or so, my horror author colleague Ted Grau has used FB to share one of the more fascinating items that I’ve encountered for quite some time. It’s a five-minute video titled “A Day Made of Glass,” and it represents Corning’s vision of a…
Technology, ecology, and the real sin of Dr. Frankenstein
I first read Lewis Thomas’s wonderful Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler’s Ninth Sympthony as an undergraduate communication major (philosophy minor) at the University of Missouri. In more than one of the essays contained therein, Thomas expresses the belief that many or most of humanity’s basic problems, including environmental and ecological ones, can only…
The Tragic Tale of the Rocket Maker
[For best effect, scroll to the bottom, start the YouTube video to playing, turn up your speakers, and then return to the top and read straight through. Then replay the YouTube piece and watch the video.] When the history of the American space program is finally written, no figure will stand out quite like John…
Science fiction, cultural myths, and the doubtful future of space flight
It appears we’re in the midst of a mini-explosion of reflection about the status of the science fictional dreams that, according to some observers and thinkers, fueled our 20th-century race into space. Basically, the space program in its original conception or incarnation — which in addition to its obvious nature as a geopolitically motivated Cold…
Saying goodbye to the “God particle”?
Well, crap. Not even a month ago the news was this: “God particle: Existence to be confirmed by 2012” — Physicists directing research through the Large Hadron Collider at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) have announced that the existence of the sub-atomic “God particle” will be decided by the end of 2012. For many…
Peak Oil, Propaganda Emails, and the Bakken Formation
Recently I said (in “Peak oil: Time to shut up as the conversation goes global“) that I don’t plan on talking about peak oil anymore despite my several years of doing so, because in the past year, and especially the past few months, the cultural conversation about it has become so mainstream and prominent that…
Impressions and advice from a new Kindle DX owner
A few weeks ago I announced here that I had decided to get an e-reader. Well, I’ve gone and pulled the trigger and am now the owner of a new Kindle DX, which I bought as a gift to myself for my birthday. (Clever man that I am, I asked family members who intended to…
NYT: Computer scientists are worried about AI usurping human control
Sounds like a science fiction idea, doesn’t it? Well, of course, it is a science fiction idea, and a venerable one at that, with roots that reach back to the early 19th century, when Mary Shelley processed the cultural fears and fascinations of an entire era by writing Frankenstein — an act which was, notably,…
Glimpses of ultimate reality in Mozart and quantum physics
As somebody who A) adores the music of Mozart, B) feels positively overcome by the intimations of an agonizing ultimate beauty in Amadeus, and C) has been fascinated by the metaphysical and philosophical implications of quantum physics for decades, aided by such things as a love for Robert Anton Wilson‘s writings and worthy popular expositions…