Today, Mike and I collaborated on the best bug ever filed. You can see it in it’s original glory here, or read the “edited for ease of reading” text version […]
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For many in the Labour Party, the promotion of Ed Balls to Shadow Chancellor was as inevitable as it was long overdue. I was among many party members who argued […]
In the future, we may manufacture the products that we used to buy at the store right in our very own homes. We may also find ourselves buying products that […]
This week, the global cities of Bogota, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, and Milan celebrate “Social Media Week,” with events and seminars focused on the use of digital media for building […]
One of the frustrations that comes with a new and interesting idea is the large number of people who will tell you that you’re actually saying something old and familiar. […]
A website will analyze your emails and chats and estimate how well you are in sync with your partner, frenemy or whoever.
Feminist attorney Jill Filipovic takes a closer look at the sex crime allegations against Julian Assange of wikileaks. I think the post strikes exactly the right balance between being skeptical […]
I’m putting out the last call for questions about Mt. Hood magmatism for Dr. Adam Kent of Oregon State University. He has offered to take your questions about his recentNature […]
“David Simon, the creator TV hit ‘The Wire’, has it in writing from as unimpeachable a source as you could think of: he is a genius.” And he gets $500,000 for it.
The past three days I’ve gotten in two political arguments with folks who I perceive as creating rifts in the political process and slowing things down. The first was with […]
It’s plain to see that I’m an optimist, sometimes more than is socially comfortable. The ease with which I dismiss the disastrous economic decline above serves as one example of that. I wrote that the recession will benefit our political system, and, before I cut this line, as having “rewarded our company for methodical execution and ruthless efficiency by removing competitors from the landscape.” I make no mention of the disastrous effects on millions of people, and the great uncertainty that grips any well-briefed mind, because it truly doesn’t stand in the foreground of my mind (despite suffering personal loss of wealth).
Our species is running towards a precipice with looming dangers like economic decline, political unrest, climate crisis, and more threatening to grip us as we jump off the edge, but my optimism is stronger now than ever before. On the other side of that looming gap are extraordinary breakthroughs in healthcare, communications technology, access to space, human productivity, artistic creation and literally hundreds of fields. With the right execution and a little bit of luck we’ll all live to see these breakthroughs — and members of my generation will live to see dramatically lengthened life-spans, exploration and colonization of space, and more opportunity than ever to work for passion instead of simply working for pay.
Instead of taking this space to regale you with the many personal and focused changes I intend to make in 2009, let me rather encourage you to spend time this year thinking, as I’m going to, more about what we can do in 2009 to positively affect the future our culture will face in 2020, 2050, 3000 and beyond.
On Monday I published the final list of Leadership Day 2010 posts. Today I’m going to highlight a few that, for one reason or another, particularly resonated with me. This is […]
Busy weekend (well, mostly grading, but that does eat time like you wouldn’t believe), so here are some quick hits from the news file: Busy Indonesia: As people begin to […]
Sustainable farming is a topic of pressing interest and a domain of growing innovation in agriculture, but it’s an incredibly complex issue involving multiple interrelated factors. A new partnership between […]
After reading George Lakoff’s diary “Untellable Truths” over at Daily Kos this morning, which methodically described why the progressive wing of the Democratic Party always seems to get the short […]
This week’s theme is epistemological unease in the sciences: Complaints in a number of disciplines that studies didn’t really find the effects they’re reporting. One reason for these worries is […]
The recent shuttle launch has a strange passenger: a 330-pound humanoid robot called Robonaut 2, or R2 for short. It’s the first humanoid robot to be sent into space, and […]
You may have heard about Dan Savage’s video outreach campaign, “It Gets Better.” The campaign was inspired by a spate of news stories about gay teens committing suicide in the […]
“Recent research points to a smarter way to tackle climate change.” Bjørn Lomborg says governments should increase energy R&D efforts and invest in climate engineering.
As I wrote yesterday, the key indicator following Obama’s expected win in New Hampshire tomorrow night will be the distance that he has closed in the subsequent national polls. If […]
A new survey from the Mayo Clinic finds nearly half of its medical students engage in unprofessional practice and most have no opinion on pharmaceutical company policies.
“Among the winners: computer screens that can bend, adjustable eyeglasses, a low-cost genetic test, an online marketplace for receivables and a new way to battle malware.”
A couple of updates on two of the volcanoes that have caught people’s attention right now! Oh yes, and sorry about the brevity of many of these updates lately – […]
nn As you could probably figure out, sometimes there isn’t much new volcano-related news out there in the get interwebs. I’ve been trying to think of ways to fill in […]
Bill Gates says the government should do more R&D in the energy sector, that a Manhattan Project for sustainable energy won’t work and that a carbon tax is necessary.
Every once in a while, scientists come up with an clever idea that is so novel and unexpected that it catches you by surprise. The idea by itself may not […]
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t,” Polonius says in Act 2 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet after an exchange with the title character. After encountering the unique sculpture of […]
Imagine being a soldier in Afghanistan today. Your platoon is attacked by a group of insurgents who set your outpost on fire. In the chaos and confusion, you step into a pile […]
Either the eruption at Fernandina has kicked back up again, or, based on the accompanying photo, we’ve landed on Gliese 581 D.
nn The Discovery Channel brings us a story on how the exact (well, semi-exact if you read the article) date for the 79 A.D. eruption of Vesuvius has been nailed […]