Archive for March, 2008
Posted in Atheism, Critical Thinking?, Democracy, Evolution, Extended
March 31, 2008 at 5:36 pm
One of the oddest things about this report is that it never actually tells you what this billboard says. You have to see the accompanying photo to know what it says. There’s something very bizarre about that.
It looked harmless enough, but the words on a billboard unnerved so many people that a popular restaurant nearby actually lost business. The billboard was on Colonial Drive near Old Cheney Highway.
Although the popular Straub’s Seafood restaurant often advertises on it, it wasn’t their billboard. The sign was taken down after Channel 9 started asking questions.
The billboard came down around 4:00 Friday afternoon and nearby business owners are relieved. Straub’s Restaurant can replace the sign with the night’s specials.
At first glance, the sign looked like a children’s cartoon, but the message next to the fairy princess stirred emotions.
The billboard says “All religions are fairytales”. I’ve been told there are billboards nearby this one that say “Evolution is a fairy tale for grownups.” I’m guessing this is retaliation, but I don’t understand why it was taken down. I can only assume that means it was put up as graffiti and not sponsored, but I guarantee there are enough angry atheists nowadays that would gladly put a few bucks toward sponsoring something like this for a month or two…
Link to article about how upset everyone was.
Posted in Blurb, Democracy, Digital Culture
March 30, 2008 at 3:55 pm
There’s an interview in the Chicagoist with April Bern, the girl I contracted to make my Newtonmas cards this year. You should all be buying her handmade cards – I keep stock of the various Robot series at home for every occasion. Link to interview. Link to April’s etsy store.
Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Evolution, Extended, Science, Technology
March 30, 2008 at 2:56 pm
There’s an article in Scientific American about a neural implant that bypasses the eyes and optic nerve to deliver information directly to the areas of the brain that process visual information. People seem awfully excited about this, but there seems to be no mention of how the brain is going to deal with visual information that it has gone a lifetime without, or what makes anyone think that areas used in a typical person’s brain for processing vision will be used for the same thing in a blind person’s brain. If they’ve been blind since birth or even for any significant amount of time, the brain would have re-assigned that neural space to other tasks, and it might not be the area for “visual” processing per se anymore (if it ever was). I get increasingly annoyed with bad science writing from respectable places like SciAm…
The ability to see requires healthy eyes, but it also requires that signals can get from the eyes to the parts of the brain involved in vision. A Boston neuroscientist hopes to deliver a ray of hope to the blind by bypassing eyes and optic nerves damaged by illness or head trauma and sending image information directly to the regions of the brain that process them.
The prosthesis proposed by John Pezaris, an assistant in neuroscience at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston—at least as it’s envisioned at this early stage—would be worn like a pair of eyeglasses, with digital cameras over a person’s eyes that connect to an array of electrodes implanted in the brain. Although this doesn’t promise to restore normal vision, “a remarkable amount of information can be conveyed in a relatively small number of pixels,” he says, that would allow people to perhaps identify simple objects and even recognize faces.
Eh. Take it with a grain of salt, as even the inventor seems to. Link to article at Scientific American.com
Posted in Digital Culture, Extended, Science, literature
March 28, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Greg Egan’s story “Glory” is up for a Hugo award this year, and is online free for the downloading and enjoyment of all. (My opinion of the Hugo is that it is easily the most aesthetically pleasing trophy ever created, and has always been so, through every permutation. I want one.) I haven’t read the Egan story yet, but tomorrow it will be my reward for finishing this dissertation chapter. You can download it here (.pdf) courtesy of Eos Books. Found via BoingBoing. Enjoy!
Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Blurb, Digital Culture, Technology
March 26, 2008 at 3:49 am
The makers of World of Warcraft are locked in a legal battle with a firm that has produced a tool to automate many actions in the virtual world. Blizzard is suing Michael Donnelly, the creator of the MMO Glider program, which performs key tasks in the game automatically, such as fighting. … Link to BBC News article
Posted in Critical Thinking?, Democracy, Extended
March 26, 2008 at 1:12 am
I tried to tell J. not to pay all of our taxes this year. (It’s the Maggie Gyllenhall defense!) Here’s a good reason why:
The military is scrambling for new ways to treat the brain injuries and post-traumatic stress of troops returning home from war. And every kind of therapy — no matter how far outside the accepted medical form — is being considered. The Army just unveiled a $4 million program to investigate everything from “spiritual ministry, transcendental meditation, [and] yoga” to “bioenergies such as Qi gong, Reiki, [and] distant healing” to mend the psyches of wounded troops.
Link to article at Wired.com (via BoingBoing)
Posted in Democracy, Evolution, Extended, Feminism, Philosophy, Science, Technology, ethics
March 24, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Overlook, if you can, the social and cultural hardships this family is facing. Overlook also the religio-fascism and medical discrimination they are facing. These are no small things to overlook in this Brave New World, where we’re allegedly so close to Super-Intelligent Artificial Intelligence and democratized longevity health care for all in the form of robot bodies for us to inhabit.
Suspend all of your current understandings of what the Future is supposed to be, and realize that it is here, now, and it is fucking amazing:
To our neighbors, my wife, Nancy, and I don’t appear in the least unusual. To those in the quiet Oregon community where we live, we are viewed just as we are — a happy couple deeply in love. Our desire to work hard, buy our first home, and start a family was nothing out of the ordinary. That is, until we decided that I would carry our child.
I am transgender, legally male, and legally married to Nancy. Unlike those in same-sex marriages, domestic partnerships, or civil unions, Nancy and I are afforded the more than 1,100 federal rights of marriage.
I had to read this article several times before I was convinced it was real and not one of those pipe-dreams where people imagine what it would be like to live in a world where this sort of thing is permitted to occur. I hope these people are able to afford great security for their family (which they’ll need because we don’t happen to live in a world where this sort of thing is permitted to occur). I wish I could send them enough congratulations to ease the pain of the death threats I can only assume they will soon be getting.
When I finally got pregnant for the first time, I ended up having an ectopic pregnancy with triplets. It was a life-threatening event that required surgical intervention, resulting in the loss of all embryos and my right fallopian tube. When my brother found out about my loss, he said, “It’s a good thing that happened. Who knows what kind of monster it would have been.”
Link to article at the Advocate.com, with great thanks to Wanyas for the link.
Edit to Add: The always-wonderful Analee Newitz sets us straight: We already knew men could get pregnant!
Posted in Democracy, Extended, ethics
March 22, 2008 at 1:43 pm
I sure hope my friend Nancy is reading this, since I think she lives in one of these Detroit suburbs…
WASHINGTON (AP) — Assisted-suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian plans to run for Congress, complicating a Michigan race that is expected to be among the most competitive in the nation.
The so-called “Dr. Death,” who was released from prison last year and remains on parole, will run as a candidate with no party affiliation for a congressional seat representing Detroit’s suburbs, an associate said.
Link to AP article
Posted in Academic Life, Blurb, Democracy, Digital Culture, Technology, ethics
March 22, 2008 at 1:25 pm
“In a recent commentary in the journal Nature, two Cambridge University researchers reported that about a dozen of their colleagues had admitted to regular use of prescription drugs like Adderall, a stimulant, and Provigil, which promotes wakefulness, to improve their academic performance.”… Link to NY Times article.
Posted in Blurb, Democracy, ethics, literature
March 21, 2008 at 11:53 am
Niven said a good way to help hospitals stem financial losses is to spread rumors in Spanish within the Latino community that emergency rooms are killing patients in order to harvest their organs for transplants. “The problem [of hospitals going broke] is hugely exaggerated by illegal aliens who aren’t going to pay for anything anyway,” Niven said. “Do you know how politically incorrect you are?” Pournelle asked. … Larry Niven is gross. Via the wonderful Annalee Newitz’s io9