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- Yeah, in a Minute... is the personal dumping grounds of Paul Landry:
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News Gathering vs. Confirmation Bias
- Remember, if you do not have at least one source of news that you turn to regularly, with which you routinely disagree, then you are not practicing news gathering! You are practicing [confirmation bias].
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Science
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[S]cience is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.
— Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (New York: Ballantine Books, 1996) at p.32.
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[S]cience is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
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Tag Archives: history
Kirby Ferguson: Embracing the remix
TED Talk by Kirby Ferguson. Great artists steal, except from me! Excellent talk, except for one inaccuracy: popular myth has it that Apple “stole” the original Mac’s features from Xerox PARC, but the fact of the matter is that Apple purchased “engineering visits” to PARC in exchange for selling Xerox 100k shares of pre-IPO stock […]
Also tagged apple, documentary, entertainment, movies, ted/tedtalks
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‘A Perfect and Beautiful Machine’: What Darwin’s Theory of Evolution Reveals About Artificial Intelligence
Daniel C. Dennett writing at The Atlantic: Charles Darwin and Alan Turing, in their different ways, both homed in on the same idea: the existence of competence without comprehension. As a career software engineer, and a longtime fan of the sciences, I find this essay fascinating. Of course, Turing was right. Speaking only for myself, […]
Also tagged computers, evolution, science, software development
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Daylight Savings Time is Senseless
I understand and appreciate its historical significance during the WWI and WWII eras, but the practicalities that necessitated it during those bygone days haven’t existed for at least two generations. Plus, it’s backwards: why move the clock forward at the point of the year when the days are naturally “growing longer”? I can’t help but […]
Also tagged bullshit, government, misc
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MacDonald Murders +42 years
On this day in 1970, the wife and daughters of Army Green Beret physician Jeffrey MacDonald were murdered at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. This is a fascinating, if terribly sad, case. If you’re even slightly into “true crime” you couldn’t pick a better case to read about. And, if you think you know about […]
Also tagged crime, government
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The Day the Music Died
Wikipedia: On February 3, 1959, a small-plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, killed three American rock and roll pioneers: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, as well as the pilot, Roger Peterson. The day was later called The Day the Music Died by Don McLean, in his song “American Pie”. […]
Also tagged entertainment, music
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A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs
Mona Simpson, writing in the paper of record: His philosophy of aesthetics reminds me of a quote that went something like this: “Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later.” Steve always aspired to make beautiful later. Incredibly touching and beautiful piece.
Also tagged apple, steve jobs
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Mythbusters to host Steve Jobs retrospective on Discovery
The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW): Entertainment Weekly is reporting that the inimitable Mythbusters (Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman) will be hosting a one-hour special on the life and achievements of Steve Jobs. iGenius: How Steve Jobs Changed the World will include interviews with key figures from Jobs’s past, including the legendary inspiration for Jobs & […]
Also tagged mythbusters, steve jobs, tv
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The Death of Steve Jobs
What can I say? I think my brother said it best: We are blown away by the news of Steve’s death. I suppose everyone knew it was coming. But it’s still sad–like losing a friend.
Also tagged apple, steve jobs
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Jim Thome joins 600 HR club
Michael Wilbon said it best on PTI: We begin with a man hitting his 600th home run–without his name attached to steroids, without a scandalous trainer, without a federal investigation, without perjuring himself before Congress. Jim Thome hit his 599th and 600th home runs […] and becomes only the 8th man ever to hit 600–only […]
Man on Moon +42 years
After the astronauts planted a U.S. flag on the lunar surface, they spoke with President Richard Nixon through a telephone-radio transmission which Nixon called “the most historic phone call ever made from the White House.” Nixon originally had a long speech prepared to read during the phone call, but Frank Borman, who was at the […]