http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/ I am being Blair. I escape out the back as the world comes in through the front.

I am being Copper. I am rising from the dead.

I am being Childs. I am guarding the main entrance.

The names don't matter. They are placeholders, nothing more; all biomass is interchangeable. What matters is that these are all that is left of me. The world has burned everything else.

I see myself through the window, loping through the storm, wearing Blair. MacReady has told me to burn Blair if… ]]> Mon, 20 Jun 2011 05:13:19 -0700 http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-the-illusion-of-being-observed-can-make-you-better-person A group of scientists at Newcastle University, headed by Melissa Bateson and Daniel Nettle of the Center for Behavior and Evolution, conducted a field experiment demonstrating that merely hanging up posters of staring human eyes is enough to significantly change people’s behavior. Over the course of 32 days, the scientists spent many hours recording customer’s “littering behavior” in their university’s main cafeteria, counting the number of people that cleaned up after themselves after they had finished their meals. In their study, the researchers determined the effect of the eyes on individual behavior by controlling for several conditions (e.g. posters with… ]]> Wed, 11 May 2011 03:14:15 -0700 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-the-illusion-of-being-observed-can-make-you-better-person http://chronicle.com/article/The-Philosophy-of-Insomnia/127029 Philosophy is no friend of sleep. In his Laws (circa 350 BC), Plato platonized, "When a man is asleep, he is no better than if he were dead; and he who loves life and wisdom will take no more sleep than is necessary for health." Clement of Alexandria echoed, "There is no use of a sleeping man, as there is not of a dead man. ... But whoever of us is most solicitous for living the true life, and for entertaining noble sentiments, will keep awake for as long time as possible."
"The need of sleep is not in… ]]> Thu, 21 Apr 2011 02:44:52 -0700 http://chronicle.com/article/The-Philosophy-of-Insomnia/127029 http://www.canopycanopycanopy.com/10/to_have_is_to_owe We need to understand what philosophers in the Middle Ages, from Italy to India to China, already understood perfectly well: Money is not a thing, and is certainly not a scarce resource. Money is a promise. And it is a promise we keep to those we value and break to those we do not. In Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain, sovereign-debt default seems ever more likely. If it occurs, then what will happen? Certain promises will be kept, and others will be broken. As we learn from politicians every day, it is rarely possible to keep all promises exactly as… ]]> Tue, 05 Apr 2011 01:36:15 -0700 http://www.canopycanopycanopy.com/10/to_have_is_to_owe http://harpers.org/archive/2007/02/0081387 Consider this tale: a cultivated man of middle age looks back on the story of an amour fou, one beginning when, traveling abroad, he takes a room as a lodger. The moment he sees the daughter of the house, he is lost. She is a preteen, whose charms instantly enslave him. Heedless of her age, he becomes intimate with her. In the end she dies, and the narrator—marked by her forever—remains alone. The name of the girl supplies the title of the story: Lolita.

The author of the story I've described, Heinz von Lichberg, published his tale… ]]> Sat, 29 May 2010 02:00:00 -0700 http://harpers.org/archive/2007/02/0081387