http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/philip-k-dick-sci-fi-philosopher-part-2/ In the very first lines of “Exegesis” Dick writes, “We see the Logos addressing the many living entities.” Logos is an important concept that litters the pages of “Exegesis.” It is a word with a wide variety of meaning in ancient Greek, one of which is indeed “word.” It can also mean speech, reason (in Latin, ratio) or giving an account of something. For Heraclitus, to whom Dick frequently refers, logos is the universal law that governs the cosmos of which most human beings are somnolently ignorant. Dick certainly has this latter meaning in mind, but — most important —… ]]> Tue, 22 May 2012 03:14:27 -0700 http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/philip-k-dick-sci-fi-philosopher-part-2/ http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-krauss-cosmology-design-universe-20120401,0,4136597.story ]]> Mon, 02 Apr 2012 14:38:16 -0700 http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-krauss-cosmology-design-universe-20120401,0,4136597.story http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/03/120326-oldest-planets-found-jupiter-big-bang-space-science//oldest-alien-planets-foundborn-at-dawn-of-universe Two huge planets, some 12.8 billion years old, are the oldest alien worlds yet discovered, astronomers say http://t.co/ajA7kdHt ]]> Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:05:59 -0700 http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/03/120326-oldest-planets-found-jupiter-big-bang-space-science//oldest-alien-planets-foundborn-at-dawn-of-universe http://news.discovery.com/space/why-does-our-universe-have-three-dimensions-120119.html/why-does-our-universe-have-three-dimensions-discovery-news So you know, why the universe has three dimensions http://t.co/ak3XQF8E ]]> Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:35:56 -0700 http://news.discovery.com/space/why-does-our-universe-have-three-dimensions-120119.html/why-does-our-universe-have-three-dimensions-discovery-news http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02/mf_gleick_qa/all/1 Information flows everywhere, through wires and genes, through brain cells and quarks. But while it may appear ubiquitous to us now, until recently we had no awareness of what information was or how it worked. In his new book, The Information, science writer James Gleick documents the rising role of information in our lives and the way new technologies continue to increase its velocity, volume, and importance. Gleick—whose first book, Chaos, was a National Book Award finalist and whose biographies of Richard Feynman and Isaac Newton were both short-listed for the Pulitzer—spent seven years compiling his epic account. Wired spoke… ]]> Sun, 06 Mar 2011 04:43:51 -0700 http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02/mf_gleick_qa/all/1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60P7717-XOQ&feature=youtube_gdata ]]> Mon, 03 May 2010 09:38:00 -0700 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60P7717-XOQ&feature=youtube_gdata http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZG8HBuDjgc&feature=youtube_gdata ]]> Fri, 02 Apr 2010 04:21:00 -0700 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZG8HBuDjgc&feature=youtube_gdata http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEpZFEIDHdc&feature=youtube_gdata ]]> Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:30:00 -0700 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEpZFEIDHdc&feature=youtube_gdata http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703436504574640151374207392.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_TOPRightCarousel The arrow of time points in one direction only, from past to present to future. Now there's a fact—rather like Wittgenstein's observation "A is the same thing as A"—that is so patently obvious as to be unworthy of remark. But ask a theoretical physicist just how obvious that fact really is and you will soon discover that it is not obvious at all. Indeed the "arrow of time" presents one of the greatest mysteries known to modern science. Why so? Well, for a start, no one can agree on what precisely is meant by "past," "present" and "future." As for… ]]> Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:15:00 -0700 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703436504574640151374207392.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_TOPRightCarousel http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health_medicine/4337315.html?do=print Pick up a 30-year-old astronomy textbook and you will find more illustrations of planets than actual pictures; Pluto still holds onto its full planet status and exoplanets are theoretical. In the intervening decades, new instruments and methods have acted together to form one giant, interdisciplinary zoom lens on our planetary companions in the solar system. We now not only have hi-res images of planets, we can also predict their weather, dig for water under their surfaces and send spacecraft through icy plumes on their moons. Planet by planet, here's a quick guide to how our vision of the solar system… ]]> Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:46:00 -0700 http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health_medicine/4337315.html?do=print http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc&feature=youtube_gdata ]]> Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:25:00 -0700 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc&feature=youtube_gdata http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzGR-ApHWAM ]]> Sun, 24 May 2009 14:52:00 -0700 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzGR-ApHWAM http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=limits-on-human-comprehension Deep in the deluge of knowledge that poured forth from science in the 20th century were found ironclad limits on what we can know. Werner Heisenberg discovered that improved precision regarding, say, an object’s position inevitably degraded the level of certainty of its momentum. Kurt Gödel showed that within any formal mathematical system advanced enough to be useful, it is impossible to use the system to prove every true statement that it contains. And Alan Turing demonstrated that one cannot, in general, determine if a computer algorithm is going to halt. ]]> Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:35:00 -0700 http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=limits-on-human-comprehension http://ask.metafilter.com/61272/The-Various-Workings-of-a-CubeShaped-Gallery Imagine a cube-shaped building, with ten cube-shaped rooms along each side (10 rooms long, 10 high & 10 deep). Each cubular room has 4 walls, 1 ceiling and 1 floor. Each of the 6 interior surfaces in all 1000 cubular rooms is decorated with a different pi ]]> Wed, 25 Apr 2007 03:39:00 -0700 http://ask.metafilter.com/61272/The-Various-Workings-of-a-CubeShaped-Gallery http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/50098 As the Pentagon ousts plans to turn insects into cyber war machines you'd be forgiven for asking the question: Where does the real digital end and the faked life begin? Are we simulating life synthetically? or just speeding up an entirely natural process? Technologically engineered life is here to stay. Its not far fetched to speculate that simulacra may become all there is. ]]> Wed, 15 Mar 2006 21:09:26 -0700 http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/50098