Philosophy
I recently finished reading Necessity, the third and final book in Jo Walton’s “Thessaly” trilogy. I had encountered Jo Walton’s writing previously in her novel Tooth and Claw, a fun and surprisingly thoughtful novel in the style of a Regency Romance with Dragons as the main characters. Her
Philosophy
I’ve been following her YouTube channel for awhile now. She’s basically the modern Martin Gardner, but without the sour waspishness that he developed later in life. I first noticed her with one of her “Doodling in Math Class” videos (I think this one: Connecting Dots), but then, since
Politics
Mark Sumner had an interesting post today in the Daily Kos. He makes some points that I’ve thought about for some time, that the current “right wing” in the US has become the party of anti-reason demagogues that do not necessarily even believe what they are saying. I’ve
Philosophy
So James Fallows posted “Avatar” Life in the Digital Age on his Atlantic blog. He quoted a college student (“Will S.”) he knows as saying: My existence on the internet might be with my real name, but my suspicion is that the vast majority of people are creating Avatars of
Computing
My old college friend Ron Burk had an Ignite video go viral last year. This one probably won’t, but it’s still a good presentation. It’s called “Three Strange Definitions of Computer Programming”. He’s a good presenter, so you might find it interesting even if you’re
Philosophy
I have a friend who believes that “Crystal Blue Persuasion” is the worst song in the world. I don’t agree. It’s just boring, sort of like anything by Air Supply or Bread. (If I never hear “Diary” again it’ll be too soon.) Denise thinks that maybe “Escape”
Philosophy
Ray Kurzweil popularized the idea of a “Technological Singularity”, originally proposed by Vernor Vinge, based on ideas from I. J. Good, where the advances in technology and, particularly machine intelligence, will render the future unpredictable. The amusing thing to me is that they then go on to make predictions, usually
Philosophy
These are my private opinions and do not necessarily reflect that of the Unitarian Universalist Association (the UUA). I have been active in my local UU congregation, Shawnee Mission Unitarian Universalist Church. Unitarian Universalism is more a religious outlook than a set of beliefs. There’s lots of history about