Precious fame.

Some have it. Some are making it for themselves. Some others are, too, in less positive ways.
That is all.

Some kickass photos...

... that are not mine, can be found here.

Also, robots lie.

Also, cellphones might soon pick up a new trick. This is kind of the one that interests me the most, since I was thinking about input devices earlier this week, as I sat at my desk in front of my primitive keyboard that hurts my fingers to use (and LCD flatscreen monitor; figure that expense report out). I was wondering what might be used to more effectively manipulate data on a computer; and along comes this cellphone story. Also, there is news about speech recognition software, but I don't see that as useful around my desk, which is not in an office of my own, but part of a more collective unit. If I had a way of preventing other peoples' voices from controlling my computer, then maybe I could use it. Or I could just get hired as a monkey on a treadmill.

Lots of links.

Just a damn ton of them. I haven't even read all of these. Go now.

Here. And here. and here, here, and here. Oh yeah, and here.

Good news day. I am particularly happy about the creation "science" museum going broke. That makes me tingle. Happy.

An appropriate place.

I have long believed that there is nothing a person can't do if he puts his mind to it. As evidence, I present this story, hot off the AP, um, thingy.

Also, I'm not sure how I feel about this one. I mean, on the one hand, I want to shout "Never forget!", but then I remember that that is the motto for another controversy; one in which the good guys become bad guys (though not vice versa). I feel conflicted, and it's all the Pope's fault. I mean, you'd think it was the guy's job to force people to examine complex moral quandaries, or something.

I don't think so; do you?

In The Know: Are We Giving The Robots That Run Our Society Too Much Power?

Well, sh**t.

I'll be with you in a second. I'm reading an article from slashdot. It's thrown me for a little bit of a loop. (Is the word 'loop' appropriate? I don't know anymore...) Honestly, I'm a little embarrassed for academia. I know it isn't immune from idiot bureaucracy, but it's supposed to have a buffer layer of professors to keep the very stupidest of bureaucrats out. The article ends by asking, "...has university surveillance of online identities gone too far?" I ask, "Can somebody direct VSU's president to the nearest dictionary?" (Okay, not if the nearest dictionary was written by Big Brother, but the nearest good dictionary.)

Eleven volumes of... what?

So, I was talking with a coworker today about the "His Dark Materials" trilogy, which I am reading at a high rate of speed, not necessarily because of their intriguing plots or well-fleshed-out characters, but because they go pretty quickly. Like potato chips, but less fattening, and more culturally significant. Okay, maybe not that second one. Potato chips are pretty significant, you have to admit.

Anyway, I mentioned that, "I've been reading that series that starts with 'The Golden Compass', and the big controversy is that it promotes atheism, but I'm just not seeing it."
She responded with the question, "Have you read the 'Left Behind' series?"
"I've heard of it; it's the one that starts with the apocalypse, right?"
"Yeah. It's twelve books long."
"And just so we're clear, it starts with the apocalypse, right?"
"Yeah."
"The apocalypse where everyone dies?"
"Yeah. Have you read it?"
"... No."

I had been trying to make the point that the controversy surrounding the supposedly atheist series is a lot of pointless noise (for another example, see any controversy ever), but I think I got unwittingly trumped. I don't know whether to be deeply irritated or deeply impressed.

(And the 'Dark Materials' series actually isn't that bad; it's a pretty standard fantasy series, as far as I'm concerned. I don't know that you can call a series where the Christian monotheistic god is a character 'atheist'; at best, you might be able to call it Nietzschean.)

Philosophy is not "mere"!

I was reading an article that I found on slashdot which describes, as part of it, the "The universe is just a VR Simulation" theory. It says that, "without testable predictions about the universe that would distinguish this idea from other theories, the VR hypothesis is pure philosophy."

Okay, they said 'pure', not 'mere', but still, that sounds a little dismissive of philosophy to me, but whatever. They're just egghead scientists, right? Besides, it taught me about "Boltzmann Brains", which is a fun philosophical concept. Take it out for a spin and tell me what you think!

Also, I wish I was a media person. Not like I actually am, but a media person who mattered. Then maybe I could get free stuff, too.

Hoo ah.

Recently, there was a hacker convention in Berlin. I would provide a link, but you should really find out how to find out about it on your own.

I think the TSA found out about it. They may have also found their old copy of 1984. I don't know. All I know is that I'm not confident in my ability to not react to an approaching security officer with a mixture of apprehension and mistrust, and have that read clearly on my face.

Seriously, if you were traveling and a uniformed TSA person walked up to you and started asking you about your trip and plans and things, wouldn't your first reaction be to freak, just a little? Could you really prevent yourself from thinking, "Oh, crap, I'm in trouble"? It's not hard to see how that would be a self-fulfilling prophecy. And that's why I wear a beard; to hide my face.