January 2012
30 posts
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The Cost of Knowledge →
science:
Science should be open. If you support that sentiment, this initiative is good news. It is a call for researchers to declare a boycott of Elsevier, one of the largest publishers of scientific journals in the world. Elsevier makes enormous profits off the free labor of scientists all over the world. Scientists do the research, write the papers, do the editing and peer-review, and then...
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“Do I worship modern medicine? Is science my religion? Not at all; there is no...”
– Thank Goodness! by Daniel C. Dennet (via scipsy)
Daniel Dennet is a professor in the Philosophy department at Tufts University, my alma mater, and I was a philosophy major.
My biggest regret about college was not getting to take a class with him, despite all the ample opportunity. At the time I...
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Remakes/Sequels Abound...in Video Games? →
Here’s a list of the most anticipated video games for console and PC coming out in 2012. I was very excited when I found this link, looking forward to a good new game or two.
…and then I actually read the page. It looked like the same list from any year over the past decade, just with new numbers or new subtitles inserted after the familiar names of franchises. I was a little...
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A Comment on a Utilitarian Thought Experiment
My last few posts have been scientific in nature, so I thought I’d finally change it up to discuss something from the world of philosophy that has always irked me.
When I took Ethics in college as a requirement for my Philosophy major, we spent a good deal of time on Utilitarianism, as it’s one of the main schools of thought with regard to moral theory. The foundation of Utilitarian...
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Studying Sex is Important! →
I think this sets my record for back-to-back independent blog posts with links. I’m on a tear!
Anyway, what I find most interesting about this article is the comment on the scientific community’s opinion of research into human sexuality. I’m in complete agreement with this author that something else aside from scientific rationalism is going into the decisions not to offer...
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A Cure for Just Being Drunk →
Now this is pretty cool, an actual cure for intoxication! Imagine what that would do to the bar-going crowd, especially in NYC.
And imagine the author did…just look toward the bottom of the article for the “downsides” of this drug. And then think again.
I have a problem seeing how any of these things are downsides at all, if the drug works the way the author says it should...
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They Cloaked a 3D Object!!! ...Well, from... →
It’s a science-y kind of day…
This article’s awesomeness kind of speaks for itself.
EXCEPT for the fact that my first inclination, of course, was that they cloaked something in the visual range. Sadly, that’s not the case. Cloaking from microwaves is pretty cool, but it’d be a whole lot cooler if we could SEE microwaves with the naked eye. What good is a...
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A New Reason to Return to the Moon? →
I discovered this article this morning via CNN.com, of all places, and not my usual science websites. The article intrigued me for a few reasons, some of which I feel are very important to the future of both energy physics and space exploration (but for me, primarily the latter).
The moon has not been visited directly by a human being for a long time now, and there has been very good reason for...
Reblog if you want your followers to ask you...
Don’t have a ton of followers yet, but I’m always up for a good question! :)
Scientists are fricken amazing →
Hot fricken’ damn!!
This article made me go “whaaaaat?” like four times.
They can control the orbit of an electron around a nucleus??? Holy shit!! That blew my mind.
I remember learning about the stuff in this paragraph in my college chemistry class:
He said comparing the classical and quantum descriptions of the electron orbits is complicated, in part because electrons...
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Oscar noms
The list is out, and like previous years I’ve seen fewer and fewer of the nominations this year. Why is that, really? I love film, went to grad school to study them…yet every year I feel more out of touch with the films honored as the year’s “best” as the Oscar nominations come out. It makes me curious, and a little sad.
But not really as sad at myself as I would...
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Stem Cells in clinical trials, finally →
Very interesting and exciting article on one of the first uses of embryonic stem cells in an actual therapeutic clinical trial. And the results are pretty astounding! Actually reversing Startgard’s and Macular Degeneration? Nice!
But, perhaps the most exciting line in the article to me is the very last one:
“I think we can be up and running in the clinic with IPS cells in one or...
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Language is happy? That's nice!
wallytheidol:
“The scientists analyzed billions of words from Twitter, a half-century of music lyrics, 20 years of The New York Times, and millions of books going back to 1520. After finding the 10,222 most frequently used English words from these four sources, they asked a group of volunteers to rate the emotional temperature of these words…. There was an overwhelming preponderance of happier...
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A shorter work week for everyone's benefit?
After another terrible night’s sleep thanks to some medication, I woke to find a friend had posted this article on Facebook:
http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679111/the-case-for-a-21-hour-work-week
A quick summary: the 40-hour work week is an outdated an obsolete holdover work philosophy from times closer to the industrial revolution, when economic norms were completely different, as were...
Oops...
So now I’m noticing that the “Let people answer this” button only pops up if you actually end the post with a question mark. …and I didn’t do that in the last post asking about Disqus and comment threads anyway.
Ugh! Anyway, it should be checked now, so if anyone has advice on Disqus or comments in general, you can respond to this in the “Answer”...
Disqus, comments, replies, oh my?
Hey guys,
After only two weeks or so of blogging, my biggest complaint about Tumblr was the lack of the ability to generate comment threads based on posts. The primary reason I wanted to start this blog was to actually engage in discussion on occasion on the topics I post on. I was a little miffed when I discovered this wasn’t so easy to do, but I just now discovered and installed the...
Reblog if it's okay to befriend you, ask...
I like new friends and intellectual discussion. :)
A Philosophical Approach to One More Playoff Team
I’m a huge baseball fan (Let’s go Mets! Or rather…let’s go FIX THE DAMN TEAM, METS!). Always have been, always will be. My sports fan-dom really exists at a ratio of about 95% baseball, 5% everything else (which is really 5% Knicks/Jets). I’m that much of a baseball guy. I grew up with it, played it, lived it, loved it, for as long as I can remember.
So when...
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Movie Review: Tron: Legacy
As promised, here’s my review of Tron: Legacy and why it’s such a terrible piece of science fiction over which the writers should feel ashamed. And also, SPOILER ALERT. If you haven’t seen it and want to without me ruining stuff, stop reading.
The original Tron, dating back to 1982, was very innovative for a few reasons. Computers were just on the verge of mainstream...
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A Summary of my Sci-Fi Philosophy
I’m a huge science fiction fan. Always have been, always will be. Much of what I write personally is science fiction (and fantasy, too), and I find the genre fascinating for its possibilities involving ideas, philosophy, innovation, and creativity.
But as I’ve developed my artistic understanding and preference over the years, my view of what “good” science fiction is has...
Watchcaterpillarcowboy:
section9:
Wish I had a Portal Gun.
Fantastic. Simply Epic.
Wish I had a Portal Gun
Laughing so hard.
Laughing my own ass off. I’m still not sure why I haven’t played Portal 2 yet…I think I’m scared I’m going to get too addicted.
Screw it, I’m getting it as soon as I get home.
INCIDENTALLY, I would like to point out that...
A strange choice for a hotel bathroom
I’m sitting here in my hotel room in Los Angeles (here for an amazing beach Ultimate tournament called Lei Out). Our hotel bathroom is quite the spectacle…as is anyone actually in it.
The wall between the bathroom shower and the rest of the hotel room is entirely glass. Thus transparent. As is the other side of the shower, so you can basically just see into the entire bathroom...
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The Rational, Anti-Religion-in-Politics founding... →
Can’t sleep due to some medicine I’m on, so I hopped on Facebook and found this article via a friend.
http://www.alternet.org/belief/153727/5_founding_fathers_whose_skepticism_about_christianity_would_make_them_unelectable_today?page=entire
It’s fantastic, and a VERY important reminder of the nature of religion to the origins of our country. Namely, there wasn’t any...
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Let's kick this off...
…with some science!
First off, hello new followers! Thanks for checking me out solely on Playfully Seductive’s recommendation. I’ll try my best not to let you and her down. She’s truly the best—and that was one of the nicest compliments anyone’s ever given me. :)
Okay, on to the science!
I read this the other day about Europa, the moon of Jupiter:
...
An Introduction
Hello out there. I’m Dave.
I dabbled in blogging a while ago, but it never really took. I think that was more for a reason of motivation though, not a lack of interest or desire. Over the last few days, I’ve thought more seriously about blogging again, but this time with a little more desire to do so. Primarily, this comes from one of the few things that gives me pleasure, yet is also...
