Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro, is written from the perspective of an artificial friend (AF), an android companion for children. We learn a lot about Klara as she waits to be chosen by a customer along with the other AFs. In particular, her devotion and adoration of the sun. Perhaps because she is solar powered, she comes to essentially ( Read more... )

 The Glass Hammer, by KW Jeter, bears the stamp of Jeter's mentor Philip K Dick, both thematically and in a character that seems very much like a stand-in for PKD. There are some thoughtful idea about reality and media scattered throughout the science-fictiony tropes and Dickian paranoia of post-whoops America, psychic computers (or are they?), new ( Read more... )

Xander Schauffele, citizen of Earth, wins Olympic golf gold

The meaning of this turn of Olympic golf ended up being that the gold medal went to that man for all nations, the polyglot delight from San Diego who stood for one national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” but could have stood for several. This 27-year-old with the Californian ease and ( Read more... )

I've solved the case in Disco Elysium (Final Cut), though that's probably the least exciting thing about the game. Part choose your own adventure; part Infocom plus some graphics; part psychopolitical meditation -- it's really sui generis and a great experience, if you're up for it. The game was originally "refused classification by the [Australian ( Read more... )

Galileo & the Science Deniers is a solid biography of Galileo by Mario Livio, an actual working astronomer. I can't say that his scientific background adds a whole lot to the mix, but it can't hurt. He does bring an interesting flair for art (a subject of some interest to Galileo himself -- dare we call him a renaissance man?). One great ( Read more... )

Most of you know I spend quite some time battling the forces of ignorance and wrongitude in weird corners of the Internet. Young Earth Creationists, antivaxxers, climate change denialists, COVID-19 denialists, flat earthers, conspiracy theorists, Obama birthers, etc.

Often when I report on these shenanigans, I'll point out the errors in fact and ( Read more... )

 subtitled: Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience

I was maybe suckered too much by the subtitle, hoping for some good hulk smash of nonsense, and didn't read the fine print before buying. McIntyre is a philosopher of science, and so much of the book is more about not-solving the demarcation problem, i.e. how do you tell science ( Read more... )

 You Look Like A Thing And I Love You, by Janelle Shane

The book seems to be a reworking of material Shane has shared in her AI weirdness blog. On the one hand, it shows, on the other hand, it makes for light entertaining reading.

I was a little disappointed that the scope of the book focuses on various flavors of machine learning AI (as opposed to ( Read more... )

 How to Debunk Conspiracy Theories Using Facts, Logic, and Respect

Mick West helped found the videogame company Neversoft, and after Tony Hawk's Pro Skater made him a bajillionaire, he could turn his time to more important things, like fighting conspiracies about chemtrails on the internet.

The book is intended as a real How-To guide in helping ( Read more... )

There's been quite the confluence of events. Buzzfeed (don't laugh) ran a deeply researched article about Lawrence Krauss and a number of sexual allegations against him. None violent, but sleazy. Apparently enough to warrant being banned from a couple campuses where he used to work. While I was dimmmmmly aware, for me it was basically internet ( Read more... )