Randomness
1. I don't think it comes as any surprise to anyone that Americans tend to have an astounding lack of interest in science, particularly the younger generation. Which is why websites like Livescience.com should be more careful about using science as entertainment to the point where its portrayed as frivolous or silly. What particularly irks me is their idiotic Top Ten lists which, more often than not, seem like they were written by a gang of amateurs doing a David Letterman impression rather than people who actually know what they are talking about.
James already shredded their list of the top ten deadliest animals (the mosquito?!?! please!!!), though not in a public post. But another prime example of this idiocy is the top ten natural disasters potentially facing the US. Natural disasters, as we should have learned from Hurricane Katrina, are very serious business and we need to be prepared to deal with them.
Livescience has a tremendous opportunity to educate the public with a well thought-out list explaining potential threats and how likely they are. But this is not in fact what we see. A midwest earthquake ranks a clear number 1 and we are overdue for a major quake along the New Madrid fault line. Yellowstone erupting would be another devastating event, one we might not survive as a country. The chances of an East Coast tsunami (ranked #3), by contrast, are not all that great. And #1 being the complete destruction of the Earth in an antimatter explosion or by being sucked into a black hole is just silly. Does Livescience actually want to be taken seriously or not?
Admittedly, though, a scenario in which the Earth is devoured by von Neumann machines is frighteningly plausible.
2. I've been doing a lot of interesting reading lately. I've wanted to finish Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, which I started a few years ago and never got around to finishing. So I've started rereading Red Mars, the first in the series, so I can have the events fresh in my mind again when I start on the others. I've also started a completely mind-numbing non-fiction work called The Singularity Is Near, which discusses, among other things, the implications of the accelerating rate of technological process. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around a lot of these things, since the author makes some totally jaw dropping predictions that, amazingly, don't seem all that far-fetched when you really grasp his logic. I'll probably write more about this as I go through the book. The bottom line is that reading all these things has caused me to feel very inspired and future-oriented lately and I think that's a definite good thing.
3. I was going to write more but I'm not really feeling up to it. So I hope everyone is enjoying their weekends.
James already shredded their list of the top ten deadliest animals (the mosquito?!?! please!!!), though not in a public post. But another prime example of this idiocy is the top ten natural disasters potentially facing the US. Natural disasters, as we should have learned from Hurricane Katrina, are very serious business and we need to be prepared to deal with them.
Livescience has a tremendous opportunity to educate the public with a well thought-out list explaining potential threats and how likely they are. But this is not in fact what we see. A midwest earthquake ranks a clear number 1 and we are overdue for a major quake along the New Madrid fault line. Yellowstone erupting would be another devastating event, one we might not survive as a country. The chances of an East Coast tsunami (ranked #3), by contrast, are not all that great. And #1 being the complete destruction of the Earth in an antimatter explosion or by being sucked into a black hole is just silly. Does Livescience actually want to be taken seriously or not?
Admittedly, though, a scenario in which the Earth is devoured by von Neumann machines is frighteningly plausible.
2. I've been doing a lot of interesting reading lately. I've wanted to finish Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, which I started a few years ago and never got around to finishing. So I've started rereading Red Mars, the first in the series, so I can have the events fresh in my mind again when I start on the others. I've also started a completely mind-numbing non-fiction work called The Singularity Is Near, which discusses, among other things, the implications of the accelerating rate of technological process. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around a lot of these things, since the author makes some totally jaw dropping predictions that, amazingly, don't seem all that far-fetched when you really grasp his logic. I'll probably write more about this as I go through the book. The bottom line is that reading all these things has caused me to feel very inspired and future-oriented lately and I think that's a definite good thing.
3. I was going to write more but I'm not really feeling up to it. So I hope everyone is enjoying their weekends.