Mecha-Obama and Micro-Payments

Last updated on: By Paul Fidalgo

Technology guru-turned-Cassandra, Jaron Lanier, thinks he knows why Obama won reelection. In a recent interview with UK’s Spectator, he said: If you have the biggest computer and the biggest data, you can calculate how to target people with a political message, and have almost a guaranteed deterministic level of success. Politics then becomes about who has the biggest computer instead of what the agenda is. The way Obama won the last US election was by having the best computer strategy.... Read more

Big Bucks to be Made When Middle School Becomes an Urban Warfare Training Academy

Last updated on: By Paul Fidalgo

From Liz Halloran at NPR, we get a story of the Rocori school district in Minnesota which is spending $25,000 on, wait for it, bulletproof white boards. “The timing was right,” Rocori school board Chairwoman Nadine Schnettler tells us. “The company is making these in response to the Newtown shooting, and has been making similar products for our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.” The $300, 18-by-20-inch whiteboards, produced by Maryland-based Hardwire LLC, “will be an additional layer of protection” for... Read more

To Be a Species is to Be Special

Last updated on: By Paul Fidalgo

John S. Wilkins considers the argument that humans are somehow more than “just animals.” The evolutionary view of human capacities is that they have precursors in ancestral traits, and these precursors can be found in other animals. Dogs, corvids, cetaceans, primates, and a host of other animals display moral, cognitive and conscious behaviour. Humans are special indeed in their capacities. But, and this is what what Tallis [a proponent of this view] overlooks, so are all other animals. The word “special” is merely the adjectival... Read more

Rewarded for Cat Pictures (and Whatnot)

Last updated on: By Paul Fidalgo

All Things D interviews Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Labs, home of the online virtual world Second Life. I have tried out Second Life a number of times over the years, but never stuck with it, for a multitude of reasons: my connection was too slow, my processor too weak, or I realized that true immersion in the game would require a level of time and energy investment I simply could not spare. But Humble had one point about what... Read more

An Atheist’s Prayer, an Actor’s Vulnerability, a Patient’s Trauma

Last updated on: By Paul Fidalgo

There’s something a little bit eerie to me about Jerry DeWitt’s article in Huffington Post in which he exhorts his fellow nonbelievers to engage in a nonreligious version of prayer. And it’s not eerie because I have some problem with atheists engaging in what sounds at first blush like a form of meditation just because it apes supernaturalism. Who gets irked about that kind of thing, other than, like, Tom Flynn? (Hi, Tom!) No, no. It’s something else that gives... Read more

Launch of the Obcast!

Last updated on: By Paul Fidalgo

I’m undertaking a new venture here at Near-Earth Object, a podcast cleverly (or lazily) called the Obcast (I even grabbed the domain obcast.com). Because the world needed more podcasts by white male nerds. But in all seriousness, I’ve had an itch to try my hand at podcasting for ages, but felt it was fairly pointless, if only for the reason alluded to above: I’d be a drop in the bucket. But there’s a simple fact: While many podcasts within particular... Read more

The New Toad Record Gives Me Feelings

Last updated on: By Paul Fidalgo

Toad the Wet Sprocket has just dropped their first record in sixteen years to Kickstarter backers (I was late, but got in under the wire), New Constellation, and if you know me, you know I’m thrilled they’re back. I’ve been a fan since high school, and it’s been great that as I’ve grown up, and my tastes have seasoned, so have theirs (in particular lead singer Glen Phillips’ stylistically varied solo work). Don’t get the wrong idea: New Constellation sounds,... Read more

The Boy Will Turn into an Ice Cube

Last updated on: By Paul Fidalgo

The Boy (3 years old): Daddy, one day, when I’m an ice cube… Me (35 years old): Wait, you’re going to turn into an ice cube? Boy: …Daddy, when I’m an ice cube, I’ll melt. Me: Well, when will this happen? When will you be an ice cube? Boy: In two weeks. And I will melt. Me: Are we talking metaphorically here, or are you literally going to turn into an ice cube? Boy: Trust me, Daddy. Read more

Introverts: We’re Genuine, Not Jerks (Or, Genuinely Jerks)

Last updated on: By Paul Fidalgo

Is there some kind of “introversion is the new black” thing going on? It’s probably due more to confirmation bias on my own part, but it sure seems like the more interested I am in the subject of introversion as perfectly valid way-of-being, as opposed to some kind of affliction or condition to be fought or hidden, the more I see written about it. Well, good then. I will consume this content, all by myself of course. Om nom nom.... Read more

A Phone for Squares (in a Good Way)

Last updated on: By Paul Fidalgo

The Moto X bills itself as a super-customizable device. This is actually pretty hilarious, because really you’re talking about having a wide choice of colors for the back, and maybe a few other cosmetic thing. It’s not like going old-school Dell and piecing together your PC online from a huge array of options on every conceivable aspect of the machine (except, now that I think about it, the cosmetic). Well, I saw Mike Daisey link to this new project (is... Read more