03 MAR 2014 by ideonexus
The Silence of the Universe is Significant
Geoff Marcy, the University of California at Berkeley astronomer who has found scores of exoplanets, and who has diligently searched for signs of anything artificial in the data, says the silence is significant: “If our Milky Way Galaxy were teeming with thousands of advanced civilizations, as depicted in science-fiction books and movies, we would already know about them. They would be sending probes to thousands of nearby stars. They would have a galactic Internet composed of laser beams a...Folksonomies: extraterrestrial life
Folksonomies: extraterrestrial life
The fact that we can't detect anything out there means there may be nothing to detect.
29 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
No Such Thing as "Universal Culture"
As the pop pundits keep reminding us, we are becoming a global culture. We share the same TV shows and movies, drink the same Coca-Cola, and shoot the same Kodak film. But this "global culture" is highly superficial—^it is only the gloss of popular culture, apparent only in what people over the world would like to buy. I am guessing that those boasting of an electronic superhighway where "anybody" can be connected to "anybody" have not traveled much in the third world; they are blinded by t...Pundits keep reminding us that culture is becoming homogenized, but tell that to the third world inhabitant living without electricity or internet.
17 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Ronald Reagan's Memory Problems
President Ronald Reagan, who spent World War Two in Hollywood, vividly described his own role in liberating Nazi concentration camp victims. Living in the film world, he apparently confused a movie he had seen with a reality he had not. On many occasions in his Presidential campaigns, Mr Reagan told an epic story of World War Two courage and sacrifice, an inspiration for all of us. Only it never happened; it was the plot of the movie A Wing and a Prayer - that made quite an impression on me, ...Reagan recalled things as real that happened only in his movies, what does this mean for humans and major policy decisions?
23 JAN 2011 by ideonexus
Smaller Fragments of Information Command Attention
I do find that smaller and smaller bits of information can command the full attention of my over-educated mind. And not just me; everyone reports succumbing to the lure of fast, tiny, interruptions of information. In response to this incessant barrage of bits, the culture of the Internet has been busy unbundling larger works into minor snippets for sale. Music albums are chopped up and sold as songs; movies become trailers, or even smaller video snips. (I find that many trailers really are be...Kevin Kelly describes how he his attention is grabbed by smaller bits of information and his mind more active as a result.