One day a girl college student in Canada asked me to define reality for her, for a paper she was writing for her philosophy class. She wanted a one-sentence answer. I thought about it and finally said, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” That’s all I could come up with. That was back in 1972. Since then I haven’t been able to define reality any more lucidly.
Philip K. Dick on Reality ›
May 15th, 2006The Risks of the Age of Nanotechnology ›
May 14th, 2006Ever since watching the films Powaqqatsi and Koyaanisqatsi, I was turned towards director Godfrey Reggio’s ideas about technology as environment, that “it’s no longer something we use, but something we live. The popular myth of neutrality, that technology is “neutral” and it’s the use or misuse of it that determines its value, I think is woefully inadequate.”
NSA Eavesdropping ›
May 11th, 2006“The thought police would get him just the same. He had committedâ??would have committed, even if he had never set pen to paperâ??the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.”
- George Orwell, 1984
Nanotechnology must reads ›
May 9th, 2006Nanotechnology has fascinated me for some time now ever since I picked up Eric Drexler‘s Engines of Creation. I am always, however, constantly amazed when I mention it to my friends and they never seem to have any idea about what it is, where it’s going, and what are the possibilities. So here’s a small list of must reads. You can always rely on Wikipedia’s nanotechnology article for an introduction, but there are better works out there to rely on.
Electric Smog & Electro-sensitivity ›
May 8th, 2006An interesting article appeared in the Independent today entitled Electronic Smog:
Invisible “smog”, created by the electricity that powers our civilisation, is giving children cancer, causing miscarriages and suicides and making some people allergic to modern life, new scientific evidence reveals.
At least someone’s thinking “out the box” ›
May 8th, 2006“Out the box” is one of my worst business catch-phrases ever since I worked for a guy who was a walking catch-phrase dictionary. He couldn’t seem to talk without some abbreviation or acronym coming out his mouth. Regardless, the description suits this case because it’s good to see someone talking about new business models when it comes to music, file sharing, and copyright. The company in question is Nettwerk, run by a Terry McBride, and the model is something he calls “behavioural marketing”.