Why Kurt Vonnegut’s advice to college graduates still matters today
Susan Farrell, College of Charleston Kurt Vonnegut didn’t deliver the famous “Wear Sunscreen” graduation speech published in the Chicago Tribune that was often mistakenly attributed to the celebrated author. But he could have. Over his lifetime, he gave dozens of…
Spotlight: The Turing Trap: The Promise & Peril of Human-Like Artificial Intelligence
The Turing Trap: The Promise & Peril of Human-Like Artificial Intelligence There has been a lot of hype about Artificial Intelligence lately, perhaps too much. But if you want to understand the bigger picture in a non-technical political-economic framework, this…
How Ursula Le Guin’s Writing Was Shaped by Anthropology
A connection can be made in between Ursula Le Guin’s fiction and her father’s groundbreaking work in anthropology. Oregon State University, CC BY-SA The education of Ursula Le Guin Philip W. Scher, University of Oregon On Jan. 22, Ursula K. Le Guin died in Portland,…
Dinesh D’Souza Claims in a New Film that the Democratic Party Was Pro-Slavery. Here’s the Sad Truth.
Originally published by Michael Todd Landis on HNN Dinesh D’Souza Claims in a New Film that the Democratic Party Was Pro-Slavery. Here’s the Sad Truth. On March 5, 2016, conservative pundit Dinesh D’Souza announced via trailer on his webpage the debut of a…
Danger enough to give them glory
by David A. Mindell First published on historynewsnetwork.org David A. Mindell is Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing at MIT. This article is excerpted from Our Robots, Ourselves, published…
Can Yahoo save democracy?
It is fashionable these days to bemoan the state of democracy, voter participation is weak, public engagement is in decline and many citizens feel powerless and alienated. In fact many people do not even register to vote! Yet it is a fundamental assumption that…
Geek Books!
This is neither Political Science or Science Fiction, but if you know the difference between a UI interface and an SQL server (as I know many of you do) then this post is for you. Eric Ligman, a Microsoft minion, is giving away a bunch of free e-books. The really…
A Star Trek documentary?
A Star Trek documentary? Hasn’t that been done to death? Well, yes and no. Sure their are plenty of Star Trek documentaries around, but this one is a little different. It is being done by Adam Nimoy, Leonard Nimoy’s son. I wouldn’t expect an…
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to speak at Stanford
As part of the observation of the 70th anniversary of the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will be speaking at Stanford University June 25th at 3pm. Of course this is because Stanford is such an excellent place (although I am biased since I work here)!…
Getting to know President Lincoln
The problem with history is that it is so far away. Reading about a noble figure such as Abraham Lincoln so often leaves one feeling oddly detached from the very figure that we are trying to get to know. Reading about his leadership during the Civil War, his great…
Read Edgar Allan Poe (for free)
Sure you could go to the library but what you really want is to stay home in your pajamas and still be entertained. So here is a link to the Poe Museum which has among other things many of Poe’s writings available for free. Enjoy!
Science Fiction: Catalyst for Reality
If your going to be in Seattle on May 20th 2015 you might want to check out this get together at the Microsoft campus, Science Fiction: Catalyst for Reality. With Greg Bear as a presenter and run in conjunction with MIT’s Enterprise Forum Northwest it promises…
A Magna Carta Cartoon!
Most Americans tend to think that the ideas in the Declaration of Independence were original to Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries, but as they say, their is nothing new under the sun! Take a minute to learn about the Magna Carta. Courtesy of the British…
Privacy Tools: How to Block Online Tracking
Author Name, ProPublica. July 3, 2014, 9 a.m. Many sites (including ProPublica) track user behavior using a variety of invisible third-party software. This means any time you visit a web page, you’re likely sharing data about your online habits, from clicks to…
Poor Godzilla
I finally got to see Godzilla, an enjoyable but vapid experience. Rather then a real review here is a short list of the more outlandish physics problems: (minor spoilers included) When the damaged nuclear reactor core melts down the escaping steam expands at the same…
Donald Duck says, pay your taxes (to beat the Axis)
Do you want to get an Italian mad? Tell them how boring soccer, I mean football, is. That was a hell of a game last night wasn’t it Adolfo, one to one, bet you’ve never seen that before! And lets not talk about the French and cheese. You want to get an…
Presidents Clinton and Reagan agree!
Submitted for your pleasure, without comment:
See a Real Time Media Map
Data visualization is all the rage these days, usually these sites are an interesting exercise in rehashing someone else’s data which is interesting to look at and think about for a moment and then quickly forgotten. So it is good to see a site that brings…
Do you have an Inner Fish?
Your Inner Fish. Neil Shubin. Pantheon Books, New York 2008. 229 pages. Neil Shubin’s [easyazon_link asin=”0307277453″ locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”rethse-20″]Your Inner…
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