Author: ideonexus
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Is It Life Yet?
Stem Cells Life? Sperm and Egg Not Life? So I’m mulling the news that scientists hope to harvest stem cells from testicles. Beyond the way this new development makes me squeak with fear and cross my legs protectively, it’s also muddling my mind with cognitive dissonance trying to understand why harvesting stem cells from someone’s…
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American Government Workers Outnumber Private Sector
So I’ve been trying to follow the recent revelation that, if you count all the government employees and contractors, that there are now more people in America reliant on the government for their paycheck than there are in the private sector. The NYT covered the blog wars about it in their article, Debating American Serfdom.…
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President Ahmadinejad Goes to Columbia University and Gets Spanked
…and the Columbia president, Lee Bollinger, took him to the ‘splainin’ room: “Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator,” he said, to applause, before directly issuing Mr. Ahmadinejad a series of strongly worded questions on his country’s poor record of civil rights and support of terrorism. “I doubt that…
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Take a Child Outside Week 2007
9.24 In honor of Take a Child Outside Week: Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction. – E. O. Wilson The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful. ~ e.e. cummings God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars. ~ Martin…
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One Web Day 2007
William Gibson predicted the Internet, but his visions were barren and lifeless compared to the enchanting pandemonium we get to experience daily. Isaac Asimov predicted a world village connected with light-wave signals through satellites, but could nowhere near imagine the scope of social change, the effective mobocracy that it taking place. No futurist accurately predicted…
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Tales of the Super Science Ninja Squad: Benjamin Franklin
Tales of the Super Science Ninja Squad Benjamin Franklin This is only a small part of the story, check out Franklin’s Unholy Lightning Rod to read about the religious resistance to this invention.
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Wilson Quarterlies, I Has Them
Wilson Quarterly “Surveying the World of Ideas“ The WQ’s recent article “The Climate Engineers,” made it to the journal’s online version, and reading it reminded me what I’ve been missing out on in the last three years since I let my subscription lapse. The article looks at the entire history of Climate Engineering, from the…
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Robert Jordan Dead at 58
Wheel of Time Book I Eye of the World …and millions of fanboys around the world scream, in their best impression of Darth Vadar realizing Padmé Amidala has died by his hand, “NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” I am so glad I stopped reading the Wheel of Time series at book six. Robert Jordan’s WoT series was hands-down the…
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Happy Constitution Day
Working on a military base for six years has given me a certain reverence for the American flag. Many mornings I’ve watched the morning flag-raising from my truck as base police stop traffic to prevent it interfering with the ceremony, noticing those days it peaks briefly before descending to half-mast on remembrance days or the…
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Software Freedom Day
In honor of Software Freedom Day, I am making a concerted effort to install Ubuntu on one of my computers. I would much rather be hanging out at Bug Fest in Raleigh, but I don’t have the gas money or time this weekend. Unlike all my previous attempts to install that stupefyingly complex OS, Linux,…
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You Know It’s Bad When the Computer Starts Mocking You
So we’ve been training a new programmer at work on VBScript and ASP for our logistics software at the Coast Guard base, and this week my team leader and I thought it was a good time to give him a JavaScript-intense task to accomplish. JavaScript is one of the more frustrating web-based solutions because it’s…