ideonexus

interweaving ideas

  • The Is Google Making Us Stoopid? Debate

    Nicholas Carr’s column Is Google Making Us Stupid? in The Atlantic has opened a wonderful disputation that is drawing in great minds from all over the Web. Edge has the blow by blow account of the academic throw-down debate, which centers on the question of how the Internet is affecting the way we think. When…

  • Computer Programming as a Longterm Career

    I came across the blogpost Why a Career in Computer Programming Sucks recently, which argues that programming makes for a terrible long-term career choice because the languages and technologies are always changing: Computer programming is a job that’s heavily dependent on temporary knowledge capital. It’s temporary because the powers that be keep changing the languages…

  • Bush Doesn’t Go Far Enough With Offshore Drilling

    President Bush knows why oil prices are high when he tells us, “The only thing standing now between the American people and these vast oil resources is the United States Congress,” but his actions to lift oil-drilling bans from our nature preserves and off America’s coasts are just a drop in the bucket of what…

  • Flash Fiction: Science Heaven

    “Heya!” a pipsqueak of a girl with a pair of cheap, paper-mache wings strapped to her back greeted the small gaggle of stunned onlookers. “Welcome to Heaven! I’m you’re tour guide!” A series of “Oh’s” and “Ah’s” wafted from the group, all of whom were looking around the endless, cloud-filled landscape appreciatively. “Last thing I…

  • LED Bookmark Reading Lights for the 4th of July

    LED Bookmark Light For the fourth of July, I purchased 600 LEDs and 600 lithium batteries for the Port Discover Science Center to give out before the Elizabeth City fireworks display. Because I was afraid of the LED-throwies presenting a choking hazard, I decided to tape them to the top of bookmarks advertising the science…

  • Rush Limbaugh Admires Chinese Gasoline Subsidies

    How about this for Conservatism? See, the ChiComs need their economy growing. They need people driving around, moving around. They need people to be able to afford fuel, so they’re subsidizing fuel. They’re not bailing people out of stupid home mortgage messes. They’re buying their gasoline for them, because they need an economy. Know what…

  • Ideonexus’ Futurism Scorecard

    “Our ignorance is not so vast as our failure to use what we know.” – M. King Hubbert I’m going on five years of blogging now, which gives me enough material to go back and grade my own aptitude at prediction. My favorite bit of personal futurism was my article, Bring on the High Gas…

  • Cyborgs, We?

    Cybernetic Interface Credit: _MaO_ The American Heritage Dictionary defines a cyborg as, “A human who has certain physiological processes aided or controlled by mechanical or electronic devices.” Under this definition, people who wear glasses, hearing aides, and even drive cars are cyborgs. With physiological defined as “consistent with the normal functioning of an organism,” we…

  • Drill for Oil to Fight Gas Prices

    Oil Derrick with Statues Kneeling Before It Credit: skampy Back in 2003, politicians told us the Iraq invasion would pay for itself with all the oil the country would produce, so much so that US Forces allowed looters to ransack three major Iraqi cultural institutions in Baghdad because they had to concentrate on protecting the…

  • I’ve Been Hacked by the Iranians!

    My pretty-much dead website waygate.com (which I’m not linking to because it’s got malware right now), where I was keeping an ever-expanding list of science links, hasn’t been updated in over six months. So it makes sense that I wouldn’t notice this has taken over it: Waygate.com Hacked There was a momentary “WHA!?!?” moment upon…

  • Flash Fiction: Appreciation for Civilization is Mandatory

    “Have you ever dissected a stray cat Mr. Archer?” the old mad scientist grinned deviously at the man resembling a living Greek statue, currently bound to the cavern’s rock wall by a small army of spiderbots chain-linked around him. “Another one of your sick childhood hobbies Doctor X?” Swift Archer jutted his substantial chin out…

  • We Need Futurism Scorecards

    “There should have been a Secretary of the Future.” – Kurt Vonnegut Wired has a great article online covering their failed predictions from the past, which includes the death of brands and online song-sharing. One of their more ridiculous claims was that “futurism is dead.” Far from dead, Futurism has merely become a more esoteric…