Deflated fantasies

Thursday, July 31st, 2008

Sometimes you read something that just utterly depresses you. I have been sick lately, and I didn’t especially need more depression, but today I read this story at Wired, and it made me sink even lower. To summarize, researchers have studied some supposed dinosaur flesh that was recovered with some fossils and concluded that it [...]

Too Many People

Friday, January 6th, 2006

This BBC article gives some sense of reassurance to someone like me who is constantly frustrated by people’s desire to see what they want instead of what is right in front of them. Paraphrasing Aldous Huxley: “facts do not cease to exist because we ignore them”. The environment is obviously a tremendously important topic for [...]

“Oldest” noodles found in China

Wednesday, October 12th, 2005

This BBC story relates that archaeologists excvating China’s Lajia site have found the oldest noodles ever found, and they are touting this as proof that the Chinese invented noodles. Now, listen, I’m not going to argue whether the Chinese invented noodles; they probably did. But there’s something about archaeology that I find utterly idiotic. And [...]

Temporary natural storage

Thursday, July 21st, 2005

In a nutshell, according to optics.org: Japanese researchers have figured out a way to etch data onto fingernails. Thiis conjures all sorts of interesting ideas, which for me are revolving about Hollywood “action thriller” screenplays. You wake up in a dark room…you have no idea where you are….but all of a sudden, strange things start [...]

This would suck

Tuesday, August 28th, 2001

So I just read this story at BBC Online: I live in Manhattan, and I can tell you that 50m high waves hitting this city would be a very bad thing. NYC would be…hmmm…what’s the word…oh yeah…NYC would be fucked. Oh, and 9 hours of warning? Ha – that might be enough to get people [...]