Faster, please.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Personhood For Non-Humans
Elizabeth Price Foley is appalled at some recent court decisions, and the trend.
I’ve got mixed feelings on this. I agree that they shouldn’t be given full human rights, but I do think we should make distinctions as a function of intelligence, and perhaps even recognize some degree of moral agency (e.g., dolphins). It also raises the issue of how we would treat extraterrestrials as a function of those things.
Apollo 13
The day it crashed into the earth, or something.
This story is depressing to me in what it says about the state of public education.
High-Speed Cars
Honda has an alternative to both HSR and the Hyperloop.
Makes a lot more sense to me.
The Martian
io9 likes it.
If it’s true to the book, it would be hard to screw up. Well, other than casting Matt Damon, anyway.
Space Situational Awareness
I haven’t read it yet, but this looks like an interesting paper on doing it commercially, from some people at Analytical Graphics.
Dean Ornish
First, Nina Teichholz, and now Scientific American dismantles the quack.
[Early-afternoon update]
Should we eat meat? Thoughts from (of all people) Bill Gates.
“Deniers” And Ideologues
Judith Curry’s warning to Bjorn Stevens: “In my quest to objectively evaluate the IPCC’s attribution argument and stand up for research integrity post Climategate, I was not ‘pulled’ away from the establishment community by ‘deniers’; rather I was ‘pushed’ away by scientists who were IPCC ideologues and advocates. Watch out.”
#ProTip: Use of the phrase "climate denier" makes you look like a derriere fedora.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) April 22, 2015
The EPA Carbon Rules
States should rebel against them. This isn’t about the planet, it’s about power. Raw political power.
[Update a couple minutes later]
“We’ll observe Earth Day when the EPA obeys the law.”
Don’t hold your breath on that one.
Rules For Healthy Eating
I actually tend to follow most of these. I eat mostly at home, unless I’m traveling (and even then I’ll cook, if I have a kitchen), and rarely go out. I shop the outer perimeter of the grocery store (meat and produce), and tend to avoid the inner aisles.