Here’s a nice and perspective-giving discussion on the recent “creation of a bacterial cell controlled by a chemically synthesized genome”.
It’s hosted by Edge, where you, according to the about page, “will find a number of today’s sharpest minds taking their ideas into the bull ring knowing they will be challenged. The ethic is thinking smart vs. the anesthesiology of wisdom.”
There is something A History of Violence screenwriter Josh Olson needs to say:
“I will not read your fucking script.
That’s simple enough, isn’t it? “I will not read your fucking script.” What’s not clear about that? There’s nothing personal about it, nothing loaded, nothing complicated. I simply have no interest in reading your fucking screenplay. None whatsoever.
If that seems unfair, I’ll make you a deal. In return for you not asking me to read your fucking script, I will not ask you to wash my fucking car, or take my fucking picture, or represent me in fucking court, or take out my fucking gall bladder, or whatever the fuck it is that you do for a living.”
Read the full piece here.
Bill Watterson - creator of the great Calvin & Hobbes and notoriously hard to get an interview from - just gave an interview.
Daily Mail has this must-read article on running shoes:
“Thrust enhancers, roll bars, microchips…the $20 billion running - shoe industry wants us to believe that the latest technologies will cushion every stride. Yet in this extract from his controversial new book, Christopher McDougall claims that injury rates for runners are actually on the rise, that everything we’ve been told about running shoes is wrong - and that it might even be better to go barefoot…”
One of several surprising facts from the article is:
“Despite all their marketing suggestions to the contrary, no manufacturer has ever invented a shoe that is any help at all in injury prevention.”
“In this short essay, written for a symposium in the San Diego Law Review, Professor Daniel Solove examines the nothing to hide argument. When asked about government surveillance and data mining, many people respond by declaring: “I’ve got nothing to hide.” According to the nothing to hide argument, there is no threat to privacy unless the government uncovers unlawful activity, in which case a person has no legitimate justification to claim that it remain private. The nothing to hide argument and its variants are quite prevalent, and thus are worth addressing. In this essay, Solove critiques the nothing to hide argument and exposes its faulty underpinnings.”
IKKE DØDEN
Døden er ikke veninden kommer aldrig tilbage
fra sin rejse væk fra Metro Nord, væk væk
døden er ikke sølv og turkis
sejlende bort fra fascinationens opløste krop
døden er ikke at styrte på gaden
blandt dem der bukker sig og dem der haster
døden er
ikke at elske og alt er som det plejer.
- Søren Ulrik Thomsen, City Slang
Here’s an interesting article on the cracking of an online poker site.
“A kludge (or, alternatively, kluge) is a clumsy or inelegant solution to a problem or difficulty. In engineering, a kludge is a workaround, typically using unrelated parts cobbled together. Especially in computer programs, a kludge is often used to fix an unanticipated problem in an earlier kludge; this is essentially a kind of cruft.” - Wikipedia
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