In the third generation after we’d colonized the Douzaines Moons, the gems started appearing. A sort of shimmering blood-blister, growing under a fingernail, usually, though about one in a five get it under a toenail, becoming a full-fledged gémmoire a few years after the first flush of hormonal puberty has settled in. The First Ones
So, in about six weeks, I’ll begin teaching an online course– Introduction to Language and Linguistics, aka, LING 101. The course is fully online asychonous, which means that students go through the course at a self-directed pace, so most of the lectures, readings, and grading are automated. It’s not quite that loose, but close enough. The course
The Singularity is coming… …or so says Ray Kurzweil. And while technicians, sci-fi writers, and futurists quibble over the details of the Singularity, within these we find that fundamental questions remain unasked—questions so integral to Singularity Studies that, until they are answered, each talking point amounts to little more than piss in the theoretical river.
I saw Iron Man 2 last night… …but rather than give a two-weeks-late-to-the-party review, I’d like instead to focus on the scene depicting Stark Expo ‘74. In the first place, they were off by about 10 years–the aesthetics of that scene were lifted straight from Walt Disney’s Epcot promos, and while the park didn’t begin
When bad science begets bad journalism This just in… journalists over 30 mislead readers and misinterpret sources to support their belief that “Kids today are worse off because that’s not how we did things in my day!” Meanwhile, the irony of dissing the Internet on a newsBLOG is as unchecked as reporters’ facts! Seriously, though,
