The Telepresent Texan

Let's see if it can support multiple embeds and/or TED embeds on the same page

2011-06-25T15:59:00.001-05:00

What strikes me about this is that it seems to bring a different kind of 3-D to the table than the stereoscopic or simple rendered kind. The drawback, of course, is that you only have one person who can experience this at a time, but if you have somebody sitting in front of a computer screen(which tends to be one person watching the monitor, or playing a one-player video game), then it's not an

What I'd be interested to see here is whether this video posts properly from blogger

2011-06-25T15:50:00.001-05:00

Here's the thing I notice here: look how much time is spent distracting you from actually directly interacting with him. You might have some nice little AI tricks regarding him noticing or taking interests with things you do, but you only get real interaction after having been narratively tunnelled into a certain conversation that has certain social expectations attached to it But I do have

I have to wonder, is this just a problem when dealing with embeds?

2011-06-25T15:47:00.001-05:00

Or does the blogwriter program just screw things up when it deals with embedded video?

Test for Telepresent Texan

2011-06-17T10:38:00.001-05:00

Just trying to see how this works on my blog, You know how it goes. The same old story with all the fun and glory. This could make it easier for me to just sit down and write more of these entries. There’s a lot that’s interesting in the world.

An interesting article on the Anonymous Hack of HBGary

2011-02-16T11:24:00.000-06:00

Anonymous speaks: the inside story of the HBGary hackWhat strikes me about this story is that despite the prestige in the media about it, the means by which it were done were not especially exotic, and the vulnerabilities it exploited were not especially unknown. In fact, they were pretty basic!If there's a comment to be made from my end of subject, it's a cognitive one. The thing about

Click the Link, this sucker looks cosmic.

2010-11-30T08:39:00.000-06:00

Montana Thunderstorm

Darth Vader's borderline? No, I don't think so.

2010-06-08T06:25:00.002-05:00

What is Darth Vader's diagnosis?What some folks miss is Anakin Skywalker never had a pure Jedi education. From the start, Chancellor Palpatine was teaching him, influencing him. People ask how he could all of a sudden turn Sith, but at the risk of being contradicted later by Lucas, I believe he was being taught the principles of the Sith, as he was being educated in the Code of the Jedi.There are

'Sex and the City' movie may be too racy for one city - CNN.com

2010-05-25T22:22:00.000-05:00

Define Irony.An expert says that Sex and the City II (A movie I intend to somehow fail to see) will do for Abu Dhabi what Lord of the Rings did for New Zealand.Exceeeeept:Lord of the Rings was actually shot in New Zealand, which doubled for Middle Earth, whereas this movie is set in what's supposed to be Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, but actually is Morocco!Curiously enough, Morocco's

I can't get the site to load properly, but here's why...

2010-05-04T14:38:00.002-05:00

...I think Ebert is wrong that Video Games can never be an artform.My basic belief is that Art is Communication. That's its reason to exist. There is nothing in the annals of artistic history to suggest designed or mass produced objects cannot have aesthetic aspects to them, or artistic value. A car's design, and thus the car itself can be a work of art. A building can be a work of art.

Science and Technology Links for the Week of March 8, 2010

2010-03-14T16:31:00.004-05:00

Popular Science-Flexible Nanocrystal Fibers Can Harness Tidbits of Waste Energy to Create Hydrogen FuelInternational Space Station Appears Ghostly Blue in Radar Satellite PhotoOrange Dwarf Confirmed to be On Collision Course With EarthThe Super Mario Multiverse (Article written in 2008, but you've got to see it!)'Quake Catcher' Software Converts Laptops Worldwide into Earthquake Sensor

Science and Technology Links for Week of March 1st

2010-03-06T17:14:00.002-06:00

Popular Science- New Answer to 80-Year-Old Question Makes Computer Modeling 100,000 Times Faster MIT Stumbles on a Way to Print Flexible Coatings Made of Micromachines LED Shortage This Year Could Keep TV, Device Prices High Skinput Turns Any Bodily Surface Into a Touch Interface NASA Finds Millions of Tons of Water Ice in Lunar Craters, No Moon Bombing Necessary Inside the Excruciatingly Slow

Science and Technology Links for the Week of February 8th

2010-02-09T13:29:00.002-06:00

Popular Science-Superinsulating Aerogels Arrive on Home Insulation Market At LastSony's New Internal Wireless Tech Snips Wires Inside Your GadgetsBy Stimulating Stem Cells, Bioactive Nanogel Regenerates Cartilage in JointsNew Armored Wall System Assembles Like Legos, Could Replace Sandbags in AfghanistanWonder Material Graphene Becomes Lighting for Future Devices and HomesCalifornia Utilities to

Science and Technology Links for Week of February 1st

2010-02-09T10:55:00.002-06:00

Popular Science- Ultra-Strong Biomimetic Adhesive Could Allow Human Wall-Walking, Ceiling-Dancing Bayonet Skills to be Omitted from Basic Training for Modern Soldiers NASA Budget: Constellation Officially Canned, But The Deep-Space Future Is Bright French Scientists Build First Transistor That Mimics Brain Connections Spray-On 'Liquid Glass' Protects Surfaces From Just About Anything Discover

Very Demotivational: Happy Plane

2009-12-09T11:09:00.000-06:00

Death and destruction makes me happy, too.

You complete me. Nonsensically.

2009-12-09T10:59:00.001-06:00

Google the word "Non sequitur"

Science Links for Week of 11/02/09

2009-11-06T19:51:00.002-06:00

Popular Science Megapixels: Thinking Cap Cheap, Printed Solar LEDs To Light Up Off-Grid African Villages Silk-Silicon Implantable Electronics Conform to Tissues, Then Melt Away Stealth Wind Turbines Avoid Erasing Aircraft From Radar Algae Used To Produce Green Plastics, Sans Petroleum Happy 40th Birthday, Internet! Five Milestones in the Ever-Evolving History of the Web Muscle-Based PC Interface

Science and Technology Links for the Week of 10/19/09

2009-11-06T19:50:00.003-06:00

Popular Science- Physicists Calculate Exact Number of Alternate Universes iRobot's Cronenbergian Blob Bot is Ready to Roll, or Rather Ooze Video: Play Dungeons and Dragons on Microsoft's Surface Table Apple's Magic Mouse Mates a Multitouch Trackpad With Traditional Pointer A Hammer Is No Match For a Flexible OLED Display New Neurological Evidence That the Internet Makes People Smarter Ten Young

Science and Technology Links for the week of 10/05/09

2009-10-11T21:20:00.004-05:00

Ars TechnicaMicrosoft Research demoes five multitouch miceCCDs, fiber optics take home Physics Nobel PrizeFusion 3.0 gains Snow Leopard, Windows 7 Aero support97 percent of Intel testers recommend Windows 7Windows XP Mode for Windows 7 hits RTMObama bans "texting while driving" for 4.5M govt workersTechnology ReviewHow Neutrinos Could Revolutionize Communications with SubmarinesFlash Forward for

Science and Technology Links for this Week (9/28/09)

2009-10-01T20:51:00.005-05:00

Popular Science- How To Make Ferrofluid Hands On: Fulifilm Real 3D W1 Digital Camera The Power Loader Is Real - For those wanting to confront Alien Queens, there is no substitute. Unexpectedly, Cosmic Ray Intensity in Space Reaches Highest Level in 50 Years "Time Telescopes" Could Make Data Transfer 27 Times Faster ISS Could Get its Own Electron-Beam Fabrication 3-D Printer Plutonium Shortage

Science and Technology Links for 9/21/09

2009-09-21T15:09:00.001-05:00

Popular Science Algorithm Generates a Virtual Rome in 3D from 150,000 Flickr Users' Photos Scientists Create First Ever Magnetic Gas Moon May Beat Pluto as Coldest Place in Solar System Panasonic's Robotic Bed Transforms into a Mobile Chair, Makes Standing Up Obsolete DARPA Wants A Few Good Space Debris Cleaners New from Boeing: Flying Bot Swarms You Control With Body Language New Material

Science and Technology Links for week of 9/14/09

2009-09-16T14:38:00.003-05:00

Discover MagazineRock Solid Evidence of a Rocky, Earth-like ExoplanetJupiter Grabbed a Comet for 12 Years, Then Flung It Back OutTo Save the Planet From Global Warming, Turn the Sahara GreenDid Your Morning Shower Spray You With Bacteria?How Does the Brain Use So Much Energy? Not in Electrical Signals.Popular ScienceESO's Zoomable 0.8 Gigapixel Panoramic Image of the Milky WayScientists Map Out

I think the author is missing something.

2009-09-02T09:13:00.000-05:00

"Depression's Evolutionary Roots"My line of thought is this: Depression is an extreme example, a pathological inability to escape from what is a perfectly legitimate state of mind when temporary.We have a brain that is sort of balanced between different impulses, different emotions, essentially different gears that it can shift into to deal with different problems from different perspectives.

Belated Links from last week

2009-08-23T19:31:00.002-05:00

Popular Science Mysterious Object Rips Through One of Saturn's Rings Nine Overhyped and Misleading Health Headlines Debunked The Future of Farming: Eight Solutions For a Hungry World Microbial Fuel Cell Cleans Wastewater, Desalinates Seawater, and Generates Power Radio Telescopes Turn The Moon Into World's Largest Neutrino Detector How The Apple Tablet Could Ruin Computing Carve Steel with

Obama's Perspective on Pulling the Plug on Grandma

2009-08-16T07:40:00.003-05:00

Spoon-Fed Criticism

2009-08-10T00:53:00.000-05:00

Open Wide - Spoon-Fed at the Cineplex - NYTimes.comHere's what I think: It's easy to lump movies together.Part of the problem, really, is an economy that creates great uncertainty. Another issue is, that for many, even folks like me, the theatres have become a rarer place to see movies. Yes, Transformers 2 might be a big B.O. draw now, but so have countless crappy movies. And countless good

Science and Technology Links for 8/3/09

2009-08-04T17:02:00.002-05:00

Popular Science: Leaked Conversation Suggests EEStor's Battery-Killing Ultracapacitor Is Nearly Complete Experiment Looks to Bridge Classical Physics and Quantum Mechanics Test Drive: Nissan's Leaf, The Electric Car's First Shot at the Mainstream NASA Panel To Recommend Manned MIssions To Asteroids, Venus Fly-Bys Clippy Enlists - I still say "Clippy must die." Laser-Powered Lightcraft "At the

Science and Technology Links for the Week of 7/27/09

2009-07-28T20:18:00.002-05:00

Can Bacteria Create a Cement Wall to Hold Back the Sahara? Tiny Structures in Beetle's Shell Twist Light, Giving It a Green Sheen Scientists Design Versatile Self-Assembling Nanogears Surf Anywhere, Inside a Giant Wheel First Ever Nanoscale Mass Spectrometer Building the World's Wimpiest Space Thruster-Harder Than It Sounds The Inspiring Boom in "Super-Earths" Blue Food Dye Helps Rats With Spinal

Physicalization looks for gold in the margins - Ars Technica

2009-07-23T13:54:00.000-05:00

Which is better, running a lot of individual multiple chips, or fewer, more expensive multicore chips?

Disney puts toll on format shifting, rolls out microSD films - Ars Technica

2009-07-23T13:50:00.000-05:00

You can now officially lose your movie in your couch cushions.You'll also pay more for it, to boot!

Science Links #2, Week of July 20th

2009-07-20T15:20:00.007-05:00

If there are too many links, just pick up on the ones that catch your eye, I won’t mind.Could Exxon Go Green? Oil Giant Invests in Algae Biofuel ResearchNew Flu Treatment Outsmarts MutationsNew Material Could Cool Electronics 100 Times More EfficientlyPrompts Help Asperger's Patients Overcome Common ProblemThis happens

Science Links Digest #1

2009-07-14T19:17:00.006-05:00

For some time now, I've been pulling together some science and technology links to send to my boss about science and technology. I've been thinking it might be nice to publish some of these in a blog entry, so other readers can have a glimpse at some of the amazing, fascinating and interesting things going on in the world.A word on my technique: This is essentially my digest of highlights,

The Incredible Shrinking Sheep of Scotland

2009-07-03T07:06:00.000-05:00

This will probably get a lot of letters from evolutionary biologists.The explicit assumption of the article is right here:On Soay Island, off the western coast of Scotland, wild sheep are apparently defying the theory of evolution and progressively getting smaller.The Reporter, Bryan Walsh, is incorrect. Though growth in size is typically encouraged by evolution, it is by no means a law of

What do slot machines have in common with Elections?

2009-06-22T13:28:00.000-05:00

According to Discover Magazine, they look pretty suspicious when you see seven too many times.I saw something on this sort of human failure to be truly random regarding the "cold fusion" fiasco a while back. When they faked their research, their numbers showed patterns that wouldn't naturally occur. Artificial results reflect the selective, biased nature of the human mind. We have preferences,

Is that what that's called? #1: Welcome to the Real World Edition

2009-04-19T15:24:00.000-05:00

The Eyes of Truth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaA good song, generally, but listen to the last part on this video to hear what may be a very familiar piece of music to martial arts fans.The music in question, as the article says was sampled, not used in its entirety, but what a sample!

Yay! Buses win!

2009-03-31T12:01:00.000-05:00

Trucks Fail

Knead the Dough, Preheat the Oven, and WTF?

2009-03-31T11:06:00.001-05:00

This was so bad it just cracked me up.How bread was made in the 80’s…Oh, what the hell, here's the video:

A little perspective is need, but more from their side.

2009-03-25T21:23:00.001-05:00

CNN.com: "Commentary: Will innocents at AIG pay the price?"Yes, your company is hated. Why shouldn't it be? Because you know it to better? Of course you do. You worked there. And you might think it unfair.But stop a moment and think: Your company is being helped to tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer money, and the only reason nobody's let it drop is fear of a larger meltdown. And then some

If only that were all...

2009-03-19T08:05:00.000-05:00

The Denver Post: "Horsing around"If hard work were all it took to make $250,000, more than 19 out of 20 people would manage it. Education doesn't come free, and it gets further away from free for people like me every moment.If you work hard, you can get somewhere. But ambition alone doesn't determine things. It never has. Hard work alone doesn't determine things. It never has.It helps to have

Putting more "Africa" in Your Computer

2009-03-18T12:32:00.002-05:00

This seems to be a very promising kind of technology. What he's talking about in terms of the protein gates might not be 100% correct, but what's actually happening is that the transistors are getting so small that electrons can take quantum leaps (the literal, not Scott Bakula kind) across the transistor's setup, which essentially defeats the purpose of the device, which is supposed to act like

The Backbone of Modern Civilization.

2009-03-18T12:06:00.001-05:00

Popular Science: "Who Protects The Internet?"A good article on the Physical infrastructure that supports the internet (with photos of the intertubez to boot!).

They're not confronting it...

2009-03-18T11:33:00.000-05:00

Creationist Students Take Trip to Evolution Headquarters: The Smithsonian - washingtonpost.com: "The Genesis of a Debate"They think they're confronting what evolution says, but they're not. They believe one thing, and will not be persuaded- at least that's what they hope.The question we deal with in science is whether what we imagine to be true is supportable by what can be demonstrated to be

Awesome Beyond Comprehension

2009-03-17T16:47:00.001-05:00

Why compressive sensing will change the worldHow about this: Compressive sensing takes a couple of lenses, a Digital Micromirror Device (DMD), and a single Photodiode, and resolves an image that would otherwise require hundreds of thousands, if not millions of pixels to resolve. I don't pretend to understand the math, but this has the potential to vastly increase the resolution of just about

Not a God of the Gaps, But Man in the Valley of the Knowable

2009-03-17T16:39:00.000-05:00

Quantum Physicist Wins $1.4M Templeton Prize For Work on “Veiled Reality”This was my comment on that Blog:I think if you think about it for a moment, there’s some value in his approach, because it puts the emphasis on the limitations of the human mind and human methods, which is really what science is all about dealing with.If we were perfect at dealing cognitively with the environment, we would

Not a bad idea....

2009-02-19T14:34:00.000-06:00

Being a budding Science Fiction/Fantasy Author, I might have to steal this idea.

Creative Destruction

2009-02-19T06:55:00.000-06:00

Source: No Kiss Kiss, All Bang Bang Why Film Critic Armond White Loves Spielberg and Attacks Spike Lee -- New York MagazineThis guy reminds me all too much of that critic from Lady In the Water. He seems the kind of guy who lives to find ways to creatively bash films, especially audience and critic favorites. When it comes down to it, the whole point of the field which the Critics represent is

Stephen Daugherty, the President's Representative!

2009-02-15T16:02:00.000-06:00

Yep. I googled myself, and look what I got for my troubles:Magma: Volcanic Disaster. Is there a fate worse than having your name attached to a science fiction movie that can't even get its plate tectonics right? At least I seem to be one of those guys who actually helps the Intrepid Maverick Scientists Who Buck Conventional Science To Foretell A Disaster. This is the guy who plays me, in case

From Popular Science: Microsoft: “Sayonara Vista…Hello 7!”

2009-02-15T15:21:00.001-06:00

Personally, I'd like to run this new operating system on my PC, after some heavy upgrades. But then, I was a first adopter on Win XP. I'm even writing this on the Release Candidate 1 version of IE8.And if that doesn't bake your noodle, I'm using its web accelerator feature, and I basically got the thing to blog this article by highlighting the article title, right clicking, and going to the

And just as they were getting cheap

2009-02-15T15:12:00.000-06:00

Are Plasma TVs in trouble? Well if so, it's a shame, but this is what the industry gets for taking such a long time to sell these things at a decent cost. You can't string people out perpetually on the idea. Someday, you got to get the goods in people hands and out of your stores.

Bionic Arm, with Video!

2009-02-12T12:08:00.001-06:00

Bionic Arms built using new technology to improve movement and feedbackSome cool video to explain it to show you better than I can tell you.

So that was what it was!

2008-12-02T05:53:00.003-06:00

I saw this triangle of a Crescent Moon, and what looked like two stars, and thought it looked cool. So what was it, really? As it turns out, It was a conjunction of the moon with Jupiter and Venus!So it doesn't just look cool, it is cool.

DJ Lobanhaki is born!

2008-10-25T23:33:00.004-05:00

I just uploaded my first Techno song to the site ACIDPlanet, which essentially Sony's site for those who wish to publish stuff from their program ACID Music. My main artist name for this will be DJ Lobanhaki (low bun gnaw key). The name of the first song is Space PatrolMy profile details are sketchy at the moment, but I'll improve those over time.

Recent Planetary News: 6-12-2008

2008-06-12T18:42:00.002-05:00

Scientists on the Mars Pheonix Lander project succeed in shaking their booty of Mars Soil into an oven designed to analyze its chemical composition.And Pluto has become the eponymous namesake of a class of objects in the solar system, the Plutoids. Yep, that's all us nerds needed. A nice new term for bullies to employ against us. ;-)

Indiana Jones and the Excess of Seriousness (spoilers)

2008-06-01T13:12:00.006-05:00

People are complaining about the implausibility of Indiana Jones' latest adventure. Those people, I'm guessing, are not in the target audience. Which is folks who can have a little fun.Movies are a free-time activity for most people, not a job, not something they have to take seriously. They can take it seriously, the same way a World of Warcraft fan takes their world seriously, but even then,

The Brush-Off!

2008-04-17T21:20:00.001-05:00

Yes, get that dirt off your shoulder.

Barack Obama in Steelton, PA

2008-04-14T00:30:00.001-05:00

Let it never be said he doesn't know how to hit back!

This kind of interests me as a 3-D Geek

2008-03-23T22:44:00.003-05:00

The Depth Mapping aspect of this new camera, if it works, might make 3-D composite not only a snap, but something you can do at home. The implications are really staggering.But of course, the first law of technology is, it never turns out how you expected.Then again, the corollary to that is turning out how you expected is unexpected, and so anticipateable outcomes also full under this category.

Interesting new development in Fusion Research.

2008-03-23T22:01:00.002-05:00

I especially like the part about the levitating magnet!

My opinion about Fansubbing and DVD sales

2007-12-15T10:43:00.000-06:00

I download fansubs every now and then, so I got some stake in this argument. However, I am interested in buying DVDs. My policy is to delete files once I have watched them, but here's something I would say: the big problem is that people like me cannot afford the premium at which most anime series are sold.Anime series tend to market at above the cost of a typical DVD, and in what I think is

A Small Enviromental Idea

2007-12-14T14:35:00.000-06:00

I think it would be in our best interests as a nation to make recycling a priority. I know, it sounds cheesy, but when you really think about it, we're chucking a hell of a lot of resources, including petrochemicals, plastics, paper, metal, and other items which we will then have to replace by pumping up some oil, mining some metal, or doing some other kind of work.I know, also a bit of a cliche.

Digital photography and Body Consciousness

2007-10-01T07:36:00.000-05:00

I recently discovered some things about the way programs like Adobe Photoshop can be used to alter the way a person looks, and I think we should consider the implications of these facts in determining our expectations of our own bodies.Men and women both stare at photos in magazines and lament that they can't have the perfect bodies they see there. What some of them may not realize is the extent

Why I have always liked Harry Potter, Despite What the Snobs Say...

2007-07-17T18:46:00.000-05:00

I have the good fortune of being one of the original readers of Harry Potter. As a science fiction and fantasy fan, I was on the look out for new authors, new works, and Potter fit in nicely. I don't remember how long the book spent on my shelf, but I remember picking it up when I first saw it at the Baylor Bookstore.My reaction to the first book was that I wanted more. But before I go on, let

Hexagon on Saturn?

2007-04-01T08:53:00.000-05:00

I think I have a rough idea of what this atmospheric formation on Saturn might mean.hexagonWater spun very fast in a bucket will take on hexagonal shape. The speed has a lot to do with things, and Saturn's winds are damn fast, over a thousand miles an hour.

Ice Blogging

2007-01-17T10:59:00.000-06:00

Not every day you see this...Click through to see my album for this event.IceStormAM

CNN reports that cloned meat is okay to eat.

2006-12-28T14:06:00.000-06:00

CNN reports that cloned meat is okay to eat.CNN reports that cloned meat is okay to eat.CNN reports that cloned meat is okay to eat.CNN reports that cloned meat is okay to eat.CNN reports that cloned meat is okay to eat.

My Latest Desktop Image

2006-10-30T22:24:00.000-06:00

Just one of many to follow.

A Digital Landscape

2006-10-24T18:17:00.000-05:00

This was created in Bryce 5.0, and rendered in it as far as I know. Most of the time, when I do an animation, I usually export a geometry file to Lightwave, and do the animation there, but in this case, I was doing a still picture, and Bryce renders those pretty well. It's also got a dedicated system for doing textures, and I was going for that detail.

My First Movie

2006-10-24T17:47:00.000-05:00

This was my first animation, done on an animation program called Lightwave. This was done on version 5.5. back in 2000 or 2001. The current version of this program? Version 9! That'll tell you how old this is.Enjoy!Sorry, I misunderstood the picasa interface. This is just a screencap. I'll work on getting this back up.Okay, I looked at it, and so far, Picasa does not support video posting.

Marketing the Real

2006-03-17T16:11:00.000-06:00

Language can be a femme fatale in Public Relations. The beautiful story is often the most dishonest. In the real world, the truth can be ugly. Words can be molded to create stories we want to believe, and which resist removal by factchecking, despite our better judgment.I think this has something to do with the reconstructive nature of memory and imagination. A good story tells you just

The Idols of Human Logic

2006-03-10T08:34:00.000-06:00

I'm a serious fellow. I've been told more than once in my life that I think too much, and probably have merited that assessment on a number of occasions. Being a person who can't help it, though, I do have the added benefit of knowing the limits of ivory tower logic, limits learned through hard-won experience.There are benefits to being serious, to trying to reduce things in life to singular

Let's shed a little light on my extracurricular activities.

2006-01-22T08:41:00.000-06:00

In the midst of all pontificating about politics and philosophy, it's understandably difficult to think of me for what I was trained at college to do: Make movies. Video. Digital Photograph, and as the character of that Image above demonstrates, Digital modelling and animation.I will take some steps, at this point, to remedy this from time to time, now that I've found the means to do so. I

Opening Up to Our Non-Ideal Past and Present

2006-01-11T15:03:00.000-06:00

We would like to think our ancestors were fair-minded, and harbored none of the out of favor biases of our age. That is the bias of our age. I believe our modern rejection of many of the sins of the past- racism, sexism, etc- are justifiable and noble in spirit, but they cannot change the fact that they were evolutions in thought from mindsets that were not free of these prejudices.The

Christ in a Free Speech Society

2006-01-06T16:41:00.000-06:00

Every few months or years, we hear about one program or another that's run afoul of the self-appointed Guardians of Christian Decency. Another news program runs with a story of how us nice Christians are pouring a nice warm glass of vitriol down the backs of yet another liberal/secular/atheist filmmaker. Another station cuts off an unwanted show unseen. Another movie gets picketed because

Planet Starbucks (or Stephen's Post about Naming Rights)

2005-10-14T07:54:00.000-05:00

Fans of Fight Club will get the joke. For those who haven't seen it, the title relates to a passage where Edward Norton's unnamed narrator reflects on who will get the naming rights to the various places we will explore in space. The joke hits pretty close to home nowadays.Virtually every sports arena you hear about nowadays has some corporations name attached to it. Every event has some

Package Deal

2005-10-07T20:43:00.000-05:00

Beneath my Television, in the cabinet of the entertainment center, are stacked just about every Clamshell and gem case I've ever bought. And their former contents? In the storage devices mentioned in the title.I own 69 DVD titles at current count, with the total number of disks way over a hundred. It is about four cubic feet of packaging. I store the actual disks in a space about a third of a

The Binding Problem And Storytelling

2005-10-02T16:30:00.000-05:00

The binding problem is a problem in Neuroscience regarding how we bind together the disparate senses and mental processes that we have into the conscious experience we all live our lives through.It comes across in the stories we tell in the difference between how we live a story, and how our telling of that story comes across. Language is an approximation, and our memories are a distilling and

Enabling the Politicians

2005-09-25T17:26:00.000-05:00

How did it get this bad with the Bush Administration? The simple answer to this can be found in what many Republican voters have been doing, or moreover, failing to do.It's not so simple as a failure to hold people accountable, though that's part of it. Some Democrats, Liberals, and independents resort to demonizing Republican voters, but that misses an important and much more universal

An Idea That Should Quickly Be Nipped In The Bud

2005-09-23T15:18:00.000-05:00

There's no doubt that the response to Katrina came far too late and too ineffectively, and that the Federal Government bungled it's part of it badly. Few debate that.What's really annoying me at this point is that there are people who are making this a case for limited government. I agree that nobody should look at this situation, and take faith in this big government on its account, but I don't

An Object Lesson in Chaos

2005-09-23T14:57:00.000-05:00

A couple day ago, Houston was in the bullseye, and the hurricane rated a Category 5.A week ago, Rita did not exist, even as Tropical Depression 18.And now, the Hurricane rates a Category 3 and it's hooking its way towards Texas/Louisiana Border. There are probably some news viewers who are tearing out their hair at the imprecision. They shouldn't actually. The Weather services are doing the best

AAAAAAAUUUUGH!

2005-09-22T07:09:00.000-05:00

That's better.Having learned that Rita was going to strike right at us, I was feeling like it was the end of the world. CAT 5 hurricanes, of course, are no joke, and we have no illusions about how strong our house is or how snarled the traffic is (We live close to I-45, the main route of evacuation for Galveston). Even now, going to a shelter is our likeliest course of action, if the storm's

Sorry for the change of address.

2005-09-20T22:56:00.000-05:00

Well, what is this blog about? Nothing in particular, and I like that. Science, Religion, Technology, Psychology, The Nature of Truth, the Nature of Storytelling. If it sounds profound, it's not. it's going to be essays that wouldn't feel right on my other blogging home, Watchblog.I'll see about having something to y'all by tomorrow. Rita's going to come in, and things are going to get pretty