A look at Richard Wiseman’s experiment using Twitter to test remote viewing.
Archive for the ‘technology’ Category
It’s Almost Like ESP
Posted in general science, psychology, technology, tagged esp, parapsychology, psi, psychology, remote viewing, richard wiseman, twitter on June 2, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Book Review: Playing For Keeps, by Mur Lafferty
Posted in book reviews, technology, writing on February 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I love Mur Lafferty. Her podcast, I Should Be Writing, was one of the first I ever downloaded and it hasn’t left my mp3 player(s) since. She’s come a long way, from a self-described “wannabe fiction writer” to full-blown published novelist. So is she any good at practicing what she preaches? Let me get the [...]
The Death of Long Term Memory
Posted in psychology, technology on January 24, 2009 | 7 Comments »
This fascinating article at Scientific American, about human and animal consciousness, contains the following passage: In humans, the short-term storage of symbolic information—as when you enter an acquaintance’s phone number into your iPhone’s memory—is associated with conscious processing. A few years ago, when I was first learning about memory, the example probably would have gone [...]
LHC
Posted in general science, philosophy, technology on September 10, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I love Google’s title image for today: It’s a nice mix of recognizing an extremely important scientific accomplishment with just a pinch of end-of-the-world paranoia. The truth is that the world has about the same chance of ending today as it did yesterday. But I think the dimwitted people protesting the large hadron collider aren’t [...]
You Don’t Write on Your Own Facebook Wall
Posted in media, psychology, technology, tagged facebook, taboos, wall on August 4, 2008 | 2 Comments »
A peculiar fact about Facebook is that you are not supposed to write on your own wall. Because that really could have gone either way, eh? With blogs, conversations take place on a single blog, often with the blog’s owner commenting on his or her own blog. It has the advantage of the entire conversation [...]
Vodka Illusions
Posted in misc, technology, tagged alcohol, beer, illusions, taste, vodka on May 26, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Bill Deys recently wrote about a Business Week article stating that, in a blind taste test, all vodkas taste pretty much the same. It was an informal test with a writer and a few friends. Without statistical analysis, it’s impossible to tell if the friends were guessing at an above-chance level or not (there was [...]
Publish and Perish
Posted in general science, psychology, real life, technology on April 7, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Not to not brag or nothin’, but you are now a friend/acquaintance/worshiper of a published scientific researcher. My first publication finally popped up on the internet recently (even though it was apparently published in 2007, the journal seems to be running behind or something). Here is the full reference: Sorrentino, R. M., Seligman, C., & [...]
Arthur C. Clarke, RIP
Posted in book reviews, media, philosophy, psychology, real life, technology on March 18, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Arthur C. Clarke died today (*). The man was a genius. I’ve only recently started reading his books, but his impact has been felt throughout my life. Nearly every piece of science fiction created since the 50s owes something to Clarke. More directly, seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey as a kid, even though I didn’t [...]
Book Review: The Singularity is Near, by Ray Kurzweil
Posted in book reviews, general science, philosophy, technology on November 19, 2007 | 6 Comments »
The singularity refers to a time, sometime in the future, when machines become more intelligent than biological humans, and technology begins to improve rapidly as a result. The Singularity is Near is Ray Kurzweil’s attempt to justify his belief that the singularity is coming sooner than most people think, and what consequences it will have. [...]
We Got a New Camera
Posted in pictures, real life, technology on October 9, 2007 | 2 Comments »
So this is a photo-blog now. The camera is a Canon Powershot SD750 and it’s very nice. It can recognize human faces and focus on them, just like The Terminator. It has not, however, killed anybody or time traveled. Yet. I don’t like people much, though, so I only take pictures of dogs. Cuuuute! Cuuuuuuute! [...]
