Not to speak ill of the dead, but candidly, I always figured the reason they used this guy’s artwork on the D&D rulebooks was because they couldn’t afford anyone better at that stage.
More on brain emulation and consciousness copying
The Speculist has an interesting discussion on the effort to emulate the human brain…and how that ties in with the prospect of someday copying the human mind into a computer.
Hard-drive video cameras debut
When I bought a digital video camera last year, I remember wondering why I couldn’t just record straight to a hard drive (yes, I know, I can, but only when connected to a computer; there isn’t one in my camera itself). JVC has taken the logical next step and created a camera that can do …
A new supersonic airliner?
Japan and France have announced they are jointly developing a new supersonic passenger plane, with up to three times as many seats as the dear departed Concorde and able to fly Tokyo to New York in six hours. And about time, too. Weren’t all passenger planes supposed to be supersonic by now? I’m sure that’s …
Rise of the seedless watermelon
I clearly remember one summer night when I was a kid, sitting on the back porch of a farmhouse near Manchester, Texas, eating the hearts out of the yellow watermelons grown in the fields out back, throwing the remnants to the dogs–and spitting seeds. Lots of ’em. Kids today may never have to spit a …
Only Imperial Stormtroopers can dance with such precision!
Words fail me. From the CBC account of a tribute held in George Lucas’s honor, at which he received the American Film Institute’s lifetime-achievement award: “Also on hand was William Shatner, who performed a reworked version of the Frank Sinatra song My Way to describe Lucas’ career. The Star Trek actor was accompanied by a …
What he said
I love this quote from Howard Lovy’s Nanobot. If I understand correctly,it’s a paraphrase of a statement by Neil Gershenfeld, director of the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT: “This is the assumption I wake up with every day — that there is a crucial need for as many people as possible to understand …
More on the simulated brain
Here’s an interesting Q&A about the effort to simulate the human brain using a supercomputer. An in response to my question, ignored in most of the news items I’ve seen, about the possible emergence of intelligence… “Q: How do you relate your research to the field of artificial intelligence? “HM: We are not trying to …
Hypochondriac heaven
Coming soon: a device that lets you check your own vital signs the the press of a button.
English opera with surtitles
Because singing distorts words–stretching out vowels, and, especially in the case of classical singing, de-emphasizing some consonants–it can sometimes be hard to understand what a singer is saying, even if you speak the same language. My wife and I have often commented that even English-language opera should probably have surtitles (which are like movie subtitles, …
Blogging on the go
My newest toy–um, tool–is an Audiovox PPC-6600 “Harrier” PDA/cellphone. It’s not too painful using the virtual, stylus-operated keyboard (I’m not a big fan of thumb-typing, the other alternative). And soon I’ll have a nice little folding Bluetooth keyboard. So I now have, theoretically, at least, blog-anywhere capability. Hence this post, coming to you from the …
When our recent past was the future
It’s always interesting to see what our ancestors thought their future–our present–would be like. I recently came across a fascinating list of predictions for the 20th century made in the Ladies’ Home Journal in 1900. It’s interesting to see how close they came. Consider: Automobiles will be cheaper than horses are today. Tough one to …
My latest live walk and vlog
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