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You’re CPAPping it Wrong
A couple of sleep studies and an apnea diagnosis, and here I am in the midst of the CPAPpening. After the nasal mask failed to work out for me, it was time for something new. Tonight I try for the first time the nasal “pillows,” which look like little blue earplugs or gummy candies that…
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Mavericky Mars One
Before getting into this, you might want to catch up with some of my previous writing on Mars One: Mars One: Interplanetary Travel on Underpants Gnome Principles Mars One is Amway-Meets-Heaven’s Gate Here Come the Apologetics from “Some” Mars One Candidates Okay, onward. In an unfortunately puffy piece at The Guardian on the Mars One…
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Frozen Worms = Immortality Around the Corner
Cryogenics has long been the province of cranks, charlatans, and the easily-duped (I’m not a big This American Life fan, but the “Mistakes Were Made” episode is one for the ages), but its aims are right in my neurotic wheelhouse. I want the opportunity to extend my life as long as possible, but cryogenics was…
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Jettison the Brain it No Longer Requires (A Flashback to 2009)
In March of 2009, I discovered the perfect metaphor for the GOP in the animal kingdom. Now that the presidential race is getting going, and fools like Donald Trump and George Pataki and every other yahoo you can imagine is lining up for the big brawl, I thought it might be fun to revisit this…
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Demonizing the Point of View of a Delicate Snowflake
Rod Dreher, who fears gay equality at a visceral level, is very upset about a lesbian couple in Canada who demanded a refund on their purchase from a jeweler when they discovered that said jeweler was displaying anti-gay signage in their shop. The jewelers acquiesced, and it’s all just too much for Dreher. It’s the…
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One Man’s Blogspam is Another Man’s Engaging Content
The truth is, folks, I don’t maintain a blog purely for the joy of doing so. I do love to write, but one doesn’t blog unless one wishes not just to write, but to be read. Even on a somewhat high-profile platform like Patheos, even coming with the cred of being the mouthpiece of a…
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Let’s Build Our Own Gods and Hope They Like Us: Reservations about Transhumanism
Transhumanist philosopher Zoltan Istvan is “running for president.” No, he’s not a supervillain, but good-god-DAMN that’s a good supervillain name. Seriously, he’s not a crank, and he knows he won’t win. And I respect the transhumanist movement even if I’m not all the way on board. Here’s part of his platform: I’ve only focused on…
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We Didn’t Find Any Type 3s Because There Aren’t Any: Imagining Galactic Civilizations
Where all the galactic empires at??? This is actually not a ridiculous question. Lee Billings, an excellent science writer who specializes in the search-for-aliens beat, had a piece in Scientific American last month in which he speaks to Pennsylvania State University’s Jason Wright, an astronomer who did a novel kind of search. Rather than listen…
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The Mouse in the Machine: Scientists Make a Virtual Mouse Brain
In Switzerland, they’ve got themselves a virtual mouse (like, a rodent that exists in a computer, not like a peripheral that controls a cursor), complete with a software reconstruction of a mouse brain. Remember how mere hours ago I was writing about how New Zealand’s new law declaring animals to be sentient was tied, in my…
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Animals Declared “Sentient” in New Zealand: Hard Questions Sure to Follow
New Zealand has passed an amendment to its animal welfare law stating that animals are “sentient beings,” and the amendment seems to strengthen some measures that define how or in what situation an animal can be used for various purposes, such as medical experimentation. That’s good! Though it’s not clear from the bill itself (as…
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The Digital Wins Over Digits: Our Tech Becomes More Valuable Than Our Bodies
Because I’m morbid, weird, and a pessimist-fatalist, I often find myself thinking about which sense I’d rather lose if I had to: my hearing or my sight. During the time I thought I might make it as a singer-songwriter (that worked out), I obviously leaned toward keeping my hearing. Today, as the father of adorable…
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Photo Management on the Mac Just Sucks
There are no good photo management solutions for the Mac anymore. Yeah, I said it! At least, I’ve seen none that satisfy the few but crucial needs that are specific to me. And it’s my blog, so I don’t see what else could possibly matter. Here’s what we’ve got now. Apple has recently released the…
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Memére
When I first visited Maine with my then-bride-to-be, Memére filled me in on a lot of the family history, though she probably had little idea who I was as she talked. She was my wife Jessica’s grandmother, but she was suffering from Alzheimer’s, so it took her a little longer to understand what the hell…
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Dr. Oz, Disinfected by Sunshine
I was a guest on HuffPost Live this afternoon, joining a panel to discuss the whole Dr. Oz imbroglio, and something struck me that I wound up mentioning at the end of the segment. I pointed out that we’ve suddenly found ourselves at a point in media and culture in which crap pseudoscience and the…
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