I came across this ridiculous Internet argument today, via xkcd. I find it both amusing, and worrying, the number of people who insist that the plane will not take off. This is a classic example of what philosophers call a thought experiment, and demonstrates only what most thought experiments demonstrate: that our intuitions about even [...]
Archive for the ‘General’ Category
Aeroplanes and Treadmills
Posted in General on 8 September, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Computers and numbers
Posted in General on 7 August, 2008 | 1 Comment »
A pet peeve of mine is the ongoing public misperception that computers are really all about numbers. This is constantly reinforced by the mainstream (and even IT) media. Take, for instance, this quote from a BBC News story today:
The DNS acts as the internet’s address books and helps computers translate the website names people prefer [...]
The Decline of Violence
Posted in General on 6 August, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Steven Pinker has an interesting talk on the TED conference website, debunking the idea that we are living in an increasingly violent society. As Pinker shows, over pretty much any timescale you care to look at, violent death rates have been dropped considerably, and we now live in the safest time ever. Fascinating and cheering.
