We are in a moment of transition. Every day, we discover something new, something inspiring, something awesome... for a billion negative things in our world, there are a billion-billion positive ones, if only we take the time to understand.

Yes. People will still believe. I think those of us who rationally look at the world need those who have absolute blind faith to continue in some way - for without that example, we would soon cave to our own hubris. We need a reminder of why things should not be set in stone, sealed in diamond, and left as the…

I've said it before: There is an unbelievably small window with which to detect an intelligent, potentially space-faring species when you're talking in terms of the EM spectrum (ie Radio). You have to be looking at exactly the right place, for exactly the right period of time, with an incredibly sophisticated and…

It has to be properly designed, of course. Heck, 3d is only good if it relays proper information. For most things, small installations, 50 servers, 150 workstations, a couple satellite offices? Nagios and a few shell scripts can monitor that. When you start adding zeros to those numbers? Yeah, something 2d or 3d…

arXiv is my favorite place. :) And it actually makes a whole lot of sense, too. You can't violate the uncertainty principal without violating 2nd law of thermodynamics. Which also means, you can't have a perpetual motion machine - because the only way to have a perpetual motion machine is to extract more energy…

Yeah, kind of flashy. The interface is for people who don't know what's going on. If you're an IT person, you're looking at that and scratching your head wondering "why?" But if you're a boss who is wondering through trying to micromanage your team, then they can toss this thing at you and say "have fun"

There's billions of stars in a galaxy. Billions of galaxies in the Universe. Perhaps plenty enough to prove most any theory of stellar formation wrong - at least at first.

Not really. I wrote that more tongue-in-cheek than anything. Hard to convey that kind of sarcasm.

Isn't it now? Just the way so many others do, right? What works for one person won't work for another. We are each unique in our own ways. In otherwords: we all have to make our lives work - there's no owners manual that tells us how we're built.

One thing I've discovered from my attempts to find works that describe human thought is that every single one is based on a simplification belief that forces people to categorize their thoughts in a particular way, using methods that employ mnemonics or similar triggers to attempt to "calm" the various components of…

Or the particle's inherent phase is being shifted ever so slightly out of sync with our own. The better question would be, is it possible for neutrons in an atomic configuration to experience the same shift? What effects would a shifted neutron have on its atom? Is it still sufficiently in phase with our universe…

And the reason they're discovering this? Well... most of our knowledge of nano-scale structures comes from studying organics. As our technology is able to create ever more complex structures ever smaller, we find that by mimicking organic nanoscale structures we can create devices that perform remarkably like their…

Well, the information Voyager 1 and 2 will gather will be essential in being able to build interstellar spacecraft. The radiation analysis, magnetic, particle analysis, etc. This will be the first time we have a scientific instrument outside the influence of our star. At the very least it will re-enforce our…

First, an alien race already has access to all data on our world. Every wire, computer, and data transfer of information produces a radio frequency pulse that contains the data. Even the transfer from electrical signal to optical signal has a slight leak in it. In 300 years, we'll have radio technology…

Optics all the way. -7.75, -7.75 (L/R) on my eyes. I have the eyes of a 8x microscope. I can see the pixels on a retina display if I put it close to my face, and FOCUS on them. Unfortunately, without corrective lenses, I can't see my own hand at arm's length. HUD would be super-awesome, AR integrated with…

You can't tell most people a disaster is impending. They won't believe it. Some studies show they "can't" believe it. They are cognitively incapable of believing it. And further still, this cognitive inability to accept potential disaster also means they don't really give a crap about anything outside their…

I have empathy, so I guess I can't be a psychopath. That's comforting in a way - and kind of scary. It means that I can never truly know how I'll react in any sort of dangerous situation where there is terror around me. I'd like to think I could make a difference, and act instead of cower in fear. That I could…

I've not read that. But what is stupidly overconfident? I didn't say we'd win. I don't think we'd "win" for another 10,000 years. But there is always an economy of resource and expenditure involved, even if its nothing we can recognize as such. The benefits must outweigh the costs and be compatible with whatever…

If a hostile extraterrestrial race wants to smack us down without much of a fight, they'll have to do it relatively quickly. Within the this decade, hell, I'm willing to say they'd have to do it this year, actually. After that, the only affect an attack will have will be to keep us from a) destroying ourselves with…

Truth is, we don't know when the next supervolcano is going to erupt. We don't know when the next medium to large rock is going to suddenly appear in the sky. We don't know when an island will collapse into the sea and generate a tsunami... But the thing is, burying our heads in the sand and pretending that its ok…