December 2009
21 posts
The next decade will be cooler, maybe?
By implanting an electrode into the brain of a person with locked-in syndrome, scientists have demonstrated how to wirelessly transmit neural signals to a speech synthesizer. The “thought-to-speech” process takes about 50 milliseconds - the same amount of time for a non-paralyzed, neurologically intact person to speak their thoughts. The study marks the first successful demonstration...
obsoletethebook:
“During the first half of the decade that ends this week, the proportion of Internet users barely inched upward, to 59% of adult Americans from just over 50%, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. But in the second half of the decade, that growth skyrocketed, and now nearly 80% of adult Americans use the Internet. At that pace, the offline American will become...
“And we all know that the best way to “act preemptively” to avoid a war is to…...”
– (Wonkette)
All I can think of is firmlegalgroundingpuppies.tumblr.com, etc.
Status Updating is Literally Addictive →
groupuscule:
fiatluxemburg:
messianictime:
People who know about the brain.. is this valid or junk science?
Dopamine is making me say junk.
Science is literally drug addiction.
A more thorough answer from the excellent Vaughan Bell (of Mind Hacks):
The idea that all these behavioral problems can be reduced to brain chemistry is also linked to a vacuous piece of pseudo-neuroscience....
PREDICTION!
The Apple tablet (which seems like it does exist and will happen in the first half of ‘10) will be shockingly inexpensive.
This is a sort of like that time I correctly predicted who the Vice President would be.
More clarification needed re: health care...
So I guess it’s a pretty good thing that Frankin ended up winning and that Specter switched parties or else there’d be zero chance of any bill passing at all, ever.
What was the plan for the quite likely scenario in which those things did not happen?
Google is playing with quantum computers →
Um, foom?
What does the Senate do?
absalomabsalom:
But I’m going to go in a weird direction. The Senate term should be lengthened to 12 years, with some caveat (like easier impeachment, i.e., they should be able to be recalled by a 40% vote).
Anyone know which Federalist Paper (or whatever) gives the whole raison d’etre of its structure?
One term.
“It wasn’t a bad experience, It just wasn’t a great experience, and we wanted it...”
– Regarding robot toilets. We all want those to be great.
[NYT via Gawker]
Status Updating is Literally Addictive →
messianictime:
People who know about the brain.. is this valid or junk science?
Dopamine is making me say junk.
This is the thing that I want most →
I have good reasons!
And I'll give you the magical +2 sword if you...
The Apocalypse must be fast approaching, that’s the only explanation that can help me wrap my mind around this. A health insurance lobbying group is reportedly paying Facebook users in virtual, “in-game” currency to send a letter opposing health-care reform legislation to their Congressional representative. [RWW]
The Sun →
unpublishedrhyme:
But wasn’t a movie with this very plot made and called Sunshine and generally well received?
Does anyone else feel really sorry for Harry Reid?...
If a medicare buy-in option is not only feasible in the senate but possibly the basis of some grand compromise, why did it not really ever get talked about before? Isn’t…medicare for all the secret strategic name for a public option? It never seemed like a particularly clever trick, especially when the rebranding was explicitly discussed as such by multiple members of the progressive...
How the Naughties began.
katiebakes:
I’m doing some Wikipediaing for creative inspiration and whoa, I never knew that Rage Against The Machine got the New York Stock Exchange to shut down early one day! Michael Moore was involved!
On January 26, 2000 the band set up shop outside the Exchange on the steps of Federal Hall despite being denied a noise permit by the city.
Rage had time to run through six takes of “Sleep...
