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“The difference between major and indie labels now has less to do with aesthetics than with the way bands conceive of their careers.” Smaller labels can be just as profitable as big ones.
European scientists have unveiled Nao, a robot that is capable of mimicking human emotions and correctly identifying and responding to negative and positive emotions in other people.
“The govenrment needs to be exposed because it cannot be trusted to expose itself.” Even Fox News praises WikiLeak’s release of Afghan war logs as a necessary check against secrecy.
“By allowing artificial intelligence to reshape our concept of personhood, we are leaving ourselves open to the flipside: we think of people more and more as computers.”
“Physicists struggling to reconcile gravity with quantum mechanics have hailed a theory—inspired by pencil lead—that could make it all very simple.” The New Scientist reports.
“Until we find the collective will, the drive for national economic security will continue to lead to collective insecurity.” A finance professor discusses the eventual downside of coveting resources.
“Once on the fringe, about 750,000 off the grid American households pioneer green living by tapping sustainable energy from the wind, sun, and earth.” The Christian Science Monitor reports.
“Liberals and right-wing libertarians are pressing for an end to prohibition. Forty years after President Nixon launched the ‘war on drugs’ there is a growing momentum to abandon the fight.”
“Don’t covet your grief like a precious thing, something that justifies your every whim.” In the controversy over Cordoba House, The Economist sees a petulant America just trying to get its way.
Children’s author Roald Dahl was a socialite, fighter pilot, and spy for the British government after World War II. A new biography details the unassuming author’s foreign conquests.
A new meta-analysis shows a large majority of subjects for psychology experiments have been U.S. undergraduates, a population from which one should be wary of making generalized conclusions.
“Telekinesis. Harnessing the mind to control your surroundings. It is the stuff of fantasy. Now, that fantasy is crystallizing into reality.” The L.A. Times on consumer products that read your mind.
“Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated”, Mark Twain famously responded after reading his obituary in the New York Journal. To which may now be added “Reports of the […]
“Society has clearly benefited from the invention of caffeine, so why shouldn’t we also put a touch of amphetamine in the water?” The Frontal Cortex ponders human enhancement.
As Moscow is afflicted by heat waves and smoke from neighboring forest fires, Russians are sometimes at a loss. The countries cultural wisdom turns on surviving the cold (with vodka), not the heat.
“The loudest and most important lesson of the Soviet experience should always be: don’t ever do this again. Children, don’t try this at home.” A new book chronicles the failed experiment.