The Book of Dust

Posted on October 23, 2017 by Steve Mays

I simply could not put this book down. I tried. But then I’d read just a few lines of the next chapter… and the next… and it’s the middle of the night. This was gripping adventure story. Overlaid with a sense of impending doom (see above). Deeply religious people frighten me. That’s okay, Barb says, because most religious people are not that serious about it. Hmm.

The philosophical underpinning of this book is deeply concerned with how authoritarian regimes take power. […] The Magisterium’s most chilling weapon in its quest for domination is its League of St. Alexander. The League is a secret society for children whose members wear badges and attend extra church services, and they’re encouraged to inform on any adults they catch doing anything sinful or heretical. At Malcolm’s school, the headmaster tries to forbid his pupils from wearing the badges on school property. The students, drunk with power, promptly inform on him; he’s taken into the Magisterium’s custody and never heard from again. Continued…

Can’t wait for part two.

What Mongolian Nomads Teach Us About the Digital Future

Posted on October 22, 2017 by Steve Mays

“I think we’ll cruise through the future with empty pockets. I won’t need to carry my phone because I should be able to lift up any screen anywhere and have it immediately became my tool, my screen. It recognizes me from my face, voice, heartbeat, and transforms itself into my phone interface. When I am done, I leave that screen where it was. To read a book I pick up any screen. To travel, I pick any car. To use a power tool, I summon it online and it’s in my hand within 30 minutes. And when I travel, why should I drag clothes around? In a nomadix future, the hotel or Airbnb will provide my favorite clothes when I arrive and recycle them when I depart. The environment, if it is rich and well-cared for and understood, shall provide.”

“They get a signal from the air, energy from the sun, and a motorcycle from China. And they can still pack up and move everything in a hour.”

Kevin Kelly writing in Wired

Question for abortion opponents

Posted on October 20, 2017 by Steve Mays

Would you save one child from a burning building or a vial of 1,000 embryos?

“They will never answer honestly, because we all instinctively understand the right answer is “A.” A human child is worth more than a thousand embryos. Or ten thousand. Or a million. Because they are not the same, not morally, not ethically, not biologically. This question absolutely evicerates their arguments, and their refusal to answer confirms that they know it to be true. No one, anywhere, actually believes an embryo is equivalent to a child. That person does not exist. They are lying to you.”

Sci-fi writer baffles abortion foes »

Dashboards

Posted on October 20, 2017 by Steve Mays

As automobiles got smarter and smarter, dashboards got more complex. My MINI dash can show stuff I still haven’t discovered, six years in. Better to have that kind of data than not (I guess), but I rarely look at most of it. Really old cars didn’t tell you much. So you had to be looking under the hood (And everywhere else, I suppose) with some regularity. But I found this simplicity refreshing. Hard to see in this photos because the museum was pretty stingy with the lighting.

Originally, the word dashboard applied to a barrier of wood or leather fixed at the front of a horse-drawn carriage or sleigh to protect the driver from mud or other debris “dashed up” (thrown up) by the horses’ hooves. (Wikipedia)