In 2007, I had a series in my personal blog about technology in Star Trek. I remembered that series the other day, when I read an article in New Scientist about the science in Battlestar Galactica.[1…

The Brightest Candles #1The brightest candles are the people whose light remains long after they are gone. For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as…

The Buzzword Blog #5 : Subversion Subversion: The word 'subverted' has itself been subverted by agendists and has become just another buzzword. It now tends to mean:1 -  'them' telling people…

 There are certainly more mysteries than knowledge and, perhaps, more ways of finding out than science. I like science because when you think of something you can check it by experiment; "yes"…

From the front page of an operational circular of the CERN laboratories: In the interest of readability, this circular has been drafted using the masculine gender only. However, use of the masculine…

The 50th anniversary of C.P. Snow's famous Rede lecture on the "Two Cultures" has been marked this year, around the web and sometimes in real life too, with various symposia and blogfests…

During the middle Eocene, 45-50 m.y.a., a number of freshwater lakes appeared in an arc extending from Smithers, through the modern Cariboo, to Kamloops, the Nicola Valley, Princeton, and Republic,…

The tuna sandwich has been the staple of the snatched office lunch for a generation. But our favourite fish filling could soon vanish from the high street. Sandwich chain Pret a Manger yesterday…

One story goes that long ago, after the ice receded and the floodwaters lowered, Raven walked along a beach in Haida Gwaii, looking for occupation. He found some creatures in a shell and convinced…

The arrival of cedar, called “Tsuuaay” by the Haida, had profound effects on the material culture of the Haida (Approx 4000 BC). Once they were able to build canoes to fish year round (Halibut, Red…

Random Reward Schedules and the Ambiguity of Language. I had the clue from Pavlov: control your conditions and you will see order. B.F. Skinner, A Case History In Scientific Method. Skinner…

If you’re not familiar with the work of Dr. Rupert Sheldrake it may help to know that his most popular experiments were featured on British television in the form of specials that you can view, at…

The Intelligence in the Chinese Room. In my  article Digging Beneath the Surface of Grammar, I wrote:     It may be noted in passing that Searle's Chinese Room argument fails to…

A few weeks ago, the 13th annual Susan G. Komen Sacramento Race for the Cure was held.    The organization raises money primarily for breast health awareness, screening and support services…

In four weeks I will speak at a very interesting session of the World Conference on Science Journalism 2009, an event that takes place in London from June 30th to July 4th. Together with James…

Strangeness And Ambiguity In Language My major linguistic interest lies in the problem of getting a computer to interact with us humans using language in exactly the way that we do.  It is just…

Today marks day two of our three day experience at Access Data 2009.  Here with the remarkably hot backdrop of my alma mater (Colorado College) we are hoping to come the great conclusions that…

At most biomedical research conferences, you hear talks filled with published or almost published materials, which is unfortunate, because it's a lost opportunity for colleagues to talk about the…

Thinking Machines and The Semantic Quagmire What Is The Semantic Quagmire? I use the term "semantic quagmire" to refer to a peculiar state of mind which must ultimately be reached when thinking about…

In his “Practical Security” column in the May/June issue of IEEE Internet Computing magazine, Stephen Farrell talks about strength of cipher-suites, and the fact that the overall strength is not…