Arrested for Poking
A Tennessee woman was arrested after poking another woman on FaceBook. What's interesting to me about this story is that ABC News decided it was newsworthy. It just doesn't seem…
The Ambassador of Semiotics
I heard Madeleine Albright this morning on Morning Edition, the fifth or sixth interview I've heard with her since Sunday morning. Albright just released a new book and the ensuing…
Human Pain
I've been watching Battlestar Galatica on DVD. One of the roles of science fiction, I think, is to raise controversial issues, to help us understand what it means to be…
Playing With Swine Flu
Everyone seems to be talking about and planning for the H1N1 virus these days. My university, for example, sent out a memo to encourage us to plan for extended absences due…
Recognizing Patterns for NetFlix
My area of research when I was in computer science was artificial intelligence. AI is a broad field with many subfields, each of which has many applications. Within AI, I was…
New Kindle Developments
I was talking to my dad tonight about the Kindle. He's a fan and wants one, but feels as though he doesn't read enough to justify the expense. I've written about…
Experiments in Online Education
Ian Schreiber, co-author of Challenges for Game Designers, is undertaking an interesting experiment in online education this summer. He is offering an online course called Game Design Concepts via Web…
The Decision Engine
I've seen a couple of commercials on TV for Microsoft's newest product, Bing. Microsoft claims that Bing is a "decision engine." What exactly is a "decision engine"? According to a press release from…
Travesty of Justice
The Supreme Court yesterday ruled in a case from Alaska that the state does not have to provide physical evidence (which the state still has) to a man who has been in…
Changing Medical Technology
I just finished reading My Lobotomy by Howard Dully and Charles Fleming. Howard Dully received a transorbital lobotomy (also known as an "ice-pick lobotomy") when he was 12 years old. The…
Recycling
If you're anything like me, you probably have a couple of old, unused computers lying around your house gathering dust. In my house, we had six computers until recently, two…
Security Theater
Nothing captures the public's attention like a named killer. Jack the Ripper. The Boston Strangler. Son of Sam. Zodiac. The Night Stalker. The Green River Killer. Last month, a new…
Failed Predictions
Predicting the future is a notoriously difficult endeavor and yet there is never a shortage of people willing to play the game, especially at the end of a year. Many…
FaceBook: A Hotel California?
Robin forwarded an article called How Sticky Is Membership on FaceBook? Just Try Breaking Free from the New York Times. Of course, because I'm completely addicted to FaceBook, my first…
Digital Rights Management
Back in the late 1980's, I worked as a volunteer on a running race. Because I had a background in computer science, one of my tasks was to set up…
We ARE Telling Stories
As I suggested in a previous post I don't understand why FaceBook calls each status update a story. I said that if we were to consider each update a plot…
Hamlet (The FaceBook News Feed Edition)
FaceBook is changing how we view and think about many aspects of our lives, including literature. As an example (from McSweeney's), here is Sarah Schmelling's version of Hamlet, written in…
Technology, Sports and Cheating
A lot of the Olympics news coverage has focused on the fact that so many swimmers set world records in their events, partly because of advances in swimsuit technology. Speedo's…
You Can’t Always Believe Your Eyes
In yet another step toward hyperreality, it has been revealed that the opening ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics were (partially) faked. If you watched the spectacle on television, you were…
FaceBook Revisited
In honor of the recent release of the remake of Brideshead Revisited, I thought it might be interesting to revisit FaceBook. I've been using FaceBook for nearly a month now…
