Reading this week

I am only a few chapters into this one and already a bit disappointed with its tone and substance. Jeremiads I can handle, but only when the call to repentance embodies something more than mere cultural conservatism for its own sake.

"Hey, you kids, get off my cultural landscape!"

I love reading Shakespeare while listening to Bach at least as much as any thirty-something I've ever met, and guess what: I can do both on my eeePC laptop or my iPhone! Luddism is not the answer, Ms. Jacoby. Using our new technology in an ongoing exploration for ever expanding knowledge by internalizing a sense of intellectual curiosity is a far better hope for ourselves and our progeny, and it may be far easier to do this using screens than forcing ourselves back to ink and paper.

Better 'blagging' bennies beginner bloggers

My fellow athée okie and fav science blogger is giving away free advice on how to blog better than I ever will.

BTW - She also lectures better than I do.

Bolt blogs Benedict/Bush

My favorite conservative Aussie keeps me in the know on our globetrotting prez.

In addition to the uncritical loyalty of countless faithful devotees, Bush and Benedict apparently share "the temerity to act upon faith" in their respective leadership roles. I would suppose they share this vital feature with Al-Qaeda's leadership, leading Iranian clerics, and other assorted faith-based self-fulfilling prophets of doom.

Happy Flag Day!

I almost never post merely to refer to other people’s posts, but this takedown piece on The Pledge of Allegiance is truly and utterly priceless. One people, one country, one flag!

Another photo album

The end of the roads will be a growing collection of roads that ended and ends of road. This one is from an obsolete strip (formerly SE 74th) at 35.391761° N, 97.386332° W.

Genes, Memes, Temes

It would seem that the brilliant minds over at TED are catching up with the speculative fiction of Ghost in the Shell and only a decade or so after the original prophecy:

Project 2501: It can also be argued that DNA is nothing more than a program designed to preserve itself. Life has become more complex in the overwhelming sea of information. And life, when organized into species, relies upon genes to be its memory system. So, man is an individual only because of his intangible memory... and memory cannot be defined, but it defines mankind. The advent of computers, and the subsequent accumulation of incalculable data has given rise to a new system of memory and thought parallel to your own. Humanity has underestimated the consequences of computerization.

Genes – a genetic “program designed to preserve itself”

Memes – “intangible memory” which “defines mankind”

Temes – “a new system of memory and thought parallel to your own”

How are all three concepts fundamentally similar? You'll have to watch the video for yourself. (If you happen to be reading this on an iPhone, here is the lower-quality YouTube version.)