Science and Technology
15 April 2009
When cinema started to become popular early 20th century it almost immediately unleashed a wave of moral and religious panic. In numerous surveys and reports cinema was held responsible for the growing moral decay, notably among the young. Magistrates even sentenced young offenders "not to enter a 'picture theatre' for 12 months."
The arrival of television only enhanced this idea of the youth being corrupted by insolent images. The shocking pelvis of Elvis, the long hair of the Beatles, the nakedness of Phil Bloom. Frankly, I'm amazed we survived so far.
Then the internet arrived and fear spread that this giant 'series of tubes'(as US Senator Ted Stevens so eloquently put it) would lead to a rapid increase of social isolation, again notably among the young, who supposedly wouldn't learn anymore how to interact normally.
And the video games, oh no, those blasted video games! Teaching the young to take our household arsenal of semi-automatic pistols, rifles and machine guns (needed for home defense) and shoot people at random, instead of doing it with good reason.
And World of Warcraft and Second Life! Blurring the line between fantasy and reality, just like pot. How will the young ever learn to interact in the real world if all they care about is WOWgold and dating a delicious looking avatar?
And now there is also evidence against Twitter. (I knew it, those damn twitter boys)
A report that will be published next week in 'Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online Early Edition' (a title so unclear it suggests considerable lack of social experience in the real world) finds that Twitter does not allow people enough time to make moral decisions. As a result, it could numb our sense of morality and make us indifferent to human suffering, the report says.
In other words: Twitter can turn you into a sociopath.
One of the researchers, Immordi-Yang, said this can be particularly dangerous for young people (of course) because the lack of decision-making time can harm the emotional development of their "moral compass".
Said Immordi-Yang: "we need to understand how social experience shapes interactions between the body and mind, to produce citizens with a strong moral compass." (sounds like a line from the movie Starship Troopers, which, in this context, is not a compliment)
USC sociologist Manuel Castells: "In a media culture in which violence and suffering becomes an endless show, be it in fiction or in infotainment, indifference to the vision of human suffering gradually sets in."
And that's the way the cookie crumbles.
What's really frightning though is that I'm not making this up. That aparently even in the 21st century we still think we should convert (or kill) the messenger, rather than change the message.
Only a matter of time now before magistrates start sentencing young offenders 'not to enter the twitter theatre for 12 months’.
23 April 2009
Humans love to hunt. We've hunted creatures far bigger, faster, and sharper nailed than ourselves. We didn't stop there either. Twisters and hurricanes, guilty people and innocent ones, shadows and dust; you name it, we've hunted it (and them). And now a new kind of hunter has risen to rule. One who recognizes neither border nor barrier, for whom the heavens themselves are mere hunting grounds.
He is....Planet Hunter.
Does he explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations? Does he boldly go where no man has gone before? Is he a mix of Captain Kirk, crocodile hunter Steve Irwin and bounty hunter Clint Eastwood? Tough, uncompromising, a lone ranger in a spandex suit with danger as his middle name?
Well, no.
Hero of the hour is Dr. Michel Mayor. Nothing wrong with that, name wise. After all, the name Peter Parker looked pretty boring too, until he became Spiderman. And Dr. Henry Jones sounded pretty 9 to 5-ish ("We named the dog Indiana") until he discovered the Arch of the covenant and the Holy Grail; then, the name 'Dr. Jones' suddenly sounded cool as hell.
So what has Dr. Michel Mayor done? He has bolted a sensitive planet-hunting spectograph called HARPS to the back end of the European Southern Observatory's 3.6- meter telescope at La Silla, Chile, while it was blazing hot and mosquitoes had set their phasers to sting.
Wow, sounds pretty impressive. By himself?
Well, no.
But he did use the "wiggle" method -as it is popularly known- that detects planets by a slight gravitational tug they give their stars. (yes, all kinds of sexual innuendos can be made here, but why waste them writing about a male Dr. in astrophysics). To make a long story short: Dr. Michel Mayor has discovered the smallest exoplanet (a planet beyond the Solar System) so far. In 1995 Dr. Mayor also discovered the first exoplanet.
The new planet is only 1.9 times as massive as the Earth. Planet-hunting rival Dr. Marcy has graciously conceded "This is the most exciting discovery in exoplanets so far". Dr. marcy can still trump Dr. Mayor though (to make it even more exciting) by finding the Holy Grail of Planets, or as they like to call it: the "Goldilocks" planet. (God knows why, they're astronomers). This is a planet capable of supporting earthlike life.
Having found such a planet we could finally destroy Earth without suffering the consequenses. Global Warming would be viewed as nothing more than a grandiose beach resort forming tool (which, let's be honest, it already is), recycling would be a thing of the past, and at long last we could use those numerous nuclear weapons for real. (not all of them of course, we might need some to get rid of whatever earthlike life is still living on Goldilocks)
So who knows, the Planet Hunters might save us all.
6 March 2009
Yesterday CNN had their weekly interview with somebody called 'The Data Doctor' but who looked more like a date doctor.
When visualizing a data doctor (and isn't image everything?) I see a bearded or badly shaven man who looks like 40 but is in fact not yet 30. He wears glasses, because even though he's an expert on technology wearing lenses is a bridge too far. (as are most women by the way). His favorite drink used to be coca cola -back in the eighties- but nowadays it's red bull, of which he drinks a tray a day. A stowaway piece of New York Pizza cheese -stuck on a grey, slightly sweaty t-shirt- waves into the camera. And of course the data doctor talks about this latest piece of tech either as if it is as good as feeling a woman's breast for the first time (lacking the experience itself, his mind runs rampant fantasizing about it) or as if the whole world is stupid, doomed and deeply bugging him.
Instead, this "data doctor" looked like a mix of a young Ghandi and dandy poet Oscar Wilde. So excuse me for mistaking him for a date doctor.
The subject was Twitter.
Now I happen to love Twitter. For those of you who still don't know ('wot iz zis twieter yoe speek ov') type in twitter.com in your browser and find out. -explaining things is so 2007.
Twitter can be all sorts of things.
- Chat heaven (or haven, for that matter).
- Mini blog - Window to the world.
- More efficient communicating with small group.
The date doctor called it an "evolution in communication".( Probably because "revolution" is also very 2007) But of course not much is required for something to be called an 'evolution'. We all are an evolution.
There are now millions of people twittering & tweeting, like there were once millions of birds doing the same thing. Two weeks ago, when a plane crashed near Amsterdam, twitter was the first one to break the news. CNN actually got their breaking news on the crash from following the tweets about it, including pictures and short video clips. In the hours following the immediate crash, every tiny piece of information was spread about through twitter. At one point, there was a tweet saying: '10th person dies from crash, in hospital'.
Of course we can ask ourselves the question: is this really what we want? Somebody just died, probably minutes ago, and already his demise is being spelled out as just another piece of information. Is this the evolution of communication? Everybody knowing everything about everybody? Looks that way, and it will be impossible to resist for the average information consumer (as long as they don't think long and hard about it).
So, a silent revolution. All that was missing from the 6 minute interview with doctor data was him stepping out of his bodily cage at the end, speaking with a computerized voice: "We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile."
Now THAT would have been tweet worthy. :)