Everywhere I look outside my home I see people busy on their
high tech devices, while driving, while walking, while shopping, while in
groups of friends, while in restaurants, while waiting in doctor offices and hospitals,
while sitting in toilets – everywhere. 
While connected electronically, they are inattentive to and disconnected
in physical reality.

Will put it back soon. Need to restore from backup.

R9GjJA Thanks again for the post.Really thank you! Keep writing.

Good Friday morning Swordsmen. It's been a while since I dropped a NCR, but the last week of every month will always be a tough time for me. I hope everything is going well with everyone. a lot of stuff hit the Google reader that have since blown over, so if you see an old story or two, forgive me. On the ledger: a new guy in at Bank of America, Souter stepping down, Obama the socialist, black optimism, the future of the Republican Party, Chysler, cheating, and a surprise guest arrives to Twitter.

I think I found John Shimkus tell if I ever play him in poker, he scratches his head with his right hand when he is bluffing, or tugs on his shirt. Presses his left index finder on his temple hard when he knows he has a bad hand.

hXWfCP Awesome article post.Much thanks again. Awesome.

Promoted for discussion by Brendan

Nuclear power has some very good and vey bad aspects and partisans on both sides argue passionately about these issues.  Ultimately though it is the pedestrian issue of fuel availability that should preclude us from embarking upon the type of massive scale nuclear power plant building that some have advocated.

OagXyW Really enjoyed this post. Fantastic.

ErmfjZ Very good blog.Really looking forward to read more. Really Cool.

jovoVw Say, you got a nice article.Much thanks again. Really Great.

Z42IYM Very neat article.Really thank you! Want more.

54rDz5 I think this is a real great blog.Really thank you! Fantastic.

Hat tip to Megan McArdle .

Microsoft is unveiling IE8, Internet Explorer 8, which has privacy feature for browsing than will hurt Google's main business: targeted search ads.

From the Financial Times :

Microsoft has unveiled its Internet Explorer 8 browser equipped with a privacy feature that could threaten the advertising model of web search rivals such as Google.

Crossposted at MLW

There has been a lot of talk recently about the “energy crisis”. I wonder if this is the same energy crisis we heard about in the 70’s? If it is then that means for over 30 years instead of solving our domestic energy needs, we have ignored them and allowed them to grow. In 1970 we were importing about 24% of the oil we used and the embargo back then threw our economy into a tail-spin, imagine what would happen today when we import about 70%. Rather than using the past 30 plus years to develop new or existing technologies to reduce or break our dependence on oil, we have elected to do something worse than nothing. Instead of our vehicles getting smaller and more fuel efficient during this time they have actually gotten larger.

Hat tip to Arnold Kling who cites a great thought experiment from unqualified reservations . This experiment is right up my alley because it forms part of the bedrock of my perspective on society, progress and governance. I've touched on this general area of thinking in the past in various conversations and in many forms.

SSCtwg Say, you got a nice blog.Really looking forward to read more.

bWCsYz I truly appreciate this post.Really looking forward to read more. Really Cool.

Clean rooms are special environments designed to have less contaminants in the air than you find in everyday life. In some cases much less. Clean rooms are used for a variety of purposes most notably scientific research and engineering in the fields of biology and microelectronics. I'm most familiar with the latter and will focus on that (if anyone has experience with bio clean rooms please chime in in the comments).

a biotech clean room

this is the first installment of a science based weekly post intended to complement Brendan's weekend Art threads. While the topics are not intended to be strictly partisan, I hope to choose topics that have broader implications beyond mere knowledge of the physical action of the universe. Feel free to delve into the politics in comments. :)

Human Chimera

There are a number of metrics which are associated with the concept of identity. Your birthday (and consequently your age), dental records, fingerprints, retinal patterns, and so on, are considered part of a biometric signature that helps distinguish you from everyone else. Indeed they can be said to be the source of your identity, from a legal standpoint.

I took the liberty in creating an SC Folding@Home team .

For those of you not familiar with F@H, I'll let their FAQ do the talking. Essentially, you run a program that runs only when you are not actively using your computer. It does complex mathematical calculations involved in protein folding, which has applications in treating many diseases.