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Category Archives: Essay
The China model of government Internet censorship
Some people were shocked when the Internet in Egypt and then Libya was all but shut down. They shouldn’t have been. It’s not all that hard to ‘pull the plug’ on the Internet, especially in countries with a relatively small number of Internet Service Providers (ISPs). It’s not high tech. When guys with guns show [...]
Posted in Essay Tagged censorship, China, Collage, Egypt, encryption, government censorship, Internet, Internet access, ISP, Libya, proxy servers, social networking, steganography Leave a comment
Who’s afraid of Watson?
And the answer is, “What is Watson?” Even if you know the correct reference (pick from: Alexander Graham Bell’s assistant, a computer, the founder of IBM), which by far most people on this planet do not, it’s unlikely that fear is attached to it. Watson is not a common synonym for boogeyman. However, a few [...]
Posted in Essay Tagged AI, Artificial Expert, artificial intelligence, chess, Deep Blue, Hal, IBM, iPad, Kasparov, thinking machine, Watson Leave a comment
Science in cold fusion
On March 23-24, 2010 the American Chemical Society, one of the largest science organizations in the world, hosted a conference called New Energy Technology, during its national meeting. Fifty papers were presented. Another name for the topic of the conference was ‘cold fusion.’ In a way, I’m reluctant to bring up the topic of cold [...]
Posted in Essay Tagged ACS, anti-science, cold fusion, evidence, gravity, heavy water, nuclear fusion, palladium, theory 2 Comments
Should junk science be banned from movies and television?
Most of you reading this will think – yeah, banning junk science that wouldn’t be bad – but you’re probably skeptical. You don’t need to work in the entertainment industry to know that scientific accuracy is almost never a priority. So a ban on bad science? Good luck with that – right? An academic complaint [...]
Posted in Essay Tagged Avatar, bad science, Cameron, junk science, movies, Perkowitz, science fiction, SEE, Star Trek, Star Wars Leave a comment
The U.S. in space: Moon, out. Commerce, in.
It’s not like the United States is the only game in space. It wasn’t even the only country with a Moon project. China and Russia both made noises about going to the Moon with men (or women). Still, the U.S. was the pioneer on the Moon – the Apollo Project, “One giant step for mankind…”, [...]
Posted in Essay Tagged Apollo Program, Cassini, Constellation Program, Kepler, Moon, NASA, space Leave a comment
The borderland of net neutrality
Thank goodness the Internet is no longer an American plaything. I know, however, that what happens to the Internet in the United States is still important to what happens to the Internet elsewhere. I’m thinking particularly about the issue of Net Neutrality, which surfaces with some regularity in the U.S. and more often now in [...]
Posted in Essay Tagged communications, consumer benefit, government policy, Internet, net neutrality, routers Leave a comment
Impact or Bomb? Science in the Age of Hype
Which of these two words – bomb or impact – would you put in the following blank? On October 9, 2009 NASA’s LCROSS mission to the Moon did something expected to be dramatic. It split the LCROSS spacecraft into two pieces. One piece, bringing up the rear, would take video and monitor a second piece [...]
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Space Shuttle Atlantis: happy landing, and out with a whimper