Daniel Rourke /stream

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Lanchester allowed that computer games would never tell us as much about character as other forms of narrative, but pointed out two great virtues of the form: “The first is visual:…

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Three decades ago, Stephen Hawking famously declared that a "theory of everything" was on the horizon, with a 50 per cent chance of its completion by 2000. Now it is 2010,…

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Over the next 10 years, scientific experts will be dealing with "extreme weather." No one knows how weird and dangerous it will get. Moscow already faces Bahrain-like temperatures. Downpours swamp a…

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The widespread fascination with the Mad Men series is far more than just simple nostalgia. It is about how we feel about ourselves and our society today. In Mad Men we…

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Hard Atheism or What Shall I Name This Column? Hold onto your hats, folks. Although it is perhaps fitting that the actual day on which I sit here at my computer…

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The world's first known human cannibals ate each other to satisfy their nutritional needs, concludes a new study of the remains of cannibal feasts consumed about one million years ago. The…

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He's an Indian, and Brazilian officials have concluded that he's the last survivor of an uncontacted tribe. They first became aware of his existence nearly 15 years ago and for a…

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Is it really true that the washing machine has changed the world more than the internet? When we assess the impact of technological changes, we tend to downplay things that happened…

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THE news of the day often includes an item about some development in artificial intelligence: a machine that smiles, a program that can predict human tastes in mates or music, a…

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A hot summer day, C not yet out, the Booker judges still busy deciding on this year’s longlist, I go to meet Tom McCarthy. On the way to the cafe, I…

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Is our species, Homo sapiens sapiens, the first cyborg species? Gizmodo/New Scientist has a fascinating article up about how humans evolved as a result of technology. Timothy Taylor, an anthropologist and…

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Are signs and meanings just as vital to living things as enzymes and tissues? Liz Else investigates a science in the making EVERY so often, something shows up on the New…

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Parasites commonly manipulate host behaviour, and among the most dramatic examples are diverse fungi that cause insects to die attached to leaves. This death-grip behaviour functions to place insects in an…

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One of the side-effects of having your work appear in a public forum such as this is that people often email me asking for advice on how to break into writing,…

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Imagine being a slave in ancient Rome. Now remember being one. The second task, unlike the first, is crazy. If, as I’m guessing, you never were a slave in ancient Rome,…

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“It's not my fault. Communication error has occurred,” my computer pleads with me in a voice of lady Victoria. First it excuses itself, then urges me to pay attention, to check…

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Now available for free online: The Mind's I: Fantasies and reflections on self and soul (ISBN 0-553-34584-2) is a 1981 book composed and arranged by Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C.…

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It seems to me part of the problem is that the term "postmodernism" was always so muddy and abstract. To different people, it meant (at least) two different things. First of…

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Two summers ago, the Atlantic published an essay by Nicholas Carr, one of the blogosphere's most prominent (and thoughtful) contrarians, under the headline "Is Google Making Us Stupid?". "Over the past…

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For folks that haven't checked it yet, the newly re-launched SAME HAT TUMBLR is up and running! The SAME HAT! Tumblr is curated and run by 8 contributors. It features art/videos/music…

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Porn for the Blind is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to producing audio descriptions of sample movie clips from adult web sites. This service is provided free of charge.

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Will my enduring ghost be a mute witness to the goings-on down here, waving its vapory arms frantically at the undead? Or will it be an agent, endowed with the capacity…

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According to the late Harvard University biologist Ernst W. Mayr, the greatest evolutionary theorist since Charles Darwin, “species are groups of actually or potentially interbreeding natural populations which are reproductively isolated…

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Physicists struggling to reconcile gravity with quantum mechanics have hailed a theory – inspired by pencil lead – that could make it all very simple IT WAS a speech that changed…

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Lanchester allowed that computer games would never tell us as much about character as other forms of narrative, but pointed out two great virtues of the form: “The first is visual:…

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Three decades ago, Stephen Hawking famously declared that a "theory of everything" was on the horizon, with a 50 per cent chance of its completion by 2000. Now it is 2010,…

Bookmark

In the beginning, before there was such a thing as a Gutenberg Bible, Johannes Gutenberg laid out his rows of metal type and brushed them with ink and, using the mechanism…

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The widespread fascination with the Mad Men series is far more than just simple nostalgia. It is about how we feel about ourselves and our society today. In Mad Men we…

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The world's first known human cannibals ate each other to satisfy their nutritional needs, concludes a new study of the remains of cannibal feasts consumed about one million years ago. The…

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It turns out the Machiguenga — whose number system goes: one, two, three, many — are not alone in their thinking. Most people from non-Western cultures introduced to the Ultimatum Game…

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Is it really true that the washing machine has changed the world more than the internet? When we assess the impact of technological changes, we tend to downplay things that happened…

Bookmark

THE news of the day often includes an item about some development in artificial intelligence: a machine that smiles, a program that can predict human tastes in mates or music, a…

Bookmark

A hot summer day, C not yet out, the Booker judges still busy deciding on this year’s longlist, I go to meet Tom McCarthy. On the way to the cafe, I…

Bookmark

Is our species, Homo sapiens sapiens, the first cyborg species? Gizmodo/New Scientist has a fascinating article up about how humans evolved as a result of technology. Timothy Taylor, an anthropologist and…

Bookmark

Back in 1981, R.M. Hare, in his book Moral Thinking, featured a distinction that today I still find useful. Hare admitted that the distinction was not original with him, but he…

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Parasites commonly manipulate host behaviour, and among the most dramatic examples are diverse fungi that cause insects to die attached to leaves. This death-grip behaviour functions to place insects in an…

Bookmark

Imagine being a slave in ancient Rome. Now remember being one. The second task, unlike the first, is crazy. If, as I’m guessing, you never were a slave in ancient Rome,…

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There he goes again, making up nonsense and making ridiculous claims that have no relationship to reality. Ray Kurzweil must be able to spin out a good line of bafflegab, because…

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Now available for free online: The Mind's I: Fantasies and reflections on self and soul (ISBN 0-553-34584-2) is a 1981 book composed and arranged by Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C.…

Bookmark

It seems to me part of the problem is that the term "postmodernism" was always so muddy and abstract. To different people, it meant (at least) two different things. First of…

Bookmark

Two summers ago, the Atlantic published an essay by Nicholas Carr, one of the blogosphere's most prominent (and thoughtful) contrarians, under the headline "Is Google Making Us Stupid?". "Over the past…

Bookmark

For folks that haven't checked it yet, the newly re-launched SAME HAT TUMBLR is up and running! The SAME HAT! Tumblr is curated and run by 8 contributors. It features art/videos/music…

Bookmark

Books have long been the object of desire, a desire that in intensity (among the susceptible) is stronger than for sex. Bibliomania, the obsession to possess books, was first recognised as…

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Will my enduring ghost be a mute witness to the goings-on down here, waving its vapory arms frantically at the undead? Or will it be an agent, endowed with the capacity…

Bookmark

Physicists struggling to reconcile gravity with quantum mechanics have hailed a theory – inspired by pencil lead – that could make it all very simple IT WAS a speech that changed…

Bookmark

You may have heard of determinism, the theory that absolutely everything that happens is causally determined to happen exactly as it does by what has already gone before — right back…