Despite categorizing many of my posts as ‘educational content,’ I rarely set out to teach you something in a rigorous fashion; instead, I am usually attempting to explicate a specific concept or idea, without providing full context or progressing through an entire topic.
Automatic Stories
Today’s post is not so much about the details of the technology, or pondering whether we will one day live in some kind of post-scarcity utopia in which our machine-slaves can solve all of our problems, generate optimal art, and fulfill our every whim in addition to freeing us from manual labor and rote tasks, as it is about reflecting on the nature of creativity and the process that we are really going through when we attempt to ‘create.’
Linguistic Reference Frames
I came across a paper in Science Advances called "Different reference frames on different axes: Space and language in indigenous Amazonians."
Words We Don’t Have
The possibilities of leveraging this idea to render fictional characters and cultures more unique, more interesting, more textured, more genuine, more true, more alive, are veritably endless.
Fourteen Exciting Engineering Projects
Each of these projects receives $175,000.00 in grants for phase one work - you can read more about the program here, where you will also find links to detailed descriptions of each of the projects.
Triboelectric Nanogenerators
Learning about these in a recent paper is part of why I keep reading scientific papers - because every now and then, you come across one that informs you of a technology that might just change the world.
In the Time Lords’ Citadel
No, this is not a Dr. Who fanfiction, but I couldn’t resist the allure of what I like to think passes for a clever title for a post about a new change to international standard timekeeping. That’s right: instead of worrying about minor controversies over things like religion, politics, or the Great Pumpkin, what should really be getting your blood pressure up is the CGPM’s vote to abolish the leap second.
Artificial Miracles
What really is the difference between something that is natural and something that is artificial?
Autocomplete Your Story
Now, tools that leverage artificial intelligence can predict entire paragraphs of writing, rewrite your paper for you, and may one day do the first draft, too.
Energy Storage
If I wanted to make this post extremely short, I could probably leave it at this: we humans are absolutely terrible at energy storage.
IGC Publishing 