I am far from an Elon Musk flunky, and I don’t have the romantic view of SpaceX that some in the industry maintain, but anyone who has followed the business of space launch since SpaceX entered the business would be hard-pressed to argue that they have not been a boon; quite simply, there wasn’t a space launch business before SpaceX.
Normative and descriptive Judgements
This is not a referendum on whether normative decision-making is superior or inferior to descriptive decision-making.
Quantum Magic
Especially in movies and television that fall loosely under the science fiction moniker, ‘quantum’ has somehow become a stand-in for ‘magic.’ Whether this is because the writers don’t understand quantum physics, or think their audience doesn’t, it bothers me.
What is Time?
It is first necessary to establish what, precisely, is being asked by that question, since most casual answers are actually responding to the perceived question ‘how is time measured,’ and not to the actual question ‘what is time’.
A Stellar Post
The Parker solar probe, which perhaps we could call the opposite of New Horizons, will attempt to explore some of those mysteries, most significantly the origin of the solar wind.
A Quick Introduction to Blockchain
Blockchain is the concept underlying many of the “revolutionary” technologies that have gotten so much buzz in the past couple of years: cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the internet of things (IoT), even the metaverse.
Educational Omission
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.
IGC Publishing 