When we (inevitably) discover intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy, I predict that they will have teapots. My line of reasoning is that just as the evolution of body plans inevitably stumbles across useful things like mouths and body armour, so too the evolution of tools will inevitably stumble across useful forms like teapots. This … Read more
Imagine going about your daily life and never being sure if the people you meet around you are real humans. Some of them, no one knows quite how many, are AI powered robots that churn out the propaganda of their creators. They seem real at first but when they are engaged, it is clear that … Read more
I have made a garage recording of Accidentals with accompaniment from local wildlife. The poems, which I wrote in 2008, are all on this website. I still have some of the paper copies left. This is me in my garage studio. I actually was testing out a new microphone reading the poems and thought the … Read more
Science is not normally considered to be in the same category of thought as religions. And in some ways, it is in a different category. It doesn’t have quite the same ossified structures of most other religions, and it doesn’t have any human-like gods. But then it isn’t as old as most other religions, which … Read more
Nones. No good can come of it. So here is my new poem book: “Bleeding Nose Poems”. Is that a bit weird? The acronym is BNP, unintentionally. You can buy it over on Lulu, but better still, send me a message on Twitter and I’ll send you an autographed copy, wherever you are. A
A meritocracy is a kind of evolution, a social evolution. Like biological evolution, its business is to reward the survivors, and winnow out the weak. It is a hard game but the rules are set by Nature herself. For all its advantages over less obviously fair systems of resource allocation, like systems based on dynastic … Read more
For quite some time I have wished that Twitter had a native visualization tool that let you see what was trending in real time. There are lists of course, but I’m a visual person and there is so much potential for information in a good network visualization. I already knew what it should look like, … Read more
The singularity seems to be here. It just whooshed past, and we are in a new reality. OK? Of course, the first thing you’ll notice is that we’re all still alive. The world still seems to be here. It wasn’t the end of the universe that some of us expected. But something did end there, … Read more
So here we are. This morning I woke up feeling optimistic for the first time in months. So I revisited this old draft post, and decided to make it live, even though things are moving on already. I live on twitter too much these days and the rawness of events seems to get so much … Read more
Doubt is the most potent of thoughts, the most humble. It is ok to look down the skeptical wormhole. You can always look away again later. Poetry is the stink in the compost of decaying thought. I would like to evolve in that. Contrary to the theory of Darwinism, evolution happens best in the absence … Read more
