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| There are great benefits to connectedness, but we haven't wrapped our minds around the costs. |
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The Way We Live Now: Bad Connections |
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| Topic: Society |
7:01 am EST, Mar 22, 2005 |
The mirror, you might say, was an early personal technology -- ingenious, portable, effective -- and like all such technologies, it changed its users. By giving us, for the first time, a readily available image of ourselves that matched what others saw, it encouraged self-consciousness and introspection and, as some worried, excesses of vanity. In a rebuke to Karl Marx, we have not become the alienated slaves of the machine; we have made the machines more like us and in the process toppled decades of criticism about the dangerous and potentially enervating effects of our technologies. Or have we? The Way We Live Now: Bad Connections |
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'Dark Hero of the Information Age': The Original Computer Geek |
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| Topic: Technology |
7:00 am EST, Mar 22, 2005 |
To be a truly famous scientist, you need to have a hit single. But there's another kind of scientist who never breaks through, usually because while his discovery is revolutionary it's also maddeningly hard to summarize in a simple sentence or two. He never produces a catchy hit single. He's more like a back-room influencer: his work inspires dozens of other innovators who absorb the idea, produce more easily comprehensible innovations and become more famous than their mentor could have dreamed. Find an influencer, and you'll find a deeply bitter man. A classic error. Don't confuse the man with his memes. A man is more than the sum of his memes. 'Dark Hero of the Information Age': The Original Computer Geek |
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| Topic: Music |
6:58 am EST, Mar 22, 2005 |
Adam Pierce is part of a quiet revolution in music-making: the move from professional studios to home recording. Making an album used to mean booking a fixed amount of very expensive time in a well-equipped but unfamiliar room; now, it can be a matter of rolling out of bed and pressing a button. Home Sweet Studio |
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Religion and Natural History Clash Among the Ultra-Orthodox |
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| Topic: Society |
6:58 am EST, Mar 22, 2005 |
Fundamentalist Christians have long championed a literal reading of the Bible that suggests the planet is thousands of years old, rather than millions. But the denunciation of Rabbi Slifkin has publicized a parallel strain of thought among ultra-Orthodox Jews, a subset of the Orthodox Jewish community that is deeply skeptical of modern culture, avoiding television and the Web and often disdaining college education. Religion and Natural History Clash Among the Ultra-Orthodox |
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Material as Tough as Steel? The Abalone Fits the Bill |
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| Topic: High Tech Developments |
6:55 am EST, Mar 22, 2005 |
His aim is to create synthetic materials that match what nature has cranked out in stupendous quantities since hard-shelled marine life appeared 600 million years ago. He and others in his line are not there yet, but they are getting better. Material as Tough as Steel? The Abalone Fits the Bill |
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For 'Code' Author, 24 Months in a Circus |
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| Topic: Fiction |
6:54 am EST, Mar 22, 2005 |
Two years and 25 million copies later, Dan Brown, the author of "The Da Vinci Code," has all but gone into hiding. "I still get up at 4 a.m. every morning and face a blank computer screen. My current characters really don't care how many books I've sold, and they still require my same effort and cajoling to persuade them to do what I want." There are hints that the pressure to repeat his success might be wearing on Mr. Brown. For 'Code' Author, 24 Months in a Circus |
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Ricky Gervais's Life, After 'The Office' |
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| Topic: TV |
6:53 am EST, Mar 22, 2005 |
Now an American remake of "The Office," will have its premiere March 24 on NBC, relocated to Scranton, Pa., and generally Americanized. But it has retained the original's singular sensibility, including the faux-documentary format, the lack of a laugh track and the humor -- sly and excruciating rather than a series of one-liners. Ricky Gervais's Life, After 'The Office' |
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Why Science Can't Show Us God |
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| Topic: Science |
6:52 am EST, Mar 22, 2005 |
The idea that science and religion coalesce in the structure of the universe has been expressed by a slew of physicists in recent years. Know the final equations, Hawking tells us, and you will know "the mind of God." There is nothing new about this notion, but there is something fundamentally missing from this portrayal of the religious enterprise, at least from a Christian point of view. Contrary to widespread belief, religion and science have not always been at odds. Why Science Can't Show Us God |
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A Man or a Mouse? Or Both? |
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| Topic: Science |
6:51 am EST, Mar 22, 2005 |
What happens when you cross a human and a mouse? Jeremy Rifkin does a Bill Joy. We should draw the line at this type of experimentation and prohibit any further research into creating human-animal chimeras. A Man or a Mouse? Or Both? |
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Intersection of Engineering and Entertainment |
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| Topic: High Tech Developments |
2:17 pm EST, Mar 19, 2005 |
The merging of educational lanes in engineering and entertainment is a definitive trend of our times. It is a major force fueling both new creative works and engineering research and technology development. This convergence of content and digital technology is producing fundamental change in the ways we learn and live. This symposium presents five major visionary-industry entrepreneurs focusing on research, public policy, commercialization, and application in the areas of digital synthesization in music, interactive game technology, and communication and media technology. A special look at games and gaming as a newly pervasive element in society, not just as a form of entertainment, but also as a foundation for research and education, is included. Intersection of Engineering and Entertainment |
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