Monthly Archives: January 2013

weapons not concealed

Posted on by January 29, 2013
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The ↑Kroger gun stunt sparks 2nd Amendment debate, NBC reported yesterday: Charlottesville police say the man who showed up at a Kroger grocery store with a loaded gun wanted to make a point. On Sunday, an unidentified 22-year-old man carried a loaded AR-15 into the Kroger store on Emmet Street and Hydraulic Road, sparking not only a scare for customers and employees but also a 2nd Amendment debate.     Charlottesville police drew their guns on the man after witnesses reported he brought a gun into the store. They restrained the man to ask him questions, but released him after … Continue reading →

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who is calling?

Posted on by February 8, 2013
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zeph’s pop culture quiz #57 The public phone is ringing. Who is calling? And a scene from which book is cited thereby?     Simply leave a comment with your educated guess—you can ask for additional hints, too. [Leaving a comment is easy; just click the ‘Leave a comment’ at the end of the post and fill in the form. If it’s the first time you post a comment, it will be held for moderation. But I am constantly checking, and once I’ve approved a comment, your next ones won’t be held, but published immediately by the system.] UPDATE and … Continue reading →

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the coming war on general computation

Posted on by January 27, 2013
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The copyright war was just the beginning  The last 20 years of Internet policy have been dominated by the copyright war, but the war turns out only to have been a skirmish. The coming century will be dominated by war against the general purpose computer, and the stakes are the freedom, fortune and privacy of the entire human race.     The problem is twofold: first, there is no known general-purpose computer that can execute all the programs we can think of except the naughty ones; second, general-purpose computers have replaced every other device in our world. There are no … Continue reading →

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why turning around?

Posted on by January 21, 2013
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zeph’s pop culture quiz #56 What’s happening in this scene? Why are the two kids turning around?     Simply leave a comment with your educated guess—you can ask for additional hints, too. [Leaving a comment is easy; just click the ‘Leave a comment’ at the end of the post and fill in the form. If it’s the first time you post a comment, it will be held for moderation. But I am constantly checking, and once I’ve approved a comment, your next ones won’t be held, but published immediately by the system.] … Continue reading →

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ennis house sunrise

Posted on by January 17, 2013
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  The idea to recreate the ‘↵House on Haunted Hill‘ in ‘↑Minecraft‘ haunts me since months. Well, ↑Kevin Shull already did it back in November 2011, complete with custom texture pack and all: House was created “block for block” as close as I could get with the photographs I found. Some areas were unclear in photos if photographed at all. House is 3x minecraft dimensions. Doors are six blocks tall instead of two. Thirteen textures created for textile blocks. Thirty additional “ice” blocks were created (that won’t melt) for windows and doors. Not enough blocks to do window designs or … Continue reading →

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who is eddy?

Posted on by January 17, 2013
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zeph’s pop culture quiz #55 Who is Eddy?     Simply leave a comment with your educated guess—you can ask for additional hints, too. [Leaving a comment is easy; just click the ‘Leave a comment’ at the end of the post and fill in the form. If it’s the first time you post a comment, it will be held for moderation. But I am constantly checking, and once I’ve approved a comment, your next ones won’t be held, but published immediately by the system.] UPDATE (17 January 2013): All right, here’s a strong hint: The carriage in the screencap is … Continue reading →

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einstein on sts

Posted on by January 4, 2013
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These quotes by ↑Albert Einstein (1879-1955) are a fine follow-up to ↵poincaré on sts: We have thus assigned to pure reason and experience their places in a theoretical system of physics. The structure of the system is the work of reason; the empirical contents and their mutual relations must find their representation in the conclusions of the theory. In the possibility of such a representation lie the sole value and justification of the whole system, and especially of the concepts and fundamental principles which underlie it. These latter, by the way, are free inventions of the human intellect, which cannot … Continue reading →

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poincaré on sts

Posted on by January 5, 2013
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Well, it’s not really ↑Henri Poincaré (1854-1912)—eminent mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and philosopher of science—talking about science and technology studies (STS) proper. Rather he talks about the fundamentals of epistemology, the position of the natural sciences, and their relation to reality. And here we are at the core of STS. Wherever you read about STS it is stated that STS are founded on the sociology of knowledge and the sociology of science stemming from the former. The great achievement, absolutely indispensable for STS, was to relativize scientific knowledge and to look at it from a social constructivist vantage point. To … Continue reading →

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