Blog Archives
the psychology of power
Hello, readers. I’ve been digging through my drafts folder, deleting everything that doesn’t look like I can still get a post out of it, and I found this apparently complete post just sitting in there. I originally wrote it on February 17th, 2013, and I have no idea why I didn’t post it. I probably felt that I had more to say or something. Anyway, since I haven’t posted anything in a while, I figured I’d toss this up for you.
Interestingly, I don’t think I ever wrote a review of this book. Which is a shame, since it’s my favorite by this author so far. Maybe I’ll read it again and write about it soon, who knows.
Everything that follows the asterisks is from February 2013.
The end is nigh?
I’d read the blog post, and was skimming the comments when I saw a link to this Wikipedia page. That is a really long list of end of the world predictions. If you worry about the Mayan calendar or Nibiru or some other scenario happening soon, perhaps you can take some comfort in seeing that the vast majority of those predictions are already in the past.
The next one on that list, which is also the next I’ve heard of, is Ronald Weinland’s prediction of May 27 of this year. I’m not especially concerned about this, not because of my lack of piety, but because at this point there have been so many predictions that I can’t believe Jesus would take the trouble to issue a warning. I mean, why bother when pretty much everyone is going to ignore it for very sensible reasons?
The sad truth is that an actual end of the world event would probably be beyond our ability to do anything about. But there are cataclysmic events worth thinking about and planning for. Earthquakes, cyclones, volcanoes and tsunamis are all very real, and it’s certainly worthwhile to plan for them.
And then there’s something in between. Read the rest of this entry
A day offline
So during the SOPA strike I thought it would be interesting to not only black out my site and not post, but to not use the internet at all. The result is a fascinating lesson in how entwined into my daily life the thing has become.
I had already installed the operating system updates when I realized that counted as “using the internet”. But then I went and installed them on the laptop anyways, because there was security stuff in there.
I settled down to read Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, a book I picked up at a library sale for very cheap and never got around to opening. I had only read a few pages before an interesting math puzzle presented itself to me: How close to Hawaii did ancient explorers have to get before they could see it? Read the rest of this entry
