Author: sImenSIasMS

Scott Aaronson on academic publishing: I have an ingenious idea for a company. My company will be in the business of selling computer games. But, unlike other computer game companies, mine will never have to hire a single programmer, game designer, or graphic artist. Instead I’ll simply find people who know how to make games, and…

I miss the time when photographs were literally true. Part one: theory Truth is the greatest and thorniest issue in philosophy. There is not enough paper in the world to hold all the things that have been, will be, should be and will have been written about truth. It’s an issue that concerns everyone and…

In 1898, the British, who had conquered Hong Kong island some sixty years earlier, signed a 99-year lease with the Chinese that gave them control over the New Territories, an additional strip of land on the mainland. The lease excluded a small military fort called the Kowloon Walled City, a walled military outpost with a…

I think variation on a theme is one of the most fundamental creative strategies. It’s at the heart of science: the theme is the independent variable. In literature, “theme” is much broader. It could rightfully be said that all literature consists of variations on a small set of themes. What I have in mind, however,…

In the present, personal DNA analysis is becoming commercially viable. More drugs are illegal than ever before, yet new legal variants spring up and are distributed faster and more easily than ever. At the same time, affordable custom synthesis and electronic access to the scientific literature allow communities of interested individuals to go in for group buys of entirely novel compounds in order to achieve superhuman performance. Taking these…