Stay tuned for news on my movement to that domain – but in the meantime, $2 a month for 5GB and 15GB of data transfer seems like a good deal to me. The deal finishes tomorrow.

He also competently wields a vacuum cleaner in this scene…

Effective. One can only imagine he’d have been more effective with this custom made umbrella weapon. The Umbuster .

I can’t get enough of these pointless gadgets people are inventing. Here’s a new take on the piggy bank – complete with motion sensors. It will eat your money. Buy it here for $22US. Watch it in action below.

Face Bank from Dynamism on Vimeo.

As I said, I'm a New Yorker—and a pretty serious one. I root for the New York Mets. I can't name a single person who lives in my apartment building. I fantasize about tripping tourists who insist on walking three-wide, arm in arm, at a glacial pace on a narrow sidewalk. I routinely have cereal and paper towels delivered, and I haven't seen the inside of a washing machine in a decade. I'm also in my late 20s, which, coupled with my hip address, ensures that my taste is well-seasoned, appropriately edgy, and probably better than yours. I will obsess over anything Ricky Gervais does. I can name at least 10 boutique vodkas. My music interests are sufficiently sophisticated that I can condescend to most other age groups with authority. Finally, I'm also a grad student—at NYU, no less—so I'm supposed to be one of those cosmopolitan academics who have designer eyeglasses, a subscription to Artforum, and a ready collection of aphorisms to quote from the likes of Foucault, Derrida, and Sartre.

Indeed, I am guilty as charged. But as Sartre once said, "Man is not the sum of what he has already, but rather the sum of what he does not yet have, of what he could have."

So, a guy like Mike Huckabee isn't supposed to be in my wheel house. Girls (and boys) like me are supposed to go for Anderson Cooper types. My friends think I'm a traitor to my age, my island, and my vast (and almost fully paid for!) intellect—but I don't care. If loving Huck is wrong, then I don't want to be right.

Here’s a sample post from that one.

Opening a cupboard door…
October 16th, 2005

There was a cupboard in the corner of the room. I reached out my hand and gripped the door handle. I pulled the door towards me, thereby opening the cupboard.

Like most self proclaimed titles – eg the World’s Strongest Man – this one fails at the truth test. Here, today, I give you a new candidate for World’s dullest blog. A chance for the Australian Government to prove it really hasn’t come to terms with technology despite their claims to the contrary. Here’s an excerpt from Lindsay Tanner’s first post:

“I’m pleased to be able to join with the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy in welcoming you to the Government’s first online consultation trial. There is a happy synergy in government using its first blog trial to deal with the important questions of the future of the digital economy, and Minister Conroy and his department deserve credit for their initiative in getting this consultation established.”

“While the primary aim of this blog is to get your feedback on aspects of the digital economy, we also want to use this opportunity to explore the mechanics of government blogging and hear your thoughts on how we should interact with you online.”

At least the comments are entertaining. Like this one from Gaz.

“Excellent initiative, so well done. Can I suggest that to facilitate civil discussion that your Ministerial partner, Sen Conroy refrain from implying that those who oppose your net filtering plans are somehow supporters of child pornography as he has done in the past? His comments instantly caused the debate to veer off into unproductive directions and were therefore extremely unhelpful. I hope he can raise his standard of contribution in the spirit of the sort of “effective engagement” you quite rightly mention.”

Ahh, democracy in action.

It’s worth a read if you’re a nerd, and at all interested in God.

His basic premise is this:

“We investigate the nature of intelligence, not by probing human heads, but by creating artificial intelligences. We seek truth not in what we find, but in what we can create. We have become mini-gods. And thus we seek God by creating gods.”

If you’re not a nerd – or at all interested I’d stop reading there – because this gets kind of confusing. But is also kind of interesting…

In nerd terms, god is a being function. We could write it like this:

Let g (god)=? s (initial nothing state) -> s^l (something state)
Or g=? s -> s^l

Now the universe we humans occupy is s^l We are inhabitants of the something state produced by some god function. Christians like myself see a recursive nature in God. God (g), the creator created humans in his image, and so we too are creators. We can be designated as g^l .

By means of our technology, we are becoming derivative gods ourselves. We are making our own tiny somethings out of nothing. True, our nothings are not as nothing as the nothing we came from, but we are getting better at starting from scratch, and producing more elaborative creations once we start creating. Our godhood could be described like this:

g^l = ? s^l -> s²

That is, we derivative gods began in a made world and created a second-order something.
Those somethings might have once been astoundingly realistic paintings, or perhaps a marble statue of a hero, or more recently a VR world crowded with fantastical creatures.

Someday, not too far away, we will create a creature (a robot) with its own mind (yes, a different mind) and its own free will that is capable of taking the next step and creating its own creation. In other words our little man will, like us, make its own little man or its own made-up world.

AUSTRALIA urgently needs a national screening policy for Down syndrome, experts say, after international research showed it could halve the number of babies born with the incurable genetic condition.

So how does testing produce such amazing results?

Access to the four tests that help detect if a foetus has Down syndrome varies widely between states, urban and rural areas, and public and private patients, leading to stark differences in birth and termination rates.

Amazing. The miracles of modern technology.