Yesterday I confessed my fear of magicians. Today I confront that fear by going to the source: Alex Stone, a magician I met at a party who, at my prompting, was kind enough to perform an impromptu set that thrilled me but that also, on the walk home, left me feeling uneasy. I later learned […]
Month: June 2013
Magicians scare me. Not magic. Magic is cool. I was at a party recently when I asked someone what he did and he said he was a magician and I said I hope he didn’t mind but would he possibly—and even before the request was out of my mouth he had produced a deck of […]
A consolation for Cameron, for Mary Caperton Morton, and for so many of us: at least the bugger can’t fly. __________ http://abstrusegoose.com/161
June 3 -7, 2013 This week, Erik took on the Singularitarians. Cassie saw the ugly future of drone journalism. When you look out your kitchen window in winter, what’s out there looks simple. But Cameron told us what’s really going on under the snow. If you’re a Neanderthal, you’ll like guest poster Jude Isabella’s dating […]
On May 31, a flight instructor named Craig MacCallum and his 19-year-old student lost control of a single-engine plane shortly after taking off from a small airport in Linden, New Jersey. MacCallum put out a mayday call just before the plane plummeted from the sky. The student survived, but MacCallum didn’t make it. And I […]
Humans might someday become cyborgs and live forever. Really, that might happen. This was my take on a recent New York Times profile about Dmitry Itskov and his quirky quest to upload human brains into machines by 2045. It seems that this Russian former media magnate and propagandist has started a project to upload a human consciousness into […]
It’s after Memorial Day, so I should be wearing white instead of thinking about the white stuff. (Although if I were in the Arctic Circle or even in Vermont and New York, where a late-May storm dropped a foot or more in some spots, I might be thinking about snow quite a bit). Even when […]
We are obsessed with the idea that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals interbred. But really, would the two species be compatible? Homo sapiens are flaky artists; Neanderthals are all business. Nevertheless maybe a Neanderthal guy found himself falling for a Homo sapiens gal. Here’s some belated advice: 1. A well-tailored set of animal skins is certainly a turn-on, […]