Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Simon’s post about forced change being wasteful was so good that I’m glad I haven’t had time to blog. However, the whole issue of the government forcing change on people is a pet peeve, and I recently read a horror story about New Jersey (where else?) legislation forcing local governments to provide “affordable housing”: Actually,…

Commenter Pastorius commenting on my article on Moore’s Law suggested I have a look at this article by Ray Kurzweil on the accelerating rate of the rate of change. …a serious assessment of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential. In exponential growth, we find that a key measurement such as computational…

We are about to come to the end of an era. Moore’s law is coming up against fundamental limits. Right now the smallest transistors require hundreds to thousands of atoms. It will hard to get transistors much smaller than that. In addition as transistors get smaller than that, overall circuits actually get slower and require…

H/T Instapundit

I’m thinking that yesterday’s post on the use of the phrase “the elite” omitted an important word from the discussion. A word that for the most part we are not allowed to use in polite political discussions. The S word. Via Glenn Reynolds I saw a very telling graph showing who pays the taxes —…

An interview with Yael Naim. The Macbook Air ad which sparked my interest in Yael. And this little bit which got me looking into all the above: She doesn’t look Jewish.

If (like me) you find the clich&eacute “If we can put a man on the moon…” annoying, don’t miss Rand Simberg’s “Energy Independence: Shooting for the Moon“: The problem was that, as already noted, Apollo cost a lot of money. So much so that after landing only six crews, we flew the last mission thirty-six…

In a column titled “Hard to define, harder to shake,” Inquirer columnist Karen Heller slams the blogosphere as a “courtesy free sewer,” while taking issue with the word “elite”: Connecticut is elite. New Jersey, with the highest median income in the country, is not. All these designations change when viewed from a national perspective. Then…

I just received an email claiming that there is now “irrefutable, empirical evidence” that “Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery.” Please. Spare me. I know I’ve said it before, but this crap is playing right into Obama’s hands, and I think it’s exactly what he wants. (Like the “Obama is a secret Muslim” routine….) I’m…

I know I haven’t posted today but I’m trying to get caught up. Honest! Just a little slow, that’s all… Working in this heat has a way of slowing me down.

A blog about US politics has this comment: The time for talk is over. We can’t drill our way out of this and both his and Gore’s plan point us in the right direction. We need to just do it. I got news for him. If we can’t drill our way out of our immediate…

Welcome to the latest meeting of the Scions of Entropy. Membership is not Optional. Fortunately, Awareness is. Participation is Not. Consciousness is Both. Amusement is Involuntary. No Options are Necessary in an Open Ended System. What’s in a word or three? The simple fact of the matter is that truths are oft revealed in the…

Senator/Presidential Candidate Barack Hussein Obama wants to create a civilian National Security force. I’m not sure the Senator, who is a constitutional law scholar, understands the US Constitution. We already have a civilian National Security force. He can read all about it in the amendments to the US Constitution. Specifically the Second Amendment. A well…

The simple digital camera has made it a lot easier to work on cars. I have a 1964 Ford Falcon Ranchero that has been sitting for years, and as part of my ongoing pre-move cleanout, I’ve been attempting to get it running. One of the problems is that it was once a 1970s hot rod,…

I used to know Ted Aliotta when I lived in Carbondale, Illinois from 1972 to 1975. Interesting fellow. He had a very unusual beetle he kept wrapped in cotton he would show to special friends. May I add that there is nothing quite like driving LSD when listening to LSD.

While he claims to be seeking world peace, Waafa Bilal (creator of the Bush assassination video game that’s generated controversy) strikes me as a seeker of pseudo-martyrdom for profit. In this interview, he claims that the Americans killed his brother and his father died from the grief, and that he’s letting himself be shot with…

I have been extremely distracted by reality recently, as I am in the process of moving. The only good thing about this horribly unpleasant process is that it will all be over in a few weeks. But meanwhile, this is eating up an incredible amount of time and blogging will be erratic until things settle…

The fine line between the right to speak in public and the right to disrupt the speech of others in public has long fascinated me. That’s because I’ve seen so many examples over the years of people being unable to control themselves when they hear things they disagree with. And while we all agree that…

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Gerald F. Seib observes that bad news for the economy is good news for Democrats: …the collapse of a big bank and the scare over the viability of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — seem likely to reinforce the basic dynamic of the campaign year: Voters think the…

Thought Mesh takes a look at why the left does not get the New American Empire. In my view, what most of the declinists miss is that the American Hegemony is unlike any previous empire in its structure and means. The former British Empire is the closest, but it still depended on far more direct…