Tuesday, December 24, 2013

A Christmas Treat from Doctor Puppet

Mashable gives us a link to a wonderful video of a Doctors' Christmas. Enjoy. Cross posted at The Moderate Voice

A Possible Breakthrough on Understanding Aging

While it is true that there is no way to know when or if treatments for the diseases associated with aging will come any time soon from this research at Harvard Medical School it seems that it would hold some promise because it does reveal some of the most basic causes of them.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Carl Sagan is Still Right After All These Years

Upworthy shares an interview that Carl Sagan did on Charlie Rose where Sagan analyzes the problem with scientific illiteracy in a world that is shaped by science and technology. It was recorded 17 years ago and if anything the situation that worried Sagan back then has just gotten worse. I constantly see people expressing opinions as fact that show they understand absolutely nothing about science, scientists and the scientific method. This is extremely worrying in a time of climate change, genetic therapy, genetically modified crops and all of the other issues that depend on people understanding science for policy to be made based on facts instead of prejudices, ignorance and fear. Cross posted at The Moderate Voice

Catching Up to the World Through Shopping...for Software Startups

TechCrunch has an article on the trend of non-tech companies buying software startups that are related to their business or can bring a new kind of tech savvy to the company. Reading it I wondered if it might also begin to mean something when it comes to the long established practice of outsourcing software development. Not just sending it overseas but surrendering it to any outside company. I've always thought that for the long term a company would be better off with analysts that could develop a good understanding of the business and have a vested interest in it to do their planning and their relationship with internal IT staff would (Or at least could if they had good management.) be better and produce better software.

Politicians for Pot

The Daily Beast reports on politicians who are making the legalization of marijuana part of their campaigns. I would think that any candidate who is really and truly fiscally responsible should be able to run on that platform because this is the most inane and fiscally irresponsible part of the War on Drugs. The amount of money wasted on prosecuting and incarcerating people who use or even sell marijuana is huge. I just don't buy into the arguments that it is more harmful than alcohol. Even if you could prove that it is marginally more harmful the problem would still be the big fail that is the attempt to handle it through criminalizing it. Cross posted at The Moderate Voice