Today's "Digger". That covers a lot of it, for me.

Okay, it's a horrible idea. But it would be awesome.
FDA plus hand to hand. Weapon hits as normal; feet and fists only for torso hits. I really want to try this. Perhaps it's the lack of the sleep.

Lawrence Lessig highlights three motivations for protecting (individual) privacy. One, minimizing burdens (no goons in jackboots stomping through your house). Two, protecting dignity ("You said I might be WHAT?"). Three, keeping the government from imposing other restrictive laws (it's hard to make sedition illegal if you can neither collect the ( Read more... )

Sometimes I spend part of my time working at menial but necessary and fulfilling jobs, such as transport system maintenance or grocery stocking, while the rest of my days are spent investigating problems I find intellectually exciting with other similarly inclined gentlefolk or on my own, with time set aside for art and adventure. Everyone else ( Read more... )

I've spent a lot of time over the last few years paying attention to the internet and what people have to say about it, particularly Lawrence Lessig. Many have looked at the Net and dreamed of a place free from regulation and other interference; some have believed that this was inevitably its nature. Others have disabused me of this notion rather ( Read more... )

I was reading about how before 1500 or so, people generally believed that God's will, not the whim of probability, decided gambling results (dice, at least). What if people used dice to settle some moral question (they used duels, why not)? However, probability and God influencing the dice aren't necessarily inconsistent, as any run of results is ( Read more... )

Once or twice I've experienced a shower which, due to some quirk of design, felt like it was hitting me with both hot and cold water at the same time. The effect is interesting. I wish someone would market a shower like that - where streams from the head alternate hot and cold. Or perhaps someone already is doing it.

The words "useful" and "good" are highly ambiguous. For some reason, people are generally more willing to grant the latter than the former, but the meaning you give "useful" ties directly into the meaning you give "good," or at least your concept of "the good life." The question "Is that useful?" cannot be separated from the question "What do you ( Read more... )

Yahoo is carrying an article on how Israel is trying to encourage ultra-Orthodox Jews to work. Largely they don't, and instead live on government subsidies, largely due to fear that army service (my knowledge here is fuzzy - it isn't clear to me whether army service is necessary to be able to work) will expose them to excessively secular ( Read more... )

Recycling an idea here...what I call convenience price is the transition point between where a person will choose to steal an item and where he will choose to pay to acquire it. For example, let's say a college student will pay 20 cents for the new (dang...I don't know any current artists. Let's say Green Day) single, but will find and download ( Read more... )