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Memories of the 28th Century

Miscellaneous thoughts about miscellaneous matters

  1. Conspiracies Real and Imagined

    by , 06-04-2014 at 03:06 PM (Memories of the 28th Century)
    These things came to mind again today. It appears that Americans, at least, and probably the rest of the world prefer to believe fiction rather than plain facts. Mark Twain noted that “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” And that is being demonstrated every day. I guess that lies are more entertaining; they certainly aren’t more believable. I regularly hear people talking about conspiracy theories as if they were fact, and I suppose that they actually ...
  2. Sustainability

    by , 06-03-2014 at 02:29 PM (Memories of the 28th Century)
    I had been wondering exactly people were meaning by “sustainability”, so I looked around the internet, and I still don’t know, but I get a general impression that some people think that the world should be preserved as the exact thing that they love. It appears that they think that if they can get everyone to act the way they want, then the world will be nicer.

    The EPA has this on its website, and it is a set of pleasant pap. Yes, in an ideal world things would be nice.
    ...
  3. The Art Of Murder

    by , 05-29-2014 at 02:33 PM (Memories of the 28th Century)
    There was a thread on another forum that I follow about killing a character in a book and getting away with it. The character in question was a musician in popular music, so my first thought was a drug overdose. Then I realized that there are many ways to do that same thing. Some of the methods are as relatively easy, while some are difficult and even messier.

    We all know the old standards, loose stones on the castle walls, leaky flues, and such. But some of the most interesting ...
  4. Art and Arts

    by , 05-22-2014 at 04:24 PM (Memories of the 28th Century)
    It has come to our attention that most people do not know what art is. In its broadest sense art is anything that is not natural, but many people seem to think that only the fine arts are art; all else is something else. That use of the word “art” is less than two and a half centuries old. Just reading the etymology tells most of the story.


    From Online Etymological Dictionary
    art (n.)
    early 13c., "skill as a result of learning or practice," from ...
  5. Rates of aging

    by , 05-20-2014 at 04:38 PM (Memories of the 28th Century)
    Aging is a more interesting subject than critical judgment, so I'll forget the other one for now. Have you noticed that some people look old before they hit forty, while others look youthful into their seventies? Even more interesting, some parts of bodies age faster than others. We all know about telomers, but this link tells of methylation of genes, as part of the aging process in addition to stopping the activity of genes, and it also tells of differential aging rates. http://io9.com/scientists-discover-p...ffn-1449085569 ...