Some of you may already follow Ryan North’s Dinosaur Comics; those who don’t should give it a go for a few weeks. The po-mo mock philosophy isn’t to everyone’s taste, but it usually gets at least one genuine LOL a week out of me.
The latest iteration made me grin, because it seemed so apposite to yesterday’s post about the Stross/Anissimov disagreement. So click through and see the whole thing. Philosophy and dinosaurs – what more could you ask for on a Friday?
Via BoingBoing, here’s a Guardian article on the MMORPG gold-farming phenomenon:
These virtual industries sound surreal, but they are fast entering the mainstream. According to a report by Richard Heeks at Manchester University, an estimated 400,000 Asian workers are now employed in gold farming in a trade worth up to £700m a year. With so many gamers now online, these industries are estimated to have a consumer base of five million to 10 million, and numbers are expected to grow with widening internet access.
As I mentioned last time, what interests me most about gold-farming is that it seems to be comparatively immune to the economic slump. WoW gold or weapons are surely luxury items by any economical definition, but for some reason they’re not going the same way as bling and gas-guzzler cars. Is this due to the low ticket price, combined with the fact that gaming is a comparatively recession-friendly pastime? Is it also a recognition that the one thing we value more than our money is the time to achieve what we want (virtual or otherwise)? [image by fernashes]
Looking forward, though, how soon before the market saturates? The collapse of Chinese manufacturing has resulted in an expanded pool of labour, but that just means more competition for the work. If, as some economists have suggested, the recession is a prelude to greater financial parity on a global scale, will gold-farming or its equivalents become an increasingly attractive employment option in the West as the traditional options for blue-collar work erode?
Like something out of an early Neal Stephenson novel: DARPA have agreed to fund a coin-sized one-bladed nanocopter[1], from the Defense Sciences Office design brief:
The Nano Air Vehicle (NAV) Program will develop and demonstrate an extremely small (less than 7.5 cm), ultra-lightweight (less than 10 grams) air vehicle system with the potential to perform indoor and outdoor military missions.
The program will explore novel, bio-inspired, conventional and unconventional configurations to provide the warfighter with unprecedented capability for urban mission operations.
The nanocopter, called the Katana and designed by Lockheed Martin, is in addition to DARPA’s other micro-ornithopter robot concept (pictured here). Read here for more in depth background to the Katana’s progenitor, the Samurai.
[1] Although there doesn’t seem to be anything especially “nano” about it apart from being, y’know, really small.
In science fiction, there has long been an assumption (not present in all stories, but certainly present in many) that in the future religion will have been consigned to the dustbin of history; that it simply cannot continue to withstand the onslaught of scientific evidence against the existence of a deity.
Demographically, however, it is the believers who have the edge, at least in the U.S. Drawing on data from the General Social Survey, “widely regarded as the single best source of data on societal trends,” blogger The Audacious Epigone notes that believers out-breed non-believers (Via FuturePundit):
From GSS data, I looked at the reported ideal family size* and the actual number of children had, by theistic confidence, among those who had essentially completed their total fertility (age 40-100):
Theistic confidence Desired Actual Don’t believe 2.26 2.23 No way to find out 2.25 1.95 Some higher power 2.18 1.98 Believe sometimes 2.37 2.34 Believe with doubts 2.34 2.31 Know God exists 2.58 2.64
He also finds among younger people, between the ages of 18-30, the number of children desired is also higher among those who “Know God exists” than any of the other categories, and says:
It is not that secular people cannot keep up with religious folks. They simply do not want to. In the numbers game, though, the results are what matter. The question regarding Steve Sailer’s suggestion that the future may belong to groups who are able to procreate the most is whether or not secularizing social trends are able to overcompensate for greater fertility among the religious.
Does the future, then, belong to believers, or will secular society suck the religion out of their children’s souls before they themselves grow old enough to breed? And how would/should this demographic data impact the fictional futures of SF writers?
(Image: Goddess of Fertility, Museum of Anatolian Civilisations, Ankara, Turkey, via Wikimedia Commons.)
[tags]religion,atheism,demographics,population[/tags]
Like restaurants and hair stylists, doctors now have to face the public, in the form of reviews posted on the Internet. Some are trying to get patients to sign promises not to post negative comments — or any comments at all. It’s even spawned at least one new business: Medical Justice, in Greensboro, North Carolina, sells a standard waiver agreement.
Patients who sign agree not to post online comments about the doctor, “his expertise and/or treatment.”
It seems like swimming upstream in the Internet age, but let’s do some point/counterpoint:
Some sites “are little more than tabloid journalism without much interest in constructively improving practices,” and their sniping comments can unfairly ruin a doctor’s reputation, [Medical Justice founder Dr. Jeffrey] Segal said….
John Swapceinski, co-founder of RateMDs.com, said that in recent months, six doctors have asked him to remove negative online comments based on patients’ signed waivers. He has refused. “They’re basically forcing the patients to choose between health care and their First Amendment rights, and I really find that repulsive.”…
“Are there bad doctors out there? Absolutely, but this is not a good way to figure it out,” [Chicago gynecologist Lauren] Streicher said.
Ars techica comments:
Review sites will only continue to increase in popularity—though potential customers should always take what they read online with a grain of salt. Instead of fighting the trend, doctors need to embrace the new reality and maybe even use the reviews as an opportunity to improve themselves.
[Image: Scrubs, by ndanger]
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