Dave Meier unpacks the implications of saying you believe in Bigfoot, God, Jesus Christ, the new Boston Red Sox manager, evolution, and/or that Dad is out in the garage.
Category: ideas
Can Humans Know What It’s Like To Be A Bat? No, But We Can Come Closer Than You’d Think
“This amazing skill – echolocation – is like a whole new sense, distinct from our experience of sight, hearing or touch. So what is it like?” Thanks to technological advances and some research out of Berkeley, we’re beginning to find out.
Big Data? Maybe It Should Be Long Data
“No matter how big that data is or what insights we glean from it, it is still just a snapshot: a moment in time. That’s why I think we need to stop getting stuck only on big data and start thinking about long data.”
10,000 Years Of Tippling: Why Humans Love Alcohol
“Our taste for alcohol results from an evolutionary tussle between humans and yeast – one in which the microbes have often had the upper hand.”
Quantum Physics Takes Over Even Our Sense Of Smell
“A controversial theory that the way we smell involves a quantum physics effect has received a boost, following experiments with human subjects. It challenges the notion that our sense of smell depends only on the shapes of molecules we sniff in the air.”
Are Wine Experts Charlatans, Even If They Don’t Know It? (Yes And No)
“With wine, however, blind taste tests by experts are supposed to eliminate those external cues. But it turns out the experts may be no more reliable than the rest of us.”
Warning: Computers Are About To Invade Our Brains
“The whole brain-implant artificial-intelligence thing that philosophers and science-fiction writers have been warning us about for decades – centuries even… is finally manifest. Not only that, it’s going to be next Christmas’s iPad – the gizmo that every self-respecting gizmo-consumer must have.”
Does It Matter That Beyoncé Lip-Synched?
Yes, a little, but what matters more is the lying and – like Lance Armstrong – the underlying contempt for the public.
Sounds We Can’t Hear Anymore, Except On Our Computers
“In a sense, each time you listen to a piece of music, a podcast, or whatever else, you are reviving a lost sound.”
Laid Off? Rent Out Your House – And Your Car, And Your Computer …
The rise of the “share economy,” epitomized by the rapid growth of Airbnb, will transform everything in our lives. (So say its proponents, anyway.)