JC

Fermi expressing his surprise over the absence of any signs for the existence of other intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way. Because a simple estimate showed that an advanced civilization could have reached every corner of the galaxy within a time much shorter than the galaxy’s age, the question arose: Why don’t we see them?

In the early 2010s, a new phenomenon emerged called an “Instagram wall”. In part, it was an outgrowth of the street-art movement of the 00s, a gentrification of graffiti that saw clean, officially sanctioned murals take over city walls, particularly in neighbourhoods where decrepit warehouses were plentiful. Street art became an attraction in and... See more

Companies don’t have communication problems, they have miscommunication problems. The smaller the company, group, or team, the fewer opportunities for miscommunication. As Osmo Wiio said, “If communication can fail, it will. If a message can be understood in different ways, it will be understood in just that way which does the most harm.”

If alien intelligence has evolved similarly, we’d be most unlikely to catch it in the brief sliver of time when it was still embodied in the organic form. Particularly, were we to detect ET, it would be far more likely to be electronic, where the dominant creatures aren’t flesh and blood—and maybe aren’t even located on planets, but on stations in... See more

for nearly fourteen years afterwards, I stared at a smartphone every single day. Five thousand days, all in all. I can’t think of anything else I’ve done with the same level of commitment. There have been days where I’ve had nothing to eat or drink and there have been nights when I didn’t sleep. But until very recently, I never once went... See more

So, despite Sullivan’s claims to the contrary, the Internet has sucked for me in the last 10 years. Not only because I was forced to create content in a way that pleases their many rules, but because I have to compete with SEO-optimized garbage fuelled by people with deep pockets and desires for deep pockets.

However, this year, I regained more joy... See more