The stars are far (srsly), chat-room bot fools randy men, the flaw in most Fermi Paradox solutions, a gene for learning from mistakes …

• 1 – Of Impatience and Stellar Distance

  “… many people assume that if we can get to the outer planets, the nearest stars can’t be that far behind. If only it were so.” Sad but true. But we can still dream big.

  (tags: METI distance travel interstellar exploration space)

• 2 – How collective idiocy left the record companies in bits

  “When the history of our digital times comes to be written, one of the questions that will puzzle historians is why the record companies missed the significance of the internet.” Even the Guardian is running an obit.

  (tags: technology digital p2p internet model business industry music)

• 3 – Slutbot aces Turing Test*

  “Could it be that the Turing Test has finally been beaten – by a sex machine, no less – and that a true artificial intelligence is on the loose?” Well, what do you know.

  (tags: AI intelligence artificial phishing Test Turing psychology sex malware porn bot chat)

• 4 – The problem with 99.9 % of so-called ’solutions’ to the Fermi Paradox

  “While some solutions to the FP may account for many if not most of the reasons why we haven’t detected signs of ETI’s, they cannot account for all.” Intriguing.

  (tags: transhumanism civilisation intelligence extraterrestrial SETI FermiParadox)

• 5 – The gene that makes us once bitten, twice shy

  “Drug addicts, alcoholics and compulsive gamblers are known to be more likely than other people to have this genetic mutation, which leaves them with fewer receptors of a certain type in the brain.”

  (tags: mutation biology psychology neuroscience genetics dopamine addiction behaviour)