On my morning drive into work, I heard a news report on autonomous and intelligent road vehicles, or self-driving automobiles. The story explained that as these vehicles are optimized for road safety, designers must determine programming imperatives such as whether a vehicle should prioritize the safety of the human “driver” or a pedestrian in a […]
continue reading“A confidential informant is not a spy…”
The title of this post is a quotation from US Senator Lindsey Graham, during a recent radio interview — find more details here, in a recent Washington Post report, along with a transcript of that portion of his interview. It concerns the President characterizing someone who is now much in the news as being a […]
continue readingThe Problem of First Person Authority
If you’ve paid attention to the news in the US over the past week or so, you’ll know that a bomber was loose in Austin, Texas, and that the suspect was cornered by authorities the other day and blew himself up.
continue reading“Yes, but…”
If you’re paying attention to US news then you may have been seeing the recent stories leading up to the Senate vote that failed to pass the necessary financial deals to finance the federal government — which resulted in the shutdown that we’re now in. While some parts of the federal government are still open, […]
continue readingResearch Suggestions, #48: To Cover or Not to Cover?
Have you been following the new U.S. President’s first overseas trip–including stops in Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Italy…? Many news sources have commented on the fact that (as evidenced in the above photo), while in Saudi Arabia, Melania Trump, the First Lady, and her step-daughter, Ivanka, did not cover their heads (as is customary for […]
continue reading“Are You in There, Satan?”
Ok, on the heels of a post, earlier today, about explaining the behavior of turkeys, I just came across this video and a friend’s fun comment about this possibly being evidence of the gates of hell. It’s in a cemetery, after all.
continue readingFor Members Only
I recall, in the Fall of 2015, a job ad appearing on our main professional online site for a pastor for a church. Then, not long after, I saw an ad there for someone to co-write a “15-20 page paper … on the theology and praxis of the engineering profession for it’s Christian members.” Both […]
continue readingMake It So
Did you catch Titus Hjelm‘s excellent post the other day? His argument concerned the manner in which otherwise routine claims or actions are represented by specific groups, for specific reasons, as controversial; the apparent controversy of some religions (notably, in his post, Islam — at least to a number of people in so-called Western countries) […]
continue readingOne Week of Research in an Archive: A Journal
Professors around the department often talk about their “research.” But what exactly is that? It’s something to do with books and articles, right? In hopes of showing how some of us work–or at least how I work–below is a day by day running journal of a five day research trip I took to the Bancroft Library […]
continue reading“All of the evil that he represents for me…”
Seeing cheering crowds in Miami, first thing this morning as I checked my phone for overnight news, celebrating Fidel Castro’s death, made me think a little about our disdain when there were rumors of people cheering after the twin towers collapsed (Trump routinely cited this early in his campaign); when is death — or better, […]
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