I have never been a fan of the emoticon, in fact i quite loathed it. But I realised today that i’m cured. Halleluja.
According to wikipedia, the emoticon goes back to 1857. The entry also includes this:
In an 1969-04-16 New York Times interview, Alden Whitman asked writer Vladimir Nabokov: “How do you rank yourself among writers (living) and of the immediate past?” Nabokov answered, “I often think there should exist a special typographical sign for a smile — some sort of concave mark, a supine round bracket, which I would now like to trace in reply to your question.”
ha. we’ve come a long way from this (initial smiley proposal 1982):
I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:
:-)
Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark
things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use
the same over-enthusiastic claptrap that will have us careening up a technological spike toward singularity on the wings of AI angels (or devils, depending on your viewpoint)
i’m not at all unsympathetic to that point of view. however, looking at the evidence, i’m not sure that it’s right. i’m the first person to stand up and decry anybody saying that there’s anything different now than there was then. i’ve been a big fan of millenarialism, since i first learnt what it was. back on the cusp of the 17/18th century the world was all going to change, same 18/19th etc. reading the original sources you realise that actually not a lot has really changed, people for sure haven’t. but significant change there has been. in 1800 life expectancy was 37 years. now its 78. that’s pretty big. it’s possible that the sub-optimal structure of the body can be augmented with current/soon-to-be technology, such that another doubling could take place in the next x years. but in the next x years other technologies become available. whether aubrey de grey has his timing correct, i don’t know, but in principle i think he’s spot on.
Aubrey de Grey believes that one day soon humans could live forever. It goes something like this:
* We systematically prepare damage to the body at a cellular level.
* Significant advances in our ability to do this occur every 20-30 years.
* Like spinning a frisbee, we carry on living indefinitely.
de Grey believes that within a short time we can reach an escape velocity, where someone treated could actually live past a 1000 years, and that person is probably only 10 years younger than the first guy to reach 150 years.
There’s a 15 minute TED talk online, which I found today via boingboing.
well it’s looking pretty good for the Ds. No doubt accurate counting would reveal a landslide. As to what difference this victory makes, here’s a sobering factet:
in a Republican congress, Bill Clinton’s christmas card list was debated for 140 hours (i kid you not).
in a Republican congress, the Abu Ghraib scandel was debated for 12 hours.
You have to vote for us because our opponents are no good.
And because they’ll tax you into the poor house.
And on the way to the poor house you’ll meet a terrorist on every street corner.
And when you try to run away from the terrorist you’ll trip over an illegal immigrant.
but it’s not the message alone. reports of “irregularities” abound. Greg Palast has a piece written for the Guardian explaining the Democrat loss before the polls even close.
here’s a nice summary of the underhand today. No reports of state troopers standing outside of polling stations to scare off voters yet.
