Internal Monologue

PC World did an article about famous demo disasters which appears on washingtonpost.com. It's called "The Trade Show and Demo Hall of Shame". And guess who is the first inductee : Can a failed mind-control demo be embarrassing? After all, we're talking about some seriously complicated technology here. During this year's Game Developers' Conference, Emotiv Systemsdemonstrated its Emotiv EPOC neuroheadset, which reads brain impulses and translates what the wearer is thinking about into on-screen game movements. That's what the press release said, anyway. The demo started off smoothly enough, as the headset wearer made a giant animated head on the screen mimic his real-life facial expressions. But things went awry when the wearer was asked to make an on-screen object disappear, and again when the handlers from Emotiv tried to put EPOC through its paces in an actual game. The device didn't do much of anything. What's more, Emotiv's wireless game

What else could Harry Reid mean by a statement like this? Las Vegas Review-Journal via Marc Ambinder : Question: Do you still think the Democratic race can be resolved before the convention? Reid: Easy. Q: How is that? Reid: It will be done. Q: It just will? Reid: Yep. Q: Magically? Reid: No, it will be done. I had a conversation with Governor Dean (Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean) today. Things are being done. Italics mine.

Welcome to my thoughts on things, which are certainly more important than your thoughts on things. With those words I kicked off this blog 2 years ago today . More celebratory navel-gazing to come in the next few days.

An artist's concept of the rover on the Martian surface. Image from NASA/JPL . Due to budget cuts, one of NASA's Mars rovers might be shut down : Scientists plan to put one of the twin Mars rovers to sleep and limit the activities of the other robot to fulfill a NASA order to cut $4 million from the program's budget, mission team members said Monday. The news comes amid belt-tightening at NASA headquarters, which is under pressure to cover cost overruns of a flagship Mars mission to land a Hummer-sized rover on the Red Planet next year. The solar-powered rovers Spirit and Opportunity have dazzled scientists and the public with findings of geologic evidence that water once flowed at or near the surface of Mars long ago. Both rovers were originally planned for three-month missions at a cost of $820 million, but are now in their fourth year of exploration. It costs NASA about $20 million annually to keep the rovers running. This seems like a colossally stupid idea. The maj

Vaccines have been one of the great public health advances of modern history. But increasingly, some parents are opting out , either due to misplaced fears of autism or worries about the safety of the vaccines. I think this is very bad. I would not go so far as to call parents who do this " twee Bobo sociopaths " the way Megan McArdle does. But I think this is a case of parents not seeing the suffering that not vaccinating your children can cause. Here's a commenter to McArdles' post : I nearly died at 15 months from a case of the measles that I contracted from an unimmunized older child. My case was so severe that I ended up with corneal scarring, which is a complication usually seen in adults. I just think that in cases like this where the good health of the public is at stake, government intervention is needed. I do think vaccine companies should be scrutinized to make sure their immunizations are as safe as possible. And there are legitimate reasons not to have ce

Internal Monologue endurance test: How much of this pro-McCain YouTube can you watch before to turn it off and run away in horror: All I can say is, if that video is real, then McCain is done for. If it's a Democratic hit job, then McCain is still done for. Unless of course, McCain delivers a riveting 38-minute speech clarifying his stance re: this video that simultaneously breaks the nation's long silence regarding the issue of how some people have really bad taste. I can't find any information on whether this is real or not.

"He's a warrior who's dumb about war." Crooks and Liars has the video. McCain's recent statements claiming Shia Iran is supporting Sunni Al Qaeda in Iraq show what an idiot he is in the very areas in which he claims expertise. I wish the press would focus more on what a fantasyland he's living in. This guy is at least as deluded as Bush when it comes to the Middle East. That is so scary. We cannot wait until August to start showing the nation what a nut this guy is.