confusion“[A]fter the airline sent a text message to relatives saying it “deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those onboard survived.”
From ‘All lives are lost’ [cnn.com]
By Michael Pearson and Jethro Mullen on CNN.com
What the fuck? A text message? An SMS? Wouldn’t want to be the person who decide that was the best way to inform people their friends and family on MH370 are dead. Worse than firing people by SMS.
[M]odernity (especially liberal modernity) makes things difficult (perhaps uniquely difficult) for people of faith. It fosters a pluralism that denies any one religion the power to organize the whole of social life. It teaches that public authorities must submit to the consent of those over whom they aspire to rule, thereby undermining the legitimacy of all forms of absolutism. It employs the systematic skepticism of the scientific method to settle important questions of public policy. It encourages the growth of the capitalist marketplace, which unleashes human appetites and gives individuals the freedom to choose among an ever-expanding range of ways to satisfy them.
Damon Linker, in Is secularism inevitable? [theweek.com] from The Week
Of course there are several major differences between human and bee consensus, not the least of which is that we are not part of a hive mind, despite how much the internet often feels like one. Also, we don’t usually make decisions based on trees and flowers, though maybe we should.
Annalee Newitz, in This video of a honeybee swarm reveals why humans can’t form consensus [io9.com]
I spent a weekend in Sydney between work meetings. It rained much of the weekend but I got a few hours on Saturday afternoon to go and see the city. On the upside the rain left a bit of a rainbow and I was able to get a few shots of it from Harbor Bridge. The weather also made for some very dramatic clouds at sunset and a wonderful reflection of this buildings windows:
You can see the rest of the Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, June 2013 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].
Ahem. <cough> A haiku:
I forgot my phone
In the living room at home
I feel so alone
Being separated from the instantaneous global communications and the soft LED glow of mindless entertainment is all well and good, even desirable, when I’m on vacation but annoying when I’m at work.