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Dr. Samuel Says
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Weirdness
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Tuesday, 22 April 2008 |
Turns out they don't let physics majors into surgery class. I found this out the hard way in my undergraduates days. And they really don't appreciate forging an ID to get into the class anyway, then spending half a semester practicing neurosurgery on cadavers. I don't know everyone was so uptight; I knew what I was doing. In fact, I was on the cusp of a major breakthrough regarding the reanimation of dead tissue, but then the CIA recruited me to work out of the Berlin office.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 22 April 2008 )
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Arts & Science
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Friday, 18 April 2008 |
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It's becoming clear that, in the unknowable Darwinian system that determines the survival of social networking sites, Facebook is now the planet's dominant species. Friendster pioneered the genre, MySpace and LinkedIn are certainly competitive predators, but Facebook currently reigns supreme in terms of pure pop culture ubiquity. I could go on, but my metaphors are already dangerously mixed.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 18 April 2008 )
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Bidness
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Tuesday, 15 April 2008 |
It has long been fashionable to complain about Microsoft, particularly their tendency to impose the lumbering behemoth that is the Windows OS upon the public. But even relative to the usual background noise of anti-Microsoft sentiment, Redmond's latest OS iteration, the universally loathed Vista, has generated a remarkable amount of ire among consumers. In an informal poll here at Dyscern World HQ, exactly zero percent preferred Vista to the previous version, Windows XP.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 15 April 2008 )
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Arts & Science
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Thursday, 20 March 2008 |
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Just spent an exhausting weekend at the extremely annual South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival in Austin, TX. You might wonder what a man of my credentials is doing at a beer-soaked indie rock celebration. Well, bear in mind that some of the festival's main sponsors are Microsoft, Dell and DirecTV. Corporate America likes nothing better than to co-opt youth culture, and they often need a man like me "in the field" to infiltrate the hipster masses.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 20 March 2008 )
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Arts & Science
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Thursday, 20 March 2008 |
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People complain about waiting in airports, but I kind of like it. It's great for people-watching, if nothing else. I enjoy watching the typical airport scenes: Joyful reunions as family members return from long absences. Comedic exchanges of machismo as businessmen try to impress one another while waiting in the Starbucks line. Live action espionage as Eastern European intelligence agents hand off valuable documents to their handlers. (You need a trained eye to spot those.)
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 09 April 2008 )
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Bidness
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Thursday, 20 March 2008 |
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People complain about waiting in airports, but I kind of like it. It's great for people-watching, if nothing else. I enjoy watching the typical airport scenes: Joyful reunions as family members return from long absences. Comedic exchanges of machismo as businessmen try to impress one another while waiting in the Starbucks line. Live action espionage as Eastern European intelligence agents hand off valuable documents to their handlers. (You need a trained eye to spot those.)
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 09 April 2008 )
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Weirdness
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Tuesday, 11 March 2008 |
Fans of the movie Blade Runner, widely acknowledged here in the Dyscern World HQ Labs as being the Best Movie Ever Made, may remember the Voight-Kampff machine. This was a device invented by author Philip K. Dick in his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? It is a polygraph-like device used to detect emotional states -- specifically, empathy -- by registering bodily changes such as respiration, eye movement, and blush response. The Voight-Kampff machine was used to identify replicants, or androids, who supposedly had no capacity for human empathy.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 17 March 2008 )
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Bidness
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Tuesday, 11 March 2008 |
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If you can believe it, it's been 10 years since the first commercial MP3 player hit the market. I can't decide whether this makes me feel older or younger. On the one hand, I've been around for enough iterations of the MP3 player to feel like I've been covering this segment of the market for most of my adult life. On the other hand, it seems like just yesterday I was rocking Rush's Caress of Steel on the 8-track player in my 1976 Camaro.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 11 March 2008 )
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New Toys
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Monday, 10 March 2008 |
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We start this week with a follow-up to last week's post on digital TV. Having since finished my research and made a purchase, I thought it would be nice to provide some resolution (sorry…) to the issue. Or at least a clearer picture on the state of consumer HDTV. (It's not my fault. These terrible word choices just keep happening….)
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Last Updated ( Monday, 10 March 2008 )
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New Toys
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Wednesday, 05 March 2008 |
Here at Dyscern World HQ Labs, we pride ourselves on having the best equipment that money -- and several well-placed connections at NASA, JPL, and the CIA -- can buy. We just got a new particle accelerator in the other day -- she's a real beaut. The Atom Smasher 3000. Works wonders with leptons and quarks, and it even has a cup holder!
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 05 March 2008 )
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Smart Design
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Monday, 03 March 2008 |
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The History Channel recently sponsored a design competition for
architects and engineers in Atlanta, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
Competing teams were asked to envision a model for their city as it
might exist 100 years from now. The catch? Designers had one week to
plan, three hours to construct their models, and 15 minutes to make
their case to a panel of judges. So, you know… no pressure.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 03 March 2008 )
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Weirdness
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Friday, 29 February 2008 |
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I'm very attached to my USB flash drive. In terms of portable storage, it's the only way to go -- small, simple, durable, largely standardized across various platforms; what's not to like? Of course, security is always a concern. I used to keep my pet AI, "Ian," on my key ring flash drive. But then my nephew unknowingly plugged the drive into a public terminal at Kinko's, and Ian escaped to the Internets. Remember that Florida blackout earlier this week? That was Ian. He's kind of mischievous.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 29 February 2008 )
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Bidness
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Wednesday, 27 February 2008 |
The death knell continues to toll for CDs and the traditional retail music business this week. A new report making the rounds suggests that, at some point this year, Apple's iTunes service will surpass Wal-Mart to become the largest U.S. music seller. In other news, the sun is expected to rise in the east tomorrow.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 27 February 2008 )
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Smart Design
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Tuesday, 26 February 2008 |
Now, this is just plain evil. News of a crazy DIY alarm clock has been orbiting the blogosphere, and I thought for sure it was a hoax. Not so. The Turing Alarm Clock -- a prototype invention from math geek and enterprising young person Nick Johnson -- functions like a regular alarm clock, with one small but critical design adjustment. Once the alarm starts squealing, you can't turn it off unless you answer a series of fairly difficult arithmetic questions.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 26 February 2008 )
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Weirdness
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Thursday, 21 February 2008 |
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When it comes to comedy, I'm an old-school sort of fellow. I remember many a Saturday morning watching Abbot and Costello movies as a kid. Even then, my instincts ran to science and technology. Dissatisfied with my parents' cabinet-style cathode ray television, I did a little tinkering and accidentally invented digital HDTV several decades too soon. Unfortunately, I spilled chocolate milk all over my notes, got distracted with other things, and history had to wait.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 21 February 2008 )
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