tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58197212011-04-21T22:34:17.392-04:00Mean Time Between Failure: Melissa Officinalis waits for the other shoe to drop.Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.comBlogger511100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1096170074966808802004-09-25T23:23:00.000-04:002004-09-25T23:41:14.966-04:00

Did anyone else catch the unsettling testimony of Dr. Henry? I was using C-SPAN for background music on my way out of the house today and I suddently found myself hosting the house party for the voice of the original national security DJ, Dr. Henry Kissinger. An unmistakable voice it is too. If you weren't paying attention, like I wasn't, you need to know that on Tuesday Kissinger testified

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1095062725791044772004-09-13T03:49:00.000-04:002004-09-13T04:05:25.790-04:00

Via the Agonist, an article about the sexual assault of men in the military, and official reaction to it. Even accounting for the fact that the military is disproportionately male, I have to say that I was surprised to learn that there are more reports of sexual assault by men in the military than by women. I'm sure underreporting is rampant for both sexes, but I'm pretty sure that the numbers

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1089843327761249382004-07-14T17:47:00.000-04:002004-07-14T19:37:48.960-04:00

That's going to be my new catchphrase. 100%. Um, that's not what "crime of violence, not crime of sex," is supposed to mean. Or at least, that's never been I thought it was supposed mean. Maybe I missed the rap at the Women's Center that day. Of course some sex crimes are sexually motivated. Indeed, sometimes people actually get off sexually on committing violent crime. And sometimes sex

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1089785664708189862004-07-14T02:11:00.000-04:002004-07-14T02:14:34.956-04:00

I've changed the comments to Blogger comments. I hope this works. I feel a little silly about it, since I've had exactly one commenter so far.

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1089613090763112532004-07-12T02:07:00.000-04:002004-07-12T02:18:10.763-04:00

You know, the combination of the Patricia Williams article yesterday and the Sissela Bok book today has lead to begin reforming my view on the right to own property. It is obvious that you have to feel that you have some ownership of something. It also seems pretty clear to me that if something you feel you own is taken from you without your consent, you feel violated, even if restitution is

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1089417398321918912004-07-09T19:51:00.000-04:002004-07-09T19:56:38.320-04:00

Still haven't read the Bok books. Bok. Book. But I think you need to read this Patricia Williams article from The Nation, "Unnatural Acts," all about the disturbing prospects intellectual property law has for potential corporate ownership of the environment. My worry is that this will eventually extend even unto our own bodies. It's arguable that Monsanto never should have been granted such a

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1089020904308166972004-07-05T05:39:00.000-04:002004-07-05T05:48:24.306-04:00

On Bill Moyers's NOW I happened to catch philosopher Sissela Bok discussing the nature of happiness, apparently the subject of her next book. Her previous books' topics included the ethics of keeping secrets, lying, violence as entertainment, and "common values," all of which are subjects that interest me greatly. I may just have to go read all her books now. And if that works out, maybe camp out

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1088376835846782662004-06-27T18:45:00.000-04:002004-06-27T19:11:03.263-04:00

The evening news keeps referring to the escalating violence of "the insurgency" in Iraq. The insurgency? Which one? Shiites? Sunnis? Baathists? Foreigners? Iranian agents? Al-Qaeda, Zarqawi, Muqtada? How can you try to quell violence when you don't know who's responsible or what their goals are? Stopping a bunch of radical vigilantes takes a different strategy than trying to stop a militia made

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1088118031868199532004-06-24T18:55:00.000-04:002004-06-24T19:00:31.866-04:00

Quiddity is a genius.

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1088060454486432432004-06-24T02:02:00.000-04:002004-07-07T14:37:32.220-04:00

Joan Houlihan is going to make me nuts. Her last column before the current one, "Post-Post Dementia," actually kept me up nights, in anguish at the simple wrongness of her presented arguments. Wrong on so many levels! I'm not sure I believe those who say that good criticism is all that can save poetry from obscurity and mediocrity, but I know for sure that bad criticism does poetry no favors.

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1087686534455790012004-06-19T17:40:00.000-04:002004-06-19T19:09:08.930-04:00

I wish I could update more often, but I can't seem to manage it. Life just gets in the way of these things. There was a profile of Dennis Kucinich in the Boston Phoenix the other day that got me thinking. Who is Kucinich? You can't really take him seriously as a viable presidential candidate. He will probably never be elected to state-wide office in Ohio. He comes across as kind of kooky, he's

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1085809673625657662004-05-29T01:04:00.000-04:002004-05-29T04:49:22.333-04:00

Oh, another "I should have been an evolutionary microbiologist" post: Over at New Scientist there's an article about the genetic differences between humans and chimps. They talk a bit about how a superficially small percentage of differences among base pairs (around 1.5%) can lead to modifications in a large number of genes (~80%) since genes are far fewer in number because they typically

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1085806961410715252004-05-29T00:53:00.000-04:002004-05-29T01:02:41.410-04:00

Note to self: using big words does not constitute marshalling important ideas. Words like, "constitute" and "marshalling." Levy takes AI to task for a further hypocrisy over at Volokh. The fact of hypocrisy doesn't change his or my very argument in the abstract very much. People too often use human rights statistics as a cudgel to advance their own agendas and discredit others. I think AI

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1085717354936446622004-05-27T19:56:00.000-04:002004-05-28T03:34:07.370-04:00

At the Volokh Conspiracy, Jacob Levy critiques Amnesty International for collating and enumerating human rights violations without reference to the particular political system in which the violations occur. I can see where he's coming from: some systems enshrine principles of human rights, and therefore help to propagate certain cultural values of human rights, and so forth. Failure to

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1085025506636919022004-05-19T23:33:00.000-04:002004-05-19T23:58:26.636-04:00

Revisiting Terry Gilliam's film Brazil reminds me of something. When it comes time to debate the question of increased powers of government, people like Theodore Olson assure us that our leaders are benevolent, and even if unpleasantness should happen, those in charge would never be seeking to expand their own power for its own sake, but only to serve security and domestic tranquility. When the

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1084949565469212022004-05-19T02:48:00.000-04:002004-05-19T02:52:45.470-04:00

Us homos now have homo marriage in Mass. Hooray for homos! I guess bis also have homo marrige. On the same shelf as homo milk. I decided today that when the oil in the world runs out, it will run out catastrophically. Everything in the world requires oil to live. Food, electricity, plastic, transportation all require oil. When we run out, "Is this nuclear plant big enough?" will be the least of

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1084422583213388392004-05-13T00:15:00.000-04:002004-05-13T00:29:43.213-04:00

Ever just feel like the world is going to hell in a handbasket? Yesterday I spent some time looking at Canadian immigration requirements. It was kind of hard for me to believe. I seem to meet the basic requirements, even without knowing any French, so I guess I'll start getting the paperwork ready. I also looked into Australia, which is a bit harder to immigrate to. I guess England or Ireland is

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1084133042216119682004-05-08T22:07:00.000-04:002004-05-09T16:07:35.280-04:00

Here is an article that puts forward the argument that the biodiversity catastrophe that everyone has been worried about has, in fact, already happened, and that more than half of the world's species are doomed either to extinction or to a shadowy existence in tiny, ecologically irrelevant, artificial niches; that at this point there really is no such thing as the pristine, untouched wild

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1081336489368530712004-04-07T07:13:00.000-04:002004-04-07T07:17:33.310-04:00

The height of absurdity: The Surgeon General has declared that importing lower cost drugs could be dangerous because of the danger of counterfeiting and the lack of quality controls. You know, we could always just do what the Canadians are doing ourselves and negotiate the prices down.

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1081122077282830982004-04-04T19:17:00.000-04:002004-04-04T19:43:58.326-04:00

Here's my brief take on the DailyKos "screw them" mercenary controversy. I don't know where else to say this, so I'll say it here! Isn't that what a blog is for? If Kos wants a way out, he just has to say that his association with mercenaries is as death squads, which everyone who paid attention to Central America in the 80s can understand. He can then say that it has since been pointed out to

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1080901945711595742004-04-02T04:59:00.000-05:002004-04-02T05:35:04.403-05:00

I don't know about you, but I had big hopes for the Internet. You remember how it was, the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it? A grand force for free speech and ultimately, political organization? The anti-war protests and the Dean phenomenon were supposed proofs-of-concept. Now we get this from The New Republic, and I guess it should have been obvious from the

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1080765523224176942004-03-31T15:33:00.000-05:002004-03-31T15:57:23.123-05:00

Here's a comment I posted over at TalkLeft on the report of the Justice Department seeking to defend the right of a Muslim girl to wear a headscarf despite a district ban on head coverings. Anyway, it seems to me that the key here is that the school's policy is overly broad in pursuing its stated public interest; namely, the suppression of gangs. The Supreme Court has already held that if there

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1080535169390098752004-03-28T23:27:00.000-05:002004-03-31T15:34:59.140-05:00

I want you to read this. It is a post from David Neiwert's blog referring to brutal hate crime committed against a gay man for expressing controversial political views. Hate crimes happen against gay people all the time. All the time. They range from harassment and slurs all the way to murder, and they are almost never reported. I am sickened but not surprised by the skepticism you will see in

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1079686288481847432004-03-19T03:46:00.000-05:002004-03-19T03:57:44.950-05:00

On the same-sex marriage question, Matthew Yglesias suggests that the conservatives who call it a first step down a slippery slope have a point. They do kind of have a point. But the truth is that it's only a slippery slope if we the people want it to be a slippery slope. Cutlural stigma alone prevents same-sex marriages today. Cultural stigma alone allowed segregation for the hundred years

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1079592686013808532004-03-18T01:43:00.000-05:002004-03-18T01:53:49.200-05:00

I'm going to try to wean myself from commenting in comment boards and redirect that energy towards my own postings. In the meantime, there will be a transition period characterized by my posting cannibalized comment postings as blog postings. So here is the first: Atrios notes some funny goings on at the Office of Special Counsel that seems to rescind the protections from discrimination on the

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1079326176377451482004-03-14T23:44:00.000-05:002004-03-14T23:51:56.686-05:00

Congratulations to the PSOE in their electoral victory in Spain! I know lots of people want to view this in terms of the recent attacks in Madrid and the war on terror and Áznar's alliance with Bush, but for now I just want bask in the victory of a leftist party over a rightist one. Especially given my previous post on the subject. I see that Billmon has a post on the same subject.

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1078265596826508882004-03-02T17:10:00.000-05:002004-03-02T17:15:25.216-05:00

All this Haiti business has given me a disturbing thought--if the United States goes around arming this or that insurgent group (and I'm not certain that that's what happened in Haiti) then doesn't that create a market incentive, if you will, to overthrow governments? From which democracies would not be immune?

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1075577611781777282004-01-31T14:26:00.000-05:002004-02-02T03:28:14.606-05:00

Sonya Thomas strikes again! This time winning a chicken-wing-eating contest in Philadelphia. Here a Philly TV station has more.

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1075453059395762502004-01-30T02:58:00.000-05:002004-01-30T04:48:03.170-05:00

I haven't been able to write much lately, but here's a bit of thought for you. In the Boston Review, Gary Marcus, a professor of psychology at NYU, has an article about new views of the genetic encoding of the brain. The article is aimed at a lay audience, so if you have any background in the topic at all, you'll have to slog through quite a bit of an introduction to basic genetics and how genes

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1073368920081242082004-01-06T00:59:00.000-05:002004-01-06T01:03:12.013-05:00

So Matthew Yglesias has a post on Communism where a commenter who goes by "godless capitalist" has linked to another post that comments on an article by Irving Kristol in the Weekly Standard. S/he's absolutely right about the creepiness of it all. The Kristol article sets off every alarm I've carefully constructed in myself to detect to totalitarianism or fascism. Power is good, people need

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1073275409184331532004-01-04T22:45:00.000-05:002004-01-04T23:04:40.013-05:00

I don't think straight people who don't hate gay people understand just how much straight people who hate gay people hate gay people. The New York Times Magazine has an article about an Episcopal bishop in Virginia who voted in favor of the confirmation of Gene Robinson on the grounds of diocesan autonomy, and the vitriol he has thence had to endure from his parishes. The argument is made that

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1073274161916577792004-01-04T22:31:00.000-05:002004-01-04T22:43:52.170-05:00

I predict civil war for Iraq. If there's no local security, then thugs run rampant. If thugs run rampant, the populace gets desperate. If the populace gets desperate, they are vulnerable to demogogues (maybe even the very thugs causing the problems in the first place!). Then the question of security becomes one of "us" versus "them," and it doesn't matter what lines the distinction is drawn on,

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1072686330280949772003-12-29T03:19:00.000-05:002003-12-29T03:26:34.076-05:00

A quick thought: There seems to be some talk about partitioning Iraq. An idea that maybe getting the several subgroups of the Iraqi population out of each other's way is a viable solution. Okay, even if you could get players like Turkey to agree to this plan, and even if you had the assurance that most Iraqis really would put down the idea of Iraqi nationalism and take up this new plan--even if

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-107250780000103332003-12-27T01:43:00.000-05:002003-12-27T01:51:26.810-05:00

Also, a rueful thought yesterday: the high-water mark of so-called moral clarity in the twentieth century was the defeat of a racist, totalitarian, imperialist state by an alliance of a totalitarian state, a racist state, and an imperialist state. Maybe that's why us Americans are so confused today. At this late hour, I'm sure of it.

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1072506970647260132003-12-27T01:11:00.000-05:002004-01-04T23:10:11.310-05:00

It's been two months since the last entry. It's amazing how quickly time can pass when you're trying to stop it slipping away. Remember the strategy of Lieutenant Dunbar in Catch-22, to try to be as bored as possible to make your life seem longer? He was, of course, risking his life every day in bombing runs over Italy. I'm having trouble waiting for the other shoe to drop. Ever since September

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1066499223216079122003-10-18T12:50:00.000-04:002003-10-23T23:37:08.970-04:00

I want to get thing one thing straight before I start this post: I am not a marxist. If religion is the opiate of the people, then marxism is the methadone of the people--what you take when you know something is bad for you but you can't quite kick the habit, or I should say, the festering need. The things that make religion dangerous--the idealism, the moral rigidity, the factionalism, the

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1065851958143174542003-10-11T01:56:00.000-04:002003-10-11T01:59:17.493-04:00

Also, in the New York Times Magazine, there's an article about the health problems faced by the urban poor. When I saw the headline and teaser, I thought, "Yeah, of course the poor have worse health. They have less access to health care and prenatal care and things like that." No. Read the article. If being poor in America means you're having heart attacks and kidney failure from the stress...

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1065851450827023572003-10-11T01:43:00.000-04:002003-10-11T01:50:50.296-04:00

More Sonya Thomas news: apparently on September 15th she broke a record by eating 68 hard-boiled eggs in six minutes. This article says 65, but you can find other articles that say 68. Oddly, the IFOCE has yet to update their website, even though the record was broken over a month ago. But 68 in six minutes? That's one in less than six seconds! I guess they're kind of slippery. I wouldn't

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1065850260105659262003-10-11T01:14:00.000-04:002003-10-11T01:32:05.936-04:00

You know, to really work, I think this has to be an every-day thing. The New York Times has a story about an attempt to prosecute Greenpeace for the actions of its members. I don't know what this. After all, what is a corporation, especially a non-profit corporation, but the aggregate actions of its members? Surely a corporation that conspires to commit a crime, even if it is an obscure, minor

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1065449825585724392003-10-06T10:13:00.000-04:002003-10-06T10:17:05.510-04:00

I don't know why, but the success of 5'6", 107-pound competitive eater Sonia Thomas, tickles me to death.

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1065321540052951712003-10-04T22:37:00.000-04:002003-10-04T22:38:59.636-04:00

What I want to know is--how do you get a tiger into your apartment without anyone noticing?

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1065249456135452612003-10-04T00:00:00.000-04:002003-10-04T02:37:35.760-04:00

So Arnold Schwarzenegger allegedly groped several women. Let's call it what it is: sexual assault. It's scary enough when it's some random guy. It can only be worse when it's a champion bodybuilder. And only worse than that when it's a champion body builder and movie star with the power, money, and influence to destory your life or career or both. But it looks like he's going to be given a pass.

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1064896030358332252003-09-30T00:12:00.000-04:002003-09-30T00:27:10.256-04:00

Another techie article from Salon. This time it's an exceedingly breathless article on the Unimaginable New Worlds! destined to arise from nanotechnology. I'm so sick of these naive scientist jerks. Or worse, the non-scientist followers who treat this stuff like religion and the answer to all their problems. Just think for a moment, guys: think. A society of highly advanced, nanotechnological,

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1064717865479835682003-09-27T18:51:00.000-04:002004-01-04T23:18:59.920-05:00

Truly I cannot believe this. Apparently in the '50s and '60s girls whose growth was projected to be above 5'10" (as if something like that could be predicted reliably) were given estrogen to stunt their growth. Apparently it also stunted their fertility (surprise). It also stunted their human rights. I'm completely speculating here, but if we went back in time and tried to dissuade these

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1064459894397718902003-09-24T23:18:00.000-04:002003-09-24T23:19:56.626-04:00

Here's why votes can never have an electronic form: they must be human-readable. If they are only machine-readable, then only the people who run the machines know what they are. Have you ever wondered why big state lotteries pick their numbers on live television with big ping-pong ball blowers? It's not because it makes good theater and they like to show a pretty Vanna clone. It's because with

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1064326841257713522003-09-23T10:04:00.000-04:002003-09-23T19:33:34.823-04:00

In case you were wondering whether to be worried about the Diebold electronic touch-screen voting systems. Farhad Manjoo and Bev Harris lay it all out for you in Salon. As someone who has worked in Internet security, I will just say that having the central vote counting computers on the Internet is beyond the pale. There is absolutely not reason why those boxes can't be behind a firewall, and

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1064230685444983312003-09-22T07:35:00.000-04:002003-09-22T07:38:05.010-04:00

This analysis at Wampum makes my whole day. MBW is my hero, parsing all those tables of data. I hope she keeps at it.

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1064080054094074572003-09-20T13:12:00.000-04:002003-09-20T13:47:44.853-04:00

I wanted to elaborate a little bit on some ideas from the Salon article from the other day, the one about service jobs being replaced by mechanization. Some arguments have been made that all this means is that workers will stop being robots themselves and start being robot technicians or something. That is, generally speaking, new opportunities will open up where old ones have disappeared. Yes,

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1063884993314948942003-09-18T07:33:00.000-04:002003-09-18T07:36:32.950-04:00

Hontar: We must work in the world, your eminence. The world is thus. Altamirano: No, Señor Hontar. Thus have we made the world.

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1063881932591858542003-09-18T06:14:00.000-04:002003-09-18T06:45:41.240-04:00

You know what I think? Salon has an article today about the possibility that most unskilled service jobs will become obsolete, the workers replaced by always improving robots. There was a discussion in Slashdot a while back about this very topic as well. Robert Reich has a few quotes about how this means short-term pain for the suddenly unemployed workers, it opens up the possibility that all

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819721.post-1063710118026743082003-09-16T07:01:00.000-04:002003-09-16T07:01:58.203-04:00

Is this thing on?

Melissa Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08278560094601651105noreply@blogger.com0