Elon Musk Is Wrong. We Aren’t Living in a Simulation

A simulated apple can’t feed anybody, and other reality checks by a philosopher and a cognitive scientist. Continue reading Elon Musk Is Wrong. We Aren’t Living in a Simulation

Continuing The Dialog: “It’s Time Software People and Mechanical People Had a Talk”

A while back I wrote a piece titled, “It’s Time the Software People and Mechanical People Sat Down and Had a Talk“. It was mostly a reaction to what I believe to be a growing problem in the hacker community. Bad mechanical designs get passed on by what is essentially digital word of mouth. A sort of mythology grows around these bad designs, and they start to separate from science. Rather than combat this, people tend to defend them much like one would defend a favorite band or a painting. This comes out of various ignorance, which were covered in …read more

Continue reading Continuing The Dialog: “It’s Time Software People and Mechanical People Had a Talk”

It’s Time the Software People and Mechanical People Sat Down and Had a Talk.

With the advances in rapid prototyping, there’s been a huge influx of people in the physical realm of hacking. While my overall view of this development is positive, I’ve noticed a schism forming in the community. I’m going to have to call a group out. I think it stems from a fundamental refusal of software folks to change their ways of thinking to some of the real aspects of working in the physical realm, so-to-speak. The problem, I think, comes down to three things: dismissal of cost, favoring modularity over understanding, and a resulting insistence that there’s nothing to learn. …read more

Continue reading It’s Time the Software People and Mechanical People Sat Down and Had a Talk.