In other genres, that desire is usually expressed by producing thinly veiled rewrites of the great work: Tolkien’s disciples far too often simply rewrite Tolkien, for example. In science fiction, however, the whole point is that the ideas are fresh and startling and intriguing; you imitate the great ones, not by rewriting their stories, but rather by creating stories that are just as startling and new.

-Orson Scott Card

Apparatus and methods are disclosed for simultaneously tracking multiple finger and palm contacts as hands approach, touch, and slide across a proximity-sensing, multi-touch surface. Identification and classification of intuitive hand configurations and motions enables unprecedented integration of typing, resting, pointing, scrolling, 3D manipulation, and handwriting into a versatile, ergonomic computer input device.

In 1907, Dr. Duncan MacDougall found a bunch of people who were about to die and weighed them as they expired. MacDougall claimed that at the point of death, the bodies became lighter. That lost weight, the doctor assumed, was the escaping soul. He even postulated that the souls of the sluggish in life are slow in death:

The subject was that of a man of larger physical build, with a pronounced sluggish temperament. When life ceased, as the body lay in bed upon the scales, for a full minute there appeared to be no change in weight. The physicians waiting in the room looked into each other’s faces silently, shaking their heads in the conviction that out test had failed.

Then suddenly the same thing happened that had occurred in the other cases. There was a sudden diminution in weight, which was soon found to be the same as that of the preceding experiments.

I believe that in this case, that of a phlegmatic man slow of thought and action, that the soul remained suspended in the body after death, during the minute that elapsed before it came to the consciousness of its freedom. There is no other way of accounting for it, and it is what might be expected to happen in a man of the subject’s temperament.

The weight lost of MacDougall’s first subject at death was 3/4 of an ounce…or about 21 grams.

via kottke.org

For parts of the movie, I thought I was watching Halo. (the props were reused).

Before I make another judgment though, I’m going to hold off comment and watch it again. On DVD.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

The write staff behind the Total Nerd supports SWTOR Junkies, a fan site.

Here is an image of the tweets supporting her cause. Could William Shatner be the next Chuck Norris?

Are these events indicative of something more, I wonder? Has mankind lost the edge for exploration? Who’s to blame?

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