Looks like the Panuri have fired up their Core Generator!
Ut oh… NASA finds “unprecedented” black hole cluster near Andromeda’s central bulge1. For you non-Schlock Mercenary out there, what are you waiting for!? ↩
Read morePersonal APIs & Health
During In Beta #52: Schrödinger's FitBit, Kevin and Gina discuss personal APIs and, while they are intriguing, how it's hard to imagine a common use for them. One possibility down the road could be that personal apis1 would send data to health, especially mental health, professionals. There are already DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) apps for patients to track their actions and emotional states. Moreover, physical exercise and getting out of the house are important elements of getting better. Perhaps even music selection could turn out to informative (one use of aggregate data would be to find out). Especially for patients in intensive outpatient therapy, it could end up helping therapists and facilitators a lot. Of course, there's still the problem of users entering the data, but the more automatable it is (FitBit, etc), the easier it would be. A more user friendly and very secure version. ↩
Read moreRe: The Christianists’ Terms of Surrender
On June 27, 2013, Sullivan wrote: “There is no way to resolve the deep cultural conflict in this kind of area; but there is a way to manage it. With civility, generosity and toleration – on both sides.” But this is problematic, how does one treat bigotry “civilly”? Certainly the Christianists can continue to denounce LGBT folk in their churches. As is proper, there's no law against hateful speech. But as private citizens, we should treat that attitude the same way we treat Anti-Semitism, Racism, etc—replying forcefully with the truth of equality. Such hatred is morally wrong and there's no reason we should tolerate it in our lives. As long as their actions are confined to the religious sphere, they can be left alone. But when it comes to the public realm, even in the midst of transactions between two private citizens, the law must forbid discrimination. This is what the fight around “religious liberty” is going to be about: the “right” to not sell flowers for a marriage between same sex couples; to not recognize said marriages in hospitals run by religious institutions; to not rent a hall to host a celebration. We do not tolerate florists turning Jewish…
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