Category Archives: Technology

What If? Follow-up: Can a Wire Cut a Person in Half?

Posted on May 10, 2015 by Alex R. Howe

In my last post, I determined that it is not possible for a human being to be cut in half by running into a cheese-cutting wire that is stretched across a road. The wire will break long before the human … Continue reading →

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What If? Rejects #5.2: Cutting the Cheese

Posted on May 3, 2015 by Alex R. Howe

Previous post in this series: Balancing Act. Follow-up post. What If? bonus: How Many Seconds in Eternity? Next post in this series: A Well-Balanced Meal. Q: How fast would a human have to run in order to be cut in … Continue reading →

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Harry Potter and the Power of the Internet

Posted on March 30, 2015 by Alex R. Howe

A couple weeks ago, I reviewed a work of fan fiction called Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky. I wanted to make one more point about this piece, not about the story itself, but about how … Continue reading →

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Dissecting Spam

Posted on October 20, 2014 by Alex R. Howe

How is it that spam/phishing emails can look so convincing in some ways, but so blatantly fake in other ways? It’s always baffled me how messages riddled with ch4racter substituti0ns can look at all legitimate and worth clicking on. Phishing … Continue reading →

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Welcom to the Future, Part 2: Star Trek Continues

Posted on June 16, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

Fan-made Star Trek films and web series are nothing new. The first ones hit the Internet way back in 2000. However, a quick survey of these productions reveals that most of them suffer from substandard script-writing, substandard acting, or both, … Continue reading →

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Quality control, part 3: the arts

Posted on May 5, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

This is final post in my series on quality control. Click the links to see part 1 and part 2. The Internet gives everyone a voice. It either has become or is becoming our library, our newspaper, our encyclopedia, our … Continue reading →

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Quality control, part 2: the sciences

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

In my last post, I discussed the implications of interconnected world of the Internet as it failed to track down the Boston bombers before traditional methods did. In this post, I discuss the broader implications as they pertain to my … Continue reading →

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Boston, Reddit, and the problem of quality control

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

By now, you probably know all about the bombings at the Boston Marathon last week that left 3 people dead and 176 injured. It has its own Wikipedia page now, if you’re not up to speed. In the ensuing investigation, … Continue reading →

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The end of spam?

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

Kaspersky Lab reported last week that spam email is on the decline, having fallen from 80%-85% of all email over the past few years to about 65% at the end of 2012. There are two main reasons for this. First … Continue reading →

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