Bookworm Room

This is an exercise in pure speculation. I invite all here to bring their own notions to the table. An old friend of mine visited me last Saturday to catch up on things. We walked my dog and began a long conversation that ended later in my backyard over coffee and tea. Bob is fascinated [...]

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I will be blogging this afternoon, but my morning has been taken up with family stuff, including the exciting one of reinstating TiVo in our lives.  We had TiVo for many years, but when we got an HD TV, we tried switching to the Comcast DVR, because it was cheaper than upgrading to HD TiVo.  [...]

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Would it be too tacky for me too say that I anxiously await comparable technological breakthroughs from the 250,000,000 Muslims surrounding tiny Israel? Researchers in Israel say they have developed a computer program that can decipher previously unreadable ancient texts and possibly lead the way to a Google-like search engine for historical documents. The program [...]

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I recognize that these are just two snippets that focus on microcosms of entire cultures in a technological age.  They’re nevertheless an interesting moment in “compare and contrast,” since both appear in today’s papers. From Israel:  scientists have figured out how to use technology to make the paralyzed stand and walk. From the Taliban:  Talibani [...]

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It’s often frightening to see how terrorists use technology against freedom. It’s therefore uplifting and refreshing to see people using technology to advance freedom. The New York Times, which has always been dizzyingly respectful of Castro, has pulled a fast U-turn and written a very good article about young people using technology to circumvent Cuba’s [...]

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