Other – Fireflies

Questions

Bombshell is a podcast on US defense policy – it’s pretty good. One thing they do is ask all new guests a set of the same questions. There was a first series set of questions, and now they’ve changed them with a second set. They’re interesting, so I thought I’d answer them myself. Old set:ContinueContinue reading “Questions”

Stepping into the same city twice

I lived in Tokyo between 1999 and 2001. It was during my early twenties, so in many ways it was a pivotal experience, a coming of age. I’ve been back a few times since – for a few weeks at a time for work, and then in 2009(?) a three month spell for research. MostContinueContinue reading “Stepping into the same city twice”

Twin Cities

China Mieville is an interesting author – at times he infuriates me, but some of the ideas he has are really thought-provoking and he has a skill of exploring them through fiction in a compelling way. The City & The City is him playing with the genre of detective fiction, but the core idea isContinueContinue reading “Twin Cities”

On Robots

It’s robots everywhere at the minute. There have been a couple of programmes on the singularity, and the chances that an artificial intelligence might end up disassembling humanity in its quest, not for autonomy, but rather because we stand in the way of the production of whatever it has been set to maximise (always paperContinueContinue reading “On Robots”

Three outputs, one double weighted

Or, towards a scholarship for the 21st century. A colleague in the UK Japanese studies community has declared 2015 to be the year of social media for his research efforts. For a few reasons – the new year, the release of the REF results and looking towards the next iteration, planning my own personal goals,ContinueContinue reading “Three outputs, one double weighted”