The price of convenience
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Seemingly everyone has a smartphone these days. According to surveys from 2013, almost half of all Canadians and more than half of all Americans use the high-powered mobile devices. Until recently, I was one...
Time’s arrow: the Sokal hoax
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In 1996, New York University physics professor Alan Sokal tried an experiment: he wrote an article satirizing deconstructionist philosophy and its abuses of scientific terminology, packed it full of quotes from brand-name intellectuals and...
The science of music
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It is said that music has a much more precise vocabulary for describing its objects than any other art. This allows us to talk scientifically about it. Although there is a vigorous body of...
All this machinery, making modern music
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Örjan Sandred is a professor of composition at the University of Manitoba’s Marcel A. Desautels faculty of music. His music involves the use of computers, both during performance and composition. He teaches courses on...
Defining pornography
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U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Potter Stewart once said that he could not define pornography. “But I know it when I see it,” he famously added. Others have also remarked on the difficulty of...
‘People are talking’
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Tom Ingram, staff
A recent article ran on the New York Times website with the headline “Possible Meteor Over California Has Social Media Abuzz.” CTV’s website ran a summary of Twitter reactions to Rob Ford’s...
Google’s mystery barges
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For two weeks now, a story has been developing that seems more like the ominous beginning of a science fiction novel than genuine news. On Oct. 25, the technology news website CNET reported on...
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