Why return trips seem shorter

We have all felt it. The return trip from some place seems to be quicker that the outward trip, especially if you were going to a new place. I used to think that this was due to the fact that on the return trip we were now familiar with the route, which meant that we did not have to pay close attention to where we were going and that this somehow translated into the journey seeming to be shorter
[Read more…]

Liability for self drive cars

Self-driving cars are already here and even legal on some public roads. It is likely that they will be better drivers than many of the humans that drive cars since they have faster reaction times and do not suffer from the impairments and distractions of people, such as talking on cell phones or even texting. They could be a boon for older and disabled people who will no longer be limited in their ability to go places.
[Read more…]

Facing death-7: The problem of prolonged death

Part of the aversion to thinking about death may not be the actual fact of dying but unease about the way we might die. In many ways we are fortunate that we live in a time when medical advances have enabled us to have much greater life expectancies than our ancestors. While much of this improvement has arisen because of reduced infant mortality, some has been because of our ability to combat many illnesses that once used to be quickly fatal. Because of the possibility of rapid response and treatment, many of the quick ways of dying such as due to heart attacks and strokes have been eliminated. But that improvement is not without its costs. We now see many more people having long and lingering deaths, the body and mind gradually losing functionality in ways that cannot be fixed, like an old car in which one part after another starts breaking down and one starts to wonder how much more one should invest in keeping it going.
[Read more…]

Christians in internal exile?

Nonbelievers in the US are only too aware of the ubiquity of religion. Churches and religious billboards are everywhere, Christian broadcasters fill the radio and TV, and public prayer and other forms of pandering to religion by politicians and other public figures is commonplace and even required if they are to be elected to office. So it is a little disconcerting to discover that some Christian conservatives see themselves as a persecuted minority.
[Read more…]

Black Panthers decide to carry guns in public

Extreme supporters of gun rights who think that people should be allowed to carry rifles and other guns openly in almost any public place including schools, libraries, and churches, may now be tempted to temper that gung-ho, anything goes, attitude. The Black Panthers have decided that they too should carry guns openly in order to combat what they see as reckless and unjustified violence by the police against the black community.
[Read more…]