There is nothing so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness it is to be expecting evil before it arrives! — Lucius Annaeus Seneca With the final days of the 2016-2017 school year, I found myself in perilous straits: manuscripts to finish, final talks to give, papers and exams to grade, this whole “sleep” thing…
We’re fascinated with robots because they are reflections of ourselves. — Ken Goldberg If you watch The Terminator, robots aren’t really that great to humans—unless being besties in the future entails enslavement and eradication. Indeed, most movies with “sentient” robots paint them somewhat malevolently (e.g., The Matrix; I, Robot; all of the other Terminator movies). In our own…
When you pay attention to boredom it gets unbelievably interesting. – Jon Kabat-Zinn Recently, I’ve noticed a trend among the younger generation: fewer and fewer people have hobbies. But when you consider the time we live in, it makes sense. With Netflix, Facebook, the whole dang Internet at your fingertips, why would anyone growing up…
We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone. – Ronald Reagan If you’re anything like me, you spend most meetings imagining that part of the ceiling is about to fall, right before you save the person underneath it. Or, terrorists suddenly burst into the room and your sequence of takedowns is executed with mathematical…
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. — Martin Luther King Jr. For the final part in this series for Black History month, I want to discuss one of the best ways you can honor Black Americans: by confronting racism whenever you see it. Research shows that Black men and women report experiencing about an…
I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it’s for or against. — Malcolm X Although the United States has progressed substantially in its treatment of Black Americans, empirical data show that Blacks have yet to receive the equality they have been promised for over 150 years. For example, a…