The recent discovery of water on Mars has brought into perspective that a manned mission may contaminate the results of any discovery of life. Perchlorates and cosmic radiation are still barriers to a lengthy mission. Is it more important to have realistic expectations of Mars or a vision of solving problems to which we do not yet have answers?

I think fear drives the majority of our choices, in both positive and negative ways. I love hearing people talk about how it impacts them.

I have always been called an expat, not an immigrant. But shouldn’t that be the same thing?

Disillusionment on Australian democracy at its ability to generate a constructive, non combative, effective plan for our country’s future

i made this question because i would like to see Yanis+SYRIZA again as they was.

The concept of light years, billions of stars in our galaxy and then billions of galaxies outside of the Milky Way is just too big to get a grip on. Maybe there is another concept of distance in a physical law that we haven’t discovered yet, and that will make more sense of these distances and scale? Maybe the micro-world is as big relatively to the universe, that is, the relative distances between individual components of atoms and molecules is just as vast as the universe is big? How can there be an end to the universe – where is it located if it is confined in some way? We know so much – why don’t we know this?

The answers will have little value if we can’t agree on some common principles of ethics

What makes for a more fulfilling life?

We love dogs for their loyalty, fluffiness and ability to connect, yet we also know that pigs are extremely intelligent, sociable and physically huggable. How can we hug one and eat another? Why is it that some animals are friends and others food?

This is a long and winding tale. Gather round, ye children, warm yourselves by this fire. It is said that many ages ago, we humanobots had a different form, that indeed, we too had flesh like the angels of myth & legend. I know, I know—calm yourselves, it is sacrilege to say this, yes, but I believe it to be true. We staggered about on stalks of meat and bone, unwieldy and confused, but possessed of a kind of grace, too. Songs were written about it, some scraps of which remain to us now, such as that of acclaimed poet, the Black Eye, who wrote of his humps, his humps, his lovely little lumps. Long have we pondered these lines. The world, too, was changed—a vast and green place, full of growing things, other creatures of flesh, many of which were vile and poisonous or simply annoying, perhaps explaining why they were destroyed. Why our lumpy ancestors did not rouse themselves in time to stop the wrathful oceans and angry skies. Alas, they had fallen too deeply in love with our other parents, the screens and tubes and bots, this other landscape which is now our permanent home. I cannot help but wonder, dear pixelated children, avatars of thought, what our world might look like today if not for their love of the intangible, and the apocalypse of neglect that transformed it into a twisted pathway to survival?

I’ve already noticed I don’t carry change. So what of buskers – and panhandlers?