Links for March 9, 2005

Life Is a Game (Technology Review)
Sims creator Will Wright faces his next challenge: Everything.

Risky Business (Tech Central Stupid)
Ban the precautionary principle, just to be safe.

Remembering Francis Crick (NY Books)
By Oliver Sacks

Among the Unbelievers (Utne)
"A revival of atheism is a curious by-product of the 9/11 attacks," writes the British thinker John Gray. In Europe at least, "unbelief has been given a new lease of life by a savage reminder of the persistent intensity of faith." But atheism is no cure for mass violence, he suggests. Nazism, Maoism, and Soviet communism were as deadly as the most primitive religions, perhaps because that's what they quickly became. Indeed, militant atheism may hold clues to "the enduring urgency of the human need for religion."

That being said: What Jesus Wouldn't Do (AlterNet)
Much of the religious right's agenda is in direct contradiction to Christ's own teachings – and most devout Christians know it.

The Poor May Not Be Getting Richer (Reason)
But they are living longer, eating better, and learning to read, by Ronald Bailey.

Leon Kass, Citizen (American Journal of Bioethics blog)
On Leon Kass's declaration of being a "private citizen."

Wearable Computers You Can Slip Into (Business Week)
The latest generation of these ever-smarter garments look like ordinary clothes and not something only a cyborg would wear.

How Much Can Your Mind Keep Track Of? (Psychological Science)
Apparently not very much. About 4 variables, maximum.