belief
Latest
Storyboard: The lies we tell ourselves
We all have our delusions. Some of them are very conscious decisions, like ignoring the fact that Superman Returns is a thing that actually exists. Others are more unconscious, like people who genuinely believe that the ancient Mayans put together a calendar predicting the end of the world in a few weeks. But they're always there, and all of us have a full set of them bred into us from years of social interactions and peer groups. We ignore, we obfuscate, and we reject facts that do not line up with our opinions. Make your own joke there about gamers declaring a game is or was a failure. Our characters often see the world with a lot more clarity. It's not that they're devoid of opinions; it's that they tend to base those opinions on the real story instead of what they saw or felt or thought. That's all well and good, but perhaps it's time for reasonable things like facts to take a hike in favor of some good old-fashioned delusions. After all, if we're all deluding ourselves in real life, shouldn't our characters get to occasionally stick their fingers in their ears and declare they can't hear anything?
Metaphor recognition software aims to distinguish friend from foe
While it's only right that people be protected from bad poetry, this could be taking things a tad too far. Intelligence officials at the Office of Incisive Analysis (no, really) have determined that metaphors could be of vital significance to national security. By, well, incisively analyzing the way people use metaphors in everyday conversations, they believe they can reveal "underlying beliefs and world views" -- such as negative feelings towards a particular country. Now they're calling on civilian scientists and academics to help them do this automatically using pattern recognition and supercomputers. Of course there's always the risk that smart terrorists will switch to using similes instead.
