I recently heard a news report about the murder victim at Yale University, Annie Le.  This was followed by a cacophony of calls to change our culture of violence against women and to bring pressure on the government to address this injustice.

This has become a veritable mainstay of media reporting with the "violence against women" chorus occurring with unrelenting frequency.  However, this had me thinking about what the actual violent crime statistics show.  There is little doubt that spousal abuse and rape would be dominated by female victims, however, in looking at the murder statistics in appears that men are victimized three times as often as females.

There is a new article on LiveScience "Scary: Fake Videos Alter Perception of Reality"
that reports some findings related to faked videos and the responses to them.

This particular article brings up several points which should be considered beyond simply faked videos.  It actually raises the larger question about how perceptions of reality may be altered by seemingly real portrayals even in entertainment.

While there is little doubt that the majority of the public are able to recognize that they are watching a movie, there is also the problem of how much influence such movies may have, especially if they are labeled as "based on a true story".

What is it about technology that makes people so optimistic?  Despite the claims of technological progress it seems that no one considers technological transitions and the impact of failures.  Instead the future is a rosy hue of nothing but perfection.

A recent comment regarding robotic cars set me thinking and I came across this interesting quote (from March 2008):

"According to the Associated Press, General Motors says they'll have driverless cars tested by 2015 and on roadways by 2018. "This is not science fiction," said Larry Burns, vice president for research and development at GM."

What is it that makes people want to live forever?  I suppose some of it might be fear of death (or at least the means by which it occurs).  Some of it might be that they just don't want to "leave the party", afraid that they'll miss something.

Equally, it's intriguing how many people view the idea of immortality with horror.  After all, what's so bad about it?

For the sake of argument, let's assume that we could achieve immortality and still retain the anatomy and physiology of a 30-year old (just an arbitrary number).   If we're not careful we could use eternity to procrastinate about "getting into shape".  It does make me wonder about how much unused exercise equipment someone could accumulate given forever.