It never fails to amaze me just how much hubris the human race can muster up on its own behalf.
The thing is, if you want to take an actual look at the history of the earth's geological age, and say, use a year as an analogy for how long its been around compared to us, we don't show up till around 5 seconds to midnight December 31. --thank you David Attenborough for that image--
Life on earth will continue blithely on without us. The earth will sweep us off its back as surely as a water-buffalo swats a gnat, with about as much notice, and future palaeontologists will look back at the 'human' era as one of the many branches that was doomed to fail and become extinct
And we thought the dinosaurs were a failure. Take a look at how long they lasted in geological time compared to us so far. I think they win.
Claws down.
The article in Wired seems to be a 'dumbed down for public consumption' version of an article that appeared in Scientific American in August 2007. The original was authored by Dr Susana Martinez-Conde and Dr Stephen L Macknik, and referred to a study they had completed in 2006. There is a preview available here:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=windows-on-the-mind
unfortunately one would have to pay for the whole article as they are a subscription magazine. But the proof is in the preview, and if anyone should want more, I would encourage them to go to their local library and find the magazine there. The article in Scientific American is much more educational.
Anyone else suspect this is an attempt to create a proprietary replacement for standards-based HTML and ECMAScript and Flash? And I note that Linux is not a supported platform. "Cross-platform" means Windows and Mac."WPF/E" is the next-generation Web platform... for delivering visually stunning and interactive user experiences on the Web and beyond. Supporting multiple operating systems (Windows and Macintosh), Microsoft "WPF/E" combines 2D animation, video, and audio within a compact yet flexible platform... AJAX-based applications ... can be organically upgraded to take advantage of "WPF/E" in a way that breaks rich Web-based applications out of the proprietary "black box" they exist in today.
"The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception a neccessity." - Oscar Wilde