noosphere

"I see corrupt politicians deciding it is more profitable, and also more secure, to “sell off” their..."

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:57:22 -0500

“I see corrupt politicians deciding it is more profitable, and also more secure, to “sell off” their countries than to oppress them in the traditional manner. I see a new kind of tax farming, based on the extraction and exploitation of resources and raw materials, with African labor along for the ride.”

- Marginal Revolution: The future of Africa? (via jryu) (via mikehudack)

The last sentence of the above paragraph:

It will mean higher living standards and better infrastructure, but probably not along a path that will look very appealing to most Western observers.

Bleak with a forecast for eventual good?

Corrupt politicians (everywhere) need to be shown that it is more profitable and more secure to be loved than hated. Take care of your people, and they will take care of you.

Anyone know any VC’s interested in funding a “boot camp” for the re-education of dictators / corrupt politicians?

I’m only half-joking. I see Africa as a sleeping giant. One day she will wake and realize she is strong.

FYI: (as some, but not all, know) most of the divisions in Africa were not made by Africans, are not the outcome of a “natural” process but like the partitioning of Pakistan and India, partly a European contrivance. It’s important to keep this in mind when thinking about the problems facing the continent today.

There are many paths to the future.

APOD: 2009 November 25 - All Sky Milky Way Panorama Credit &...

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:07:00 -0500

APOD: 2009 November 25 - All Sky Milky Way Panorama

Credit & Copyright: Axel Mellinger (Central Mich. U)

If you could go far away from the Earth and look around the entire sky — what would you see? Such was the goal of the All-Sky Milky Way Panorama 2.0 project of Axel Mellinger. Presented above is the result: a digital compilation of over 3,000 images comprising the highest resolution digital panorama of the entire night sky yet created. An interactive zoom version, featuring over 500 million pixels, can be found here. Every fixed astronomical object visible to the unaided eye has been imaged, including every constellation, every nebula, and every star cluster. Moreover, millions of individual stars are also visible, all in our Milky Way Galaxy, and many a thousand times fainter than a human can see.

Mellinger has also done this using photographic film. Results here.

tardigrades in spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace! (via brettjordan) see also...

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:47:00 -0500

tardigrades in spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace! (via brettjordan)

billydalto: noosphere: Sexless Sea Creatures Steal Foreign Genes [snip] any comment, billy? can...

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:36:00 -0500

billydalto:

noosphere:

Sexless Sea Creatures Steal Foreign Genes

[snip]

any comment, billy? can they come to the diatom party if they behave themselves?

They’re in because I like their genomic style. However, I’ve been burned a few times recently, and will be enforcing two new rules: 1) No eating other guests, even if you’re really hungry. 2) A diatom party is no place for prurient discussions of the source of my mitochondrial DNA.

I discussed it with the ladies, & they agreed to abide by the new party rules. It may be a good idea, tho’, to have some microarrays on hand in case things get out of hand.

BTW, if things do get out of hand & the microarrays do not suffice, I’m not sure what we’ll be able to do about it. “We kept exposing them to more and more radiation, and they didn’t die and they didn’t die and they didn’t die,” says Mark Welch. (source: Staq Mavlen + Evidence for degenerate tetraploidy in bdelloid rotifers. 2008. Mark Welch, D.B., J.L. Mark Welch and M. Meselson. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 105 (13): 5145-5149.)

However, I know some water bears (Hypsibius dujardini) that might be willing to work security. Despite their cuteness (moss piglet mode), they’re a tough bunch. You might check with your fellow Ills Manorian; being an extremophile himself, he may know some tardigrades as well.

re: rule #2: related yet unrelated: Unfortunately, there’ve already been some titters from some of the ladies regarding the Paisley Cave incidentals.

"If Ms. Totten and Mr. Hirshberg are correct, the potential for health care savings is huge. A study..."

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:46:35 -0500

“If Ms. Totten and Mr. Hirshberg are correct, the potential for health care savings is huge. A study in the January-February 2009 issue of the journal Health Affairs concluded that 75 percent of the country’s $2.5 trillion in health care spending has to do with four increasingly prevalent chronic diseases: obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Most cases of these diseases, the report stated, are preventable because they are caused by behaviors like poor diets, inadequate exercise and smoking. Obesity alone threatens to overwhelm the system. In a recent study, Kenneth Thorpe, chairman of the department of health policy and management at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, found that if trends continued, annual health care costs related to obesity would total $344 billion by 2018, or more than 20 percent of total health care spending. (It now accounts for 9 percent.) Dr. Thorpe also said that if the incidence of obesity fell to its 1987 level, it would free enough money to cover the nation’s uninsured population.”

- Health Care Savings May Start in Employee Diets - NYTimes.com (via evangotlib)

Saving healthcare will start with individuals taking responsibility for their own lives and improving their behavior. (via jayparkinsonmd)

If it were only that easy. We are social beings surrounded by so many conflicting signals and requests for input. If we lived in a society where being poor did not effect the kinds and types of food we could purchase, if we lived in a society where we were not inundated daily with requests to purchase bad food, if we lived in a society where we actually understood the mechanisms which fueled our self-destructive behavior…. I could go on and on.

The problem is systemic. The sooner we acknowledge that, the sooner we can begin to offer true healing.

smarterplanet: datavis: Evolution of Storage (via Curtiss...

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 20:23:06 -0500

smarterplanet:

datavis:

Evolution of Storage (via Curtiss Spontelli)

Atari Launches The New Atari.com

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:59:25 -0500

Atari Launches The New Atari.com:

NEW YORK, Nov. 23 /PRNewswire/ — Atari, one of the world’s most recognized brands, announced today the phase one re-launch of Atari.com. Gaming fans will have the opportunity to play Atari’s legendary, addictive coin-op arcade and 2600 classics in the new Atari Arcade for free, get information on Atari’s most recent and upcoming releases, buy games through the Atari Store via box or digital download, access exclusive merchandise, and enter contests and more through the newly designed Atari.com web site.

geekalicous!~

Sexless Sea Creatures Steal Foreign Genes Bdelloid rotifers...

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:21:00 -0500

Sexless Sea Creatures Steal Foreign Genes

Bdelloid rotifers have maintained a celibate aquatic existence for 80 million years. They are an all-female type of small invertebrates that occasionally produce a child via asexual reproduction—a clone breaks off directly from the mother. But bdelloids have not only survived through the ages, they’ve managed to evolve and diversify without the genetic intermingling that comes along with sex. Now Harvard University biologists think they have figured out the bdelloid’s trick.

In a study published today in Science, the research team, led by Eugene Gladyshev, wrote that bdelloids can take DNA not only from other members of their own species, but also from bacteria, fungi, and even plants. When its freshwater habitat temporarily dries up, a bdelloid’s cellular membranes break and its genome tears apart. But disintegrating DNA isn’t enough to kill this hardy creature—when water returns, a bdelloid can pick up its own pieces and put itself back together.

(Image: Diego Fontaneto from PLoS Biology article entitled Who Needs Sex (or Males) Anyway? by Lisa Gross)

any comment, billy? can they come to the diatom party if they behave themselves?

"Matter flows from place to place, and momentarily comes together to be you. Some people find that..."

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:10:39 -0500

“Matter flows from place to place, and momentarily comes together to be you. Some people find that thought disturbing. I find the reality thrilling”

- Richard Dawkins (via macmankev)

Dude, it’s the thrill of miracle you are experiencing. This is why I cannot take Dawkins and anything he says on religion seriously; he just doesn’t get it.

smarterplanet: infoneernet: Norway opens world’s first osmotic...

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:05:40 -0500

smarterplanet:

infoneernet:

Norway opens world’s first osmotic power plant

Norway opened on Tuesday the world’s first osmotic power plant, which produces emissions-free electricity by mixing fresh water and sea water through a special membrane.

State-owned utility Statkraft’s prototype plant, which for now will produce a tiny 2 kilowatts to 4 kilowatts of power or enough to run a coffee machine, will enable Statkraft to test and develop the technology needed to drive down production costs.

The plant is driven by osmosis that naturally draws fresh water across a membrane and toward the seawater side. This creates higher pressure on the sea water side, driving a turbine and producing electricity.

Seen at cnet news

alexismadrigal RT @Eaterofsun: The internet weighs 5x10^11 kg http://bit.ly/4s8288 The...

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:00:00 -0500

alexismadrigal RT @Eaterofsun: The internet weighs 5x10^11 kg http://bit.ly/4s8288 The earth’s clouds, I calculated last week, weigh 5x10^11 tonnes

A Central Nervous System for the Earth

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:55:48 -0500

smarterplanet:

KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News HP Labs has announced a project that aims to be a “Central Nervous System for the Earth” (CeNSE): a R&D program to build a planetwide sensing network, using billions of tiny accelerometers that detect motion and vibrations, and later, ones for light, temperature, barometric pressure, airflow and humidity. The nodes could be stuck to bridges and buildings to warn of structural strains or weather conditions and along roadsides to monitor traffic, weather and road conditions. Other uses include in everyday electronics, tracking hospital equipment, sniffing out pesticides and pathogens in food, and ultimately even “recognize” the person using them and adapt.

(via lidel)

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:12:29 -0500

(via lidel)

"Hegelian kiss: dialiptical technique in which the kiss incorporates its own antithikiss, forming a..."

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 12:51:04 -0500

“Hegelian kiss: dialiptical technique in which the kiss incorporates its own antithikiss, forming a synthekiss.”

- The Philosophy of Kissing.

Apropos, I’ve been reading about Plato’s thoughts on love, and really felt like slapping him, because, as far as I can tell (this is a secondary source, alright), he makes it into a grand philosophical theory, which is basically the opposite of love, which if anything is immediate, not theoretical. But then I read this great quote:

The stories of all the other symposiasts, too, are stories of their particular loves masquerading as stories of love itself, stories about what they find beautiful masquerading as stories about what is beautiful. For Phaedrus and Pausanius, the canonical image of true love — the quintessential love story — features the right sort of older male lover and the right sort of beloved boy. For Eryximachus the image of true love is painted in the languages of his own beloved medicine and of all the other crafts and sciences. For Aristophanes it is painted in the language of comedy. For Agathon, in the loftier tones of tragedy. In ways that these men are unaware of, then, but that Plato knows, their love stories are themselves manifestations of their loves and of the inversions or perversions expressed in them. They think their stories are the truth about love, but they are really love’s delusions — “images,” as Diotima will later call them. As such, however, they are essential parts of that truth.

I like that: in trying to be general, everyone paints a picture of their own love; but of course, love is the aggregate of all these loves.

(via dailymeh)

xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By...

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:35:00 -0500

xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe

drymouth: [snip] Canadian soldiers are a rare breed of military. Every single one, right down to the...

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:18:58 -0500

drymouth:

[snip] Canadian soldiers are a rare breed of military. Every single one, right down to the ranks, knows why they’re there, what they’re trying to achieve right up to strategic level and can usually swap jobs at the drop of a hat. They are true Renaissance men and women. Every soldier is allowed to talk to the media without consulting his commander (although he’ll usually give the courtesy of doing this) and speaks with deep thought and eloquence, often passionate about counter-insurgency tactics of engaging and befriending locals.
Moreover, the soldiers I met were open-minded, tolerant and proud of their multi-cultural society without being bleeding-heart about it.

Most of all, they let me – a pale, young and skinny girl journo – hang out with them, treating me with equal respect and, of course, merciless teasing. Those of you who have embedded with military before will know that’s a honour.

Anti-government activists are not allowed to express...

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:08:00 -0500

Anti-government activists are not allowed to express themselves in Iranian media, so theses activists have taken their expression to another high circulation mass-medium, banknotes. The Central Bank of Iran has tried to take these banknotes out of circulation, but there are just too many of them, and gave up. For the activists’ people it’s a way of saying “We are here, and the green movement is going on”. See more here. (via irredenta)

This is awesome! (via theneave) (via tanya77) (via evangotlib) (via mikehudack)

mikehudack: RT @charleshope Have any of you seen plastic made? Products just appear on the shelves....

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:08:12 -0500

mikehudack:

RT @charleshope Have any of you seen plastic made? Products just appear on the shelves. We are as ignorant about our world as savages who pr

Marx (Karl) called it “consumer fetishism”. It’s a problem that’s been around for a very long time.

Am looking forward to the day when we start teaching our kids basic trade & economics (& civics) in elementary school such that this type of ignorance is eventually eradicated.

mikehudack: airplanes: (via herseaoflove)

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 17:03:47 -0500

mikehudack:

airplanes:

(via herseaoflove)

smarterplanet: emergentfutures: Miniature Robots to Swarm the...

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:40:25 -0500

smarterplanet:

emergentfutures:

Miniature Robots to Swarm the Oceans

Swarms of soup-can-sized robots will soon plunge into the ocean seeking data on poorly understood phenomena from currents to biology.

With $2.5 million in new funding from the National Science Foundation, researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography will create and deploy fleets of autonomous underwater explorers (AUEs) to explore the depths.

why does this sound like a good idea that could go horribly wrong. unintended consequences & such like…