Excerpts

You are currently browsing the archive for the Excerpts category.

“Digital Fabrication Could Be Used To Produce Weapons Of Individual Destruction”

October 1, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From “How to Make Almost Anything,” Neil Gershenfeld’s new Foreign Affairs piece about the coming revolution of 3D printers, replicating machines that can replicate even themselves:

“Are there dangers to this sort of technology? In 1986, the engineer Eric Drexler, whose doctoral thesis at MIT was the first in molecular nanotechnology, wrote about what he called ‘gray goo,’ a doomsday scenario in which a self-reproducing system multiplies out of control, spreads over the earth, and consumes all its resources. In 2000, Bill Joy, a computing pioneer, wrote in Wired magazine about the threat of extremists building self-reproducing weapons of mass destruction. He concluded that there are some areas of research that humans should not pursue. In 2003, a worried Prince Charles asked the Royal Society, the United Kingdom’s fellowship of eminent scientists, to assess the risks of nanotechnology and self-replicating systems.

Although alarming, Drexler’s scenario does not apply to the self-reproducing assemblers that are now under development: these require an external source of power and the input of nonnatural materials. Although biological warfare is a serious concern, it is not a new one; there has been an arms race in biology going on since the dawn of evolution.

A more immediate threat is that digital fabrication could be used to produce weapons of individual destruction. An amateur gunsmith has already used a 3-D printer to make the lower receiver of a semiautomatic rifle, the AR-15. This heavily regulated part holds the bullets and carries the gun’s serial number. A German hacker made 3-D copies of tightly controlled police handcuff keys. Two of my own students, Will Langford and Matt Keeter, made master keys, without access to the originals, for luggage padlocks approved by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration. They x-rayed the locks with a CT scanner in our lab, used the data to build a 3-D computer model of the locks, worked out what the master key was, and then produced working keys with three different processes: numerically controlled milling, 3-D printing, and molding and casting.

These kinds of anecdotes have led to calls to regulate 3-D printers.” (Thanks Browser.)

Tags: , ,

“Our Assumptions About What Machines Can And Cannot Do Are Urgently In Need Of Updating”

September 30, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

Imagine fleets of driverless cars bringing groceries to your door or automatic taxicabs shuttling you to and fro. Human ownership and operation of vehicles won’t die quickly, but more and more services will be handled by people-less vehicles. John Naughton’s new Guardian piece addresses the job-killing advent of the driverless cars, though in the long run the invention will create a healthier, wealthier lifestyle:

“At the ceremony in Mountain View, Google’s co-founder, Sergey Brin,announced the company’s intention to bring autonomous vehicles to the market in five years. In a pre-emptive attack on critics, he pointed out that autonomous vehicles would be significantly safer than human-controlled ones. That seems plausible to me: 40,000 people are killed every year in road accidents in the US and many, if not most, of those are caused by human error. ‘This has the power to change lives,’ Brin said. ‘Too many people are underserved by the current transport system. They are blind, or too young to drive, or too old, or intoxicated.’ He also argued that manual operation of cars was inefficient: autonomous vehicles could make better use of the road and reduce the size of car parks by fitting into smaller areas than humans could get them into.

Ignore the evangelism for a moment and think about what Google has achieved. Its engineers have demonstrated that with smart software and an array of sensors, a machine can perform a task of sophistication and complexity most of us assumed would always require the capabilities of humans. And that means our assumptions about what machines can and cannot do are urgently in need of updating.”

Tags: ,

“His Books, Which Are Hilarious, Are Popular In France”

September 30, 2012 in Books, Excerpts, Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

From a 1975 “Talk of the Town” piece in the New Yorker by Anthony Hiss about a trip to Los Angeles, a passage detailing his audience with Philip K. Dick, who wasn’t fully appreciated during his abbreviated lifetime (or in this brief article):

In the afternoon, we drove over to Fullerton to see Philip K. Dick, my favorite science-fiction writer, author of 33 novels and 170 short stories. Past the House of Egg Roll, past Moy’s Coffee Shop (Chop Suey, Hot Cakes), past Bowser Beautiful, through Bel Air. We drove to the end of Sunset Boulevard, where we saw seagulls, 18 surfers in wet suits, a blue suggestion of Catalina to the southwest, and an Indian girl in a green-and-gold sari on the beach. Then south, past a concrete wall painted ‘TOMMY SURKO SAYS FOR MY KIND OF GIRL THERE’S ONLY ONE! TOMMY SURKO!’ Behind the tall palms on Venice we could see snow on the mountains. Kids were skateboarding down a hill on Lincoln. Past Woody’s Smorgasburger, onto a freeway to Fullerton.

Philip K. Dick lives in an apartment full of books and records and photographs with his wife, Tessa; his small son, Christopher; and two cats, Harvey Wallbanger and Sasha. He is jolly and tubby and bearded. His books, which are hilarious, are popular in France, because the French think they are about how grim everything is. Dick showed us a French newspaper piece about him—the subtitles were “Le Chaos,” “L’Acide,” “Le Suicide,” “Les Machines” “La Société Totalitaire,” “La Paranoïa.” Dick has just finished a book about Tim Leary and the LSD crowd, and what happened to them.

We had stopped in to make a short call of homage, and wound up talking along for hours, drinking wine, and Tessa going out for some Chinese food, and then talking about cosmologies until it was almost time for our plane back to N.Y. The apartment also contains a two-foot-high metal rocket ship on a wooden base—this is his Hugo Award, the highest award in science fiction. The plaque is missing, though, because Dick once used the award to break up a fight. ‘It grabs good,’ he says. As for the cosmologies, this is what emerged from our discussions: cosmologies all seem to be based on repetition—you know, first the universe expands, then it contracts, then it expands again, etc.—but maybe that’s not so. Maybe this whole expansion business that the universe is currently embarked upon is going to happen only once. That would mean that every day really is a new day, right? Also, maybe it’s not true that Einstein was smarter than Newton. Maybe Newton’s laws accurately described the universe as it then existed. But since then it’s expanded and got more complicated, and can be accurately described only by Einstein physics. Which will eventually become outdated, maybe.”•

Tags: ,

“The Health Care Law Forcibly Repatriates These Gamblers”

September 30, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The argument over health care reform should never have been about if the U.S. should have universal coverage but how best to limit waste and provide excellent service. That might have happened if conservative opportunists hadn’t sought political advantage in roiling Birther bigotry as a way to take down a President who was using policies suggested by the Heritage Foundation (e.g., individual mandate). These conservative do not want smaller government; they just want power. From “The Conservative Case for Obamacare,” by J.D. Kleinke in the New York Times:

“The core drivers of the health care act are market principles formulated by conservative economists, designed to correct structural flaws in our health insurance system — principles originally embraced by Republicans as a market alternative to the Clinton plan in the early 1990s. The president’s program extends the current health care system — mostly employer-based coverage, administered by commercial health insurers, with care delivered by fee-for-service doctors and hospitals — by removing the biggest obstacles to that system’s functioning like a competitive marketplace.

Chief among these obstacles are market limitations imposed by the problematic nature of health insurance, which requires that younger, healthier people subsidize older, sicker ones. Because such participation is often expensive and always voluntary, millions have simply opted out, a risky bet emboldened by the 24/7 presence of the heavily subsidized emergency room down the street. The health care law forcibly repatriates these gamblers, along with those who cannot afford to participate in a market that ultimately cross-subsidizes their medical misfortunes anyway, when they get sick and show up in that E.R. And it outlaws discrimination against those who want to participate but cannot because of their medical histories. Put aside the considerable legislative detritus of the act, and its aim is clear: to rationalize a dysfunctional health insurance marketplace.

This explains why the health insurance industry has been quietly supporting the plan all along. It levels the playing field and expands the potential market by tens of millions of new customers.”

Tags:

“Part Of The Joy Of This Hobby Is That The Moon’s Shadow Can Fall Anywhere On The Earth’s Surface”

September 30, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Umbraphiles, or sun worshippers, are apparently growing in numbers, perhaps because we are starstuff ourselves. Solar eclipses, infrequent though they are, have recently spawned a healthy tourist industry. From Martin Ince in the Financial Times:

“Tour operators report a surge in interest in eclipse viewing, sparked by the ‘eclipse of the century’ in July 2009. It was visible across large parts of India and China and lasted six minutes 39 seconds – the longest eclipse until 2132. It filled every hotel in the Yangtze Delta region, where over 30,000 eclipse watchers based themselves, and brought an extra 7,000 foreign tourists to Shanghai, mostly from the US and Japan. China Daily reported at the time that about 80 special flights were staged to allow passengers to see the eclipse even if clouds threatened: a good move, as it rained in Shanghai.

‘We’re finding this sort of holiday to be hugely popular since the China eclipse, and the trend continued for Easter Island the following year,’ says Simon Grove, head of product at the tour operator Explore. ‘I think the appeal of astronomical tourism in general has increased in recent years too. Last year’s spectacular Northern Lights helped to fuel interest that those well-publicised eclipses had ignited.’

Part of the joy of this hobby is that the moon’s shadow can fall anywhere on the earth’s surface. This means eclipse-chasing needs careful planning, but also that eclipse-lovers end up in places they would never visit otherwise, including Easter Island and the Antarctic in the past few years. This year’s eclipse will take me to Palm Cove, Queensland; the six others I have witnessed were in locations as diverse as the Greek islands, Siberia, and a tiny power station village in rural China.”

••••••••••

The “eclipse of the century,” 2009:

Tags:

“But Keynes Offered Something Quite New: The Idea That Leisure Could Be An Option For All”

September 28, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The opening of a really smart Aeon essay by economist John Quiggin, who wonders whether we will embrace a world free of toil:

“I first became an economist in the early 1970s, at a time when revolutionary change still seemed like an imminent possibility and when utopian ideas were everywhere, exemplified by the Situationist slogan of 1968: ‘Be realistic. Demand the impossible.’ Preferring to think in terms of the possible I was much influenced by an essay called ‘Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren,’ written in 1930 by John Maynard Keynes, the great economist whose ideas still dominated economic policy making at the time.

Like the rest of Keynes’s work, the essay ceased to be discussed very much during the decades of free-market liberalism that led up to the global financial crisis of 2007 and the ensuing depression, through which most of the developed world is still struggling. And, also like the rest of Keynes’s work, this essay has enjoyed a revival of interest in recent years, promoted most notably by the Keynes biographer Robert Skidelsky and his son Edward.

The Skidelskys have revived Keynes’s case for leisure, in the sense of time free to use as we please, as opposed to idleness. As they point out, their argument draws on a tradition that goes back to the ancients. But Keynes offered something quite new: the idea that leisure could be an option for all, not merely for an aristocratic minority.” (Thanks Browser.)

Tags: , , ,

“Simple Brawn Also Offers Far Less Advantage In Our High-Tech Age”

September 28, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

As technology is increasingly used to do war’s dirty work, will military continue to be made up mostly of young males? From Rosa Brooks’ Foreign Policy argument for rethinking recruitment in the Information Age:

“For most of human history, having an army full of young men made lots of sense. As soldiers, young males have had two things going for them, historically speaking. First, they’re usually stronger, on average, than any other demographic group: they can run fast and carry heavy loads. Second, they’re (relatively) biologically expendable from a species-survival perspective: women of child-bearing age are the limiting factor in population growth. A society can lose a lot of young men without a devastating impact on overall population growth.

Today, though, these characteristics don’t matter as much as they once did. Overall birthrates are much lower in modern societies than they were during earlier periods, but life expectancy is much longer. Early societies worried about sustaining their populations; today we worry less about ensuring population growth than about overburdening the planet’s load-bearing capacity.

Simple brawn also offers far less advantage in our high-tech age. In modern warfare, brutal hand-to-hand combat is no longer the norm, and warfare is no longer a matter of sending out wave after wave of troops to overwhelm the enemy through sheer mass. Increasingly, modern warfare involves a mixture of high-tech skills and low-tech cultural knowledge rather than ‘fighting’ in the traditional sense.

In fact, if the next few decades are anything like the last, most military personnel will never see combat.”

Tags:

“Horses Were, For The Most Part, Tools”

September 28, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The introduction to Megan Garber’s excellent history of mechanical horses in the Atlantic:

“For most of human history, horses have been, primarily, a technology. An intimate technology, yes — people named their horses, and groomed them, and sometimes loved them — but horses were, for the most part, tools: They helped humanity to get around and get things done. Once steam power and internal combustion came along, though, that relationship changed drastically. As horses were eclipsed by more efficient methods of moving people and things — trains, cars, planes — their role in human culture shifted, as well. We quickly came to see horses more as what they had been, of course, all along: fellow animals. 

That shift is evident in a longstanding dream that is a little bit fanciful, a little bit practical, a little bit silly, and a little bit wonderful: the quest for the mechanical horse. While some creations — theScammel mechanical horse, the Iron Horse — imagined themselves as horses’ mechanized successors while not actually resembling them, many others have engaged in biomimicry of a more specific variety. While they are only one species we humans have seen fit to imitate with our machines — the world now hosts, among other automatons, the mechanical dog, the mechanical dinosaur, the mechanical pack mule, the mechanical elephant, the mechanical flea, and the mechanical shark — horses have held a special place in human hearts.”

Tags:

“He Is Learning How To Regulate The Flow Of Information In The Brain”

September 27, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The opening of Amy Barth’s new Discover article about Optogenics, which is showing promise as a way to bring about profound behavioral modification through the use of flashes of light:

“Stopped at a red light on his drive home from work, Karl Deisseroth contemplates one of his patients, a woman with depression so entrenched that she had been unresponsive to drugs and electroshock therapy for years. The red turns to green and Deisseroth accelerates, navigating roads and intersections with one part of his mind while another part considers a very different set of pathways that also can be regulated by a system of lights. In his lab at Stanford University’s Clark Center, Deisseroth is developing a remarkable way to switch brain cells off and on by exposing them to targeted green, yellow, or blue flashes. With that ability, he is learning how to regulate the flow of information in the brain.

Deisseroth’s technique, known broadly as optogenetics, could bring new hope to his most desperate patients. In a series of provocative experiments, he has already cured the symptoms of psychiatric disease in mice. Optogenetics also shows promise for defeating drug addiction. When Deisseroth exposed a set of test mice to cocaine and then flipped a switch, pulsing bright yellow light into their brains, the expected rush of euphoria—the prelude to addiction—was instantly blocked. Almost miraculously, they were immune to the cocaine high; the mice left the drug den as uninterested as if they had never been exposed.

Today, those breakthroughs have been demonstrated in only a small number of test animals. But as Deisseroth pulls into his driveway he is optimistic about what tomorrow’s work could bring: Human applications, and the relief they could deliver, may not be far off.” (Thanks Browser.)

Tags: ,

“Some Of These Changes Would Also Apply To What I’m Calling ‘Whistlecars'”

September 27, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Brad Templeton considers a potential use for the coming robotic autos: “whistlecars,” which can deliver themselves to you for a small fee whenever you need to drive someplace. It’s the taxi without the taxi driver, and the vehicle can return itself. An excerpt:

“Many of the big changes that will come about form robocars will come from how they free car designers from the constraints of human-driven cars which are the owner’s sole, or almost-sole vehicle.

Much of this depends on this yet-untested idea:

  • If one can hire a cheap specialized ‘robotaxi’ (or whistlecar) on demand when one has a special automotive need, car users can elect to purchase a vehicle only for their most common needs, rather than trying to meet almost all of them — or to not purchase at all.

For example, for many, most trips are short, single passenger and do not require significant cargo room. Almost nobody purchases a vehicle good only for that purpose, because they want to cover the occasional needs for long trips, taking extra people, carrying cargo, towing or going off-road.

Some of these changes would also apply to what I’m calling ‘whistlecars’ — owned or rented cars that deliver themselves to you when you summon them, but which you still drive.” (Thanks Atlantic.)

Tags:

“The Devices Can ‘Melt Away’ Once Their Job Is Done”

September 27, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

The opening of a BBC piece by James Gallagher about “transient electronics,” which dissolve within the human body after serving a medical purpose:

“Ultra-thin electronics that dissolve inside the body have been devised by scientists in the US and could be used for a range of medical roles.

The devices can ‘melt away’ once their job is done, according to research published in the journal Science.

The technology has already been used to heat a wound to keep it free from infection by bacteria.

The components are made of silicon and magnesium oxide, and placed in a protective layer of silk.

It is part of a field termed ‘transient electronics’ and comes from researchers who have already developed ‘electronic tattoos’ – sensors that bend and stretch with the skin.”

Tags:

“Why, It’s An Honor For Me To Be Here”

September 27, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

The opening of what’s arguably Jimmy Breslin’s most famous column, his 1963 profile of the quiet, sober work of the gravedigger at Arlington National Cemetery who attended to John F. Kennedy’s plot after the President was assassinated:

“Washington — Clifton Pollard was pretty sure he was going to be working on Sunday, so when he woke up at 9 a.m., in his three-room apartment on Corcoran Street, he put on khaki overalls before going into the kitchen for breakfast. His wife, Hettie, made bacon and eggs for him. Pollard was in the middle of eating them when he received the phone call he had been expecting. It was from Mazo Kawalchik, who is the foreman of the gravediggers at Arlington National Cemetery, which is where Pollard works for a living. ‘Polly, could you please be here by eleven o’clock this morning?’ Kawalchik asked. ‘I guess you know what it’s for.’ Pollard did. He hung up the phone, finished breakfast, and left his apartment so he could spend Sunday digging a grave for John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

When Pollard got to the row of yellow wooden garages where the cemetery equipment is stored, Kawalchik and John Metzler, the cemetery superintendent, were waiting for him. ‘Sorry to pull you out like this on a Sunday,’ Metzler said. ‘Oh, don’t say that,’ Pollard said. ‘Why, it’s an honor for me to be here.’ Pollard got behind the wheel of a machine called a reverse hoe. Gravedigging is not done with men and shovels at Arlington. The reverse hoe is a green machine with a yellow bucket that scoops the earth toward the operator, not away from it as a crane does. At the bottom of the hill in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Pollard started the digging (Editor Note: At the bottom of the hill in front of the Custis-Lee Mansion).

Leaves covered the grass. When the yellow teeth of the reverse hoe first bit into the ground, the leaves made a threshing sound which could be heard above the motor of the machine. When the bucket came up with its first scoop of dirt, Metzler, the cemetery superintendent, walked over and looked at it. ‘That’s nice soil,’ Metzler said. ‘I’d like to save a little of it,’ Pollard said. ‘The machine made some tracks in the grass over here and I’d like to sort of fill them in and get some good grass growing there, I’d like to have everything, you know, nice.'”

••••••••••

“It’s a good drinkin’ beer”:

Tags: , ,

“I Think Our Machines Will Wake Up And Take Over Our Society”

September 26, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

According to Dr. Rich Terrile of NASA, one day–and perhaps soon–our computers and robots are going to “awaken” and take over the planet. Okay, whatever. I’m fine with it. We had our shot and effed it up. An excerpt from an interview in Vice which Ben Makuch conducted with the jet propulsion expert:

“Vice:

Listening to you talk about Moore’s Law and our exponential growth in computing makes me wonder what you think about the future, and the fate of humanity?

Dr. Rich Terrile:

OK, well this is where it gets really uncomfortable. I have great hopes for our future, but I don’t necessarily have great hopes for humanity. I think we’ll become something different.

Vice:

What do you mean, like androids?

Dr. Rich Terrile:

I think our machines will wake up and take over our society. They will become us, we will become them. Right now everybody has their own consciousness and we can’t really exchange information very efficiently like computers can. They can exchange tremendous amounts of information and live forever sharing that information at the speed of light, whereas human beings are really quite constrained. We’re caught up in the constraints of our biological evolutionary baggage. I think we’re going to shed that once our machines become conscious. We’ll find ways of continuing our society, but in a different way.

Vice:

So you’re saying in the next hundred years humans will cease to be humans and become machines?

Dr. Rich Terrile:

Yes, I think we’ll merge with machines.

Vice:

Is this something a lot of scientists agree on?

Dr. Rich Terrile:

I don’t think a lot of scientists think about this sort of thing. I think the ones who do inevitably come to the conclusion that there’s a lot of credibility to these kinds of arguments.”

Tags: ,

“In Late 2011, Broad Built A 30-Story Building In 15 Days”

September 26, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The opening of Lauren Hilgers’ Wired feature about Zhang Yue, the unlikely Chinese builder who is erecting tall, sustainable buildings in blindingly short spans of time and at shockingly low costs:

“Zhang Yue, founder and chairman of Broad Sustainable Building, is not a particularly humble man. A humble man would not have erected, on his firm’s corporate campus in the Chinese province of Hunan, a classical palace and a 130-foot replica of an Egyptian pyramid. A humble man, for that matter, would not have redirected Broad from its core business—manufacturing industrial air-conditioning units—to invent a new method of building skyscrapers. And a humble man certainly wouldn’t be putting up those skyscrapers at a pace never achieved in history.

In late 2011, Broad built a 30-story building in 15 days; now it intends to use similar methods to erect the world’s tallest building in just seven months. Perhaps you’re already familiar with Zhang’s handiwork: On New Year’s Day 2012, Broad released a time-lapse video of its 30-story achievement that quickly went viral: construction workers buzzing around like gnats while a clock in the corner of the screen marks the time. In just 360 hours, a 328-foot-tall tower called the T30 rises from an empty site to overlook Hunan’s Xiang River. At the end of the video, the camera spirals around the building overhead as the Broad logo appears on the screen: a lowercase b that wraps around itself in an imitation of the @ symbol.”

Tags: ,

“The Left Coast Has A Way Of Prodding Automakers To Innovate Faster”

September 26, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I put up a post yesterday about the spiffy new Supercharger stations built by Tesla Motors, but most of the news regarding alterna-cars in America in the last 24 hours has been mixed at best. Tesla itself is falling far short of its near-term manufacturing goals and Toyota, king of the hybrid with the Prius, announced it was largely abandoning the electric category. The one bright spot was that California legalized driverless cars, many of which will be electric. And that’s a state where such vehicles could thrive.

The obstacles to electric vehicles are gigantic because of the lack of infrastructure. Imagine if Steve Jobs had dreamed up the iPod but there were no outlets in your home to charge them, so Apple also had to build power sources. One thing that makers of electric autos should do is pool resources to create universal filling stations or outfit existing fossil fuel stations with a universal electrical outlet. The early electric cars are ideal for urban areas because of their relatively limited travel capacity, and most city dwellers don’t have garages in which to power their cars. Stations have to be ubiquitous, uniform and simple.

The challenges for automatic autos are psychological as well as foundational. Americans who feel like they don’t have great control over the rest of their lives have long enjoyed a sense of empowerment and freedom from being behind the wheel of their cars. (Picture America Graffiti with driverless cars.) So the obstacles are technological as well as those of hearts and minds.

From a Forbes article about California’s new driverless cars law: “California Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed a law making it legal for driverless cars to travel on public roadways, demonstrating once again that the Left Coast has a way of prodding automakers to innovate faster.

It’s not that smart minds in Detroit, Japan and Germany aren’t already working on autonomous cars. They’ve been doing so for years. But as with most new technologies, automotive engineers want to make absolutely certain that they’re safe and perform as expected before launching into mass production. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration agrees, of course, which is why it recently launched the first real-world test of vehicle-to-vehicle communication near Ann Arbor, Mich.

But Google, which has already developed a fleet of driverless cars that some of its employees use to commute to work, was eager to press ahead. It lobbied heavily for the California law, which would allow testing of autonomous vehicles on the state’s roadways as long as there’s a fully licensed human in the driver’s seat to take over if needed.”

“Our Starstuff Is Capable Of Looking Into The Night Sky To Perceive Other Stars Shining”

September 26, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

Kevin Kelly’s brief and perfect response to a request for his “favorite deep, elegant, or beautiful explanation”:

“We Are Stardust

Where did we come from? I find the explanation that we were made in stars to be deep, elegant, and beautiful. This explanation says that every atom in each of our bodies was built up out of smaller particles produced in the furnaces of long-gone stars. We are the byproducts of nuclear fusion. The intense pressures and temperatures of these giant stoves thickened collapsing clouds of tiny elemental bits into heavier bits, which once fused, were blown out into space as the furnace died. The heaviest atoms in our bones may have required more than one cycle in the star furnaces to fatten up. Uncountable numbers of built-up atoms congealed into a planet, and a strange disequilibrium called life swept up a subset of those atoms into our mortal shells. We are all collected stardust. And by a most elegant and remarkable transformation, our starstuff is capable of looking into the night sky to perceive other stars shining. They seem remote and distant, but we are really very close to them no matter how many lightyears away. All that we see of each other was born in a star. How beautiful is that?”

Tags:

“They Have Themselves Taken Over The Role Of Hero From Yuri Gagarin And John Glenn And Neil Armstrong And Sally Ride”

September 25, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

I don’t agree with the premise of Ian Bogost’s new Atlantic article which argues that private industrialists and technologists exploring and colonizing space alongside government efforts will somehow debase our ambitions. It will mean something different and pose new questions, sure, but we need to be confronting such challenges from every angle. Regardless, it’s a well-considered piece. An excerpt:

“[Elon] Musk is a hero of the entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who have themselves taken over the role of hero from Yuri Gagarin and John Glenn and Neil Armstrong and Sally Ride. He’s also perhaps the closest real-world counterpart to Tony Stark, the fictional playboy and industrialist who becomes Iron Man in Stan Lee’s comic books. Musk started SpaceX shortly before selling PayPal in 2002. Like Stark he’s a modest man, taking only the titles of CEO and CTO at SpaceX, in addition to his role as Chairman and CEO at Tesla Motors, the electric car manufacturer he founded a year later. SpaceX’s contract under the NASA COTS program is worth up to $3.1 billion, more than twice what Ebay shelled out for PayPal.

Musk is in the space freight business, hauling materials and equipment from earth to sky, a kind of twenty-first century Cornelius Vanderbilt in the making. Elsewhere, rich men lust jealously for space now that Earth’s challenges have proven tiresome. John Carmack, the co-founder of iD software and co-creator of Doom started Armadillo Aerospace in 2000, eyeing space tourism via a sub-orbital commercial craft. Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos helped found another private spaceflight company, Blue Origin, in the same year. And of course, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson established Virgin Galactic in 2004, to provide sub-orbital space tourism as well as orbital satellite launch. In 2008, Richard Garriott, the role-playing game creator and son of American Skylab astronaut Owen K. Garriott, paid Space Adventures a reported $30 million to be flown via Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the ISS. Just four years later, Branson’s Virgin Galactic was selling tickets for sub-orbital rides on SpaceshipTwo for a mere $200,000. Ashton Kutcher and Katy Perry have already signed up. TMZ Galactic can’t be far behind.”

Tags: ,

“It Is A Regression To The Ancient Usury Problem That Destroyed Rome”

September 25, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The opening of economic analyst Michael Hudson’s thoughts on a system in which debt creation floats the boat, until he believes, it capsizes:

“Mainstream economics has become a body of assumptions selected to rationalize a ‘trickle-down’ tax policy favoring the financial sector driving the rest of the economy into debt, turning the economic surplus into interest charges – to be recycled into yet more debt creation. Claiming that wealth at the top pulls up the rest (‘the rich are job creators’), the policy inference is to shift taxes off financial wealth and property onto labor and industry.

What this view leaves out of account is that some ways of ‘getting rich’ are corrosive, not productive. The wealthiest 10% have gotten rich mainly by getting the bottom 90% into debt. And labor (‘consumers’) try to escape from their financial squeeze by going even deeper into debt, to buy homes and status before their access price rises even further out of reach. But what is pushing up real estate and other prices is easy bank credit – that is, debt. So the debt expansion calls for yet more debt to keep the financial system solvent.

This is not industrial capitalism as analyzed by the classical economists. It is something quite different. It is a regression to the ancient usury problem that destroyed Rome.” (Thanks Browser.)

Tags:

“It’s Designed To Generate More Energy From The Sun Over The Course Of A Year Than Is Consumed By Tesla Vehicles”

September 25, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors announced yesterday the location of its first six Supercharger stations, which allow Tesla drivers to recharge batteries fast and for free. No gas station has ever looked this immaculate. The station creates all its power through solar. From the press release:

“Tesla Motors today unveiled its highly anticipated Supercharger network. Constructed in secret, Tesla revealed the locations of the first six Supercharger stations, which will allow the Model S to travel long distances with ultra fast charging throughout California, parts of Nevada and Arizona.

The technology at the heart of the Supercharger was developed internally and leverages the economies of scale of existing charging technology already used by the Model S, enabling Tesla to create the Supercharger device at minimal cost. The electricity used by the Supercharger comes from a solar carport system provided by SolarCity, which results in almost zero marginal energy cost after installation. Combining these two factors, Tesla is able to provide Model S owners1 free long distance travel indefinitely.

Each solar power system is designed to generate more energy from the sun over the course of a year than is consumed by Tesla vehicles using the Supercharger. This results in a slight net positive transfer of sunlight generated power back to the electricity grid.”

••••••••••

“What we want to show you tonight is the solution to the three major problems holding back electric vehicles”:

Tags:

“It May Also Bring His Opposition, The GOP, Back To The Center”

September 24, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

I’m still unconvinced that an Obama victory in November, even a deep one, will move the GOP back toward the center. I don’t believe that the Republican stalwarts (William Kristol, Peggy Noonan, Charles Krauthammer, etc.) realize that it’s not only the messenger who’s flawed but the message. Tax cuts for the wealthy, causing racial division, supply-side economics and voter suppression may seem like good ideas in conservative think-tanks, but the people aren’t buying it anymore. The Gingrich-Rove playbook, the one that says you can sell Americans anything provided you use the exact right phrasing, is dead. In a time of unfettered media, there are too many fact-checkers. And nostalgia for an America that never existed isn’t appealing to a changing population. It really is morning in America now, not because of the past but because of the future. And a lot of GOP bigwigs are trying to turn back a broken clock. From Andrew Sullivan in Newsweek:

“If Obama wins, to put it bluntly, he will become the Democrats’ Reagan. The narrative writes itself. He will emerge as an iconic figure who struggled through a recession and a terrorized world, reshaping the economy within it, passing universal health care, strafing the ranks of al -Qaeda, presiding over a civil-rights revolution, and then enjoying the fruits of the recovery. To be sure, the Obama recovery isn’t likely to have the same oomph as the one associated with Reagan—who benefited from a once-in-a-century cut of top income tax rates (from 70 percent to, at first, 50 percent, and then to 28 percent) as well as a huge jump in defense spending at a time when the national debt was much, much less of a burden. But Obama’s potential for Reagan status (maybe minus the airport-naming) is real. Yes, Bill Clinton won two terms and is a brilliant pol bar none, as he showed in Charlotte in the best speech of both conventions. But the crisis Obama faced on his first day—like the one Reagan faced—was far deeper than anything Clinton confronted, and the future upside therefore is much greater. And unlike Clinton’s constant triangulating improvisation, Obama has been playing a long, strategic game from the very start—a long game that will only truly pay off if he gets eight full years to see it through. That game is not only changing America. It may also bring his opposition, the GOP, back to the center, just as Reagan indelibly moved the Democrats away from the far left.”

Tags: , , , , ,

“A New Generation Of Airship-Like Vehicles Could Soon Be Making Their Way Across Our Skies”

September 24, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I’ve blogged before about aviators attempting to repopularize the airship. More on the topic by Jon Stewart at the BBC:

“If you like the idea of cruising on a ship in laid-back luxury, but prefer the speed and convenience of air travel, there may soon be a solution. Drawing their inspiration from the airships of yesteryear, a new generation of airship-like vehicles could soon be making their way across our skies.

In a hangar outside Tustin in California, engineers are preparing one of the most radical designs for testing. The Aeroscraft, as it is known, is the brainchild of Igor Pasternak and has been made possible by advances in materials and computer control systems.

‘We are resurrecting [the airship] with new composite fabric structures, that are stronger, lighter, more versatile,’ says Fred Edworthy, of Aeros, the company building the lighter-than-air vehicle.”

••••••••••

“Advanced Variable Buoyancy Air Vehicle”:

Tags: , ,

“I Felt Fine…I Just Lost A Piece Of My Ear”

September 24, 2012 in Excerpts, Sports | Permalink

I’ve mentioned before that I think eventually an NFL player will be killed on the field. The players are too large, strong, fast and effective, and no rule changes will be able to overcome that. What you may have missed from this Sunday’s slate of games, since the main story from the media was that the replacement refs suck, was that Houston quarterback Matt Schaub lost part of his ear during a bruising hit. He lost part of his ear! And who knows down the line what that hit will mean for his brain function. From Chuck Schilken in the L.A Times:

“Matt Schaub is just fine. Don’t worry about the Houston Texans quarterback, who lost his helmet and had to miss a play following a brutal — and illegal — hit by Denver Broncos defender Joe Mays.

‘I felt fine,’ Schaub said. ‘I just lost a piece of my ear. I was bleeding and my helmet came off. So I had to come out for a play, but I was fine.’

Wait … what?!

Is it just me or does Schaub seem a little nonchalant for a guy who just lost a piece of his ear?

Well, technically, it’s a piece of his ear lobe.”

Tags: ,

“There’s Never Been Anything Like It In My Lifetime”

September 23, 2012 in Excerpts, Sports, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Pete Hamill refers to the evening of the first Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier fight, which took place on March 8, 1971 at Madison Square Garden, as “perhaps the greatest night in the history of New York City.” Maybe. Of course, it would have been amazing to be in Times Square when WWII ended or to hear Abraham Lincoln speak at Cooper Institute in 1860 or to be there in 1927 to watch the ticker-tape parade for Charles Lindbergh after his transatlantic solo flight.

But Ali-Frazier was no doubt very special, considering the political backdrop of the former Cassius Clay being stripped of his title and two of the greatest heavyweights ever meeting while each was still undefeated. Just prior to the fight, Life magazine published a cover story by Thomas Thompson about that anticipated match, “Battle of the Champs.” An excerpt:

There is almost an obscene aura of money hanging over the fight. It might seem to be the ultimate black man’s revenge–each fighter getting his $2.5 million. But the white man will, as per custom, get his. The promoter of the fight is a 40-year-old California theatrical agent and manager named Jerry Perenchio whose clients include Richard Burton, Andy Williams, Johnny Mathis and Henry Mancini.

Perenchio is a pleasant man who wears monogrammed shirts and who would seem to be more at home beside a Beverly Hills swimming pool than at ringside of Madison Square Garden. But he is so far cleverly navigating his way through the turmoil. “I feel like I am smack in the middle of the court of the Borgias,” he said the other day. “So far I am being sued in various lawsuits totaling $58 million, and I have people calling me for tickets–the same people who, before the fight, I couldn’t even get on the telephone.”

The fight will be seen in at least 350 closed-circuit locations in America totaling 1.7 million seats, at prices ranging from $10 per ticket to $30. (Top price at Madison Square Garden is $150, but scalpers are already getting $500 per ticket.) “There’s never been anything like it in my lifetime,” says Perenchio, “very possibly since time began.”

alifrazier34

Promoting the fight has not been without its problems. Perenchio simply took the map of America and the world, carved it out into various sections, and set a price tag on each for the closed-circuit rights. If the price was met, the rights were granted. If not, they were withheld. So far, more than 20 auditoriums in the U.S. have been withheld from potential entrepreneurs because of Muhammad Ali’s conviction on draft evasion charges.

The fight will be seen live in Canada, Peru, Argentina, Mexico, Japan, and in England at 4 a.m. There would be considerably more outlets if there were enough time. ‘We only had two months really to promote it,’ complained Perenchio. “We’re like a guy in an orchard with only a limited amount of time to pick the fruit. We can only get at the lower branches.”

Perenchio is not overlooking any way to make money from the event. Besides the expected $20 million to $30 million gross anticipated from the fight itself, he is selling the rights to the souvenir program, between-rounds commercials, a special poster and post-fight movie–to be delayed for six months–for a total of $4 million. “We haven’t sold it yet, in fact we’ve only had a few offers of $500,000 or $250,000. We just don’t want to schlock it.”

On top of all this, Perenchio actually plans to seize both boxers’ trunks and gloves so that he can auction them off later. “If they can sell Judy Garland’s red Oz shoes for $15,000, then we should get at least as much for these,” he said. “We get a little blood on the trunks, it makes them all the more valuable.”•

Tags: , , ,

“The Only Way People Are Going To Get This Is Through Some Brave Soul”

September 23, 2012 in Books, Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

Imagine healthy, aging people experimenting with synthetic biology to prevent deterioration, replacing their own cells with inviolable, indefatigable ones. From a Technology Review Q&A conducted by David Ewing Duncan with geneticist George Church, whose new book is entitled Regenesis:

“Technology Review:

When is regeneration likely to happen in humans?

George Church:

There is much to be worked out. But here’s the leap. If you want to accelerate this, you have to pick an intermediate target that doesn’t sound so scary. So you’ll start out with bone marrow patients. And you’re going to basically make a synthetic version of that patient’s bone marrow using IPS, which is going to work much better than the diseased bone marrow. And once this works that’s going to catch on like wildfire. And then you’ll do skin, and then you’ll do every other stem cell you can get.

Technology Review:

Who is going to do this?

George Church:

The only way people are going to get this is through some brave soul. It will start with a sick person, and they will end up getting well, possibly more well than before they got sick. So you didn’t just correct the sickness, you actually did more. And they’ll give testimonials, and someone from the New York Times will interview them, and tell this appealing anecdote.

Technology Review:

Will people who are, say, aging but not yet sick ever be able to use this technology?

George Church:

I don’t consider this medicine, it’s preventive. I expect somebody who is truly brave, who has nothing wrong with them other than maybe the usual aging, saying: ‘I want a bone marrow transplant’, or intestinal, or whatever. And it will gain momentum from there.” (Thanks Next Big Future.)

Tags: ,

“This Guy Built A Whole Robot Out Of Paper, And It Actually Works”

September 23, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

In you had given me a paper robot that could walk when I was a child, my eye would have burst. From Smithsonian: “You know the robots are coming for you. But did you know they could be made from paper? That’s right, even your crisp, white ream could be plotting against you. This guy built a whole robot out of paper, and it actually works.”

For the truly impatient, the bot strolls at the 3:14 mark.

« Older entries § Newer entries »