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" Fearless commentary on finance, economics, politics and power Follow yvessmith on Twitter Feedburner RSS Feed RSS Feed for Comments Subscribe via Email SUBSCRIBE Recent Items Links 3/11/17 - 03/11/2017 - Yves Smith Deutsche Bank Tries to Stay Alive - 03/11/2017 - Yves Smith John Helmer: Australian Government Trips Up Ukrainian Court Claim of MH17 as Terrorism - 03/11/2017 - Yves Smith 2:00PM Water Cooler 3/10/2017 - 03/10/2017 - Lambert Strether Why a 400-Year Program of Modernist Thinking is Exploding - 03/10/2017 - Yves Smith Links 3/10/17 - 03/10/2017 - Yves Smith Why It Will Take a Lot More Than a Smartphone to Get the Sharing Economy Started - 03/10/2017 - Yves Smith CalPERS' General Counsel Railroads Board on Fiduciary Counsel Selection - 03/10/2017 - Yves Smith Another Somalian Famine - 03/10/2017 - Yves Smith Trade now with TradeStation - Highest rated for frequent traders Why a 400-Year Program of Modernist Thinking is Exploding Posted on March 10, 2017 by Yves Smith By Lynn Parramore, Senior Research Analyst at the Institute for New Economic Thinking. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website Across the globe, a collective freak-out spanning the whole political system is picking up steam with every new "surprise" election, rush of tormented souls across borders, and tweet from the star of America's great unreality show, Donald Trump. But what exactly is the force that seems to be pushing us towards Armageddon? Is it capitalism gone wild? Globalization? Political corruption? Techno-nightmares? Rajani Kanth, a political economist, social thinker, and poet, goes beyond any of these explanations for the answer. In his view, what's throwing most of us off kilter - whether we think of ourselves as on the left or right, capitalist or socialist -was birthed 400 years ago during the period of the Enlightenment. It's a set of assumptions, a particular way of looking at the world that pushed out previous modes o

"With each interaction, Alexa is training to hear better, to interpret more precisely, to trigger actions that map to the user's commands more accurately, and to build a more complete model of their preferences, habits and desires. What is required to make this possible? Put simply: each small moment of convenience - be it answering a question, turning on a light, or playing a song - requires a vast planetary network, fueled by the extraction of non-renewable materials, labor, and data. The scale of resources required is many magnitudes greater than the energy and labor it would take a human to operate a household appliance or flick a switch. A full accounting for these costs is almost impossible, but it is increasingly important that we grasp the scale and scope if we are to understand and govern the technical infrastructures that thread through our lives. III The Salar, the world's largest flat surface, is located in southwest Bolivia at an altitude of 3,656 meters above sea level. It is a high plateau, covered by a few meters of salt crust which are exceptionally rich in lithium, containing 50% to 70% of the world's lithium reserves. 4 The Salar, alongside the neighboring Atacama regions in Chile and Argentina, are major sites for lithium extraction. This soft, silvery metal is currently used to power mobile connected devices, as a crucial material used for the production of lithium-Ion batteries. It is known as 'grey gold.' Smartphone batteries, for example, usually have less than eight grams of this material. 5 Each Tesla car needs approximately seven kilograms of lithium for its battery pack. 6 All these batteries have a limited lifespan, and once consumed they are thrown away as waste. Amazon reminds users that they cannot open up and repair their Echo, because this will void the warranty. The Amazon Echo is wall-powered, and also has a mobile battery base. This also has a limited lifespan and then must be thrown away as waste. According to the Ay

"We demonstrated the high-speed, non-deformation catching of a marshmallow. The marshmallow is a very soft object which is difficult to grasp without deforming its surface. For the catching, we developed a 1ms sensor fusion system with the high-speed active vision sensor and the high-speed, high-precision proximity sensor. Generally, a tactile feedback is used to grasp various kinds of soft objects without deforming. However, the robot hand tends to deform the object surface with only tactile feedback. By slowing the grasping speed, the deformation becomes smaller. However, grasping time becomes longer. The 1ms sensor fusion system enabled seamless, high-sensitive sensing from non-contact to contact state. The robot hand could control fingertip position dynamically and precisely based on the visual and the proximity feedback. By the proximity feedback, contact to the object was detected before deforming its surface, and grasping motion is stopped. The robot hand could catch the marshmallow even if the position and posture of it were different. http://www.k2.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/fusion/... SHOW MORE "

"In a way, Trump represents a culmination of trends that have been years in the making."

"We are developing next generation technology to store digital information in DNA molecules. Our vision is to fit the information content of entire data centers in the palm of your hand. We have proven our approach to encoding data in DNA and are in the process of scaling up our platform. CATALOG technology will make it economically attractive to use DNA as a medium for long-term archival of data."

"My long-term vision for a better rural farm policy in the future would include new wildlife corridors, agroforestry, walking paths and bike trails, natural prairies, restored wetlands, and a return to naturalized rivers. This would require returning some private land back to public land, of retiring a percentage of today's Midwestern farmland. These things would support wildlife, outdoors activities, and provide greater tourism opportunities in the Midwest. These things would protect the soil, water, and help with biodiversity compared to what it is today. They would also help to enhance the quality of life for those who are living in the Midwest and they would entice others to move there for new opportunities. And, more kids could grow up doing the outdoor activities that I did."