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thinkahol *

It's Official: Tunisia Now Freer than the U.S. | Informed Comment - 0 views

www.juancole.com/...ia-now-freer-than-the-u-s.html

It's Official: Tunisia Now Freer than the U.S. | Informed Comment

shared by thinkahol * on 09 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 09 Mar 11
     
    An Arab country with neither secret police nor censorship is unprecedented in recent decades. Tunisia is inspiring similar demands in Egypt and Jordan. When skeptics wonder if the Revolutions of 2011 would really change anything essential in the region, they would be wise to keep an eye on these two developments in Tunisia, which, if consolidated, would represent an epochal transformation of culture and politics. Arguably, Tunisians are now freer than Americans. The US government thinks our private emails are actually public. The FBI and NSA routinely read our email and they and other branches of the US government issue security letters in the place of warrants allowing them to tap phones and monitor whom we call, and even to call up our library records and conduct searches of our homes without telling us about it. Millions of telephone records were turned over to George W. Bush by our weaselly telecom companies. Courts allow government agents to sneak onto our property and put GPS tracking devices under our automobiles without so much as a warrant or even probable cause. Mr. Obama thinks this way of proceeding is a dandy idea.
thinkahol *

GE Sees Solar Cheaper Than Fossil Power in Five Years - 0 views

www.readersupportednews.org/...han-fossil-power-in-five-years

GE Sees Solar Cheaper Than Fossil Power in Five Years

shared by thinkahol * on 03 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 03 Jun 11
     
    Once you include the subsidies* given to fossil fuel providers, solar is ALREADY cheaper! *The subsidies give to fossil fuel providers include multiple dumbass wars for oil, drilling/mining on federal lands, environmental damage (think climate change, oil spills, mountain top removal, drinking water contamination, etc.), etc
thinkahol *

EPFL spinoff turns thousands of 2D photos into 3D images | KurzweilAI - 0 views

www.kurzweilai.net/ds-of-2d-photos-into-3d-images

EPFL spinoff turns thousands of 2D photos into 3D images | KurzweilAI

shared by thinkahol * on 15 May 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 15 May 11
     
    Researchers in EPFL's Computer Vision Laboratory developed a computer-based modeling service that generates a 3D image from up to thousands of 2D shots, with all the processing done in the cloud. Since April, the EPFL startup Pix4D has been offering the modeling service with a fourth dimension: time. Now, individuals and small businesses looking for fast, cheap, large-scale 3D models can get them without investing in heavy processing, the company states. With Pix4D, users upload a series of photos of an object, and within 30 minutes they have a 3D image. The software defines "points of interest" from among the photos, or common points of high-contrast pixels. Next, the program pastes the images together seamlessly by matching up the points of interest. Much in the same way our two eyes work together to calculate depth, the software computes the distance and angle between two or more photos and lays the image over the model appropriately, creating a highly accurate 3D model that avoids the time intensive, "point by point" wireframe method. With Pix4D's 3D models, you can navigate in all directions as well as change the date on a timeline to see what a place looked like at different times of the year. The company is collaborating with several drone makers (including another EPFL startup,senseFly) to market their software as a package with senseFly's micro aerial vehicles, or autonomous drones. Pix4D's time element avoids waiting for Google to update its satellite data or for an expensive plane to fly by and take high-resolution photos. Farmers, for example, can now send relatively inexpensive flying drones into the air to take pictures as often as they like, allowing them to survey the evolution of their crops over large distances and long periods of time. And since the calculations are done on a cloud server, the client doesn't need a powerful computer of his or her own.
thinkahol *

‪Michael Pawlyn: Using nature's genius in architecture‬‏ - YouTube - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

‪Michael Pawlyn: Using nature's genius in architecture‬‏ - YouTube

shared by thinkahol * on 28 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 28 Jul 11
     
    http://www.ted.com How can architects build a new world of sustainable beauty? By learning from nature. At TEDSalon in London, Michael Pawlyn describes three habits of nature that could transform architecture and society: radical resource efficiency, closed loops, and drawing energy from the sun. TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate.
Todd Suomela

The Technium: The World Without Technology - 0 views

www.kk.org/...the_world_witho.php

technology technology-effects history anthropology language evolution culture archaeology

shared by Todd Suomela on 10 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Although strictly speaking simple tools are a type of technology made by one person, we tend to think of technology as something much more complicated. But in fact technology is anything designed by a mind. Technology includes not only nuclear reactors and genetically modified crops, but also bows and arrows, hide tanning techniques, fire starters, and domesticated crops. Technology also includes intangible inventions such as calendars, mathematics, software, law, and writing, as these too derive from our heads. But technology also must include birds' nests and beaver dams since these too are the work of brains. All technology, both the chimp's termite fishing spear and the human's fishing spear, the beaver's dam and the human's dam, the warbler's hanging basket and the human's hanging basket, the leafcutter ant's garden and the human's garden, are all fundamentally natural. We tend to isolate human-made technology from nature, even to the point of thinking of it as anti-nature, only because it has grown to rival the impact and power of its home. But in its origins and fundamentals a tool is as natural as our life.
  • The gravity of technology holds us where we are. We accept our attachment. But to really appreciate the effects of technology – both its virtues and costs -- we need to examine the world of humans before technology. What were our lives like without inventions? For that we need to peek back into the Paleolithic era when technology was scarce and humans lived primarily surrounded by things they did not make. We can also examine the remaining contemporary hunter-gatherer tribes still living close to nature to measure what, if anything, they gain from the small amount of technology they use.
  • Then about 50,000 years ago something amazing happened. While the bodies of early humans in Africa remained unchanged, their genes and minds shifted noticeably. For the first time hominins were full of ideas and innovation. These newly vitalized modern humans, which we now call Sapiens, charged into new regions beyond their ancestral homes in eastern Africa. They fanned out from the grasslands and in a relatively brief burst exploded from a few tens of thousands in Africa to an estimated 8 million worldwide just before the dawn of agriculture 10,000 years ago.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • It should have been clear to Neanderthal, as it is now clear to us in the 21st century, that something new and big had appeared -- a new biological and geological force. A number of scientists (Richard Klein, Ian Tattersall, William Calvin, among many others) think that the "something" that happened 50,000 years ago was the invention of language. Up until this point, humanoids were smart. They could make crude tools in a hit or miss way and handle fire – perhaps like an exceedingly smart chimp. The African hominin's growing brain size and physical stature had leveled off its increase, but evolution continued inside the brain.  "What happened 50,000 years ago," says Klein, "was a change in the operating system of humans. Perhaps a point mutation effected the way the brain is wired that allowed languages, as we understand language today: rapidly produced, articulate speech."  Instead of acquiring a larger brain, as the Neanderthal and Erectus did, Sapien gained a rewired brain.  Language altered the Neanderthal-type mind, and allowed Sapien minds for the first time to invent with purpose and deliberation. Philosopher Daniel Dennet crows in elegant language: "There is no step more uplifting, more momentous in the history of mind design, than the invention of language. When Homo sapiens became the beneficiary of this invention, the species stepped into a slingshot that has launched it far beyond all other earthly species." The creation of language was the first singularity for humans. It changed everything. Life after language was unimaginable to those on the far side before it.
thinkahol *

YouTube - We Have a Plan: Other Aspects of a Resource Based Economy - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

YouTube - We Have a Plan: Other Aspects of Resource Based Economy

shared by thinkahol * on 20 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 20 Apr 11
     
    It's Time to Change...And We Have a Plan Get Informed: www.thezeitgeistmovement.com www.thevenusproject.com www.zeitgeistportugal.org www.futuragora.pt Music: Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool by Editors
thinkahol *

Inkjet printing could change the face of solar energy industry - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...110628133022.htm

Inkjet printing could change the face of solar energy industry

shared by thinkahol * on 01 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 01 Jul 11
     
    ScienceDaily (June 28, 2011) - Inkjet printers, a low-cost technology that in recent decades has revolutionized home and small office printing, may soon offer similar benefits for the future of solar energy.
Todd Suomela

Amateur Science and the Rise of Big Science | Citizen Scientists League - 0 views

citizenscientistsleague.com/...ce-and-the-rise-of-big-science

science amateur professional success citizen-science history government funding sts

shared by Todd Suomela on 04 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Several trends came together to increase the professional nature of scientific work. First was the increasing cost of scientific work and its complexity. Scientific equipment became more precise and expensive. Telescopes, like those by Herschel, became bigger and bigger. Also, the amount of knowledge one needed to gain to contribute became increasingly daunting.
  • Second, the universities changed. Pioneered by the German states, which at the beginning of the 19th century was dismissed as a scientific backwater, universities began offering focused majors which trained students in a specific discipline rather than classical education as a whole. This was pioneered by Wilhelm von Humboldt, brother of the famous scientist Alexander von Humboldt, who was the Prussian Minister of Education.
  • Germany, once united, also provided impetus to two other trends that accelerated their dominance of science and the decline of amateurs. First, was the beginning of large-scale state sponsorship of science through grants which were first facilitated through the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (now the Max Planck Institute). This eventually supplanted prizes as the dominant large-scale source of scientific funding. Countries like France that relied on prizes began to fall behind. Second, was the intimate cooperation between industrial firms like BASF and universities.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • he final nail in the coffin was undoubtedly the Second World War. The massive mobilization of scientific resources needed to win and the discovery of war-winning inventions such as the atomic bomb and self-correcting bomb sight (with help from Norbert Wiener of MIT) convinced the nations of the world that the future was in large-scale funding and support of science as a continuous effort. Vannevar Bush, former president of MIT, and others pioneered the National Science Foundation and the military also invested heavily in its own research centers. Industrial labs such as those from Bell Labs, GE, Kodak, and others began dominating research as well. Interestingly, the first military investment in semiconductors coupled with research from Bell Labs led to what is now known as Silicon Valley.
scott tucker

Scott Tucker: Long Live the New American Revolution - 0 views

www.truthdig.com/..._occupies_your_street_20111007

Long Live the New American Revolution

shared by scott tucker on 27 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • scott tucker on 27 Jul 12
     
    The stitched-together movement that is overflowing from the Wall Street protest can have a huge impact if it holds firm against a malevolent corporatism and the political hucksters who dangle promises of "hope and change."
julia Dexter

Fix Your Irritating PC - Video - 0 views

speedupandoptimizepc.blog.com/...fix-your-irritating-pc-video

FixIrritatingPC CustomizePC FixPCIssues

shared by julia Dexter on 03 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • julia Dexter on 03 Sep 13
     
    There are some features in Windows that at times become irritating and does not let users to use PC to its fullest potential. We call it irritating it when its disturbing. While you cannot take these features out of Windows, you can make certain changes to ensure they do not appear on your screen.
David Mills

Reliable Vehicle Monitoring Device - 1 views

I thought I can never set myself free from worrying about my cargo trucks that usually travel to far places. Undeniably, there were drivers who cannot be fully trusted. But if I had to keep on chan...

Truck tracking

started by David Mills on 04 Oct 13 no follow-up yet
thinkahol *

The Reproductive Revolution: How Women Are Changing the Planet's Future: Scientific Ame... - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm

reproductive revolution

shared by thinkahol * on 13 Jun 10 - Cached
  • thinkahol * on 13 Jun 10
     
    The population bomb is being defused. It is being done without draconian measures by big government, without crackdowns on our liberties--by women making their own choices.
Todd Suomela

Information Processing: The Age of Computing - 0 views

infoproc.blogspot.com/...age-of-computing.html

philosophy sts history science physics csci computer engineering historiography

shared by Todd Suomela on 25 Jan 09 - Cached
  • By their less than wholly objective accounts of the development of physics, historians have conspired to propagate the myth of science as being essentially theoretical physics. Though the myth no longer described scientific reality 50 years ago, historians pretended that all was well, that nothing had changed since the old heroic days of Einstein and his generation.
    • Todd Suomela
      Todd Suomela on 25 Jan 09
       
      Don Ihde discusses this predisposition toward theoretical physics in his book Philosophy of Technology.
  • Todd Suomela on 25 Jan 09
     
    ...Historians of science have always had a soft spot for the history of theoretical physics. The great theoretical advances of this century -- relativity and quantum mechanics -- have been documented in fascinating historical accounts that have captivated the mind of the cultivated public. There are no comparable studies of the relations between science and engineering. Breaking with the tradition of the Fachidiot, theoretical physicists have bestowed their romantic autobiographies on the world, portraying themselves as the high priests of the reigning cult.
Todd Suomela

PLoS ONE: A Demonstration of the Transition from Ready-to-Hand to Unready-to-Hand - 1 views

www.plosone.org/...journal.pone.0009433

phenomenology philosophy experimental readiness-to-hand technology technology-effects experience sts

shared by Todd Suomela on 23 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • In Chapter III of Being and Time, Heidegger distinguishes three modes of experiencing the world. Most human activity, Heidegger argued, is absorbed, skillful engagement with entities in the world. When we are coping skillfully with the world, we experience entities around us as ready-to-hand.
  • Heidegger argues that skilled coping, when we engage with entities as ready-to-hand, is our primary way of engaging with the world. Sometimes, though, our skillful coping is temporarily disturbed. When this happens, we encounter entities as unready-to-hand. When we go from smoothly hammering to having difficulty, our experience of the previously ready-to-hand entities changes: we experience the hammer, nails and board as failing to serve their function appropriately.
  • Heidegger's third way of experiencing the world is as present-at-hand. The hammer is encountered as present-at-hand when we stop hammering and consider the hammer's shape or color or weight; when considered this way the hammer is no longer a useful tool but merely an object with various properties. Heidegger argued that readiness-to-hand is primary in two ways. First, the majority of our experience of the world is engaging with entities ready-to-hand. Second, readiness-to-hand is, from a phenomenological standpoint, ontologically primary while the other modes are derivative of it.
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