Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Mega-cities imminent
via guardian.uk: The world's first actual mega-city is on the way, consisting of Hong Kong/Shenhzen/Guangzhou in China. Over 120 million inhabitants.
Monday, March 22, 2010
stainless-steel 3D printing
via singularity hub: Just what it says. Slightly more expensive, longer wait. But very user-friendly.
biz site is shapeways.com.
Touch-screen quantum mechanics trick
via bbc.co.uk: Utilizing quantum tunneling to create a pressure sensitive touchscreen the thickness of a human hair. (This already is in commercial use!) Say hello to synthetic skin for prosthetics, everybody!
Ironclad - flashdrive pc
from lockheedmartin: Secure, compact computing. Flash drive contains its own OS and files, merely hijacks the connected system's monitor & keyboard. No files actually transferred to host computer.
Claytonics & programmable matter
via singularity hub: very early stages of claytronics research...organised, computerised matter. Current prototype computing elements approx. 3cm tube, hopefully will be 3mm soonish. All elements share computing tasks, and can join together/shift via magnetics & electro-motive chicanery. Your actual SmartMatter (TM).
Bionic limbs are the new black
via bbc: Rather hyperbolic article about the "kewl-ness" of prosthetics. Rightly trashed in the comments. However, still very interesting.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Cops & Quota's in NYC
via simple justice: half a million stop-and-searches in NYC yearly, and more than 9 out of 10 result in no charges, no evidence of crime at all. NYC police are meeting quota's, and this has led to intrusive searches, public humiliation, and the NYPD keeping any searched individual's personal info on file. Forever. Even those who have done no wrong.
Colorado Springs = Snowtown
via obsidian wings: town with no tax income, pretty much all essential services are shutting down. Parks, police, trash pickup, public transport, streetlights. On the road to becoming a bona fide feral city, right here in america.
Erie Correctional - dying to get out
link: Erie correctional facility refuses access to a county-employed suicide-prevention expert after 5(!) different suicide attempts in rapid succession. cover-up of what, exactly?
Friday, March 19, 2010
Vatican remains almost-silent
via slate: Further explanation of Ratzinger's irresponsibility. Covering up child abuse (systematically and without any apparent concern for the victims) is NOT OK.
Galaxies on the run
via USAToday: Discovery of a series of galaxies(!) all hurtling towards the same destination - the Hydra cluster. Not explicable by current dark matter theory, cause unknown. Something beyond our celestial horizon, pulling them in?
Fred Phelps
via philly enquirer: Fred Phelps, evangelical crazy-at-large, has been protesting US servicemen funeral services with such delightful placards as "God Hates Your Tears" and "Thank God for Dead Soldiers". His claim is that US deaths are the result of God's anger at gays being allowed to exist in america. Court case is currently pending, regarding free speech. Lots of angles here -1st amendment, obscenity, slander, right to religious freedom (they were protesting a religious service, for example). Should follow this.
using Disorder as an aid in quantum systems
via wired: designing a quantum system (the goal being computing) that uses the inherent chaos in complex systems as an aid, not something to be avoided. Interesting.
DARPA & Quantum mechanics
via wired: DARPA offering funding to any & all who can incorporate quantum mechanics into actual prototypes. R&D, clearly, since the first observable quantum superimposition in a physical(visible) object just happened a couple weeks ago. Not that you could look at it, since looking at it would change it's quantum state. Damn you, quantum physics!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Da Vinci's hidden mirror-enabled images
random link: Regarding Da Vinci's "newly discovered"(read: debatable)use of mirrored images within some of his famous works. When viewed with a mirror, in just the right place, you get some other image a la Mad Magazine. Also comes with a healthy dose of crazy.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
japanese "rape-simulator" videogame
via huffpost: Really!? The player is a rapist out to capture & , y'know, a mother and her two daughters. I don't even know where to begin vomiting with this one.
Different from Ethnic Cleansing from Rsistance Records (spewers of Racism - yes, with a capital 'R'), and LB: Eternal Forces, where women have their uses, but it appears that only americans get to know the glory of the Jeebus.
apocalypse does not justify sex with yer daughters, you fuck
via huffpost: Aswad Ayinde has been mentally & physically terrorizing his daughters for ten years, including repeated rapes, in order to breed within his own family and create a "pure" bloodline for the End Times.
Vatican STILL full crap
via telegraph.co.uk: brief discussion of the Vatican's exorcism programs, and the psychological usefulness (to the church) of an external Tempter.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Jessica Canfield sucks
via huffpost: more maternal horror. 24-year-old claims to not know she was pregnant, as some kind of excuse for dumping her newborn infant in the trash. Yay people.
Silly Vatican
via huffpost" Vatican employee in gay prostitution scandal. The scandal being he wasn't prostituting some altar boy, just gay adults. *ba-dum ching*
Monday, March 1, 2010
Victorian English uniforms
ThinRedLine.co.uk - collection of uniforms & repro bits for re-enactors. Specific rorke's drift accoutrements.
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