April 2010
Facebook's Eroding Privacy Policy: A Timeline |... →
Scary relevant. Via Clay Shirky.
“Steve Jobs’ strategic dilemma in a nutshell: the PC industry as we have...”
– Charlie Stross
on the commodification of the personal computer
“The telephone was an aberration in human development. It was a 70 year or so...”
– Rick Webb about this (via marco)
Molecular computer mimics human brain - MSNBC →
We are so doomed.
The connections between neurons also evolve over time, growing stronger or weaker as the [human] brain works out the best way to solve problems. In this way, such networks can learn over time.
an international research team from Japan and the United States has created a computer just two molecules thick that can replicate these traits of the human brain to a certain...
Out for the count: Why levels of sperm in men are... →
Experts in human reproductive biology were astonished by the Danish study. The declining trend seemed to indicate that men were on a path to becoming completely infertile within a few generations (although recent studies suggest the fall in sperm counts may have bottomed out). Professor Skakkebaek could offer no explanation for the trend other than to suggest that the fall may have something to...
“The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their...”
– Neil deGrasse Tyson
WatchApollo 11 Saturn V Launch by Mark Gray
This clip is raw from Camera E-8 on the launch umbilical tower/mobile launch program of Apollo 11, July 16, 1969. This is an HD transfer from the 16mm original.
The camera is running at 500 fps, making the total clip of over 8 minutes represent just 30 seconds of actual time
via df
An iPad Review
I named mine “knee pad”.
Like guitars, pool cues and cars, it might at first feel silly to give a name to an object. Yet at one point you still give it a name. You won’t refer to it out loud of course, but the act of naming the object will make it yours, moreso than just acquiring it.
So I named mine “Knee Pad.”
When French toddlers start to...
Church scandal’s next wave: Abused girls - The... →
Clench your teeth now, or you’ll bleed your tongue while reading.
[…] that male-female ratio to change within five to 10 years to reflect a trend that began in the 1970s when the church welcomed female altar servers. Researchers say disclosure of abuse is typically delayed for about 30 years, which means women assaulted as children are just starting to come to terms with what...
“They say you need to sell to the Fortune 500. Screw that. We sell to the Fortune...”
– Fried and Hansson Rework
The stupidity of Ronald Reagan. - By Christopher... →
No one does it like Hitchens :
Ronald Reagan claimed that the Russian language had no word for “freedom.” (The word is “svoboda”; it’s quite well attested in Russian literature.) Ronald Reagan said that intercontinental ballistic missiles (not that there are any non-ballistic missiles—a corruption of language that isn’t his fault) could be recalled once...
How to End the Slavery Blame-Game - NYT Op Ed →
Henry Louis Gates Jr :
Advocates of reparations for the descendants of those slaves generally ignore this untidy problem of the significant role that Africans played in the trade, choosing to believe the romanticized version that our ancestors were all kidnapped unawares by evil white men, like Kunta Kinte was in “Roots.”
The truth, however, is much more complex: slavery was a...
“The idea that humans, for all their technological might, could be put in their...”
– After the volcano: Earthly powers (via marco)
“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the...”
– Kurt Vonnegut
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
Mysterious radio waves emitted from nearby galaxy... →
There is something strange in the cosmic neighbourhood. An unknown object in the nearby galaxy M82 has started sending out radio waves, and the emission does not look like anything seen anywhere in the universe before.
Crows Never Forget a Face - New York Times →
From samkityoung :
Researchers tested their hypothesis of crow facial recognition by disturbing them while wearing a mask. Then they would come back later in the mask and the crows would react strongly to them, sometimes flying down to harass them. The researcher would leave and come back later with the mask on upside down. The crows would invert themselves in mid-flight to correctly...
WatchThe Sun
The first data is returning from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory… and its astonishingly beautiful video of the sun.
Wired Science
“[At Pixar] there is very high tolerance for eccentricity, very creative, and to...”
– Ed Catmull
“Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion...”
– Albert Einstein (via littleorphanammo) 