Just when you were worried about the Romulans winning future wars thanks to their cloaking technology,
Science reports that a technology for developing an invisibility shield that "cloaks" the user by steering light around them is perhaps only months away.
The Pentagon is funding the research.
News Item:
David Sharp, 34, died apparently of oxygen deficiency while descending from the summit during a solo climb last week.
More than 40 climbers are thought to have seen him as he lay dying, and almost all continued to the summit without offering assistance.
Our first reaction is to be appalled at the lack of concern and I'm anxious to hear from those who passed him by to hear their rationalizations. A Semper Fi sensibility hardly seems to apply to the new Everest hiking crowd. Sir Edmund Hillary observed this in his harsh criticism of the decision to put the summit above saving a life.
YET don't we ALL do this every day when we choose to distance ourselves from far more pressing global concerns where saving lives requires nothing like the efforts needed in this case? The key difference is proximity rather than ability to help. A modest Unicef contribution is more likely to save a life than attending to an oxygen deprived climber at 27000 feet in 80 below zero weather. Yet we don't have to look the malnourished kid in the face and thus we condemn and abhor the feelings of those who passed by the climber but absolve ourselves of what are probably more justified feelings of guilt for doing little in the face of great need.
It's a cruel world, right?
This excellent New York Times article outlines how Myspace evolved from a spammy junk site to one of the internet's top destinations, second only to Yahoo in page views according to several sources. I remain skeptical Myspace has more traffic than EBAY, but clearly they are huge and growing at a jaw-dropping rate from last year.
HOWEVER, Myspace is NOT hugely profitable with only 1/20th the revenues of Yahoo, the top online destination in terms of pages viewed.
I think the explanation is simple – Myspace traffic is dominated by young onliners who are enthusiastic and spend many hours per day online but have little interest in most advertising and not much money to spend. I doubt this will change.
We've noted at our US history site, which appears to get most traffic from school searches, that it is hard to match users and advertisements.
This superb documentary takes us inside Aljazeera TV during the early coverage of the Iraq war and reflects the tensions, biases, trials and tribulations of the Arab world's top news source.
Aljazeera is preparing to launch a major US and international news effort later this year. I'm thrilled because I think it will force many Americans to re-examine the nature of news and cultural bias.
OK, so I've been sick for the past few days, sitting around watching movies.
Might as well blog the reviews so I can pretend I'm being productive….
I watch a lot of movies so I'll start rating them with stars as follows:
* Sucks
* * Missable
* * * OK – see if bored
* * * * A reall good or great film – see it.
* * * * YOU MUST see this film!
Mike Myers films are almost always fun to watch (The Cat in the Hat may be a notable exception) and as usual "So I Married and Axe Murderer" from 1993 is clever and funny, with Myers as a multimedia poet who falls for a woman he suspects may be a murderer. Myers also plays his own father.
War of the Worlds – the Cruise and Spielberg version, is an excellent special effects movie that manages to preserve enough of the real H.G. Wells classic to be a very entertaining exploration of that timeless theme we Sci Fi fans never tire of – Super advanced Aliens attack earth with ruthless and magnificent technologies, munch humans, and yet (SPOILER HERE) We humans WIN!
As seems too common now with blockbusters the deep and thoughtful nature of the original work, remarkably written in 1898, seems to get lost amid grand and spectacular special effects and family dramatics and histrionics. Yet War of the Worlds is still a very enjoyable movie.
This excellent film pulls you into C.S. Lewis' magical world of fantasy where four children encounter marvelous creatures and battle evil in an effort to bring balance to the magical world of Narnia. Lewis and Tolkein were both in a writers group called the "inklings" and you can see the cross influences in Narnia and Lord of the Rings, each among the great masterpieces of literature in their own right.
This just in from that bastion of journalistic objectivity, FOX news –
Health tips for frequent (or infrequent) flyers –
Swelling of intestines means avoid overeating? Avoid junky food? [C'mon, flying's a new great excuse to nab some fast food between flights!]
Drink lots of water, but NOT from the unregulated bathroom source.
Earache? Put a warm towel on ear.
Keep babies alert during takeoff and landing to clear sinuses.*
Afrin and Claritin for adult sinus problems.
DO NOT drink the bathroom water, it's cleanliness is not regulated.
Last seat in Coach in aisle is safest statistically.
Gone Scuba? Wait 12-24 hours before flying
I just read that we Americans have 1 in 136 people locked up. Right now. Incredibly, about 1 in 37 Americans have served time. Among industrialized nations (and most others) we are the world's leading incarcerator. This is not a statistic to be proud of by any means and is an alarming indicator of an unhealthy society.
The Sentencing Project tried to answer the question "why?". This from a 2003 study comparing incarceration rates around the world:
The high rate of imprisonment in the United States can be explained by several
factors:
· A higher rate of violent crime than other industrialized nations.
· Harsher sentencing practices than in other nations, particularly for property and drug
offenses.
· Sentencing policy changes over a period of three decades, particularly the shift
toward mandatory and determinate sentencing, restrictions on judicial discretion, and
a greater emphasis on imprisonment as a preferred sanction.
· Policy changes adopted as part of the “war on drugs,” leading to a vastly increased
use of the criminal justice system as a means of responding to drug problems.
Some have suggested quite reasonably that the "next" really significant step in human evolution is the computerization of our brain functions, and that we'll usher in this downloadable brain era in about 30-70 years.
Once humans have a process to "download" our brains into machines, or perhaps simply create processes where machines have their own consciousnesses, many of the challenges facing humanity could go away – perhaps overnight. Concepts like health, water, food, fuel, and population will change as increasing numbers of societal participants will need few resources other than enough power to sustain their electronic consciousness .
For reasons I don't understand this sounds fanciful or even foolish to many who fail to realize or acknowledge the degree to which we NOW rely on machine intelligence. From simple calculators and spell checkers to satellite photos to internet searches and computer models of climate our information gathering and processing is enhanced via machine processes.
Sure, the leap to conscious machines is much larger but I'd suggest it will not prove qualitatively different from the subtle enhancements machines now bring to the table of conscious thought.
I'm just looking forward to playing perfect chess games every time.
Joe Duck 