World Map of Population Density
Mountains, underground, skies, oceans, deserts. Room for many.
Steven Pinker Would Like a Beer With You
I doubt my fixation on Pinker will end anytime soon, because his book How the Mind Works was the single most illuminating work of cognitive science I've read, even though it was a popular work.
Nikon Small World
Check out the magnified photographs at Nikon Small World. Fascinating. Many of the best are near the end, at 70+ in the gallery.
John Powers’ Sculptures
John Powers has a website that shows off his amazing sculptures. Many of them look like futuristic pixelated 3D objects. They also remind me of swarming robots.
Aubrey de Grey in a Cool Hat
Here is a picture of Aubrey in a knitted hat, by Christopher Sykes. I am currently interviewing him for a piece on the Singularity for h+ magazine, so stay tuned.
Anders Sandberg
Posting an image of Anders Sandberg, because he's an iconic transhumanist. Be sure to check out his report "Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap", co-authored with Nick Bostrom for the Future of Humanity Institute. You can also see his excellent photography on Flickr. His blog is Andart.
Back in the old days, the primary transhumanist site on the web was Anders Transhuman Page, and many of us got acquainted with transhumanism via that avenue. It's mostly a collection of links, definitely worth checking out if you've never seen it.
Update: most of the links are dead there, sadly. Still, Anders Transhuman Page lives on in our hearts.
Haber Montage
I made this montage of Dr. Haber when I was in my "wow, the Haber-Bosch process underlies our entire world" phase. Haber's life is one of the best parables of the dangers and benefits of science and technology. He invented the Haber-Bosch process, which sustains more than 2 billion people and consumes between 1 and 2% of the global energy budget. Without it, cities could not eat.
He also invented Zyklon B, which was used to kill millions of Jews during the Holocaust, and other chemical weapons which were used during WWI. During the war, his wife -- who was also a Ph.D chemist -- shot herself in the head with his army pistol, after which he promptly went to the Eastern Front in WWI to oversee gas release against the armies of Russia. His son shot himself shortly after WWII. Ironically, Dr. Haber was of Jewish descent.
Overall, Haber was evil. If he hadn't died in 1934, and was of Jewish background, Adolf Hitler probably would have loved him to be the #1 mad scientist in his global Nazi empire. Hitler's Hojo, if you will.
Still, the evil that Haber unleashed is little in comparison to what the builder of a human-indifferent recursively self-improving Artificial Intelligence could do, without even meaning to.
AGI Discussion
Discussion of AGI ethics at Convergence 2008. From left going clockwise, dunno, Anna Salamon, Peter Voss, Matt Bamberger, dunno, Steve Rayhawk, dunno, dunno, me, Brad Templeton.