Matt Mullenwegg Links “Why Intelligent People Fail”
I was honored to see that the creator of WordPress, the very software this blog runs on, plugged my page "Why Intelligent People Fail" yesterday. Definitely a page worth seeing if you haven't yet.
Assorted Items July 5th, 2010
My transcription of an excerpt from Robert Sternberg's In Search of the Human Mind, "Why Intelligent People Fail" got linked from Kottke, so it must be important.
KurzweilAI.net has a brand new look, and a blog. There are videos, a podcasts section, books, "TV shows we like", "films we like", and more.
IEEE Spectrum on fiber to the brain. This is from 2005, but it fills in a blank spot when it comes to the question of, "how do we create a dense brain-computer interface without nanobots and without risking an infection?"
Facebook group: Parents who support teaching children about the nuclear threat. As a child, I was disappointed to learn more about the risks of nuclear war from books than from my parents. Wasn't the possibility a really big deal, even if only 10%? My early experience learning about the risks of nuclear war left a major impression on me: the impression that people ignore anything that is even slightly abstract, global, and depressing. The Facebook group is by Matt Hoey, founder of the Military Space Transparency Project and former senior research associate at the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies. Mr. Hoey, a Roman Catholic, has also been a consultant for Kurzweil.
Check out "The Coming Urban Terror" by John Robb. He writes, "The arc of productivity growth that lets small groups terrorize at ever-higher levels of death and disruption stretches as far as the eye can see."
Katja Grace pulls apart why people are defensive about their jobs being altruistic but don't care much if their hobbies are: "Are meaningful careers a cover story?" She also reports on her experience at a dinner forum on population: yikes! Are "intellectuals" really that stupid?
Google Neglects Philanthropic Program
Google... what the hell? I submitted some good ideas to that program.
Don Heathfield = Russian Spy?
Today I got a call from the Boston Globe letting me know that a member of the Lifeboat Foundation Scientific Advisory Board, "Don Heathfield", is alleged t to be a Russian spy. What a surprise, huh? Naturally, I voted to remove him from the board.
The Lifeboat Foundation's Scientific Advisory Board has 1,148 members. I guess this makes 1,147.
Assorted Links 6/16/10
Patrick Millard's ongoing coverage of Biosphere 2
Anders Sandberg: Seeing the World
Indiana Law Interfering With Citizens' Free Speech Rights Found Unconstitutional
RepRap blog: Open Source Scanning Tunneling Microscope
Category: Mendel Development at RepRap Wiki
Open Source Ecology
Jim Von Ehr says Zyvex will Achieve Digital Matter from Building Blocks by 2015 and Rudimentary Molecular Manufacturing by 2020
Whole Brain Emulation: the Logical Endpoint of Neuroinformatics
Protein Computing, Bio-based Quantum Computing and Nano-sized biolasers from ExQor Technologies
Eurekalert: Eating processed meats, but not unprocessed red meats, may raise risk of heart disease and diabetes
'Fountain of youth' steroids could protect against heart disease
Want to Get Smarter, Faster? Sleep 10 Hours: NPR
6-story Jesus statue in Ohio struck by lightning
eWeek: Who's Afraid of the Singularity?
TIME -- Tastes Like Chicken: the Quest for Fake Meat
ABC Science: Cyborg rights "need debating now"
YouTube: iRobot 710 Warrior with APOBS
Jason Silva in Vanity Fair: Why We Could All Use a Heavy Dose of Techno-Optimism
Technology Review: Microrobotics Competition Shows Impressive Feats
Technofascism Blog: US Department of Defense Wants Robot Army by 2034
Todd Huffman’s Photostream
Todd Huffman, a director of Humanity Plus and a long-time transhumanist, has a really interesting Flickr photostream. He spends a lot of time in backwater villages in Afghanistan, learning about the local people and trying to find new ways to help them through medical and other technologies. Some of his most recent uploads show an off-grid home that uses micro-hydro and biogas systems to generate electricity, which is particularly interesting to me in light of my recent studies in survivalism and resilience.
4/14/10 Quote
"No one of us is ever safe. There is no security this side of the grave. A shipwreck or a hurricane can put man back to the brink of savagery, both in the means he uses to get his food and the lengths he will go to get it. The more ill-prepared people are to face trouble, the more likely they are to revert to savagery against each other."
-- Novelist Louis L’Amour (1908-1988) from his novel "Bendigo Shafter"
Assorted Links March 20, 2010
The above magazine allegedly got the meme of molecular nanotechnology really going in 1986, according to Eric Drexler. He pointed out that nanotechnology is not really meant to "mimic life". Anyway, molecular nanotechnology sure is scary! I hope it isn't developed anytime soon.
Here are a number of links I've been meaning to share. A disproportionate amount are from Singularity Hub, a site that's been increasing in quality lately. They don't really post about the Singularity (high technology in general and the Singularity are not equivalent, sorry), but it's still interesting news.
Nanotechnology artificial leaves for hydrogen production
Rutgers 2010 Singularity course
Company to sell 'world's first practical jetpack' for $75,000 (w/ Video)
How to see through opaque materials
How to Reboot Your Corpse (pathetically poorly researched article from IEEE... a publication whose reputation is rapidly falling among tech enthusiasts)
Robot Gymnast Performs Again!
fMRI read the images in your brain -- we know what you're looking at
Adam the Robot Scientist Makes its First Discovery (Old news passed off as new news but still interesting)
Slick Looking Unlocked GSM Watchphone Available for $199 (video)
Eye Popping Pics of Cyborg Animals from Photoshop Contest
Four Great Science Fiction Authors Weigh In on the Singularity (video)
Mitsubishi Smallest Robot Arm Builds Lego Van (video)
SixthSense Augmented Reality Device Goes Open Source
Robots to Rescue Soldiers
How Long Until Human-Level AI? (old, but I'm linking it so everyone sees it)
Boring Conversation? Let Your Computer Listen for You
Future bio-nanotechnology will use computer chips inside living cells
Harnessing energy from everyday movements
More Essays from Tom McCabe
My friend Tom McCabe has uploaded several essays and papers that may interest Accelerating Future readers:
Failure and Success in AGI Projects
Optimization of Rockets with Variable Exhaust Velocity
Singularity FAQ, with Kaj Sotala
Sales in Startups
How Gold and Glory Led the Roman Republic to Greatness
A Unified Theory of Success
An Alternative Theory of Startups
There is also a short essay by Michael Vassar:
Assorted Links for 2/20/2010
Scientific research indicates human athletic performance has peaked
Corporations, agencies infiltrated by botnet
Dolphin cognitive abilities raise ethical questions, says Emory neuroscientist
Synchronized flying robots could paint pictures in the sky (w/ Video)
Millimeter-scale, energy-harvesting sensor system developed
Nanodiamonds Produce 'Game Changing Event' for MRI Imaging Sensitivity
The Onion: U.S. Economy Grinds To Halt As Nation Realizes Money Just A Symbolic, Mutually Shared Illusion
CNN: Bill Gates and the "Nuclear Renaissance"
Telegraph: Christians to debate impact of high-profile atheist scientists
Michael Graham Richard: Science is the Only News
Prototaxites Mystery Solved?
Around 420 million years ago, during the Silurian, the ground was only colonized by non-vascular shrubs and tiny insects, except for one exception: Prototaxites. These primitive, fungus-like spires reached up to 8 m (26 ft) in height, by far the largest organisms on land at the time. For decades, paleontologists have wondered what the hell these things really were.
Now, a small group of scientists think they have the answer. Their results were recently published in the American Journal of Botany. Their article, "Structural, physiological, and stable carbon isotopic evidence that the enigmatic Paleozoic fossil Prototaxites formed from rolled liverwort mats", is available for free for the next 30 days only.
Coming on the heels of a discovery that Ediacaran organisms had musculature, this year has been a good start for paleontology. That Ediacaran finding contradicts the doubtful paper from 2008 that asserts that giant protists may be responsible for pre-Cambrian ichnofossils attributed to early bilaterians, and another paper that argues that the Ediacaran fauna were lichens.