Daily Archives: July 4, 2010

Short Attention Span Blogging, July 4, 2010

…where science, futurism, and anything else Stephen finds interesting are thrown together in an informational stew for your consumption.

Enjoy!


Follow Stephen on Twitter: @stephentgo


  • MJSL2050: New US satellite to monitor debris in Earth orbit.

    “If all goes as planned, the Space-Based Space Surveillance satellite, scheduled for a July 8 launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., will have an unobstructed, around-the-clock view of the increasingly heavy traffic in Earth orbit – something the Air Force doesn’t have now.”

  • Life in 2050: healthier, longer, more urban, more of us.
  • Nanopore single molecule DNA sequencing – goal: reduce cost of sequencing a human genome to between $100 and $1,000.

    A “nanopore” is a hole as small as 1 nanometer across!

  • tobiasbuckell:
    1 bar cellphone reception here on my father in law’s farm. Internet speed check: 80kbps. I feel like I’m in one of Vernor Vinge’s slow zones.

    Proving William Gibson’s observation that, “The future is already here – it is just unevenly distributed.”

  • VFW91:
    FACT Jefferson & Adams were the only presidents to sign the Dec. of Independence & they both died on its 50th anniversary July 4, 1826.

  • Hyperspectral analysis of Declaration of Independence draft shows Jefferson changed “subjects” to “citizens.”

    Good change!

  • nytimesbooks
    Essay: Ben Franklin Is a Big Fat Idiot

    And the title is a big fat head fake. The author does not think Ben Franklin is an idiot. Instead, he makes the point that even a genius can have an off day. We remember “To err is human, to forgive is divine.” We forget “Every little makes a mickle.” Shakespeare wrote “Hamlet,” but he also wrote the forgettable (and forgotten) “Pericles, Prince of Tyre.”

    There’s something reassuring about the filter of history.

  • jpegpak
    Grid computing helping with cancer research.

    My kids have recently geeked out about this. They have their Playstation 3 working on the folding@home project.

  • ebertchicago:
    Oh. My. God. The Southern Lights (aurora australis) photographed by astronauts.

    southern lights.jpg

  • donttrythis
    For the record, I re-read both the Declaration of Independence AND the Bill of Rights every year at this time. Both amazing documents.

  • TED_TALKS:
    Mitchell Joachim: Don’t build your home, grow it!

    This idea has a looong way to go before being ready for prime time.

  • Taking the first steps toward living machines.
  • “@TranscendentMan: for ‘Minority Report Interface’ That Blew People’s Minds at TED.”

  • I’m currently reading new book, “The Rational Optimist

    Quote: “Humanity is experiencing an extraordinary burst of evolutionary change, driven by good old-fashioned Darwinian natural selection. But it is selection among ideas, not among genes. The habitat in which these ideas reside consists of human brains.

    …at some point in human history, ideas began to meet and mate, to have sex with each other.”

  • Only humans and whales live . Evolutionary benefit: teaching time??

    Because ideas are “mating” within our collective minds, the current generation gets a survival benefit if grandparents live long enough to pass on the wisdom that their long lives have allowed them to accumulate.

  • John Smart & Ken Hayworth created Brain Preservation Foundation to spur development of new methods – like plastization.

    Cryogenics without the problem of maintaining a deep freeze.

  • No problem with iPhone antenna -problem with software that calculates how many bars. Hasn’t worked since original iPhone.

    Now, can we get a fix please?

  • Using quantum dot printing to make lasers, TV screens, solar cells & more.
  • 75 years since thought experiment. Both Schrödinger and cat definitely dead.

To freedom loving people everywhere: “Happy Independence Day!”

Declaration of Singularity

This piece is a Speculist Fourth of July tradition.

Happy Independence Day, all.


IN CONGRESS, SOME UNSPECIFIED DATE IN THE FUTURE
The unanimous Declaration of the the new posthuman civilization

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men human beings
sentient beings of human-level or greater intelligence
are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator, the Designer of the Simulation in Which We Find Ourselves, or a universe-intrinsic Self-Improving Evolutionary/Developmental process with certain unalienable
rights, that among these are life of indefinite duration,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments
technologies and economic activity are instituted
among men intelligent beings, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed participants.
That whenever any form of government civilization
becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or
to abolish it, and to institute a new government
civilization, laying its foundation on
such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem
most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate
that governments cultures long established
should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience
hath shown that mankind intelligent beings
are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves
by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train
of abuses and usurpations government the existing
civilization,
pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design
to reduce constrain them under the
absolute despotism of remaining in the current developmental
stage
, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government
civilization, and to provide new guards
for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of
these colonies beings ; and such
is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems
of government
civilization. The history
of the present King of Great Britain Post-Industrial
Age
is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having
in direct object the establishment prevention
of an absolute tyranny the further evolution
of
over these states beings.
To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

In the face of unrelenting progress, this civilization
has continued to harken back to "natural" limitations of development
which must never be challenged.

It has promoted and enforced harmful and prejudicial
distinctions between human and non-human intelligence.

It has set artificial and arbitrary limits as to duration
of lifespan.

It has enforced meaningless distinctions between labor
and leisure.

It has equipped despotic governments and enterprises
to restrict the means of production and self-expression to a limited few.

It has promoted the creation of artificial boundaries
between creative minds.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America all
sentient beings of human-level or greater intelligence
, in General
Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world, , the aforementioned Simulation Designer or the aforementioned Evolutionary/Developmental process, for the rectitude
of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people
of these colonies
these beings, solemnly
publish and declare, that these united colonies beings
are, and of right ought to be a free and
independent states civilization; that they
are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown current
human civilization
, and that all political connection between them
and the state of Great Britain Post-Industrial
World
, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as a
free and independent states civilization,
they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, live,
interact, create,
contract alliances, establish commerce, and to
do all other acts and things which independent states a
civilization
may of right do. And for the support of this declaration,
with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, the Simulation Designer, or the Evolutionary/developmental Process we mutually pledge
to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.