…where science, futurism, and anything else Stephen finds interesting are thrown together in an informational stew for your consumption.
Enjoy!
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- Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit watching comedy retrospectives. “Airplane!” took off 30 years ago.
Rumack: You’d better tell the Captain we’ve got to land as soon as we can. This woman has to be gotten to a hospital.
Elaine Dickinson: A hospital? What is it?
Rumack: It’s a big building with patients, but that’s not important right now.
- Should it be a FELONY to photograph the oil spill?
This is akin to prohibiting photographing of on-duty police officers.
- The Brain Preservation Foundation: Better preservation through plastination.
“John Smart and Harvard neuroscientist Ken Hayworth [are] seeking to facilitate the development of any technology that will effectively preserve the brain for eventual reanimation. While the foundation members’ pet interest is in plastination, they are not married to any particular technique. As far as they’re concerned, the successful development of any kind of brain preservation technology means that everyone wins.”
- Real, Working From New Tron Movie For Sale on eBay!
- Logi Aerospace Plans to Make DARPAs Flying SUV and Terra Transfugia Gets Approval for Its .
Brian Wang has the specs on DARPA’s planned Flying SUV – it includes vertical take off.
- Flying Cars & Airborne Oddities – A LIFE gallery of old and new flying cars and strange aircraft.
- Tomorrow’s vehicles: smaller, electric, self-driving.
The author would prefer cars with a more limited range to discourage urban sprawl. But people are not likely to move from cars with 300 mile ranges to something less.
Sadly, he doesn’t mention flying cars.
- Fuel = penny per mile! Zero S Electric Street Bike: 60 Miles range, $.60 to recharge (and max speed = 60 mph).
Tomorrow’s vehicle today?
- Public perception of next 40 years.
Predictions of horrible disasters AND huge technological advancement are probably not contradictory.
- How do you check out an eBook from a library? Different models will be tried. My answer: 1 ebook bought = 1 license to loan.
One possible model is “keep it simple.” A writer and his publisher depend upon a certain amount of income per unit distributed. Whether that unit is electronic or paper, it should be usable by one reader at a time. EBooks should cost less, because physical printing is not necessary, but they should be treated like regular books otherwise.
So, under that model, if I buy an ebook, I ought to be able to give it, sell it, or loan it to someone else to read on their reader. But, it should also mean that I don’t have access to it after selling it or while its on loan.
One potential advantage of loaning a digital ebook – always be able to get it back. It could go back to the original owner (library or private individual) after a set time. No library late fees with automatic returning.
But here’s another possible model: the subscription. Publishers could be paid by libraries per check-out. A library would always have the book available to loan, no matter how popular it is. And they wouldn’t have money or space invested in books that nobody has looked at in years.
- A potent new drug could reverse hearing loss caused by prolonged exposure to loud noise.
- Steampunk Ghostbusters!