Bookmarks for June 21, 2011
- Scientists Create First Memory Expansion for Brain
When if is available for humans, sign me up! At least, I think someone should. I'll probably forget…
Tag: science
Bookmarks for May 6, 2011
- From Me To You
Some really clever effects here, almost a redefinition of what a photo can be for the 21st century. Go look.
- One generation, new species – all-female lizard bred in a lab
Men to be declared obsolete within the next 100 years. Probably for the best.
- Even Robots Can Be Heroes – ScienceNOW
Robots running an evolving algorithm have been shown to spontaneously develop altruism as a beneficial strategy. One in the eye for objectivists or selfish bastards – it turns out thta evolution can, in fact, produce altruism, and that it works better than selfishness.
Bookmarks for January 7, 2011
- IndieGames.com – The Weblog – The Best Of 2010: Top 10 Indie Games
A ten second play of their game of the year has me wanting to go back for more. One to check out when I'm not at work.
- russell davies: Ted Hughes on thinking
Ted Hughes was a man who knew about thinking. And dead pigs. Well worth a listen. Russell's observation re: YouTube is also trenchant and a pleasing thing to think about.
- How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed — Deer 342 — bmj.com
This needs to do the rounds in a very big way. You know all those vaccine scares that are picked up by the easily swayed, and used as an excuse to endanger the rest of us through lack of vaccination? Well, it's not just the case that (single) study they're based on is a bit fringe – it's an outright, deliberate falsehood perpetrated by a man with malicious intent and a profit motive. If you know *anyone* who has a small child and is contemplating not vaccinating it, you need to make sure they see this.
- 2010 Year Lists – Fimoculous.com
Haven't had time to go through this yet, but want to get around to it.
- Michael Caine's impersonation of Michael Caine
Absolutely superb.
Bookmarks for November 16, 2010
- google-refine – Project Hosting on Google Code
This is bound to be extremely useful.
- Quantum Honeybees
The waggle-dance that bees use to communicate appears to be a function of 6 dimensional topography. Further, it may also imply that they can in some fashion sense quantum particles in a manner that violates some of the common held ideas about quantum physics. I for one welcome out new apian overlords.
Bookmarks for September 30, 2010
- Murray 4 Mayor
Because Toronto deserves something nice. There are a number of Torontonians around these parts. I urge you all to vote Murray, in the strongest, tenderest possible terms.
- Newly discovered planet may be first truly habitable exoplanet – UC Santa Cruz
And yet we're still not funding space travel properly. What's up with that?
- 50 years of cyborgs: I have not the words. | Quinn Said
This ones doing the rounds, and with excellent reason. A bit of writing on posthumanity that encompasses all the usual stuff and cyborgs and tool using and modern infrastructure, and goes to some fascinating and non-generally considered places beyond that. For example: "a cyborg revolution was happening the same year Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline coined the term. A hostile environment was being tamed by a newly and artificially capable people. It escaped notice and critique though, because the modified weren’t men, and then environment wasn’t space. The modified were women, and the environment was men. The women of the 60s were the first to modify and control their uteruses."
- The ecstasy of influence: A plagiarism, By Jonathan Lethem (Harper's Magazine)
An absolutely superb essay on influence, creativity, and copyright. The absolute best writing I have read on this subject, anywhere. And with a truly superb sting in the tail…
- Subtraction.com: The Only Thing a Router Is Good For
This is one of those "so simple it's obvious" things, that clearly, no-one has ever thought of. I have one (semi-)regular physical interaction with my internet router, and I bet it's the same one you do. I turn it off and on again. That's the only thing I ever do with it. And yet, the switch to do that is hidden at the back, and there is absolutely no reason why this should be so. No reason at all.
Bookmarks for September 27, 2010
- This is a news website article about a scientific finding | Martin Robbins | Science | guardian.co.uk
A savage, brilliant deconstruction of the problems with the way science is reported in the press. Please note carefully the section toward the end (for maximum take-away, you understand) where fringe lunatics and cranks who don't understand how science works (or how to tie their own shoelaces, a lot of the time) are given their say.
- Scaryduck: On Destroying Bagpuss
I loved Bagpuss. I also love this. The Thomas the Tank Engine (linked within) one is pretty good, too. Well, it made me laugh, anyway.
Bookmarks for September 21, 2010
- Politics of storytelling – Laurie Penny interviews China Mieville
This is food for thought. Key quote: "Storytelling is clearly an extremely important function of societies, but it's nonetheless unproven that to be human is to be a storytelling being. Even if it is the case that human beings are completely intrinsically storytelling animals, it doesn't follow that that's something to celebrate, any more than we should celebrate the fact that human beings are defecating animals."
There're a number of obvious counter-arguments, that can essentially be lumped in as "the power of art to bring about change" but it's still a point of view worth remembering.
- I was wrong about veganism. Let them eat meat (but farm it right) | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian
I think I'm going to have to pick this book up. A lot of the numbers around the environmental impact of livestock farming have seemed off to me particularly in relation to arguments about grain (because, well, what's wrong with grass-fed?) and water (because invariably, the numbers seem to assume that any water fed to a cow never leaves the cow, which is pretty self-evidently wrong). It's nice to see that someone's actually taken the numbers apart and proved them wrong/fallacious, and done so in a way that convinces even a big hippy like Monbiot.
- Alex Payne — The Very Last Thing I'll Write About Twitter
A clear and sensible statement about the need to decentralise services like Twitter, Facebook, and really, almost any service, if you want it around for the long (decade+) haul. Idle thought: Someday, someone will figure out how to massively decentralise search, and than things will get really interesting. (Google have, of course, effectively done this internally in that their search architecture is spread over cluster after cluster, but that's not the same as true decentralisation…)
- Diaspora Developer Release
I really want this to succeed – once it's out of beta, and at the more-or-less easy to install stage, I'll probably put some time and cash, into setting up a Seed. I absolutely know that there are people I've lost touch with since leaving Facebook, and I know my social life has suffered for it. I've felt quite disconnected from many of my friends this year, and it's bugging me quite a lot of late. I'm not blaming anyone, you understand and I'm not going to be one of those arseholes who think that it's everyone else's fault – I knew what I was doing when I walked away from Farcebook – I'm just a little sad that people don't seem to use any other contact medium any more. So as soon as I can, I'll help offer a better alternative…
Bookmarks for August 27, 2010
- Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking
On the one hand: I would cook almost nothing from this. And it is hugely, hugely expensive. On the other hand: it looks utterly fucking beautiful. I've never cooked anything from my Fat Duck book, either, but I love it…
- Company presses your ashes into vinyl when you die
This is utterly brilliant. If I haven't decided where I want to be scattered when I die, then I want this done. Completely superb.
- Steve Jobs Is Watching You: Apple Seeking to Patent Spyware | Electronic Frontier Foundation
This has done the rounds over the last week. Yes, I am profoundly annoyed about this. Yes, were it another company, I would probably be saying "well, I'm going to stop using their products" over this. And when Apple produce products that actively use this patent or similar technologies, I will avoid using them, and/or seek ways to circumvent them. Just, y'know, so we're clear that yes, I worry about the privacy-infringing moves of companies I like, too.
Bookmarks for August 17, 2010
- BBC – Dimensions – Index
BERG produce a site that helps you understand the scale and distances of things in the recent, and not so recent past. If the Apollo 11 astronauts had landed at your front door, could the distance they walked have enabled them to buy a pint of milk? How far away from your parents house would the German trenches have been, if WWI had happened where you grew up? And so on, and so forth. Nice!
- BookBook for iPad – BookBook for iPad – Twelve South
If I didn't have my Dodocase, or if, god forbid, anything should happen to it, I'd want one of these, I think.
- rejectamentalist manifesto
China Miéville has a blog. I believe this may be relevant to our interest
- Science Digestive: My application for a job as a Homeopath
In case were weren't aware NHS Tayside are offering a £68,000 a year job for a fucking homeopath, despite having laid off 500 people due to the current round of cuts. The level of angry this makes me is hard to fucking describe – it is a near perfect example of the counter to the "well, it can't hurt, and it might help some people" argument that others put forward. Anyway, setting incandescent fury aside for a moment, here is an amusing read: A qualified neuroscientist applies for the job.
- Washington, We Have a Problem | Politics | Vanity Fair
interesting article on the daily routine of the Obama presidency, and the difference between the media now, and the media of a decade ago.
Bookmarks for August 12, 2010
- What Happened to Yahoo
Yahoo was somewhere that, ten years ago, I would have love to have worked. I would have loved to have worked at some of the companies they've since bought. But I wouldn't have taken a job there any time in the last six years or so – I'm sure it would have been, y'know, fine, but it wouldn't have been what I really wanted in working for a internet company. This article does a pretty good job of explaining why.
- Words on Devour.com
Watch this. It will be the best three minutes you spend all day.
- Smart Swarm: popular science book on emergence meets business-advice book – Boing Boing
Reminder to self to pick this book up.
- YouTube – Nathan Barley
The complete Nathan Barley on the YouTubes. I imagine that some of you might like this.