technology-and-philosophy
Physicists Predict the Future: Fusion Power, Androids, and Lunar Colonies Incoming
Forget about jetpacks. And we're never going to see time travel, teleportation, spaceships with warp drives, or the inside of a worm hole. But cheer up, futurists—lifelike androids, nuclear fusion power, and lunar colonies are still in the cards...
Next Year, You Can Play a Free Video Game Made From This Guy's Memories
So this pretty much sounds like the most cyberpunk description of a video game ever: "Bad Trip is an immersive interactive system that enables people to navigate my mind using a game controller. Since November 2011, every moment of my life has been...
In 2035, One Third of the World Will Run on Renewable Energy
The International Energy Agency has released its annual World Energy Outlook, and one finding in particular is making all the headlines: By 2035, the United States will be the world's largest oil producer. Yeah, thanks to fracking, we'll be able to get...
Coal Company Fires 56, Blames Obama's Reelection, Gets Exposed on Reddit
Obama got reelected, so a bunch of rich assholes say they have no choice but to fire their employees. There are now "reports trickling in":http://twitchy.com/2012/11/08/layoff-bomb-detonates-large-corporations-join-small-businesses-in-announcing-mass...
NASA Flies Mission to Map Ice Cover Across Antarctica, Live-Tweets the Whole Thing
Just a quick suggestion: follow as many NASA twitter feeds as you can. Today, scientists from its IceBridge mission embarked on an 11-hour flight over West Antarctica, and they live-tweeted the whole thing. Yes, with pics and a nice Q+A session to boot...
This Google Map Layer From 2007 Predicted Sandy-Like Flooding in New York City
Sandy rolled over the lot of us east coasters, taking us unawares. Whoever would've imagined we'd see the day when New York City itself was swamped; lower Manhattan flooded in car-carrying waters? Climate modelers, that's who. Over the last decade U...
Soon Cops Will Digitally Dust Crime Scenes for Partial Footprints
Generally, my assumption of the ins and outs of crime scene forensics is a mythicism of field detectives performing high-tech feats in order to solve a mystery with some encrusted semen. I'd only expect that investigation units have access to some...
The Ghost Drone That Turns Itself On
Here's a warm blanket for you to nestle into this weekend. The Washington Post has been running an investigative report on the U.S. military's shadow wars throughout the Horn of Africa. These special operations have become the preserve of hulking, so...
Fukushima's Fish Are Still Radioactive
Visiting Tokyo last year was bittersweet. I had originally bought tickets to visit Japan just a few days before March 11th's wicked quake and tsunami tore through Fukushima and northeast Honshu, leaving a ballpark-figure of 20,000 Japanese missing...
Trust Me, I'm Cool (An App)
Here's the thing with regard to relative coolness: it's good to be cool and it's hip to be square; no one likes to party with losers and if you'd like to have a say, it's important to stay on top of trends. Being cool is different than being "popular...
Watch a Post-Apocalyptic Short Film About Human Limbs Building the Tower of Babel
Here's a short 10-minute film by Floris Kaayk called 'Origin of Creatures.' As a connoisseur of all things dystopian (and utopian), I found the premise pretty irresistible: Humans, have devolved into single-limbed or organed variants of their former...
There Are 84 Million Stars in This Nine Gigapixel Picture
The mighty VISTA infrared telscope has captured an image of unfathomable properties. The beast of an image, weighing in at nine gigapixels (9,000 megapixels, which would print to about 23 x 30 feet) is "zoomable":http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso...