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A Modest Proposal To Turn Canada Into a Narco State Americans want cheap drugs and Canadians wants loads of money. I smell a deal.
30th Jul 2025
1

A Modest Proposal To Turn Canada Into a Narco State

from Cremieux Recueil [alt+shift+b] in science

30th Jul 2025
Americans want cheap drugs and Canadians wants loads of money. I smell a deal.
A Newfound Source of Cellular Order in the Chemistry of Life Inside cells, droplets of biomolecules called condensates merge, divide and dissolve. Their dance...
1st Apr 2021
1

A Newfound Source of Cellular Order in the Chemistry of Life

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Apr 2021
Inside cells, droplets of biomolecules called condensates merge, divide and dissolve. Their dance may regulate vital processes. The post A Newfound Source of Cellular Order in the Chemistry of Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow ### On taking thought Before a packed house, Kahneman began with the distinction between what he...
14th Aug 2013
1

Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

14th Aug 2013
### On taking thought Before a packed house, Kahneman began with the distinction between what he calls mental “System 1”---fast thinking, intuition---and “System 2”---slow thinking, careful consideration and calculation. System 1 operates on the illusory principle: _What you see...
Fixing my heating system The heating system in my apartment building consists of a group of heat pumps that deliver warm...
3rd May 2024
76

Fixing my heating system

from Willem Pennings [alt+shift+b] in science

3rd May 2024
The heating system in my apartment building consists of a group of heat pumps that deliver warm water to the underfloor heating system of about a dozen apartments, including mine. During the warm summer months, the system supplies cool water instead. The heat pumps figure out...
1
14th Mar 2017
## Doing Good Better [![](https://media.longnow.org/files/2/lomborghaiti520w.jpg)](https://media.longnow.org/files/2/lomborghaiti.jpg) **Lomborg opened with a photo from Haiti** , showing a young girl dressed for school wading through the muck and garbage of a slum, with pigs...
Melody Jue: Ocean Memory The ocean is not empty. It is a vast storage facility of memory agents. Ocean bodies use the...
9th Apr 2026
1

Melody Jue: Ocean Memory

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

9th Apr 2026
The ocean is not empty. It is a vast storage facility of memory agents. Ocean bodies use the chemical signatures of seawater for memory and intelligence in ways we can barely imagine. In her Talk, Melody Jue said our struggle to understand ocean memory comes from our terrestrial...
Planning for your midlife crisis Yesterday I presented a talk at ODSC East 2026, called “Counterfactual Analysis with Bayesian...
1st May 2026
3

Planning for your midlife crisis

from Probably Overthinking It [alt+shift+b] in science

1st May 2026
Yesterday I presented a talk at ODSC East 2026, called “Counterfactual Analysis with Bayesian Models: What Drives the Life Expectancy Gap?” Here’s the abstract Across nearly every country in the world, women live longer than men—but the size of this gap varies from about two...
Tony Hsieh: Helping Revitalize a City ### The downtown company The business advice that Tony Hsieh most took to heart came from an ad...
23rd Apr 2014
1

Tony Hsieh: Helping Revitalize a City

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

23rd Apr 2014
### The downtown company The business advice that Tony Hsieh most took to heart came from an ad executive: “A great brand is a story that never stops unfolding.” With his own company, Zappos, he determined that “brand equals culture,” and made quality of culture the top...
Multiple Regression with StatsModels This is the third is a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science which available from...
4th Dec 2024
24

Multiple Regression with StatsModels

from Probably Overthinking It [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Dec 2024
This is the third is a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science which available from Lulu.com and online booksellers. It’s from Chapter 10, which is about multiple regression. You can read the complete chapter here, or run the Jupyter notebook on Colab. In the previous...
Louis Hyman: The New Deal You Don't Know Historian Louis Hyman's work focuses on the history of American capitalism. In his book _[Borrow:...
2nd Jan 2018
1

Louis Hyman: The New Deal You Don't Know

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd Jan 2018
Historian Louis Hyman's work focuses on the history of American capitalism. In his book _[Borrow: The American Way of Debt](https://www.amazon.com/Borrow-American-Debt-Vintage-Original/dp/0307741680/)_ , he examines in detail how the evolution of personal debt has not only...
Do We Have Free Will? Let’s dive head first into one of the internet’s most contentious questions – do we have true free...
1st Dec 2023
32

Do We Have Free Will?

from NeuroLogica Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Dec 2023
Let’s dive head first into one of the internet’s most contentious questions – do we have true free will? This comes up not infrequently whenever I write here about neuroscience, most recently when I wrote about hunger circuitry, because the notion of the brain as a physical...
Stuff you should have been taught in college but weren’t As part of my job running Terraform Industries, I get to build an amazing team of super smart...
4th Feb 2025
83

Stuff you should have been taught in college but weren’t

from Casey Handmer's blog [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Feb 2025
As part of my job running Terraform Industries, I get to build an amazing team of super smart people, and that involves interviewing hundreds of people. Over time certain patterns have become obvious, but I remember when they weren’t obvious to me on the other side of the table!...
Reproducibility in materials research, and an anecdote Yesterday I attended the 40th annual summer research colloquium of the Smalley-Curl Institute at...
8th Aug 2026
1

Reproducibility in materials research, and an anecdote

from nanoscale views [alt+shift+b] in science

8th Aug 2026
Yesterday I attended the 40th annual summer research colloquium of the Smalley-Curl Institute at Rice, a fun internal conference that provides a great opportunity for undergrads (including visitors), graduate students, and a few postdocs to present their work.  The keynote...
Smart Swarms Seek New Ways to Cooperate New algorithms show how swarms of very simple robots can be made to work together as a group. ...
27th Sep 2018
1

Smart Swarms Seek New Ways to Cooperate

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

27th Sep 2018
New algorithms show how swarms of very simple robots can be made to work together as a group. The post Smart Swarms Seek New Ways to Cooperate first appeared on Quanta Magazine
New Theory Cracks Open the Black Box of Deep Learning A new idea is helping to explain the puzzling success of today’s artificial-intelligence algorithms...
1st Mar 2018
1

New Theory Cracks Open the Black Box of Deep Learning

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Mar 2018
A new idea is helping to explain the puzzling success of today’s artificial-intelligence algorithms — and might also explain how human brains learn. The post New Theory Cracks Open the Black Box of Deep Learning first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Tim Flannery: Here on Earth ### Wallace beats Darwin The great insight of natural selection was published simultaneously by...
4th May 2011
1

Tim Flannery: Here on Earth

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

4th May 2011
### Wallace beats Darwin The great insight of natural selection was published simultaneously by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace in 1858, Flannery pointed out, but their interpretations of the insight then diverged. Darwin's harsh view of "survival of the fittest" led...
Liberté, égalité, radioactivité France built 40 nuclear reactors in a decade. Here’s how they did it, and how the world can follow...
4th Sep 2025
1

Liberté, égalité, radioactivité

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Sep 2025
France built 40 nuclear reactors in a decade. Here’s how they did it, and how the world can follow their lead today.
NASA’s Explorer 18: The First Interplanetary Monitoring Platform Among the greatest scientific achievements of the opening years of the Space Age was the...
27th Nov 2023
51

NASA’s Explorer 18: The First Interplanetary Monitoring Platform

from Drew Ex Machina [alt+shift+b] in science

27th Nov 2023
Among the greatest scientific achievements of the opening years of the Space Age was the characterization of Earth’s magnetic field and the discovery of what became […]
Accelerating science through evolvable institutions This is the written version of a talk presented to the Santa Fe Institute at a working group on...
4th Dec 2023
54

Accelerating science through evolvable institutions

from The Roots of Progress | Articles [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Dec 2023
This is the written version of a talk presented to the Santa Fe Institute at a working group on “Accelerating Science.” We’re here to discuss “accelerating science.” I like to start on topics like this by taking the historical view: When (if ever) has science accelerated in the...
The “I Already Get It” Slide Followup to: Words as Mental Paintbrush Handles, Guessing The Teacher’s Password Jessica Taylor...
31st Jan 2017
1

The “I Already Get It” Slide

from John Salvatier [alt+shift+b] in science

31st Jan 2017
Followup to: Words as Mental Paintbrush Handles, Guessing The Teacher’s Password Jessica Taylor recently wrote a description of Paul Christiano’s and MIRI’s differing driving intuitions for thinking about the AI alignment problem. Jacob Steinhardt observes that the “do cognitive...
When Data Is Missing, Scientists Guess. Then Guess Again. Across the social and biological sciences, statisticians use a technique that leverages randomness...
2nd Oct 2024
69

When Data Is Missing, Scientists Guess. Then Guess Again.

from Quanta Magazine [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd Oct 2024
Across the social and biological sciences, statisticians use a technique that leverages randomness to deal with the unknown. The post When Data Is Missing, Scientists Guess. Then Guess Again. first appeared on Quanta Magazine
What I’ve been reading, July–August 2023 A quasi-monthly feature (I skipped it last month, so this is a double portion). This is a longish...
7th Aug 2023
32

What I’ve been reading, July–August 2023

from The Roots of Progress | Articles [alt+shift+b] in science

7th Aug 2023
A quasi-monthly feature (I skipped it last month, so this is a double portion). This is a longish post covering many topics; feel free to skim and skip around. Recent blog posts and news stories are generally omitted; you can find them in my links digests. These updates are less...
From MANUALS to YOUTUBE A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
14th Aug 2023
62

From MANUALS to YOUTUBE

from The Works in Progress Newsletter [alt+shift+b] in science

14th Aug 2023
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
Announcing Think Stats 3e The third edition of Think Stats is on its way to the printer! You can preorder now from...
6th Apr 2025
51

Announcing Think Stats 3e

from Probably Overthinking It [alt+shift+b] in science

6th Apr 2025
The third edition of Think Stats is on its way to the printer! You can preorder now from Bookshop.org and Amazon (those are affiliate links), or if you can’t wait to get a paper copy, you can read the free, online version here. Here’s the new cover, still featuring a...
Don’t Bet on the Super Bowl If you have studied probability, you might be familiar with fractional odds, which represent the...
8th Feb 2026
2

Don’t Bet on the Super Bowl

from Probably Overthinking It [alt+shift+b] in science

8th Feb 2026
If you have studied probability, you might be familiar with fractional odds, which represent the ratio of the probability something happens to the probability it doesn’t. For example, if the Seahawks have a 75% chance of winning the Super Bowl, they have a 25% chance of losing,...
Jenny Odell: Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock Jenny Odell describes _Saving Time_, her second book and the inspiration for her first Long Now...
14th Apr 2023
1

Jenny Odell: Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

14th Apr 2023
Jenny Odell describes _Saving Time_, her second book and the inspiration for her first Long Now Talk, as a “panoramic assault on nihilism.” The particular nihilism that Odell confronts is rooted in what she calls “Clock Time.” While the rigid, regular progression of clock time...
We Can, Must, and Will Simulate Nematode Brains Scientists have spent over 25 years trying — and failing — to build computer simulations of the...
5th Mar 2025
29

We Can, Must, and Will Simulate Nematode Brains

from Asterisk [alt+shift+b] in science

5th Mar 2025
Scientists have spent over 25 years trying — and failing — to build computer simulations of the smallest brain we know. Today, we finally have the tools to pull it off.
Is a Random Perfect Group Nontrivial? So it’s finals season, and earlier today some of the younger grad students were asking me for...
20th Mar 2026
1

Is a Random Perfect Group Nontrivial?

from Chris Grossack's Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

20th Mar 2026
So it’s finals season, and earlier today some of the younger grad students were asking me for help studying for their topology finals. One of their practice problems was to build a cell complex with one 0-cell, two 1-cells, and two 2-cells which has nontrivial $\pi_1$ but...
David Rumsey: Mapping Time ### Maps and time David Rumsey's spectacularly illustrated lecture, "Mapping Time" is not just...
15th May 2004
1

David Rumsey: Mapping Time

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

15th May 2004
### Maps and time David Rumsey's spectacularly illustrated lecture, "Mapping Time" is not just about maps. It is the future of data and knowledge handling. People literally gasp at the things Rumsey shows can be done. I love it when techies, artists, and historians all gasp at...
Hypervelocity Tether Rockets Rotating tethers can reach incredible velocities when they are built out of high strength materials....
10th Oct 2022
1

Hypervelocity Tether Rockets

from ToughSF [alt+shift+b] in science

10th Oct 2022
Rotating tethers can reach incredible velocities when they are built out of high strength materials. With some design features, they can greatly surpass the exhaust velocities of chemical or even nuclear rockets. They can become propulsion systems with impressive performance......
How to tame a complex system I get a lot of pushback to the idea that humanity can “master” nature. Nature is a complex system, I...
6th Jan 2026
1

How to tame a complex system

from The Roots of Progress [alt+shift+b] in science

6th Jan 2026
I get a lot of pushback to the idea that humanity can “master” nature. Nature is a complex system, I am told, and therefore unpredictable, uncontrollable, unruly. I think this is true but irrelevant. Consider the weather, a prime example of a complex system. We can predict the...
What did Henry George think about cities? Solving the terrible urban conditions of the 1800s by abolishing cities
9th May 2024
109

What did Henry George think about cities?

from The Works in Progress Newsletter [alt+shift+b] in science

9th May 2024
Solving the terrible urban conditions of the 1800s by abolishing cities
US Government UFO (UAP) Footage For decades, the public suspected that the US Government was hiding secret intelligence about UFOs —...
10th Feb 2025
72

US Government UFO (UAP) Footage

from Beautiful Public Data [alt+shift+b] in science

10th Feb 2025
For decades, the public suspected that the US Government was hiding secret intelligence about UFOs — (now known as UAPs). Turns out…it kind of was.
Culture Club: Time to let the cetaceans in? Up until recently, culture has been thought of as a primarily human characteristic. However, recent...
29th Jul 2021
51

Culture Club: Time to let the cetaceans in?

from Marine Madness [alt+shift+b] in science

29th Jul 2021
Up until recently, culture has been thought of as a primarily human characteristic. However, recent studies shine a light on the fact that non-human animals including Cetaceans (dolphins and whales), may also possess it. They live in tightly-knit social communities, exhibit...
Amateur Mathematician Finds Smallest Universal Cover Through exacting geometric calculations, Philip Gibbs has found the smallest known cover for any...
6th Sep 2019
1

Amateur Mathematician Finds Smallest Universal Cover

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

6th Sep 2019
Through exacting geometric calculations, Philip Gibbs has found the smallest known cover for any possible shape. The post Amateur Mathematician Finds Smallest Universal Cover first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Learn to write well BEFORE you have something worth saying Lessons learned from trip reports and journal articles.
29th Dec 2024
116

Learn to write well BEFORE you have something worth saying

from Eukaryote Writes Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

29th Dec 2024
Lessons learned from trip reports and journal articles.
2015 Meta Time for my annual blogging review. And only 11 days late! I'll keep it brief. Blog stats I...
11th Jan 2016
35

2015 Meta

from Melting Asphalt [alt+shift+b] in science

11th Jan 2016
Time for my annual blogging review. And only 11 days late! I'll keep it brief. Blog stats I published a paltry six full essays this year. Don't get me wrong: I'm proud of them. But still, six. It would be… Read more ›
First Pictures: NASA’s Mars Pathfinder – July 4, 1997 During the morning hours of July 4, 1997, I experienced a strange sense of déjà vu as I sat glued to...
4th Jul 2022
55

First Pictures: NASA’s Mars Pathfinder – July 4, 1997

from Drew Ex Machina [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Jul 2022
During the morning hours of July 4, 1997, I experienced a strange sense of déjà vu as I sat glued to the television set watching live […]
Peak Oil Is Coming In early markets, hybrids always prevail because there’s not enough electric infrastructure. As it...
3rd Feb 2026
1

Peak Oil Is Coming

from Uncharted Territories [alt+shift+b] in science

3rd Feb 2026
In early markets, hybrids always prevail because there’s not enough electric infrastructure. As it develops and people can charge their cars more easily, the share of EVs increases.
Some Renewable Energy Updates I came across a few news items that I could possibly write about today and couldn’t decide which to...
4th May 2026
1

Some Renewable Energy Updates

from NeuroLogica Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

4th May 2026
I came across a few news items that I could possibly write about today and couldn’t decide which to cover, so I will write about all of them, since they all relate to renewable energy. The first is a new study comparing direct air capture (DAC) to installing new wind and solar....
The developing world needs more roads The cities of the developing world could be its growth engine if their streets were not so...
11th Nov 2025
1

The developing world needs more roads

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

11th Nov 2025
The cities of the developing world could be its growth engine if their streets were not so gridlocked. The solution is laying out wider roads.
Silly little rules in healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket The industry is chock full of ‘em, here's 3
3rd Jun 2024
125

Silly little rules in healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket

from Out-of-Pocket Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

3rd Jun 2024
The industry is chock full of ‘em, here's 3
How This Record Company Engineer Invented the CT Scanner The inspiration for computed tomography (CT) came from a chance conversation that research engineer...
12th Jan 2023
53

How This Record Company Engineer Invented the CT Scanner

from IEEE Spectrum [alt+shift+b] in science

12th Jan 2023
The inspiration for computed tomography (CT) came from a chance conversation that research engineer Godfrey Hounsfield had with a doctor while on vacation in the 1960s. The physician complained that X-ray images of the brain were too grainy and only two-dimensional. Hounsfield...
A 1-Day Virtual Symposium on Future of Astronomy For those of you with a deeper interest in astronomy and how we learn about the universe, this may...
8th Aug 2025
19

A 1-Day Virtual Symposium on Future of Astronomy

from Andrew Fraknoi – Astronomy Lectures – Astronomy Education Resources [alt+shift+b] in science

8th Aug 2025
For those of you with a deeper interest in astronomy and how we learn about the universe, this may be of interest.  There is a good discount if you register before Aug. 10. The Astronomical Society of the Pacific Presents: Eyes on the Cosmos: Cutting Edge Instruments and Ideas in...
How to share your data online with OSF The Open Science movement is here to stay. However, incorporating open practices like data sharing...
2nd Oct 2018
1

How to share your data online with OSF

from Peder M. Isager [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd Oct 2018
The Open Science movement is here to stay. However, incorporating open practices like data sharing into your work flow can seem like a challenging task. If you have never made data available online before, the process can feel a bit daunting. Where should I put the data? What...
The Army and Navy Style Guides These fascinating Army and Navy brand style guides define the look, feel and voice of our armed...
4th Oct 2023
168

The Army and Navy Style Guides

from Beautiful Public Data [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Oct 2023
These fascinating Army and Navy brand style guides define the look, feel and voice of our armed forces.
Getting people to donate their organs Too few people donate their organs, dead or alive. How can we make it easier?
2nd Apr 2024
107

Getting people to donate their organs

from The Works in Progress Newsletter [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd Apr 2024
Too few people donate their organs, dead or alive. How can we make it easier?
Where We See Shapes, AI Sees Textures To researchers’ surprise, deep learning vision algorithms often fail at classifying images because...
4th Jun 2020
1

Where We See Shapes, AI Sees Textures

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Jun 2020
To researchers’ surprise, deep learning vision algorithms often fail at classifying images because they mostly take cues from textures, not shapes. The post Where We See Shapes, AI Sees Textures first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Moon In the vastness of empty space surrounding Earth, the Moon is our closest celestial...
17th Dec 2024
95

Moon

from Bartosz Ciechanowski [alt+shift+b] in science

17th Dec 2024
In the vastness of empty space surrounding Earth, the Moon is our closest celestial neighbor. Its face, periodically filled with light and devoured by darkness, has an ever-changing, but dependable presence in our skies. In this article, we’ll learn about the Moon and its path...
On the Nature of Time The Computational View of Time Time is a central feature of human experience. But what actually is...
8th Oct 2024
145

On the Nature of Time

from Stephen Wolfram Writings [alt+shift+b] in science

8th Oct 2024
The Computational View of Time Time is a central feature of human experience. But what actually is it? In traditional scientific accounts it’s often represented as some kind of coordinate much like space (though a coordinate that for some reason is always systematically...
What Is Orbitronics You have definitely heard of electronics. You may (if you are a tech nerd like me) have heard of...
1st Oct 2024
81

What Is Orbitronics

from NeuroLogica Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Oct 2024
You have definitely heard of electronics. You may (if you are a tech nerd like me) have heard of spintronics and photonics. Now there is also the possibility of orbitronics. What do these cool-sounding words mean? Electronic technology is one of those core technologies that has...
Paul Ehrlich: The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment ### Becoming a Benign Dominant To track how humans became Earth's dominant animal, Ehrlich began...
28th Jun 2008
1
28th Jun 2008
### Becoming a Benign Dominant To track how humans became Earth's dominant animal, Ehrlich began with a photo of a tarsier in a tree. The little primate had a predator's binocular vision and an insect-grabber's fingers. When (possibly) climate change drove some primates out of...
Make your PR process resilient to AI slop One concern I have heard from AI naysayers is that AI slop will make code reviews nearly impossible....
24th Dec 2025
1

Make your PR process resilient to AI slop

from pcloadletter [alt+shift+b] in science

24th Dec 2025
One concern I have heard from AI naysayers is that AI slop will make code reviews nearly impossible. AI churns out so much code, documentation, etc. that it's just impossible for any reviewer to keep up with it... right? Wrong! If you have good PR review processes, then reviewing...
A Movie about a Galaxy Far, Far Away & Long, Long Ago (from Webb Telescope) Explains a new movie of distant galaxies and remote time from the Webb Telescope. The post A Movie...
19th Jul 2023
27

A Movie about a Galaxy Far, Far Away & Long, Long Ago (from Webb Telescope)

from Andrew Fraknoi – Astronomy Lectures – Astronomy Education Resources [alt+shift+b] in science

19th Jul 2023
Explains a new movie of distant galaxies and remote time from the Webb Telescope. The post A Movie about a Galaxy Far, Far Away & Long, Long Ago (from Webb Telescope) appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Fakes: Not an Internet Thing, a Human Thing Every day, as the Internet becomes more indispensable to modern life, the drawbacks of deep...
15th Dec 2023
38

Fakes: Not an Internet Thing, a Human Thing

from IEEE Spectrum [alt+shift+b] in science

15th Dec 2023
Every day, as the Internet becomes more indispensable to modern life, the drawbacks of deep engagement with the virtual realm capture as much attention as the wide-ranging benefits. On the Internet, of course, anyone can in all too many forums pretty much say anything—regardless...
Airfoil The dream of soaring in the sky like a bird has captivated the human mind for ages. Although many...
27th Feb 2024
112

Airfoil

from Bartosz Ciechanowski [alt+shift+b] in science

27th Feb 2024
The dream of soaring in the sky like a bird has captivated the human mind for ages. Although many failed, some eventually succeeded in achieving that goal. These days we take air transportation for granted, but the physics of flight can still be puzzling. In this article we’ll...
How I didn’t become a philosopher (but wound up presenting a named philosophy lecture anyway) Many people ask why I became a theoretical physicist. The answer runs through philosophy—which I...
15th Apr 2024
157
15th Apr 2024
Many people ask why I became a theoretical physicist. The answer runs through philosophy—which I thought, for years, I’d left behind in college. My formal relationship with philosophy originated with Mr. Bohrer. My high school classified him as a religion … Continue reading →
Ray Kurzweil: Kurzweil's Law ### Escape velocity Attempts to think long term, Ray Kurzweil began, keep making the mistake of...
24th Sep 2005
1

Ray Kurzweil: Kurzweil's Law

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

24th Sep 2005
### Escape velocity Attempts to think long term, Ray Kurzweil began, keep making the mistake of imagining that the pace of the future is like the pace of the past. Pondering the next ten years, we usually begin by studying the last ten years. He recommends studying the last...
Chris D. Thomas: Are We Initiating The Great Anthropocene Speciation Event? The bad news (not news to most): Many wild species are under severe duress. The good news (total...
26th Jun 2018
1
26th Jun 2018
The bad news (not news to most): Many wild species are under severe duress. The good news (total news to most): “Nature is thriving in an age of extinction.” Ecologist and evolutionary biologist Chris Thomas has examined a little-noticed phenomenon around the world, that as an...
The Saga of AD-X2, the Battery Additive That Roiled the NBS Senate hearings, a post office ban, the resignation of the director of the National Bureau of...
1st Aug 2024
93

The Saga of AD-X2, the Battery Additive That Roiled the NBS

from IEEE Spectrum [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Aug 2024
Senate hearings, a post office ban, the resignation of the director of the National Bureau of Standards, and his reinstatement after more than 400 scientists threatened to resign. Who knew a little box of salt could stir up such drama? What was AD-X2? It all started in 1947 when...
The State of American Science Funding (For the Next Five Minutes) A comprehensive but nowhere near exhaustive overview of how the Trump Administration is impacting...
1st Jul 2025
1
1st Jul 2025
A comprehensive but nowhere near exhaustive overview of how the Trump Administration is impacting American science.
To Conquer the Primary Energy Consumption Layer of Our Entire Civilization [Originally posted on the Terraform blog April 3, 2025.] Three years ago we set out to make cheap...
8th Apr 2025
81

To Conquer the Primary Energy Consumption Layer of Our Entire Civilization

from Casey Handmer's blog [alt+shift+b] in science

8th Apr 2025
[Originally posted on the Terraform blog April 3, 2025.] Three years ago we set out to make cheap synthetic natural gas from sunlight and air. At the time I didn’t fully appreciate that we had kicked off the process of recompiling the foundation layer of our entire industrial...
Rosabeth Moss Kanter: Enduring Principles for Changing Times ### Principles against panic "Everything looks like a failure in the middle." Any new enterprise,...
10th Nov 2007
1

Rosabeth Moss Kanter: Enduring Principles for Changing Times

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

10th Nov 2007
### Principles against panic "Everything looks like a failure in the middle." Any new enterprise, Kanter explained, encounters roadblocks. As the obstacles multiply, the situation looks hopeless. That's when deeply held principles and the long view are most needed to get you...
New updates + tetrahedra, tunneling times, and more Here are a number of items from the past week or so that I think readers of this blog might find...
9th Jul 2025
1

New updates + tetrahedra, tunneling times, and more

from nanoscale views [alt+shift+b] in science

9th Jul 2025
Here are a number of items from the past week or so that I think readers of this blog might find interesting: Essentially all the news pertaining to the US federal funding of science continues to be awful.  This article from Science summarizes the situation well, as does this...
BBC Gets Into UFOs Paranormal phenomena tend to wax and wane in the public interest. Typically a generation will become...
1st Jul 2024
108

BBC Gets Into UFOs

from NeuroLogica Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Jul 2024
Paranormal phenomena tend to wax and wane in the public interest. Typically a generation will become fascinated with a topic, but eventually the novelty will wear thin and interest will fade. But the flame will be kept alive by the hardcore believers. Wait long enough, and...
“I Swallowed a Martian” and Water on Mars The history of water on Mars allows us to wonder if the planet ever had life. The post “I Swallowed...
14th Jul 2026
1

“I Swallowed a Martian” and Water on Mars

from Andrew Fraknoi – Astronomy Lectures – Astronomy Education Resources [alt+shift+b] in science

14th Jul 2026
The history of water on Mars allows us to wonder if the planet ever had life. The post “I Swallowed a Martian” and Water on Mars appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
The Anticipated Future of the Moon When the Earth was young, shortly after the moon formed, our planet was spinning so fast that a day...
15th Feb 2021
31

The Anticipated Future of the Moon

from Damn Interesting [alt+shift+b] in science

15th Feb 2021
When the Earth was young, shortly after the moon formed, our planet was spinning so fast that a day was approximately five hours long. During the intervening billions of years, the dragging effect of the moon’s gravity slowed the Earth’s spin to the 24-hour day we now observe....
Do AI Models Agree On How They Encode Reality? In the allegory of Plato’s cave, prisoners see the world only through shadows. Extending this...
3rd Feb 2026
1

Do AI Models Agree On How They Encode Reality?

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

3rd Feb 2026
In the allegory of Plato’s cave, prisoners see the world only through shadows. Extending this metaphor to AI, AI models are the prisoners and the shadows are streams of data. Are all models converging on a singular representation of reality? On this week’s episode of The Quanta...
Cryptographers Discover a New Foundation for Quantum Secrecy Researchers have proved that secure quantum encryption is possible in a world without hard problems....
3rd Jun 2024
118

Cryptographers Discover a New Foundation for Quantum Secrecy

from Quanta Magazine [alt+shift+b] in science

3rd Jun 2024
Researchers have proved that secure quantum encryption is possible in a world without hard problems. The post Cryptographers Discover a New Foundation for Quantum Secrecy first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Priyamvada Natarajan: Solving Dark Matter and Dark Energy ## The darkness of dark matter and dark energy ALL THAT WE KNOW of the universe we get from...
12th Apr 2016
1

Priyamvada Natarajan: Solving Dark Matter and Dark Energy

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

12th Apr 2016
## The darkness of dark matter and dark energy ALL THAT WE KNOW of the universe we get from observing photons, Natarajan pointed out. But dark matter, which makes up 90 percent of the total mass in the universe, is called dark because it neither emits nor reflects photons — and...
Should We Eradicate Mosquitoes? They kill us and bother us, but is that enough to eradicate them, or their role in the environment...
1st Sep 2026
2

Should We Eradicate Mosquitoes?

from Uncharted Territories [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Sep 2026
They kill us and bother us, but is that enough to eradicate them, or their role in the environment is too important?
Clay Shirky: Making Digital Durable: What Time Does to Categories ### Categories go nova It is fortunate that the leading thinker in "social software" is one of the...
15th Nov 2005
1
15th Nov 2005
### Categories go nova It is fortunate that the leading thinker in "social software" is one of the best speakers in the high-tech world, a hot ticket at any conference that can get him. Clay Shirky gave one of his dazzling presentations Monday, Nov. 14, examining a new dimension...
Sierras Projects A short post where I collate some info related to the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, various...
15th Aug 2025
1

Sierras Projects

from Casey Handmer's blog [alt+shift+b] in science

15th Aug 2025
A short post where I collate some info related to the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, various aspirational objectives and questions. Table Mountain Traverse Table Mountain is at the north west edge of the Kern River basin. It has numerous third and fourth class routes. I...
Rachel Sussman: The World's Oldest Living Organisms ### The Missing Science of Biological Longevity Creative photographer Sussman showed beautiful...
16th Nov 2010
1

Rachel Sussman: The World's Oldest Living Organisms

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

16th Nov 2010
### The Missing Science of Biological Longevity Creative photographer Sussman showed beautiful slides of very elderly organisms. The captions were as crucial as the images---naming the species, the place, and the approximate age. You can see many of them here:...
Butterflies Are Masters of Illusion Stephen J Gould (still my favorite science essayist) wrote an excellent article in 1985 (Red Wings...
a week ago
1

Butterflies Are Masters of Illusion

from NeuroLogica Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

a week ago
Stephen J Gould (still my favorite science essayist) wrote an excellent article in 1985 (Red Wings in the Sunset, later published in his book, Bully for Brontosaurus) about artist and naturalist Abbott Handerson Thayer. Thayer wrote about how animals use coloration as camouflage...
The Symmetry That Makes Solving Math Equations Easy Learn why the quadratic formula works and why quadratics are easier to solve than cubics. ...
24th Mar 2023
92

The Symmetry That Makes Solving Math Equations Easy

from Quanta Magazine [alt+shift+b] in science

24th Mar 2023
Learn why the quadratic formula works and why quadratics are easier to solve than cubics. The post The Symmetry That Makes Solving Math Equations Easy first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Rise and Fall of 3M’s Floppy Disk A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, Ernie Smith’s newsletter, which hunts for the...
2nd Apr 2024
82

The Rise and Fall of 3M’s Floppy Disk

from IEEE Spectrum [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd Apr 2024
A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, Ernie Smith’s newsletter, which hunts for the end of the long tail. if you look on 3M’s own website, you will see no mention of this legacy—it’s a firm that sells abrasive materials, adhesive tapes, filters, films, personal...
A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning I've never been plagued by the big existential questions. You know, like What's my purpose? or What...
11th Jul 2016
35

A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

from Melting Asphalt [alt+shift+b] in science

11th Jul 2016
I've never been plagued by the big existential questions. You know, like What's my purpose? or What does it all mean? Growing up I was a very science-minded kid — still am — and from an early age I learned… Read more ›
A Math Theory for Why People Hallucinate Psychedelic drugs can trigger characteristic hallucinations, which have long been thought to hold...
5th Jul 2019
1

A Math Theory for Why People Hallucinate

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

5th Jul 2019
Psychedelic drugs can trigger characteristic hallucinations, which have long been thought to hold clues about the brain’s circuitry. After nearly a century of study, a possible explanation is crystallizing. The post A Math Theory for Why People Hallucinate first...
Susan Freinkel: Eternal Plastic ### Making plastic even better Plastic is so new, Freinkel began, that among all the objects...
23rd May 2012
1

Susan Freinkel: Eternal Plastic

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

23rd May 2012
### Making plastic even better Plastic is so new, Freinkel began, that among all the objects preserved in the sunken _Titanic_ , none are synthetic plastic, because there was hardly any available in 1912. Natural plastic, however, was a familiar material. Amber was popular....
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 15: More From Explorama Lodge (February 20 - 21, 2024) February 20, 2024 A Great Potoo was the first bird I heard this morning shortly after my alarm went...
1st Feb 2025
49

A Month In Northern Peru, Part 15: More From Explorama Lodge (February 20 - 21, 2024)

from Explorations of an Ecologist [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Feb 2025
February 20, 2024 A Great Potoo was the first bird I heard this morning shortly after my alarm went off at 5:00 AM. It was going to be a good day.  At dinner the previous night Luis, Laura and I had come up with a plan for our full day at Explorama Lodge. We would begin by taking...
African Forests Have Become a Source of Carbon Emissions Africa’s forests have turned from a carbon sink into a carbon source, according to research that...
1st Dec 2025
1

African Forests Have Become a Source of Carbon Emissions

from Yale E360 [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Dec 2025
Africa’s forests have turned from a carbon sink into a carbon source, according to research that underscores the need for urgent action to save the world’s great natural climate stabilizers. Read more on E360 →
Nearly Half of Wolves in Italy Are Now Part Dog Italy has seen a growing number of wolf-dog hybrids, raising concerns about the future of its...
1st May 2026
1

Nearly Half of Wolves in Italy Are Now Part Dog

from Yale E360 [alt+shift+b] in science

1st May 2026
Italy has seen a growing number of wolf-dog hybrids, raising concerns about the future of its wolves. Read more on E360 →
Evolution Isn't Always For The Best Evolution is not, I repeat, NOT natural selection
17th Mar 2022
19

Evolution Isn't Always For The Best

from SubAnima [alt+shift+b] in science

17th Mar 2022
Evolution is not, I repeat, NOT natural selection
How Math Has Changed the Shape of Gerrymandering New tools make it possible to detect hidden manipulation of maps. The post How Math Has...
1st Jun 2023
107

How Math Has Changed the Shape of Gerrymandering

from Quanta Magazine [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Jun 2023
New tools make it possible to detect hidden manipulation of maps. The post How Math Has Changed the Shape of Gerrymandering first appeared on Quanta Magazine
How the Physics of Nothing Underlies Everything The key to understanding the origin and fate of the universe may be a more complete understanding of...
7th Dec 2022
1

How the Physics of Nothing Underlies Everything

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

7th Dec 2022
The key to understanding the origin and fate of the universe may be a more complete understanding of the vacuum. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Pulse” by Geographer.
South Pole Topography The relentless accumulation (and management) of snow.
27th Jan 2023
60

South Pole Topography

from brr [alt+shift+b] in science

27th Jan 2023
The relentless accumulation (and management) of snow.
How TV learned to sell itself Sports solved a problem that nearly killed television.
11th Mar 2026
1

How TV learned to sell itself

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

11th Mar 2026
Sports solved a problem that nearly killed television.
Marine science, the environment, and the 2013 Australian election I’ve been a bit reluctant to write about the upcoming election in this blog; after all the point of...
10th Sep 2013
86

Marine science, the environment, and the 2013 Australian election

from Confessions of a Marine Ecologist [alt+shift+b] in science

10th Sep 2013
I’ve been a bit reluctant to write about the upcoming election in this blog; after all the point of this blog has never been about anything political!  However, for better or worse the state of our  environment (including our oceans) are inextricably linked to politics, so here...
Mathematical Simplicity May Drive Evolution’s Speed Some researchers are using a complexity framework thought to be purely theoretical to understand...
31st Oct 2019
1

Mathematical Simplicity May Drive Evolution’s Speed

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

31st Oct 2019
Some researchers are using a complexity framework thought to be purely theoretical to understand evolutionary dynamics in biological and computational systems. The post Mathematical Simplicity May Drive Evolution’s Speed first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Internet Harvest (2024, 1) Free covid treatment for everyone in the US, a novel orthopox virus, a really big machine, cameras...
13th Mar 2024
162

Internet Harvest (2024, 1)

from Eukaryote Writes Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

13th Mar 2024
Free covid treatment for everyone in the US, a novel orthopox virus, a really big machine, cameras used for good and evil, ant heaven now, and more.
Have We Already Found Life On Mars? Definitions are a funny thing..
4th May 2022
22

Have We Already Found Life On Mars?

from SubAnima [alt+shift+b] in science

4th May 2022
Definitions are a funny thing..
Secrets of Early Animal Evolution Revealed by Chromosome 'Tectonics' Large blocks of genes conserved through hundreds of millions of years of evolution hint at how the...
14th Apr 2022
1

Secrets of Early Animal Evolution Revealed by Chromosome 'Tectonics'

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

14th Apr 2022
Large blocks of genes conserved through hundreds of millions of years of evolution hint at how the first animal chromosomes came to be. The post Secrets of Early Animal Evolution Revealed by Chromosome ‘Tectonics’ first appeared on Quanta Magazine
6 Questions You Asked Yourself about Solar How fast will it take over, how fast are costs shrinking, why is it so cheap, what industries will...
2nd Nov 2024
43

6 Questions You Asked Yourself about Solar

from Uncharted Territories [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd Nov 2024
How fast will it take over, how fast are costs shrinking, why is it so cheap, what industries will it birth, how much surface will it take up, where will it appear first?
The San Diego infinite housing glitch How a bonus ADU program allows 'granny towers' in gardens
2nd Oct 2024
77

The San Diego infinite housing glitch

from The Works in Progress Newsletter [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd Oct 2024
How a bonus ADU program allows 'granny towers' in gardens
When RAND Made Magic in Santa Monica RAND’s halcyon days lasted two decades, during which the corporation produced some of the most...
1st Jun 2024
27

When RAND Made Magic in Santa Monica

from Asterisk [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Jun 2024
RAND’s halcyon days lasted two decades, during which the corporation produced some of the most influential developments in science and American foreign policy. So how did it become just another think tank?
Drew Ex Machina 10th Anniversary: Top Ten Posts I find it difficult to believe but, it was ten years ago today that I posted the first article on my...
27th Mar 2024
111

Drew Ex Machina 10th Anniversary: Top Ten Posts

from Drew Ex Machina [alt+shift+b] in science

27th Mar 2024
I find it difficult to believe but, it was ten years ago today that I posted the first article on my then-new website, Drew Ex Machina. […]
The Most Famous Paradox in Physics Nears Its End In a landmark series of calculations, physicists have proved that black holes can shed information. ...
4th Feb 2021
1

The Most Famous Paradox in Physics Nears Its End

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Feb 2021
In a landmark series of calculations, physicists have proved that black holes can shed information. The post The Most Famous Paradox in Physics Nears Its End first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Michael Pollan: Deep Agriculture ### Making farmers cool again Farming has become an occupation and cultural force of the past....
6th May 2009
1

Michael Pollan: Deep Agriculture

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

6th May 2009
### Making farmers cool again Farming has become an occupation and cultural force of the past. Michael Pollan's talk promoted the premise - and hope - that farming can become an occupation and force of the future. In the past century American farmers were given the assignment to...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 18: Wattled Curassows at Muyuna Lodge (February 26, 2024) February 26, 2024 As dawn broke, Laura, Moises and I slowly cruised along a quiet watercourse. The...
4th Apr 2025
52

A Month In Northern Peru, Part 18: Wattled Curassows at Muyuna Lodge (February 26, 2024)

from Explorations of an Ecologist [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Apr 2025
February 26, 2024 As dawn broke, Laura, Moises and I slowly cruised along a quiet watercourse. The dawn chorus was active and included species like Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl, Zimmer's Woodcreeper and Black-tailed Antbird, but I stayed focused on the treeline, hoping that a...
South Pole Signage Please close doors quietly!
23rd Jul 2023
28

South Pole Signage

from brr [alt+shift+b] in science

23rd Jul 2023
Please close doors quietly!
Frank Ostaseski: What the Dying Teach the Living ## Death’s Honesty **In one of Long Now’s most moving talks** , Ostaseski began: “I’m not romantic...
11th Apr 2017
1

Frank Ostaseski: What the Dying Teach the Living

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

11th Apr 2017
## Death’s Honesty **In one of Long Now’s most moving talks** , Ostaseski began: “I’m not romantic about dying. This is the hardest work you will ever do. It is tough. It’s sad and it’s messy and it’s cruel and it’s beautiful sometimes and mysterious, but above all that, it’s...
The Demons of Non-Denoms Religion in America was once the domain of institutions. How did it grow to be dominated by cults of...
1st Sep 2025
1

The Demons of Non-Denoms

from Asterisk [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Sep 2025
Religion in America was once the domain of institutions. How did it grow to be dominated by cults of personality — and what can the process tell us about the rest of American culture?
367 | Jared Diamond on the Course of History and the Role of Leaders The course of history is affected by many things, including the political and social situations of...
7th Sep 2026
1
7th Sep 2026
The course of history is affected by many things, including the political and social situations of large groups of people, […]
If only we had taller been Ray Bradbury once explained with a poem why he writes science fiction and why space travel is so...
4th Mar 2017
1

If only we had taller been

from John Salvatier [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Mar 2017
Ray Bradbury once explained with a poem why he writes science fiction and why space travel is so important to him. It is perhaps my favorite poem. Text version: The fence we walked between the years We ached and almost touched that stuff; O, Thomas, will a Race one day stand...
Mars Express is Still Making Great Images 20 Years Later Mars Express was launched by the European Space Agency in 2003, and is ESA’s first Mars mission. In...
4th Sep 2024
96

Mars Express is Still Making Great Images 20 Years Later

from Wanderingspace [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Sep 2024
Mars Express was launched by the European Space Agency in 2003, and is ESA’s first Mars mission. In one shot, you can see Mars as a half-lit disk, with Phobos, its tiny moon, hovering above. Right below Phobos is Olympus Mons, the solar system's largest volcano, towering 22 km...
The ultra-selfish gene We now have the power to genetically modify entire species by inserting certain genes into them with...
3rd Sep 2024
1

The ultra-selfish gene

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

3rd Sep 2024
We now have the power to genetically modify entire species by inserting certain genes into them with brute force. Doing this to malaria-carrying mosquitoes could allow us to wipe out humanity’s most deadly killer.
AI hype is excessive, but its productivity gains are real I'm kind of writing this to "past" me, who I assume is "current" you for a number of folks out...
19th Oct 2025
31

AI hype is excessive, but its productivity gains are real

from pcloadletter [alt+shift+b] in science

19th Oct 2025
I'm kind of writing this to "past" me, who I assume is "current" you for a number of folks out there. For the rest of you, this might just sound like ramblings of an old fogey super late to the party. Yes, AI is over-hyped. LLMs will not solve every problem under the sun but,...
How much of HN is AI? I have a complicated relationship with Hacker News. The site is the most important aggregator of...
12th Mar 2026
1

How much of HN is AI?

from lcamtuf’s thing [alt+shift+b] in science

12th Mar 2026
I have a complicated relationship with Hacker News. The site is the most important aggregator of geek news and a major source of traffic to this blog. At the same time, it has a fair number of toxic commenters, making it a dependable source of insults hurled in my general...
Understanding the Baby Boom The West has been below replacement fertility once before. Then came the Baby Boom. Understanding...
7th Sep 2023
1

Understanding the Baby Boom

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

7th Sep 2023
The West has been below replacement fertility once before. Then came the Baby Boom. Understanding that boom may help us deal with today’s bust.
Jill Tarter: The Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence: Necessarily a Long-term Strategy ### The long search "The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence: Necessarily a Long-term...
10th Jul 2004
1
10th Jul 2004
### The long search "The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence: Necessarily a Long-term Strategy" is the title for Jill Tarter's Seminar About Long-term Thinking this Friday. There's no deeper question than "Are we alone in the universe?" And there's no quick way to answer...
Jim Richardson: Heirlooms ### Save Agricultural Biodiversity Humanity’s agricultural legacy is on a par with any of our great...
23rd Feb 2012
1

Jim Richardson: Heirlooms

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

23rd Feb 2012
### Save Agricultural Biodiversity Humanity’s agricultural legacy is on a par with any of our great cultural legacies, Richardson said, but preserving it is not just a matter of honoring the history and richness of our most fundamental civilization-enabling technology. For the...
An Easy-Sounding Problem Yields Numbers Too Big for Our Universe Researchers prove that navigating certain systems of vectors is among the most complex computational...
4th Dec 2023
34

An Easy-Sounding Problem Yields Numbers Too Big for Our Universe

from Quanta Magazine [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Dec 2023
Researchers prove that navigating certain systems of vectors is among the most complex computational problems. The post An Easy-Sounding Problem Yields Numbers Too Big for Our Universe first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Emergent, Fringe Behaviors in Healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket tweeting out your labs, induced mental states, and more
2nd May 2025
29

Emergent, Fringe Behaviors in Healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket

from Out-of-Pocket Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd May 2025
tweeting out your labs, induced mental states, and more
What Will Happen to Indian IT? The past and future of the “world’s back office.”
a week ago
1

What Will Happen to Indian IT?

from Asterisk [alt+shift+b] in science

a week ago
The past and future of the “world’s back office.”
Understanding Jumbo Phage Viruses Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, are the most abundant form of life on Earth. And yet...
2nd May 2024
91

Understanding Jumbo Phage Viruses

from NeuroLogica Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd May 2024
Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, are the most abundant form of life on Earth. And yet we know comparatively little about them. But in recent years phage research has taken off with renewed interest. This is partly driven by the availability of CRISPR-based tools for...
Crony Beliefs [Note: if you prefer audio, you can listen to this essay narrated by Grognor on his excellent...
2nd Nov 2016
34

Crony Beliefs

from Melting Asphalt [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd Nov 2016
[Note: if you prefer audio, you can listen to this essay narrated by Grognor on his excellent podcast Second Enumerations. —Ed.]   Credits up front: This essay draws heavily from Overcoming Bias, Less Wrong, Slate Star Codex, Robert Kurzban, Robert… Read more ›
A Comet Visible in Our Evening Sky A newly discovered comet is now faintly visible in our skies soon after sunset, if you have clear...
15th Oct 2024
84

A Comet Visible in Our Evening Sky

from Andrew Fraknoi – Astronomy Lectures – Astronomy Education Resources [alt+shift+b] in science

15th Oct 2024
A newly discovered comet is now faintly visible in our skies soon after sunset, if you have clear skies and a view low toward the west-southwest horizon. See our diagram from Sky & Telescope magazine, in which the yellow numbers show you the comet’s location in the evening sky...
3D Printing With Metallic Gel One of the futuristic technologies that I find most promising is 3D printing (additive...
6th Jul 2023
55

3D Printing With Metallic Gel

from NeuroLogica Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

6th Jul 2023
One of the futuristic technologies that I find most promising is 3D printing (additive manufacturing). 3D printing has already created a revolution in manufacturing, but I think the general public does not have a high awareness of this technology because it is not yet at the...
So you want to build a science/engineering laboratory building A very quick summary of some non-negative news developments: The NSF awarded 500 more graduate...
15th Jun 2025
1

So you want to build a science/engineering laboratory building

from nanoscale views [alt+shift+b] in science

15th Jun 2025
A very quick summary of some non-negative news developments: The NSF awarded 500 more graduate fellowships this week, bringing the total for this year up to 1500.  (Apologies for the X link.)  This is still 25% lower than last year's number, and of course far below the original...
How to Beat Cancer with Viruses: An Interview with Beata Halassy How viruses kill cancers, which viruses to use, how many injections, at what stage of the cancer,...
1st Oct 2024
44

How to Beat Cancer with Viruses: An Interview with Beata Halassy

from Uncharted Territories [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Oct 2024
How viruses kill cancers, which viruses to use, how many injections, at what stage of the cancer, and much more
Drew Endy & Jim Thomas: Synthetic Biology Debate ### Terms of Biocontainment "I want to develop tools that make biology easy to engineer," Drew Endy...
18th Nov 2008
1

Drew Endy & Jim Thomas: Synthetic Biology Debate

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

18th Nov 2008
### Terms of Biocontainment "I want to develop tools that make biology easy to engineer," Drew Endy began. The first purpose is better understanding fundamental biological mechanisms through "learning by building." The toolkit of Synthetic Biology starts with DNA construction...
The Race between Waymo, Cybercab, and Uber One of the big tech transformations of 2026 will be robotaxis.
1st Jan 2026
1

The Race between Waymo, Cybercab, and Uber

from Uncharted Territories [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Jan 2026
One of the big tech transformations of 2026 will be robotaxis.
Notes on Progress: Doing science backwards Preregistering research as a cure for scientific bias
2nd Aug 2022
44

Notes on Progress: Doing science backwards

from The Works in Progress Newsletter [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd Aug 2022
Preregistering research as a cure for scientific bias
How many dimensions is this? A degree in mathematics might not save you from stacking boxes for a living.
3rd Sep 2025
1

How many dimensions is this?

from lcamtuf’s thing [alt+shift+b] in science

3rd Sep 2025
A degree in mathematics might not save you from stacking boxes for a living.
Your Allergies Are Probably Fake You might be avoiding medications that don't do anything to you
4th Feb 2026
2

Your Allergies Are Probably Fake

from Cremieux Recueil [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Feb 2026
You might be avoiding medications that don't do anything to you
Paul Saffo: Embracing Uncertainty: the secret to effective forecasting ### Rules of Forecasting Reflecting on his 25 years as a forecaster, Paul Saffo pointed out that a...
12th Jan 2008
1
12th Jan 2008
### Rules of Forecasting Reflecting on his 25 years as a forecaster, Paul Saffo pointed out that a forecaster's job is not to predict outcomes, but to map the "cone of uncertainty" on a subject. Where are the edges of what might happen? (Uncertainty is cone-shaped because it...
Fresh X-Rays Reveal a Universe as Clumpy as Cosmology Predicts By mapping the largest structures in the universe in X-rays, cosmologists have found striking...
4th Mar 2024
60

Fresh X-Rays Reveal a Universe as Clumpy as Cosmology Predicts

from Quanta Magazine [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Mar 2024
By mapping the largest structures in the universe in X-rays, cosmologists have found striking agreement with their standard theoretical model of how the universe evolves. The post Fresh X-Rays Reveal a Universe as Clumpy as Cosmology Predicts first appeared on Quanta...
Yet More New Ideas and New Functions: Launching Version 14.1 of Wolfram Language & Mathematica For the 36th Time… the Latest from Our R&D Pipeline There’s Now a Unified Wolfram App Vector...
31st Jul 2024
99
31st Jul 2024
For the 36th Time… the Latest from Our R&D Pipeline There’s Now a Unified Wolfram App Vector Databases and Semantic Search RAGs and Dynamic Prompting for LLMs Connect to Your Favorite LLM Symbolic Arrays and Their Calculus Binomials and Pitchforks: Navigating Mathematical...
Watt lies beneath The earth’s core is hot. So hot, that if we drilled deep enough, we could power the world millions...
15th Nov 2023
1

Watt lies beneath

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

15th Nov 2023
The earth’s core is hot. So hot, that if we drilled deep enough, we could power the world millions of times over with cheap, clean energy, supporting renewables when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. But getting there is tough.
Astrobiology meets quantum computation? The origin of life appears to share little with quantum computation, apart from the difficulty of...
23rd Oct 2023
86

Astrobiology meets quantum computation?

from Quantum Frontiers [alt+shift+b] in science

23rd Oct 2023
The origin of life appears to share little with quantum computation, apart from the difficulty of achieving it and its potential for clickbait. Yet similar notions of complexity have recently garnered attention in both fields. Each topic’s researchers expect only … Continue...
The Beer Can Connecting old and new.
18th Mar 2023
77

The Beer Can

from brr [alt+shift+b] in science

18th Mar 2023
Connecting old and new.
Do we get better or worse at adapting to change? Verner Vinge, in a classic 1993 essay, described “the Singularity” as an era where progress becomes...
6th Apr 2023
71

Do we get better or worse at adapting to change?

from The Roots of Progress | Articles [alt+shift+b] in science

6th Apr 2023
Verner Vinge, in a classic 1993 essay, described “the Singularity” as an era where progress becomes “an exponential runaway beyond any hope of control.” The idea that technological change might accelerate to a pace faster than we can keep up with is a common concern. Almost three...
Nassim Nicholas Taleb: The Future Has Always Been Crazier Than We Thought ### Dispatches from Extremistan A "black swan," Taleb explained, is an event which is 1) Hard to...
5th Feb 2008
1
5th Feb 2008
### Dispatches from Extremistan A "black swan," Taleb explained, is an event which is 1) Hard to predict; 2) Highly consequential; 3) Wrongly retro-predicted. We pretend we know why the big event happened, and so entrench our inability to deal with the next world-changing...
Bizarre New Creatures Discovered 30,000 Feet Under the Sea The Titanic lies about 12,500 feet under the ocean. The pressure down there is so immense that even...
1st Aug 2025
8

Bizarre New Creatures Discovered 30,000 Feet Under the Sea

from Yale E360 [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Aug 2025
The Titanic lies about 12,500 feet under the ocean. The pressure down there is so immense that even submersibles supposedly built for those conditions can, as we know, tragically fail. Now imagine taking a sub nearly three times deeper. Read more on E360 →
Fertility on demand Technology could allow women to have it all
1st May 2025
19

Fertility on demand

from The Works in Progress Newsletter [alt+shift+b] in science

1st May 2025
Technology could allow women to have it all
The Ruthless Liquidity of Modern Love Sex & Relationship Updates, H1 2026
6th May 2026
2

The Ruthless Liquidity of Modern Love

from Uncharted Territories [alt+shift+b] in science

6th May 2026
Sex & Relationship Updates, H1 2026
Saving Academics from Themselves The university will survive AI. That doesn’t mean we’ll like what it turns into.
1st Jul 2026
1

Saving Academics from Themselves

from Asterisk [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Jul 2026
The university will survive AI. That doesn’t mean we’ll like what it turns into.
The UX of LEGO Interface Panels LEGO interface panels are beautiful, iconic, and great for learning interface design basics. I...
2nd Aug 2020
28

The UX of LEGO Interface Panels

from Interaction Magic - George Cave [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd Aug 2020
LEGO interface panels are beautiful, iconic, and great for learning interface design basics. I bought 52 of them from BrickLink to explore the design, layout and organisation of complex interfaces.
Going Critical Background: This is an interactive blog post. I wanted to host it here, but don't know how to make...
13th May 2019
40

Going Critical

from Melting Asphalt [alt+shift+b] in science

13th May 2019
Background: This is an interactive blog post. I wanted to host it here, but don't know how to make it play nice with WordPress. So I decided to host it on another part of the site instead. Click here for… Read more ›
Harvesting Energy from Water Vapor I did not plan to write yet another post about energy, but this popped up and I had to write about...
1st Jun 2023
91

Harvesting Energy from Water Vapor

from NeuroLogica Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Jun 2023
I did not plan to write yet another post about energy, but this popped up and I had to write about it. UMASS researchers have produced a device that generates electricity by harvesting charge from water vapor. They write: The common feature of these materials is that they are...
Dwarf Planet Ring Mystery Scientists love mysteries, because that is where new discoveries lay. It is nice to find evidence...
9th Feb 2023
57

Dwarf Planet Ring Mystery

from NeuroLogica Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

9th Feb 2023
Scientists love mysteries, because that is where new discoveries lay. It is nice to find evidence consistent with existing theories, providing further confirmation, but it’s exciting to find evidence that cannot be explained with existing theories. Astronomers may have found such...
The perks of being a mole rat The secrets to extending human lifespans might lie in the animals that can already live for...
4th Feb 2026
1

The perks of being a mole rat

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Feb 2026
The secrets to extending human lifespans might lie in the animals that can already live for centuries.
Preparing For The Habitable Worlds Observatory, Our Best Shot at Finding ET Life In a solar system far, far away, life of some sort is just waiting to be found.  Or so the world of...
17th Oct 2023
49
17th Oct 2023
In a solar system far, far away, life of some sort is just waiting to be found.  Or so the world of astrobiology sure hopes it is. The new player in the astrobiology world, now called the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), is planned to launch in the 2040s if all goes well. ...
How can objects interact without touching?  Rethinking the electric field Have you ever wondered what an electric field actually is?  The...
6th Sep 2026
1

How can objects interact without touching? 

from Quantum Frontiers [alt+shift+b] in science

6th Sep 2026
Rethinking the electric field Have you ever wondered what an electric field actually is?  The electric field is the foundation of most technologies that we rely on every day. From power grids and electronic devices to radio communication and the … Continue reading →
Nanotyrannus Controversy Solved One of the things I like about following paleontology news is that new evidence can just be...
3rd Nov 2025
15

Nanotyrannus Controversy Solved

from NeuroLogica Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

3rd Nov 2025
One of the things I like about following paleontology news is that new evidence can just be discovered, and sometimes these new pieces to the puzzle can significantly change what we think about past life. One such controversy I have been following for a while is whether or not...
Martin Rees: Life's Future in the Cosmos ### Cosmic Life The pace of astronomic discovery, said the Astronomer Royal, keeps increasing with...
3rd Aug 2010
1

Martin Rees: Life's Future in the Cosmos

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

3rd Aug 2010
### Cosmic Life The pace of astronomic discovery, said the Astronomer Royal, keeps increasing with the constant improvement in our sensing technology. The recent discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe (dark energy) revolutionized cosmology, and with the launch...
FAA Aviation Maps Among all of the visual information published by the U.S. government, there may be no product with a...
29th Jan 2024
203

FAA Aviation Maps

from Beautiful Public Data [alt+shift+b] in science

29th Jan 2024
Among all of the visual information published by the U.S. government, there may be no product with a higher information density than the Federal Aviation Administration’s aviation maps.
Rose McDermott: Ideology in our Genes: The Biological Basis for Political Traits While traditionally social factors have been considered to have primary influence on political...
1st Dec 2017
1
1st Dec 2017
While traditionally social factors have been considered to have primary influence on political behaviors and preferences, more recent research shows that there's also a strong heritable component to ideological attitudes. Rose McDermott, professor of International Relations at...
Challenging the Acceleration of the Universe South Korean astronomers are challenging the notion that the universe’s expansion is accelerating,...
5th Jan 2026
1

Challenging the Acceleration of the Universe

from NeuroLogica Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

5th Jan 2026
South Korean astronomers are challenging the notion that the universe’s expansion is accelerating, an observation in the 1990s that lead to the theory of dark energy. This is currently very controversial, and may simply fizzle away or change our understanding of the fate of the...
Do Apes Have a Theory of Mind Designing research studies to determine what is going on inside the minds of animals is extremely...
4th Feb 2025
47

Do Apes Have a Theory of Mind

from NeuroLogica Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Feb 2025
Designing research studies to determine what is going on inside the minds of animals is extremely challenging. The literature is littered with past studies that failed to properly control for all variables and thereby overinterpreted the results. The challenge is that we cannot...
Who’s afraid of artificial flavors? ‘Artificial’ didn’t scare Americans in the 19th century. Why does it scare them now?
8th May 2026
1

Who’s afraid of artificial flavors?

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

8th May 2026
‘Artificial’ didn’t scare Americans in the 19th century. Why does it scare them now?
Will Making Your Kids Tall Shorten Their Lives? Bonus: How to get human growth hormone (HGH) for cheap
1st Jul 2026
1

Will Making Your Kids Tall Shorten Their Lives?

from Cremieux Recueil [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Jul 2026
Bonus: How to get human growth hormone (HGH) for cheap
How to write for Works in Progress We’re looking for new authors and article pitches.
4th Apr 2025
1

How to write for Works in Progress

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Apr 2025
We’re looking for new authors and article pitches.
Eric Ries: Long-Term Stock Exchange Companies that operate with a long-term mindset tend to outperform their peers over time. But the...
3rd Mar 2020
1

Eric Ries: Long-Term Stock Exchange

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

3rd Mar 2020
Companies that operate with a long-term mindset tend to outperform their peers over time. But the pressure to achieve short-term quarterly gains often works against longer-term sustainable growth, and can push even the most visionary company into a short-term mindset. In 02019,...
No Retvrn An American tradition of embracing modernity.
4th Aug 2025
1

No Retvrn

from Asterisk [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Aug 2025
An American tradition of embracing modernity.
Notes on Progress: Artificial flavoring "Artificial" didn't scare Americans in the 19th century. Why does it scare us now?
6th Apr 2023
47

Notes on Progress: Artificial flavoring

from The Works in Progress Newsletter [alt+shift+b] in science

6th Apr 2023
"Artificial" didn't scare Americans in the 19th century. Why does it scare us now?
What If We Had Bigger Brains? Imagining Minds beyond Ours Cats Don’t Talk We humans have perhaps 100 billion neurons in our brains. But what if we had many...
21st May 2025
1

What If We Had Bigger Brains? Imagining Minds beyond Ours

from Stephen Wolfram Writings [alt+shift+b] in science

21st May 2025
Cats Don’t Talk We humans have perhaps 100 billion neurons in our brains. But what if we had many more? Or what if the AIs we built effectively had many more? What kinds of things might then become possible? At 100 billion neurons, we know, for example, that compositional...
Sam Harris: The View from the End of the World ### On necessary heresy With gentle demeanor and tight argument, Sam Harris carried an overflow...
10th Dec 2005
1

Sam Harris: The View from the End of the World

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

10th Dec 2005
### On necessary heresy With gentle demeanor and tight argument, Sam Harris carried an overflow audience into the core of one of the crucial issues of our time: What makes some religions lethal? How do they employ aggressive irrationality to justify threatening and controlling...
Libraries of matter Libraries contain books, yes. But they also contain latex rubber, carbon fiber fabrics, and graphene...
29th Aug 2024
1

Libraries of matter

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

29th Aug 2024
Libraries contain books, yes. But they also contain latex rubber, carbon fiber fabrics, and graphene aerogel. And in some materials libraries you can cut, cast, drill, sand, scrape, and sculpt too.
Cellular reprogramming, pneumatic launch systems, and terraforming Mars In December, I went to the Foresight Institute’s Vision Weekend 2023 in San Francisco. I had a lot...
4th Jan 2024
45

Cellular reprogramming, pneumatic launch systems, and terraforming Mars

from The Roots of Progress | Articles [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Jan 2024
In December, I went to the Foresight Institute’s Vision Weekend 2023 in San Francisco. I had a lot of fun talking to a bunch of weird and ambitious geeks about the glorious abundant technological future. Here are few things I learned about (with the caveat that this is mostly...
Upzoning New Zealand How a small country started building a lot of homes
1st Feb 2024
54

Upzoning New Zealand

from The Works in Progress Newsletter [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Feb 2024
How a small country started building a lot of homes
Nicholas Negroponte: Beyond Digital ### A world of convergence In education, Negroponte explained, there’s a fundamental distinction...
18th Apr 2013
1

Nicholas Negroponte: Beyond Digital

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

18th Apr 2013
### A world of convergence In education, Negroponte explained, there’s a fundamental distinction between "instructionism" and "constructionism." "Constructionism is learning by discovery, by doing, by making. Instructionism is learning by being told." Negroponte’s lifelong...
Can Thermodynamics Resolve the Measurement Problem? At the recent Quantum Thermodynamics conference in Vienna (coming next year to the University of...
10th Sep 2023
69

Can Thermodynamics Resolve the Measurement Problem?

from Quantum Frontiers [alt+shift+b] in science

10th Sep 2023
At the recent Quantum Thermodynamics conference in Vienna (coming next year to the University of Maryland!), during an expert panel Q&A session, one member of the audience asked “can quantum thermodynamics address foundational problems in quantum theory?” That stuck with …...
Nils Gilman: Deviant Globalization ### The anti-state economy Gilman described deviant globalization as "the unpleasant underside of...
4th May 2010
1

Nils Gilman: Deviant Globalization

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

4th May 2010
### The anti-state economy Gilman described deviant globalization as "the unpleasant underside of transnational integration." There's nice tourism, and then sex tourism, such as in Thailand and Switzerland. The vast pharmacology industry is matched by a vast traffic in illegal...
what's happened since the human genome project When the human genome project was deemed “complete” in 2003, it was met with incredible fanfare. The...
17th May 2022
33

what's happened since the human genome project

from Apoorva Srinivasan [alt+shift+b] in science

17th May 2022
When the human genome project was deemed “complete” in 2003, it was met with incredible fanfare. The entire project leading up to that moment had all the drama to keep its audience enthralled. Fierce rivalry between a public and private institution, multiple countries involved,...
Simpson’s What? I like Simpson’s paradox so much I wrote three chapters about it in Probably Overthinking It. In...
16th Oct 2025
23

Simpson’s What?

from Probably Overthinking It [alt+shift+b] in science

16th Oct 2025
I like Simpson’s paradox so much I wrote three chapters about it in Probably Overthinking It. In fact, I like it so much I have a Google alert that notifies me when someone publishes a new example (or when the horse named Simpson’s Paradox wins a race). So I was initially excited...
Steam networks New York’s skyscrapers soar above a century-old steam network that still warms the city. While the...
13th Mar 2025
1

Steam networks

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

13th Mar 2025
New York’s skyscrapers soar above a century-old steam network that still warms the city. While the rest of the world moved to hot water, Manhattanites still buy steam by the megapound.
Solar Is Booming Solar power as a source of electricity has been on a meteoric rise, and has crossed some encouraging...
1st Sep 2026
1

Solar Is Booming

from NeuroLogica Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Sep 2026
Solar power as a source of electricity has been on a meteoric rise, and has crossed some encouraging milestone recently. Every way you look at it, solar is booming. This is driven primarily by the decrease in the cost of adding solar power, so let’s start there. The Berkley Lab...
Meta: 7,000 Although I try to keep navel-gazing to a minimum, I’m happy to report that this publication has...
4th Aug 2026
1

Meta: 7,000

from lcamtuf’s thing [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Aug 2026
Although I try to keep navel-gazing to a minimum, I’m happy to report that this publication has crossed 7,000 email subscribers (plus an unknown number of RSS weirdos).
Problems with the Institute Of Noetic Sciences I was interviewed recently for a Daily Beast article on recent research involving the Institute of...
1st May 2023
85

Problems with the Institute Of Noetic Sciences

from NeuroLogica Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

1st May 2023
I was interviewed recently for a Daily Beast article on recent research involving the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS). Overall the article is very good, and author Maddie Bender was fair and reasonable in how I was quoted. I can’t always take that as a given. No matter how...
Think Linear Algebra I have published the first five chapters of Think Linear Algebra! You can read them here or follow...
22nd Sep 2025
19

Think Linear Algebra

from Probably Overthinking It [alt+shift+b] in science

22nd Sep 2025
I have published the first five chapters of Think Linear Algebra! You can read them here or follow these links to run the notebooks on Colab. Here are the chapters I have so far: Chapter 1: The Power of Linear AlgebraIntroduces matrix multiplication and eigenvectors through a...
AC vs DC and other Power Questions I was away last week, first at CSICON and then at a conference in Dubai. I was invited to give a 9...
4th Nov 2024
75

AC vs DC and other Power Questions

from NeuroLogica Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Nov 2024
I was away last week, first at CSICON and then at a conference in Dubai. I was invited to give a 9 hour seminar on scientific skepticism for the Dubai Future Foundation. That sounds like a lot of time, but it isn’t. It was a good reminder of the vast body of knowledge that is...
The ultimate horse Selective breeding has pushed horses to the limits of biology. But at what cost?
5th Aug 2026
1

The ultimate horse

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

5th Aug 2026
Selective breeding has pushed horses to the limits of biology. But at what cost?
Steven Johnson: Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World ## Inventing toward delight Humanity has been inventing toward delight for a long time. Johnson...
5th Jan 2017
1

Steven Johnson: Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

5th Jan 2017
## Inventing toward delight Humanity has been inventing toward delight for a long time. Johnson began with a slide of shell beads found in Morocco that indicate human interest in personal adornment going back 80,000 years. He showed 50,000-year-old bone flutes found in modern...
Jennifer Granick: Modern Surveillance: Why You Should Care and What You Can Do The future of privacy begins with the current state of surveillance. The 21st century practices of...
4th May 2020
1
4th May 2020
The future of privacy begins with the current state of surveillance. The 21st century practices of US intelligence agencies push the technological, legal and political limits of lawful surveillance. Jennifer Granick is a civil liberties and privacy law expert with the American...
Enjoy the Coming Leap Day: Some Thoughts about the Calendar This year February will have an extra day -- we discuss why? The post Enjoy the Coming Leap Day: ...
12th Feb 2024
34

Enjoy the Coming Leap Day: Some Thoughts about the Calendar

from Andrew Fraknoi – Astronomy Lectures – Astronomy Education Resources [alt+shift+b] in science

12th Feb 2024
This year February will have an extra day -- we discuss why? The post Enjoy the Coming Leap Day: Some Thoughts about the Calendar appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
The AI Projects From Our B2B Hackathon | Out-Of-Pocket DME coordination, assessing AI vendors using AI, physician recruiting tools, and more
5th Dec 2025
1

The AI Projects From Our B2B Hackathon | Out-Of-Pocket

from Out-of-Pocket Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

5th Dec 2025
DME coordination, assessing AI vendors using AI, physician recruiting tools, and more
5th Mar 2024
Dittemore’s Law A quick note to formalize some observations on elite organization dysfunction. The Space Mirror...
17th Jan 2025
83

Dittemore’s Law

from Casey Handmer's blog [alt+shift+b] in science

17th Jan 2025
A quick note to formalize some observations on elite organization dysfunction. The Space Mirror Memorial at Kennedy Space Center in Florida commemorates the 25 US astronauts who have died in flight.  Ron Dittemore is the retired former Space Shuttle program manager who was...
The arXiv - where it's been and where it's going Back in the ancient mists of time, scientists and mathematicians would circulate preprints of their...
a week ago
1

The arXiv - where it's been and where it's going

from nanoscale views [alt+shift+b] in science

a week ago
Back in the ancient mists of time, scientists and mathematicians would circulate preprints of their articles among friends and colleagues via the postal service, as a courtesy, to get feedback and to try to make sure people in the community were aware of their forthcoming work. ...
Iqbal Quadir: Technology Empowers the Poorest ### Making Money WITH the Poor When Iqbal Quadir applied to US colleges from his home town in...
22nd May 2008
1

Iqbal Quadir: Technology Empowers the Poorest

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

22nd May 2008
### Making Money WITH the Poor When Iqbal Quadir applied to US colleges from his home town in Bangladesh he was surprised to discover that not all American universities were found in Washington, DC. That's how it was in Bangladesh, where everything of importance was centralized...
Weekend trivia: your process' memory is a file The underappreciated gem of /proc/ /mem
1st Jun 2026
1

Weekend trivia: your process' memory is a file

from lcamtuf’s thing [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Jun 2026
The underappreciated gem of /proc/ /mem
Mary Catherine Bateson: Live Longer, Think Longer ### Parenting Earth The birth of a first child is the most intense disruption that most adults...
10th Feb 2011
1

Mary Catherine Bateson: Live Longer, Think Longer

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

10th Feb 2011
### Parenting Earth The birth of a first child is the most intense disruption that most adults experience. Suddenly the new parents have no sleep, no social life, no sex, and they have to keep up with a child that changes from week to week. "Two ignorant adults learn from the...
If you wish to make an apple pie, you must first become dictator of the universe The word “robot” is derived from the Czech robota, which means “serfdom.” It was introduced over a...
5th Jul 2023
53

If you wish to make an apple pie, you must first become dictator of the universe

from The Roots of Progress | Articles [alt+shift+b] in science

5th Jul 2023
The word “robot” is derived from the Czech robota, which means “serfdom.” It was introduced over a century ago by the Czech play R.U.R., for “Rossum’s Universal Robots.” In the play, the smartest and best-educated of the robots leads a slave revolt that wipes out most of...
Getting things done by not trying I recently finished a very short book with an intriguing title: Why Greatness Cannot be Planned....
20th Oct 2024
133

Getting things done by not trying

from Inverted Passion [alt+shift+b] in science

20th Oct 2024
I recently finished a very short book with an intriguing title: Why Greatness Cannot be Planned. It’s an unconventional self-help book disguised as a computer science research exposition (that’s why the publisher is Springer). I strongly recommend reading it. Here is a taste of...
John Rendon: Long-term Policy to Make the War on Terror Short ### Only connect John Rendon, head of The Rendon Group, is a senior communications consultant to...
15th Jul 2006
1

John Rendon: Long-term Policy to Make the War on Terror Short

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

15th Jul 2006
### Only connect John Rendon, head of The Rendon Group, is a senior communications consultant to the White Houses and Departments of Defense. His subject in this talk is how to replace tactical, reactive response to terror with long-term strategic initative. I think that people...
Brian Behlendorf: A Foundation of Trust: Building a Blockchain Future An Open Source pioneer, [Brian Behlendorf](https://twitter.com/brianbehlendorf) now leads the effort...
7th Jun 2019
1
7th Jun 2019
An Open Source pioneer, [Brian Behlendorf](https://twitter.com/brianbehlendorf) now leads the effort to build the infrastructure for trust as a service. In the past he helped build the foundations of the Web with [the Apache Foundation](http://www.apache.org/) and brought Open...
Energy storage in the internal states of molecules - old and new A science story first, then a US research ecosystem story later. When we think about using molecules...
2nd May 2026
1

Energy storage in the internal states of molecules - old and new

from nanoscale views [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd May 2026
A science story first, then a US research ecosystem story later. When we think about using molecules to store energy, it's usually in the context of food or fuel, so that chemical reactions take place - bonds are broken and remade, and in an exothermic reaction, the products end...
Some Future Tech Possibilities It’s difficult to pick winners and losers in the future tech game. In reality you just have to see...
1st Feb 2024
45

Some Future Tech Possibilities

from NeuroLogica Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Feb 2024
It’s difficult to pick winners and losers in the future tech game. In reality you just have to see what happens when you try out a new technology in the real world with actual people. Many technologies that look good on paper run into logistical problems, difficulty scaling, fall...
Anne Heggli, Jonathon Keats, & Adam Csank: Art & Science at the Nevada Bristlecone Preserve In a remote corner of the driest state in the country, Anne Heggli's team has been keeping watch...
6 days ago
1
6 days ago
In a remote corner of the driest state in the country, Anne Heggli's team has been keeping watch over some of Earth’s oldest beings. Since 02012, Heggli’s NevCAN network has recorded conditions at the Nevada Bristlecone Preserve every eight minutes. The result is more than 120...
A Cute Application of the Yoneda Lemma Every few weeks recently I’ve been putting a new fun problem on one of the whiteboards in the first...
17th Mar 2025
60

A Cute Application of the Yoneda Lemma

from Chris Grossack's Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

17th Mar 2025
Every few weeks recently I’ve been putting a new fun problem on one of the whiteboards in the first year office. These are often inspired by something I saw on MSE, and I’m usually choosing problems that force you to understand something fundamental really well. Then I usually...
Moved to tears 20 years ago, on January 15 2004, a little before 2 AM Pacific time, was the payoff. It was...
3rd Feb 2024
111

Moved to tears

from Articles - Chris Lewicki [alt+shift+b] in science

3rd Feb 2024
20 years ago, on January 15 2004, a little before 2 AM Pacific time, was the payoff. It was cause for celebration. But first, I wept.
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