Visualizing data in real time using drizzle and rabbitmq
Cigarette packets to be ugly olive green
AUSTRALIANS today got their first look at the plainer, uglier cigarette packets the Federal Government hopes will curb smoking among young people.
dustin-kemper–3
20110406
zzkt posted a photo:
The Sleepless Elite
Natural “short sleepers,” as they’re officially known, are night owls and early birds simultaneously. They typically turn in well after midnight, then get up just a few hours later and barrel through…
The Sleepless Elite
Natural “short sleepers,” as they’re officially known, are night owls and early birds simultaneously. They typically turn in well after midnight, then get up just a few hours later and barrel through…
Project VRM
VRM stands for Vendor Relationship Management. VRM tools provide customers with both independence from vendors and better ways of engaging with vendors. The same tools can also support individuals’…
Immutability and Blocks, Lambdas and Closures | …on Coding, Mac OS X | Algorithm.com.au
I recently ran into some “interesting” behaviour when using lambda in Python. Perhaps it’s only interesting because I learnt lambdas from a functional language background, where I expect that they…
Immutability and Blocks, Lambdas and Closures | …on Coding, Mac OS X | Algorithm.com.au
Jill Magid - A Reasonable Man in a Box
A Reasonable Man in a Box takes its point of departure from the “Bybee Memo”, a controversial 2002 document signed by Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General of the United States Department of…
Underscore Magazine
Ecolonomics No.10: ’When the facts change, I change my mind."
As I see it the debate over climate change, and in fact on environmentalism in general, has become disassociated from the economics and thermodynamics of the way society operates. Consequently the…
Ecolonomics No.10: ’When the facts change, I change my mind."
Underscore Magazine
Ecolonomics No.10: ’When the facts change, I change my mind."
As I see it the debate over climate change, and in fact on environmentalism in general, has become disassociated from the economics and thermodynamics of the way society operates. Consequently the…
Ecolonomics No.10: ’When the facts change, I change my mind."
On the Table by Michael Craig-Martin
Search Engine Deoptimization
I think this attack should be called Search Engine Deoptimization.
Data Protection: Betrayed by our own data
Mobile phones are tracking devices that reveal much about our lives. One look at our interactive map of data provided by the Green party politician Malte Spitz shows why.
Chinese students screened for ‘radical thoughts’ and ‘independent lifestyles’
One of China’s most prestigious universities has announced plans to screen all students and identify those with “radical thoughts” or “independent lifestyles”, provoking angry reactions from…
Chinese students screened for ‘radical thoughts’ and ‘independent lifestyles’
Up-nee-ent prospector you sprout all your worth and woof your wings - but does it float
zzkt posted a new favorite picture (via):
Up-nee-ent prospector you sprout all your worth and woof your wings - but does it float
MIT’s artificial leaf is ten times more efficient than the real thing (Wired UK)
Speaking at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in California, MIT professor Daniel Nocera claims to have created an artificial leaf, made from stable and inexpensive materials,…
MIT’s artificial leaf is ten times more efficient than the real thing (Wired UK)
Post-Tsunami Japan Turns Away From Excess
TOKYO — Even in a country whose people are known for walking in lockstep, a national consensus on the proper code of behavior has emerged with startling speed. Consider post-tsunami Japan as the age…
A Shoulder-Mounted, Humanoid Telepresence ’Bot, for Easy Tele-Dating
See, you carry TEROOS around on your shoulder but someone else controls it, using its built-in camera, microphone, and speaker to look around and communicate with the wearer. Communications and…
A Shoulder-Mounted, Humanoid Telepresence ’Bot, for Easy Tele-Dating
Werner Herzog’s approach to documentary filmmaking. - By Leo Robson - Slate Magazine
In his own nonfiction films, Herzog wants to tell stories and he doesn’t feel beholden to fact. His approach to documentary is an alternative to cinema vérité, the observational aesthetic that…
Werner Herzog’s approach to documentary filmmaking. - By Leo Robson - Slate Magazine
Erik Meijer’s suggestions for further reading in Functional Programming
Functional programmer extraordinaire Erik Meijer has a series of video lectures on “Functional Programming Fundamentals” where he teaches FP using Graham Hutton’s Programming in Haskell book. In the…
Erik Meijer’s suggestions for further reading in Functional Programming
the best goal is no goal
zzkt forked mxcl/homebrew
Forked repository is at zzkt/homebrew
Stop Lying About What You Do
I read with continuous partial attention and I don’t care that I am frequently interrupting my own reading. I despise the discourse that says we are all shallow, that we are all flighty, distracted,…
Robot Ecologies
Simplistic ecosystem from the perspective of the robot. The red lines suggest relationships or interactions. The diagram represents the period of creation thus facilitating a focus on the motivation behind a robots development, subsequent build and its intended projection into the outside layers.
Japan sends robots into Fukushima nuclear plant
The team working to contain the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant now includes a robot. The machine, known as Monirobo (“Monitoring Robot”), was on the scene today, according to the…
Interviews > Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock is among the greatest of all writers alive today irrespective of genre. His legendary tenure as the editor of the science-fiction magazine New Worlds from 1964 to 1971 made his first…
Art in the service of science: You get what you pay for
Last week, a very prominent artist in the paleontology community somewhat publicly blew a gasket. His tirade started a conversation that has been sorely in need of attention for some time now. At…
Pictoplasma | Berlin
Early April the Pictoplasma Festival in Berlin once more stages the world’s leading and largest celebration of contemporary character culture, with a dense, one-week program of inspiring artist…
The Technium: Pocket Banks
There are plenty of mobile payment systems in Asia and Europe, and promises of ones to come from Apple and others in the US, but none so far have been as successful and ubiquitous as the simple…
Think climate when judging nuclear power
If Japan’s nuclear power sector can withstand the worst natural calamity I hope to ever see in my life and contribute no deaths, minimal injuries and minimal environmental impact, then nuclear power…
Google Crisis Response
The Google Crisis Response team assesses the severity and scope of a disaster to determine whether or not Google is able to uniquely contribute tools or content to response efforts. Examples of…
The strange story of etherpad
I don’t actually know this story - certainly no more of it than anyone who has read a few web pages. But luckily, I’m pretty good at making things up. So I want to tell you the story of etherpad, the…
According to the writer and editor who approved th[is] summary, “An explosion at a nuclear power plant on Japan’s devastated…
“According to the writer and editor who approved th[is] summary, “An explosion at a nuclear power plant on Japan’s devastated coast … made leaking radiation, or even outright meltdown, the central threat menacing a nation.” Apparently aftershocks, fires, broken dams, washed out highways, lack of clean drinking water, damaged sewer systems, destroyed airports, and at least a thousand known fatalities are not as much of a threat to the nation of Japan as the possibility that a few people might be exposed to a radiation dose that is roughly equivalent to the ones administered every day as part of routine medical procedures.”
–http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2011/03/sowing-calm-in-face-of-focused-campaign.html
AUGRE - You can’t force AR
it’s lame - like “AR graffiti” lame. You want to make graffiti art? Locate your metaphorical balls and go and make graffiti art: transcend some actual norms and/or laws. Making polite, sterile,…
Betting on green | The Economist
Mr Khosla is gambling that venture capital can work similar magic in the field of clean technology. His approach is that of a pragmatic businessman rather than an eco-warrior. “I don’t view climate…
Foraging without damaging
This has been called the year of the foragers. Every year more and more people armed with guidebooks are exploring the hedgerows to indulge in a spot of Mesolithic role-play. Something that was once…
No One Knows What the F*** They’re Doing (or “The 3 Types of Knowledge”)
No One Knows What the F*** They’re Doing (or “The 3 Types of Knowledge”)
Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
Twenty-five years after the Soviet-era meltdown drove 60,000 people from their homes in the Ukraine, a rebirth is taking place inside the exclusion zone. With Geiger counter in hand, the author…
Activist Michael Anti Furious He Lost Facebook Account—While Zuckerberg’s Dog Has Own Page
Anti, a popular online commentator whose legal name is Zhao Jing, said in an interview Tuesday that his Facebook account was suddenly canceled in January. Company officials told him by e-mail that…
Activist Michael Anti Furious He Lost Facebook Account—While Zuckerberg’s Dog Has Own Page
The Lost Land of Serendip
But serendipity depends on inefficiency. Entire institutions, now being reconfigured in the age of convergence, were arranged to make serendipity possible. Remember library stacks? Books on a similar…
Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail?
“Everything’s fucked up, and nobody goes to jail,” he said. “That’s your whole story right there. Hell, you don’t even have to write the rest of it. Just write that.”
SBML Software Guide
This page lists software known to us to provide some degree of support for reading, writing, or otherwise working with SBML. For an at-a-glance matrix summarizing key features of these software…
Network Theory (Part 1) « Azimuth
I wish there were a branch of mathematics—in my dreams I call it green mathematics—that would interact with biology and ecology just as fruitfully as traditional mathematics interacts with physics….
The Genetic Gamesmanship of a Seven-Sexed Creature
Meet Tetrahymena thermophila, which in addition to its seven different sexes—conveniently named I, II, III, IV, V, VI, and VII—has such a complex sex life that it requires an extra nucleus. This…
What is Voina?
Voina is a Russian art collective that engages in street action art. It is a movement in contemporary art that is relatively new to Russia despite being widespread in the West and regarded by critics…
How To Think About Science, Part 1 – 24
If science is neither cookery, nor angelic virtuosity, then what is it?
Modern societies have tended to take science for granted as a way of knowing, ordering and controlling the world. Everything…
Experiments in the Revival of Organisms
This disturbing film records the successful experiments in the resuscitation of life to dead animals (dogs), as conducted by Dr. S.S. Bryukhonenko at the Institute of Experimental Physiology and…
FM 2–22.3 Human Intelligence Collector Operations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Army Field Manual 2 22.3, or FM 2-22.3, Human Intelligence Collector Operations, was issued by the Department of the Army on September 6, 2006. The manual gives instructions on a range of issues,…
FM 2–22.3 Human Intelligence Collector Operations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“It does not trouble the mathematician that he has to deal with unknown things. At the outset in algebra he handles unknown…
“It does not trouble the mathematician that he has to deal with unknown things. At the outset in algebra he handles unknown quantities x and y. His quantities are unknown, but he subjects them to known operations - addition, multi-plication, etc. Recalling Bertrand Russell’s famous definition, the mathematician never knows what he is talking about, nor whether what he is saying is true; but, we are tempted to add, at least he does know what he is doing. The last limitation would almost seem to disqualify him for treating a universe which is the theatre of unknowable actions and operations. We need a super-mathematics in which the operations are as unknown as the quantities they operate on, and a super-mathematician who does not know what he is doing when he performs these operations. Such a super-mathematics is the Theory of Groups.”
–Arthur Stanley Eddington,“New Pathways in Science”, 1934
Mutate or Die: a W.S. Burroughs Biotechnological Bestiary
“Mutate or Die” is a bioart project being conceived of and executed by Tony Allard and Adam Zaretsky. Bioart tends to use cutting edge biotechnology as an art making device and specializes in…
Sockpuppet Army
Persona management entails not just the deconfliction of persona artifacts such as names, email addresses, landing pages, and associated content. It also requires providing the human actors…
Anna Chapman: cosmonaut tailor
*People who ridicule this political strategy of Anna’s really aren’t getting it. They remind me of people ridiculing the iPad. “Look, a sleeper agent who just launders money globally, joins social…
Belgium equals record for “no new government”
On Thursday Belgium equals Iraq’s record as the country that has been without a new government for the longest period of time since a general election. Belgium went to the polls to elect a new…
Curveball: How US was duped by Iraqi fantasist looking to topple Saddam
The man who pulled off one of the greatest confidence tricks in the history of modern intelligence was not easy to pin down. He arrived at a hotel in his adopted home town of Karlsruhe, looking…
Curveball: How US was duped by Iraqi fantasist looking to topple Saddam
Alexandra Lange: Whatever Happened to the Dinner Party?
Asked by an editor at the GourmetLive app, Are there any stories about design and food? I came up with two pitches. The first, “The Architecture of Food,” ran last November and discussed the rising…
Zero - AI Chatbot
Because the human language is enormous and because one question could potentially be asked dozens or even hundreds of different ways by a user we have developed Zero as a means of analyzing the…
The Moral Crusade Against Foodies
Of course, the bulk of foodie writing falls between the extremes of Pollan- esque sanctimony and Bourdainian oafishness. The average article in a Best Food Writing anthology is a straightforward if…
Getting Creative Things Done: How To Fit Hard Thinking Into a Busy Schedule
Driven by the demands of academia, which requires the regular publication of high-quality creative work to maintain your job, I developed a system. As an homage to David Allen, I call it “Getting…
Getting Creative Things Done: How To Fit Hard Thinking Into a Busy Schedule
The White House Asks: What’s Blocking Innovation in America? - My Answer: IP Laws
Today, thanks to the heavy hand of the law, not much new was allowed to happen, and eMusic’s customers are of an average age of 39, and of course it’s young people who can make a music business…
The White House Asks: What’s Blocking Innovation in America? - My Answer: IP Laws
Experts determine age of book ‘nobody can read’
University of Arizona researchers have cracked one of the puzzles surrounding what has been called “the world’s most mysterious manuscript” – the Voynich manuscript, a book filled with drawings and…
Fantasies of hyper-globalism: the WWF’s Energy Report
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has recently unveiled a new report which ambitiously declares the world can switch to 95% renewable energy sources by 2050. The report is meant to be both inspiring and…
The Beautiful World
Yes, I am suggesting technological solutions to social problems. Yes, I am aware this is considered a state of sin by many. But Victorian London damn near doubled its life expectancy on the basis of…
Noctilux 1/50
The Noctilux-M for the Leica-M rangefinder cameras has been introduced in 1976 and is the ‘brainchild’ of Dr Mandler of the then Leitz Midlands factory. It has a weight of 630 grams and the highest…
Yesterday’s amazing house of tomorrow is today’s boring house of today - Boing Boing
Yesterday’s amazing house of tomorrow is today’s boring house of today - Boing Boing
Manifesto against Labour
A corpse rules society – the corpse of labour. All powers around the globe formed an alliance to defend its rule: the Pope and the World Bank, Tony Blair and Jörg Haider, trade unions and…
On Science Publishing
THE SCIENTIFIC PAPER HAS LONG BEEN THE UNIT OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE. NOW, WITH PRINT MEDIA LAPSING INTO OBSOLESCENCE, THE INTERNET IS POISED TO TRANSFORM SCIENCE PUBLISHING
Why Belgium has never been more disunited
ABSTRACT: POSTCARD FROM EUROPE about political disunity in Belgium. Brussels is the unofficial capital of the European Union. Like the E.U., Brussels is in a permanent state of identity crisis: it is…
Google Finds It Hard to Reinvent Philanthropy
The trouble with Flanders
The world gives little thought to Belgium. Yet it may soon have to pay more attention. As the crisis drags on, a break-up of Belgium looks less unthinkable than it was. The effects would be felt far…
Robot (R)evolution On The Way
Turns out learning in small steps – how to crawl before standing before walking – makes for a better adapted robot in the real world.
NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemicals
Researchers conducting tests in the harsh environment of Mono Lake in California have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic….
NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemicals
Why Do DMT Users See Insects From A Parallel Universe?
The Ethical Robot
“There are machines out there that are already doing things that have ethical import, such as automatic cash withdrawal machines, and many others in the development stages, such as cars that can…
Grand Challenges in Economics
The National Science Foundation sent out a “Dear Colleague letter” some time ago requesting white papers on grand challenges in the social, behavioral, and economic sciences, and has now published…
News flash: Deadly terrorism existed before 9/11
In the 1980s we did not overreact. We did not stage ill-fated invasions of distant countries. People did not cease traveling and the airline industry did not fall into chaos. We were lazy in enacting…
Economics “Grand Challenges”
“Grand Challenge” White Papers for Future Research in the Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences
Surrealistic paintings by Tetsuya Ishida
The surrealistic paintings of Tetsuya Ishida (1973-2005) explore the dark side of modern life.
The Insanity Virus
The facts of schizophrenia are so peculiar, in fact, that they have led Torrey and a growing number of other scientists to abandon the traditional explanations of the disease and embrace a startling…
De Standaard Online - Problem, Belgium?
lola_dupre_emily_2 / lola dupré
lola_dupre_mona_lisa_small / lola dupré
hrustic–06.jpg
Lola Dupré
World Bank head calls for monetary system linked to gold
In the run-up to the G20 summit of leading economies, to be held Thursday and Friday in Seoul, the president of the World Bank has published a column in the Financial Times calling for a fundamental…
Manifest
mary virginia carmack
Typcut
Eben Goff - batholithetchings
frame
N/A
void()
Aussie bio-cement to save Dutch dykes
An Australian researcher is using bacteria to develop a biological cement that may help patch up failing Dutch dykes, essential in protecting the land from rising sea levels.
Mapping Ecosystems, the Better to Conserve Them
Environmentalists have a special affinity for maps. Whether terrestrial or marine, the environment and its ills are tied to a geography that can be expressed in a rectilinear scale.
What we can learn from procrastination
Akerlof, who became one of the central figures in behavioral economics, came to the realization that procrastination might be more than just a bad habit. He argued that it revealed something…
Europe simulates total cyber war
The first-ever cross-European simulation of an all out cyber attack was planned to test how well nations cope as the attacks slow connections.
The simulation steadily reduced access to critical…
Did somebody just try to buy the British government?
So when an eminent member of the House of Lords stands up six hours into a debate and blows the gaff on a shadowy foreign Foundation making a bid to buy the British state, and this is recorded in…
Is a federal Nordic state on the cards?
It can, however, be a stimulating academic exercise to speculate about what this Nordic federal state should look like. In that spirit I propose beautiful Stockholm for a capital (the only never…