We’re like air. People just take it for granted that we’re always going to be there.
uhm, no.
Month: July 2009
debaptism
I ________ having been subjected to the Rite of Baptism in infancy (before reaching an age of consent), hereby publicly revoke any implications of that Rite.
Barack Headroom
I have extracted and concatenated all of the verbal tics, clichés, and temporizing locutions so you can digest the essence of Obama’s rhetoric without enduring all of the prevarications and preposterous populist pap which they served to cement.
Siftables
cookie-sized, computerized tiles you can stack and shuffle in your hands. These future-toys can do math, play music, and talk to their friends, too.
Totipotent Skin Cells
Cells from flakes of skin have grown into mice. This confirms that reprogrammed adult cells share the totipotency of embryonic stem cells.
Life on Mars?
Penelope Boston thinks there’s a 25% to 50% chance that life might exist on Mars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaWZjl8Xa2g
2019-12-28: i give this a 20% chance, but what a profound moment in human history if true.
Aimee Mullins
“i went from being a disabled woman to being super-abled” “it’s not fair that you can change your height at will!”
Australia-India DNA Link
2 specific genetic mutations on the mtDNA of the Indian and aboriginal samples matched perfectly. Not only that, but these particular mutations do not exist elsewhere in the world
Humans Glow
Virtually all living creatures emit very weak light, which is thought to be a byproduct of biochemical reactions involving free radicals. This suggests cameras that can spot the weak emissions could help spot medical conditions.
Free Education
The marginal cost of education is being driven toward 0 due to social media and innovative approaches to online learning like OpenCourseWare, Flat World Knowledge, and the University of the People. That’s because the nature of information is such that it can be created once at cost and distributed and consumed over and over again for free. “Knowledge is, as the economists say, a non-rival good. If I eat an apple, you cannot also eat that same apple; but if I learn something, there is no reason you cannot also learn that thing. Information goods lend themselves to being created, distributed and consumed on the web. It is not so different from music, or classified advertising, or news.” So in the future, the cost of education might be free, or nearly free, which could just level the playing field.
also, no more need for second or third rate teachers.
Gregor J. Rothfuss 