There has been progress towards using solar powered lasers for Magnesium production. Having a profitable industrial application to fund and drive and scale the development of solar powered lasers is good news for accelerating solar powered lasers for space applications. They are scaling to 1 megawatt of solar collection and 30 watts of laser per square meter of collection area. A space based system could have 60 watts of lasers since there is no atmosphere blocking sunlight. Space based being application would then need another fresnel lens to focus the lasers for long range beaming.
Month: October 2014
Synthetic Genomics
there’s VC hyperbole, and then there’s VC hyperbole. if you do web 2.0 hyperbole, you sound like a spazz, if you do this:
This is the most important company founded in the 21st century. You are creating new ontologies of life. There has been nothing as important since prokaryotic cells
you’re giving us hope.
so much white!
“Molly, get away from there! You know we don’t want the baby to have any visual stimuli!”
60 ka Art
The discovery of 40 ka cave paintings at opposite ends of the globe suggests that the ability to create representational art had its origins further back in time in Africa, before modern humans spread across the rest of the world. “The basis for this art was there 60 ka ago; it may even have been there in Africa before 60 ka ago and it spread with modern humans”.
On Autoawesome
Also, in related news, FOMO now more acute.
But I do think there is something different, possibly something portentous, going on with AutoAwesome “Smile!”: a difference in quality and kind. What is a more fundamental externalized symbol of a subtle, human feeling than a smile? The AIs in the cloud helped me out, gave me a better memory to store and share, a digestion of reality into the memory I wish had been captured. But I’m reasonably sure that if this were a photo of Obama and Putin, smiling it up together, big, simultaneously happy buddies, at a Ukraine summit press conference. Then, I think algorithms automatically creating such symbolic moments would be a concern.
Manhattan lifestyle
When I land at JFK, everything changes. For the first few days it is a shock: I have to get used to old New York ladies beside themselves with fury that I have stopped their smooth elevator journey and got in with some children. I have to remember not to pause while walking in the street—or during any fluid-moving city interaction—unless I want to utterly exasperate the person behind me. Each man and woman in this town is in pursuit of his or her beach and God help you if you get in their way. I suppose it should follow that I am happier in pragmatic England than idealist Manhattan, but I can’t honestly say that this is so. You don’t come to live here unless the delusion of a reality shaped around your own desires isn’t a strong aspect of your personality. “A reality shaped around your own desires”—there is something sociopathic in that ambition.
Turkey impressions
this is amazing, and strengthening my resolve to return to turkey, the cradle of western civilization.
256 colors
there’s now a feature-length film entirely made of gifs. it was pretty good.
Pirate Joe
this is a pretty fascinating tale.
There’s a Trader Joe’s in Vancouver, now?” “No, there’s a Pirate Joe’s in Vancouver.” What unfolds then is a tale of entrepreneurship, adventure, legal turmoil, and something called “the grey market.”
Alcohol inequality
the top 10% of drinkers account for well over 50% of the alcohol consumed in any given year. On the other hand, people in the bottom 30% don’t drink at all, and even the median consumption among those who do drink is just 3 beverages per week.
Gregor J. Rothfuss 