Ian Goldin, one of the many smart people to speak at the always excellent TED conference, lays down the challenges facing us in the next 30 years. The takeaway? The coming decades are full of amazing technologies, but if we don’t find new ways to co-operate, we’re all screwed.
I’ve always been interested in the coming convergence of genetic engineering, robotics, and nanotech, and one of the best places to read about the latest developments in those fields is H+ Magazine, published by R.U. Sirius of Mondo 2000 fame. I’m pleased to announce that the first of my articles for H+ about a personal supercomputing company in Calgary has now gone live on their website. A couple more articles are still to come, and I encourage everyone who has an interest in where science is taking us in the next few decades to check out H+.
Just having a lazy Sunday in Osaka, and came across this cool trailer for a documentary premiering October 20th on TVO. “The Quantum Tamers” is all about the amazing and oftern mind-benindg tech we may be able to harness once we gain a measure of control over the quantum world. What’s coming up? Well, quantum computing, where a computer figures out every possible answer to a question at once and spits out the solution, and quantum teleportation, which is purest madness.
While I’m not the world’s biggest fan of Rachel Maddow (I don’t mind her, I just don’t like being lectured at even if I happen to agree with the lecturer currently wagging the finger), I have to agree with most of what she says about Obama’s “ehh?” Nobel Peace Prize. See below:
Noted scientist and atheist Richard Dawkins took on noted jackass and demagogue Bill O’Reilly on the matter of evolution and intelligent design recently on O’Reilly’s show. In the process Dawkins told O’Reilly to stop shouting, and for his part O’Reilly told Dawkins that science “hasn’t advanced the human moral condition.” Funny, the lack of public crucifixes and blaming disease on demons would have me thinking otherwise, but watch for yourself.
Rumours, rumours and more rumours were grist for the RFS mill this week, as the Three Who Rule speculated on a new, possibly leaked list of Season 5/1/31 writers (and confirmed one or two writers and directors along the way), watching Phil (friend of the show) Ford’s reactions to watching Dreamland (very meta) and DVD speculation run amok. All this and a Fiona Cumming Miniscope.Rumours, rumours and more rumours were grist for the RFS mill this week, as the Three Who Rule speculated on a new, possibly leaked list of Season 5/1/31 writers (and confirmed one or two writers and directors along the way), watching Phil (friend of the show) Ford’s reactions to watching Dreamland (very meta) and DVD speculation run amok. All this and a Fiona Cumming Miniscope.
Since I’ll be in Beijing at the end of October, this report from the Globe and Mail about the massive changes that have swept over China in the last 50 years is pretty interesting.