Month: March 2011

NASA wants to blast space junk with lasers from the ground | DVICE

I often find myself picking which article I’m going to read from the Google News aggregation by the awesomeness of the title. In fact, the titles alone are sometimes enough for me. 

This title was the awesomest of the bunch, of course.

(NB: I only read the RSS for the Science/Tech feed, which should really be the Apple/ Google/ Technology/ Technology/ Technology/ Technology/ Science feed, for all the actual science journalism it puts up.)

NASA wants to blast space junk with lasers from the ground | DVICE

Nicholas de Monchaux | Consider the Spacesuit, Part 1 | C-Lab

Going back to the current context of parametric design and the really utopian notion of how genes operate, Stephen J. Gould called it a “Panglossian paradigm” – everything has evolved to be perfect. This turns out not to be the case at all. Most things in evolution turn out to be much more fashioned – our eardrums are fashioned out of the reptilian jawbone, so we can’t eat anything bigger than our head, but we can hear, which is great, but it’s not an optimal solution, it’s just using whatever is to hand to make whatever is necessary to deal with current circumstances.

At the beginning, there’s a great thing about Kubrick hiring all the people who were out of work after we got to the moon …


Nicholas de Monchaux | Consider the Spacesuit, Part 1 | C-Lab

Is the Navy Trying to Start the Robot Apocalypse? | Danger Room | Wired.com

That’s right, the only thing scarier than a swarm of intelligent military mini robots is a swarm of intelligent military mini robots in control of the means of production. And your Navy is hard at work on making it a reality.

Would’ve posted for the title alone, but the threat of swarming nanobots + Marx reference is a plus …

Is the Navy Trying to Start the Robot Apocalypse? | Danger Room | Wired.com

The NFLPA’s power play: Cease to exist | ESPN

I think this is literally the most insightful, analytic thing I’ve ever read on ESPN. 

More than anything, the pathological disavowal of discussions about the most important issue in the sport proves that one of the primary draws of sport culture in American life is to create an alternative to politics.

Sports are interesting, things that matter happen, they go on 24 hours a day, and they create convivial communities. In other words, they create a parallel universe that can feed the voracious appetite we all have to engage with our world, with none of the baggage. 

Good or evil? Beyond?

The NFLPA’s power play: Cease to exist | ESPN