Amazon.com Inc. is embracing artificial intelligence to deliver goods more quickly, enhance its voice-activated Alexa assistant and create new tools sold to others through its cloud-computing division, Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos said in his annual shareholder letter.
The first ever all-FDA front row at the end of the inaugural qualifying session for FIA Formula 2
Al Sakhir – The first outing in this category for Charles Leclerc and Antonio Fuoco went really well. The Monegasque Ferrari Driver Academy student took pole position in today’s qualifying session for FIA Formula 2 in Bahrain. Leclerc stamped his authority so far over this weekend, on his debut in the series with a lap in 1.38.907. Alongside Leclerc for tomorrow’s race at the Al Sakhir circuit will be his team-mate Fuoco, who was second in 1.39.585. Antonio is also making his debut in Formula 2, and this result is thanks to great teamwork from the Prema squad and the Driver Academy.
Happy Easter…and a reality check: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/where-were-going-we-dont-need-popes #transhumanism #reason
Modern values, transhumanist technology, and the embrace of reason are making many Catholic rules and rituals absurd.
Everywhere I look, Pope Francis, the 266th pope of the Catholic Church, seems to be in the news—and he is being positively portrayed as a genuinely progressive leader. Frankly, this baffles me. Few major religions have as backwards a philosophical and moral platform as Catholicism. Therefore, no leader of it could actually be genuinely progressive. Yet, no one seems to pay attention to this—no one seems to be discussing that Catholicism remains highly oppressive.
To even discuss how many archaic positions the Pope and Catholicism support would take volumes. But the one that irks me the most is that Pope Francis and his church are still broadly against condoms and contraceptives. Putting aside that this view is terribly anti-environmental, with over 175 million Catholics in Africa, it’s quite possible that this position may also create more AIDS deaths in Africa.
“On March 13, the Institute celebrated the publication of The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge (Princeton University Press), which features IAS Founding Director Abraham Flexner’s classic essay of the same title, first published in Harper’s magazine in 1939.”
Posted in biotech/medical, health
A few weeks ago we unveiled the latest eight companies that are part of our URBAN-X smart cities accelerator in Brooklyn. This is the second time we’ve run this program, which differs a little from SOSV’s other ecosystem accelerators, in that the space isn’t constrained by the deep intricacies of a vertical (manufacturing, biotechnology, etc) as much as by environment and mission. The kind of companies we’re interested in working with through this program are changing the way that humans live in cities: they’re working on topics as various as mobility, urban health and safety, energy, waste, water, city planning, construction, and beyond.
We see hundreds of applicants to our program, and interface with hundreds more through our network, mentors, and co-investors. Here are some of the trends we’ve seen ticking up over the last 12 months or so:
Unimaginable Radical Abundance:
Yesterday I took the time to read chapter 11 of Eric Drexler’s book Radical Abundance as to get a glimpse of what might be possible with Atomically Precise Manufacturing (APM). I highly recommend the book.
The potential of APM is truly unimaginable.
Try to imagine billion core processors, memory storage in the billions of gigabytes per cm2. Solar panels far exceeding todays best laboratory efficiencies. Batteries that are a billion times more energy dense. All this with a negligible impact on the environment.
