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Jul 16, 2014

Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador White Swan Update and Published Amazon Author by Andres Agostini at www.amazon.com/author/agostini

Posted by in category: futurism

new-16

Urban Skyfarm concept would provide inner city farming space http://www.gizmag.com/aprilli-design-studio-urban-skyfarm/32954/

Honda’s new ASIMO robot is all grown up http://www.gizmag.com/new-honda-asimo-robot/32977/

DARPA announces Phase 1 of its XS-1 spaceplane program http://www.gizmag.com/darpa-xs-1-spaceplane-phase-design-contracts/32965/

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Jul 15, 2014

Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador White Swan Update and Published Amazon Author by Andres Agostini at www.amazon.com/author/agostini

Posted by in category: futurism

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How machine learning is saving lives while saving hospitals money http://gigaom.com/2014/07/14/how-machine-learning-is-saving-…als-money/

Meet the algorithm that can learn “everything about anything” http://gigaom.com/2014/05/23/meet-the-algorithm-that-can-lea…-anything/

Three Teams To Develop Spaceplane Concepts for DARPA http://www.spacenews.com/article/military-space/41263three-t…-for-darpa

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Jul 15, 2014

Political futurism, ethics energized by sci-fi

Posted by in categories: entertainment, ethics, existential risks, philosophy, transhumanism
.@hjbentham . @clubofinfo. @dissidentvoice_ . @ieet. #scifi. #philosophy. #ethics.
Literature has served an indispensable purpose in exploring ethical and political themes. This remains true of sci-fi and fantasy, even if there is such a thing as reading too much politics into fictional work or over-analyzing.


Since Maquis Books published The Traveller and Pandemonium, a novel authored by me from 2011–2014, I have been responding as insightfully as possible to reviews and also discussing the book’s political and philosophical themes wherever I can. Set in a fictional alien world, much of this book’s 24 chapters are politically themed on the all too real human weakness of infighting and resorting to hardline, extremist and even messianic plans when faced with a desperate situation.

The story tells about human cultures battling to survive in a deadly alien ecosystem. There the human race, rather than keeping animals in cages, must keep their own habitats in cages as protection from the world outside. The human characters of the story live out a primitive existence not typical of science-fiction, mainly aiming at their own survival. Technological progress is nonexistent, as all human efforts have been redirected to self-defense against the threat of the alien predators.

Even though The Traveller and Pandemonium depicts humanity facing a common alien foe, the various struggling human factions still fail to cooperate. In fact, they turn ever more hostilely on each other even as the alien planet’s predators continue to close in on the last remaining human states. At the time the story is set, the human civilization on the planet is facing imminent extinction from its own infighting and extremism, as well as the aggressive native plant and animal life of the planet.

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Jul 15, 2014

A minor new Result can change the World (c-global)

Posted by in categories: existential risks, particle physics

It is a nice game: Pretend that c, the speed of light in the vacuum, were a global constant of nature. Then the Einstein equation assumes a more compact form. And black holes acquire radically new properties. One should not try to produce them down on earth, for example.

Fortunately, this simple game is pure fiction. Presently, Stephen Hawking’s safety guarantee to the planet – the rapid “evaporation” he described – renders miniature black holes innocuous, his recent modifications notwithstanding.

There are some voices that c is indeed globally constant (http://eujournal.org/index.php/esj/article/view/2608/2469 ). Would this be a reason to look at the issue anew for Hawking and others?

Jul 14, 2014

Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador White Swan Update and Published Amazon Author by Andres Agostini at www.amazon.com/author/agostini

Posted by in category: futurism

00c

Small E-Airplanes Take Flight but No Commercial Passenger Planes in the Near Future http://www.21stcentech.com/electric-airplanes-flight/

The End of Retirement http://harpers.org/archive/2014/08/the-end-of-retirement/

Roger Schell on long-term computer security research http://intelligence.org/2014/06/23/roger-schell/

Continue reading “Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador White Swan Update and Published Amazon Author by Andres Agostini at www.amazon.com/author/agostini” »

Jul 14, 2014

Super Size Me: Now You Can 3D Print a Life-sized Model of Yourself

Posted by in category: 3D printing

— Inside 3DP

http://www.inside3dp.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/human-skeleton-163715_640.jpg

Forget those eight-inch mini-me models you can get for £60 if you happen to live near an Asda in Manchester, offering the service. Now, thanks to a firm in China, you can actually own a fully life-sized replica of yourself.

The company is called Qingdao Unique Products Develop Co. Ltd, and in order to print a life-size model, they have developed the world’s largest 3D printer. The Chinese company revealed their life-size 3D printed model and their 3D Wax Statue Printer at the World 3D printing technology Industry Conference and Exposition held in Qingdao in June.

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Jul 14, 2014

Bitcoin Price Prediction Tool: Amazingly Accurate

Posted by in category: bitcoin

Mark M. Bravura — CryptoCoins News

bitcoin prediction

The single biggest stigma that still haunts Bitcoin is it’s extreme volatility. However, imagine if you had a tool likened to an amazingly accurate Bitcoin crystal ball. Moreover, one that did not incur any out-of-pocket expenses to reap the benefits. Well, now you do, thanks to the Bitcoin prediction tool, courtesy of BTCPredictions.com.

The Bitcoin prediction tool is a unique artificial neural network that predicts future Bitcoin price movements on Bitstamp every hour via a type of artificial intelligence; similar to a human’s central nervous system.

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Jul 14, 2014

Space giants join forces to battle SpaceX: This is how cheap space travel begins

Posted by in category: space travel

By — ExtremeTech
An Ariane 5 rocket launch
Two of Europe’s largest companies, Airbus and Safran, are joining forces to fight SpaceX’s attempts to steal away their majority share of the lucrative commercial space launch business. This is one of the first times that one of the larger, entrenched, government-backed aerospace consortia has deigned to raise a quizzical eyebrow in acknowledgement at the presence of SpaceX — but it certainly won’t be the last. SpaceX, after a series of cheap, successful space launches, is now starting to make waves: After decades of expensive, monopolistic control of space travel, companies like Boeing, Lockheed, and Airbus are finally going to have to slash their costs to stay competitive. This is how the era of cheap space travel begins.

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Jul 14, 2014

“The World in 2025″ Predicts Abundant Solar Power and Food, Tailored Drugs, Gene Therapies

Posted by in category: futurism

Written By: — Singularity Hub
solar panels
In a recently released vision of the future, Thomson Reuters analysts predict solar power will be the dominant form of energy by 2025.

Further, the report states genomic testing and manipulation will be common and lead to better prevention and treatment of diseases. Cancer treatments will be more targeted and less toxic. The world’s infrastructure will be smart, connected, and responsive to our needs. We’ll no longer grapple with food shortages and price volatility. And scientists will begin experimenting with teleportation of stuff, if not humans.

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Jul 14, 2014

Get Inside Whisper’s Secret Economy

Posted by in category: software

By Austin Carr — Fast Company

http://d.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/imagecache/1280/poster/2014/07/3032951-poster-p-1-whisper-app-welcome-to-the-secret-economy.jpg

Michael Heyward is scouring the web for military secrets, though not of the Julian Assange variety. Over black tea at a dark hotel bar in downtown Los Angeles, Heyward and I sit next to each other, noses to a laptop as he searches on Whisper, the mobile service he created that lets anyone share their innermost secrets anonymously. He’s using an internal company tool called Predict to dig up Whispers on specific topics–in this instance, about soldiers who are agonizing over their sexual preferences. Heyward zeroes in on locations like Kandahar and Bagram Airfield, in Afghanistan, soon landing on a Whisper from a bisexual Marine near Kabul who is afraid to come out to his platoon. “This guy thinks he’s the only person on the planet with this emotion, but there’s no reason he should feel alone–tons of people are like him,” says Heyward. “We created this place so you can connect with people. It’s like a Wikipedia of human emotion.”

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