An interesting interview with Robin Hanson on brain emulation, AI, and the flaws of humanity.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Firefox
Great. Now not only is it refusing to restore tabs after it crashes (even though that’s what my preferences tell it to do), but this morning it came to with total amnesia of every page I’ve ever visited.
[Update Monday morning]
OK, I’ve installed Pale Moon 24.6.0, which seems to be the most recent version for which there’s a Linux tarball. It seems to run quickly so far, but I haven’t done much with it, or opened many tabs.
The Keystone Pipeline
“The best way to get it built is to make it irrelevant.”
This would be a smart thing for Canada to do though, as the article notes, there will be more nutty opposition from some Canadians.
Social Media And Friendship
Some interesting sociological results. I find the word “friend” for Facebook acquaintances annoying.
XCOR’s Approach To Space
Speaking of Stewart Money, he has a nice post, comparing and contrasting Virgin, XCOR and SpaceX.
About That Mars One MIT Study
Some thoughts from Stewart Money, with which I agree:
While presented as a legitimate concern, $4.5 billion is after all a large sum of money, and a very tall hurdle to overcome, it still leads to an interesting counterpoint which the authors of the NASA funded study do not address. NASA is well on the way to spending $16 billion to get the Orion capsule alone through one crewed flight, a number which excludes the development costs of the Space Launch System as well as its ground infrastructure. The agency cannot even begin to put a price tag on gong to Mars. It would be interesting to see the same team run the numbers on that.
There is no doubt that Mars One is [a] risky concept, and if it is to ever gain real traction, it will have to endure a lot more scrutiny than presented in the MIT study. It should probably begin with a clear statement that Mars One is meant as an evolving concept, in which the final product may differ considerable [sic] from what has initially been put forward on a time frame which like all space projects, is subject to change. At the same time, its many critics might want to at least consider how much of the risk to any future Mars mission, whether one way of with a return ticket, could be reduced through advancing the Technological Readiness Level (TRL) of some of the core technologies the MIT team identifies.
Finally, they might want to ask why the U.S. is committed to a very different, but perhaps even more financially implausible plan.
Yes.
[Update a few minutes later]
By the way, Bas Lansdorp has responded in comments over at Marcia Smith’s place.
Twelve Technologies We Need To Get Going On
A list, at io9.
Not sure about either the space elevator or space solar. And he leaves off a gravity lab, which we need to understand if or how we can properly conceive and gestate in partial gravity.
The Ebola Outbreak
Here’s an excellent story at the WaPo, from Joel Achenbach and others, about how it happened.
America’s Shale Boom
Has changed the energy landscape.
Of course, stupidly, California isn’t participating. As I’ll discuss in my ongoing series of the six Califorias, the Monterey Shale holds the solution to both the state’s energy and water problems, but the moron electorate in the Bay Area and LA won’t let it happen.
Technopessimism
Virginia Postrel takes on Neil Stephenson and Peter Thiel. I agree with her.