SPACE ROBOTS JUST MAKE it harder for me to complain about the “real” 2010’s futuristic shortcomings: “A new humanoid robot capable of working side by side with people” — Robonaut 2, or R2 for short — is being developed by…
Category: Etc
Free of labels, which is also a good rule for living
A Proposal for the Moon of Earth
I HEREBY OFFER ONE MILLION U. S. dollars to the first person, corporation or agency with the vision to proclaim humanity’s name to the cold eternal stars. To wit: the construction of a suitable solar-powered visual display in the lunar…
… And It’s Still Unbroken
WEDNESDAY NIGHT WAS SAN FRANCISCO and the Jellyfish Gallery, a cozy industrial space where 50 or so practical idealists gathered to talk about saving the world one action at a time. The event was a local “spore” of the international…
Silent Revolution
PROPOSAL: EVERYONE-BE-QUIET DAY. The Idea: Ann fretting about leafblowers disturbing the local birds, and me wondering what the world would sound like were all the machines to be turned off for a while… The Action: On January 1, 2010, between…
Five Sites for Earthsore Eyes
» Home. » Local weather and traffic. » The neighborhood. » Exotic postcards.
There’s WATER on ‘ing MARS.
“We have water,” said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA. “We’ve seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks…
Natural Machines
A number of years ago, I got into a cocktail-party argument (or its boho-pomo equivalent, since we were in San Francisco in the 1980s) with someone who decried the “unnaturalness” of spaceflight. Her thesis, IIRC, was that humans were somehow…
Stephen3PO
The writers’ strike wears on, but our nerves don’t thanks to those daring and resourceful folks at Operation Facestrong. Long may it wave.
“I Seen It Too!”
WAITING FOR THE GRATEFUL DEAD with Sputnik at the Shoreline, c. 1989ish, one of us began the following conversation: “For example, that guy over there with the ‘I Climbed Lassen’ T-shirt.” “Yeah.” “Well, he obviously wants everyone to think that…
Librarians Are Hiding Something
Stephen said it, I believe it, and that’s good enough for anyone. (P.S. to the Incomparable Bird of Paradox himself: Good to see “your back”.
In the spirit…
… of its content, this might have been posted 12/28/6, the day I wrote and sent it to my coworkers. But it wasn’t: Friends, If you can imagine a universe-sized sponge made of galaxies surrounding bubble-like voids, congratulations: you’re hip…
Focus: Israel
As the situation in Israel continues to develop, many are turning to the “local papers” for better coverage than that offered by CNN or (grf) the BBC. The following offer in-depth reportage and up-to-the-minute English-language breaking news:– Haaretz (left-leaning)– Arutz…