Inspired by the beautiful creations from the House of Fabergé.
Source: Fabergé Fractals – sub.blue
by Tom Beddard using his WebGL-based fractal engine, Fractal Lab.
Month: May 2013
Without Water, Revolution – The New York Times
The Syrian disaster is like a superstorm. It’s what happens when an extreme weather event, the worst drought in Syria’s modern history, combines with a fast-growing population and a repressive and corrupt regime and unleashes extreme sectarian and religious passions, fueled by money from rival outside powers — Iran and Hezbollah on one side, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar on the other, each of which have an extreme interest in its Syrian allies’ defeating the other’s allies — all at a time when America, in its post-Iraq/Afghanistan phase, is extremely wary of getting involved.
The Most Ridiculous Law of 2013 (So Far): It Is Now a Crime to Unlock Your Smartphone – The Atlantic
starting this weekend it is illegal to unlock new phones to make them available on other carriers
It’s embarrassing and unacceptable that we are at the mercy of prosecutorial and judicial discretion** to avoid the implementation of draconian laws that could implicate average Americans in a crime subject to up to a $500,000 fine and up to five years in prison.
Ubiquitous, seldom-prosecuted crimes invite arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.
Source: The Most Ridiculous Law of 2013 (So Far): It Is Now a Crime to Unlock Your Smartphone – The Atlantic
A Century of Cicadas – Multimedia Feature – NYTimes.com
Periodical cicadas live underground for 17 or 13 years before emerging to sing, mate and die. This year’s cicadas are Brood II, one of 15 surviving regional broods.
Source: A Century of Cicadas – Multimedia Feature – NYTimes.com
Vernor Vinge on Technological Unemployment
Vernor Vinge is consistently one of the most interesting and conceptually dense futurists I’ve had an opportunity to listen to. While watching this excellent talk of his at Singularity University, my ears perked up at the mention of technological unemployment, the primary focus of this blog.
It’s not clear that the marketplace will actually compensate people who participate in these crowdsourcing/social networking/group mind schemes.