Michael Anissimov:

It’s 2010, and transhumanism has already won. Billions of people around the world would love to upgrade their bodies, extend their youth, and amplify their powers of perception, thought, and action with the assistance of safe and tested technologies. The urge to be something more, to go beyond, is the norm rather than the exception.

Mir gefällt der Vergleich zu den Religionen.

David Gelernter:

Weil viele der Softwaremodelle, auf die wir uns verlassen, zu komplex sind, als dass die Öffentlichkeit sie verstehen könnte - und oft auch zu komplex, als dass irgendjemand sie verstehen könnte -, ähneln die Urteile, die sie uns verkünden, den unerfindlichen bürokratischen Diktaten eines kafkaesken Staats, denen fraglos Folge zu leisten ist, obwohl keiner sie erklären kann.

Computer says No.

Many Space Fans have been asking for more information about black holes, specifically, what would it be like to go inside one? Andrew Hamilton of the University of Colorado made this amazing animation and I wrote a script around it.

Nicht so ganz das wie bei Das schwarze Loch gesehen.

Via Florian Helling.

Neal Gabler:

We don’t usually think of extremism as a byproduct of the information age. Most analyses of the subject focus on social or psychological factors. We are told, for example, that Islamic radicals are reacting to poverty, to lack of education, to political suppression, to a sense of cultural marginalization by the West, or to religious leaders, and that their eruption is a way of redressing their perceived grievances. The problem with this analysis is that many of the radicals, most obviously Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman Al-Zawahiri, were wealthy and well-educated.

Via Valdis Krebs.

Lama Surya Das:

Are there any facts we can count on anymore in this protean world of ours? Or is it all just smoke and mirrors, like a dream, and entirely subjective? What’s with science these days, the supposedly reliable arbiter of modern realities and verities?

Wert zu reflektieren, und wenn schon nur für I believe that Good Enough is the enemy of excellence, and that we are far too willing to settle.

Via Tim A. Bohlen.