Links for 07-08-2007
Sealed social networks, body as battery, big spongy exoplanet, Ginko Financial on the ropes, nanoscale levitation …
-
1 – Slap in the Facebook: It’s Time for Social Networks to Open Up
“Like locked cell phones and copy-protected music, Facebook is on the wrong side of the open-network debate. Facebook is a sealed bubble. Facebook users are locked into Facebook, just as iTunes locks music fans to Apple’s iPod.”
-
2 – The human battery: turning body heat into electric power
“… the human body itself is being re-examined as a battery thanks to advances enabling the energy from body heat, motion and even blood pressure to be harnessed.”
-
3 – Largest known exoplanet puzzles astronomers
“A newly discovered alien planet has a record-breaking low density – about the same as that of balsawood. Astronomers say the planet, called TrES-4, could be losing grip of its puffed-up atmosphere.”
-
4 – Ginko Financial’s End-Game
Murky dealings in Second Life finance – genuine collapsed investment plan or shonky ponzi scheme?
-
5 – FogScreen: Walk-Through Water Projection Screen
“What if every time you went to a store, you had to walk through video projected right onto the doorway? Great news! Now you can be brow-beaten with promotional tat in a whole new way, with the FogScreen.”
-
6 – Physicists have ‘solved’ mystery of levitation
“Their discovery could ultimately lead to frictionless micro-machines with moving parts that levitate But they say that, in principle at least, the same effect could be used to levitate bigger objects too, even a person.” O RLY?
-
7 – Flying Saucer Designed for Greener Air Travel
“Meanwhile, aviation engineers are taking another route, designing a more environmentally sustainable airplane that may overturn long-held notions of flight engineering.” Now that looks *very* cool.
-
8 – What a performance! Live Vs Recorded in a multi player world
“I am not suggesting that being a live performer is either better or worse than being a manufacturer. I am suggesting that a large part of both work and play involve the human aspects of live performance.”
-
9 – China tells living Buddhas to obtain permission before they reincarnate
“Tibet’s living Buddhas have been banned from reincarnation without permission from China’s atheist leaders.” Multiple layers of irrational weirdness.
-
10 – The Fermi Paradox: Back with a vengeance
“Our isolation in the Universe has in no small way shaped and defined the human condition. It is such an indelible part of our reality that it is often taken for granted or rationalized to extremes.”
-
11 – The Fermi Paradox: Advanced civilizations do not…
“… rather than describe the possible developmental trajectories of ETI’s, I’m going to dismiss some commonly held assumptions about the nature of advanced ETI’s – and by consequence some assumptions about our very own future.”
August 7th, 2007 at 11:52 am
I like the way Facebook is set up – I’m frankly happier that it’s not open to all, and that my profile is not visible even to other users without my say-so.
I don’t entirely understand the purpose of these calls to open up every single damn social networking site. If you don’t like the way one is set up, don’t use it. Complaining that it doesn’t fulfil your personal wants is arrogant – like whining about a friend who refuses to use a mobile phone.