Links for 12-12-2007
Heinlein, sf and political correctness; squashed solar system OMG; sense and sensawundability; climate wars; PageRank as an AI model …
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1 - The Zombie Robert Heinlein Rises From the Grave Yet Again to Annoy the Politically Correct
“… people start writing science fiction, on the other hand, roughly ten seconds after they set down The Star Beast or Ender’s Game or Snow Crash because they get done with the book and think, holy crap, I want to do *that*.”
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2 - Our Solar System is Squashed
“The boundary between the heliosphere and interstellar space is an abrupt shock wave, called the solar wind termination shock. In December 2004, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft crossed this boundary and hinted that the shockwave was dented, or uneven in place
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3 - Where’s the Sense in Sensawunda? (Paul Kincaid)
“Part of what sf does is make us look at something impossible, beyond our reach, beyond our ken — and think of it as if it were real, as if we might at some point have to deal with it.” Towards taxonomies!
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“… most marketers lack a comprehensive understanding of the vast array of explicit and implicit marketing channels Facebook offers - most of which are viral. My goal here is to provide an introduction to what’s possible …”
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5 - How to Take Notes Like an Alpha-Geek
“Here are a few recommendations from inside the world of a compulsive note taker, including both the macro (books and notepad principles) and micro (page features and formatting) …”
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6 - Climate change will lead to war
“Global warming could lead to internal conflicts, regional unrest and war, with North Africa, the Sahel and South Asia among the hotspots, says a report issued at the Bali climate summit.” Well, duh.
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7 - Google’s PageRank Works Like Our Brains
“It turns out that the brain does something similar [to PageRank] in linking concepts, judging not just the popularity, but the popularity of the concepts linked to the concepts.”
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8 - Life’s Building Blocks Found in Mars Rock
“The research says nothing about whether there is life on Mars, but it does indicate that the raw material for life should be easy to drum up on any cold, rocky world.”
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9 - Genome study places modern humans in the evolutionary fast lane
“… a new study examining data from an international genomics project describes the past 40,000 years as a time of supercharged evolutionary change, driven by exponential population growth and cultural shifts.”
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