Second Life versus Outback Online, interstellar arks, UK domestic spying figures revealed, megastructures in sf…

• 1 – Second Life 2.0 To Face Off With Outback Online?

  “…they’re taking the old argument over virtual worlds – centralized versus distributed – and done what I believe to be the logical thing and created a hybrid; note that Linden Lab’s virtual world is centralized.” Interesting.

  (tags: competition distributed centralised worlds virtual persistant metaverse Online Outback Life Second)

• 2 – Microscopic chain-mail could link wearable gadgets

  “A lot of work into flexible sensors uses substrates that only bend in one axis,” Liu explains, “we want to be able to have things fully flexible in three dimensions.”

  (tags: everyware computing sensors devices wearable substrate flexible technology science)

• 3 – Sexed-up Images in Media Hurt Young Girls

  “Inescapable media images of sexed-up girls and women posing as adolescents can cause psychological and even physical harm to adolescents and young women, a study in the US has warned.”

  (tags: politics advertising imagery media health psychology sexuality gender girls)

• 4 – Is The Moon A Beta Test For Mars?

  “Before our race decides to muster the courage to populate our solar system, we need to figure out our current strengths and weaknesses, as well as threats to colonizing a world.”

  (tags: research techniques technology science Mars Moon colonisation exploration space)

• 5 – Envisioning the Interstellar Ark

  Does what it says on the tin; another Centauri Dreams joint.

  (tags: sf scifi fiction science ark interstellar ship travel colonisation exploration space)

• 6 – Privacy row as [UK] checks on phones and e-mails hit 439,000

  “Almost 450,000 requests were made to monitor [UK] people’s telephone calls, e-mails and post by secret agencies and other authorised bodies in just over a year, the spying watchdog said yesterday.”

  (tags: cards identity Brother Big spying surveillance security privacy espionage government UK)

• 7 – The New Comprehensible, or, This is Not a Literary Manifesto, Thank God

  “…I am delighted to have been anointed by the estimable Mr. Wheeler as the leader of my very own literary movement, The New Comprehensible. I feel shiny. I may make T-shirts.” Scalzi – head of the movement, y’all.

  (tags: humour Comprehensible New movement literature sf scifi fiction science writing Scalzi)

• 8 – ‘Bemes’ Are Defining the Life of the Blogosphere

  “A beme is a turbo-charged meme made possible entirely by the existence of the network affect. [...] A beme can cement an idea with the public in a way that cannot be legislated or regulated. ” Memes2.0?

  (tags: beme propagation meme effect network internet blog)

• 9 – Sense and sensibility in short-term memory

  “The first of its kind, the study opens the door to the tantalizing possibility that, according to Visscher, “‘the brain, in this case at least, is relatively uninventive: it may use fairly similar methods to generate light-based and sound-based memories.

  (tags: research study storage processing sound sight memory brain perception senses science)

• 10 – Shakespeare’s Atoms

  “We all have quite a bit of Shakespeare in us.”

  (tags: humour estimate Shakespeare atoms science)

• 11 – Megastructures, by Paul Lucas

  “Just as mankind has created new, artificial chemical elements, so too is it possible for the human race to eventually create entirely new classes of worlds. Worlds that may stretch around planets or trap the energy output of entire stars.”

  (tags: ringworlds orbitals megastructures engineering colonisation futurism space sf fiction science)