Cyborg death-pigeons, why DRM drives piracy, writing tools, riding laser beams to Mars…

• 1 – Bird-brained China scientists learn to fly pigeons

  “Scientists in eastern China say they have succeeded in controlling the flight of pigeons with micro electrodes planted in their brains, state media reported on Tuesday.” Weird.

  (tags: China science electrode brain control remote flight bird pigeon)

• 2 – Time ripe to search for life on Europa

  “Life on Jupiter’s moon Europa is just as feasible as life on Mars and worthy of NASA’s attention, scientists have argued.” Unfortunately it’s a somewhat bigger distance away, too.

  (tags: NASA science Europa moon Jupiter extraterrestrial life exploration space)

• 3 – $10 wok keeps TV station on air

  “Why pay $20,000 for a commercial link to run your television station when a $10 kitchen wok from the Warehouse is just as effective?” A bit of Kiwi ingenuity, via Techdirt.

  (tags: dish wok budget DIY hack antenna broadcasting TV)

• 4 – There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

  “Eric Flint, the copyfighting progenitor of the Baen Free Library, has a sterling editorial up on why DRM drives piracy, instead of preventing it.” Via BoingBoing.

  (tags: politics publishing piracy information electronic economics ebooks DRM distribution copyright copyleft)

• 5 – Schneier on Private Police Forces

  “Private police officers are different. They don’t work for us; they work for corporations. They’re focused on the priorities of their employers or the companies that hire them.” A scary trend – all hail corporate feudalism!

  (tags: feudalism corporate politics rights government security force police private)

• 6 – Iain Banks: Why I traded in my £100,000 car collection to save the planet

  “They all went in two days last October.” Respect.

  (tags: resources economy fuel climate environment collection car sf scifi fiction science writer author Banks Iain)

• 7 – Fifty (50!) Tools which can help you in Writing

  “…50 tools that can help you when you do any kinds of writing.” Via Gareth Lyn Powell.

  (tags: tools techniques resources reference writing freelance fiction editing creativity craft copywriting)

• 8 – Google’s Page urges scientists to market themselves

  “We have some people at Google (who) are really trying to build artificial intelligence and to do it on a large scale,” Page said to a packed Hilton ballroom of scientists. “It’s not as far off as people think.”

  (tags: futurism technology development research intelligence artificial AI speech Page Larry Google)

• 9 – Use 67 kilowatt solid state lasers for Mars in 10 days

  “It has been proposed that extremely small payloads (10 kg) could be delivered to Mars in only 10 days of travel time using laser-based lightsail craft (Meyer, 1984), but in order to do so, would require a 47 GW laser system.”

  (tags: propulsion mission Mars space payload satellite probe technology laser state solid military)