Links for 30-12-2006
SL snowball cannon, inside Amazon’s packing warehouse, cloned meat gets clearance, librarians develop open-source management software…
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“…one of Second Life’s most prominent Steampunk figures, is in the process of putting together “a triple-barrelled Snowball Cannon, as well as an attachment which makes one vulnerable to the excessive chills of snowball assault.”
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“For more than 30 years, patent sleuth Barry Fox has trawled the US patent applications for New Scientist. Here we provide a round-up of his most interesting, surprising and sometimes alarming, discoveries of 2006.”
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Awesome image of Amazon UK’s packing warehouse in the midst of the seasonal chaos – that’s one big building full of stuff.
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“I share a conviction with Steven Shaviro [...] that we live in a science fictional world. Not the one everyone expected, of course — no jetpacks. But … challenging science fiction, is never about the future we expect.” Warren Ellis muses.
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“…the Food and Drug Administration says that cloned pigs, goats and adult cows pose no more risk to humans who eat them than any other meat or milk.” Progress!
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“The next issue of Analog magazine will premiere the serialization of Queen of Candesce, the second of [Schroeder's] Virga novels. This one picks up right where Sun of Suns left off and is as wild an adventure as anything you’ve seen so far.”
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“Good news all around in the medical world—the first home HIV test has been launched in the U.K. This test involves swabbing a sample of saliva and sending it off to a laboratory.”
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“Young Americans have high levels of apathy about NASA’s new vision of sending astronauts back to the moon by 2017 and eventually on to Mars, recent surveys show.” Tricky dilemma.
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“The research found that games can provide opportunities for achievement, freedom, and even a connection to other players. Those benefits trumped a shallow sense of fun, which doesn’t keep players as interested.”
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“In the Rudy Rucker universe, giant cone-shelled mollusks cross into parallel universes and devour brains to chit-chat with humans, characters shout out sentences like “Hyperspace safari” just to sound cool…”
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“This is written with newbie authors in mind, though there may be useful information for the initiated or curious.” No new advice, but a good set of links to potential markets.
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“A group of librarians at the Georgia Public Library Service has developed an open source, enterprise-class library management system that may revolutionize the way large-scale libraries are run.” Excellent.
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David Brin looks to the future of biotech, AI and more.
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