http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/12/google-personalisation-internet-data-filtering
Rather disturbing article, this.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
BLDGBLOG: Landscape Futures Super-Trip
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/landscape-futures-super-trip.html
Must remember this itinerary if we ever do a road trip in the States...
"Our stops include the "world’s largest collection of optical telescopes," including the great hypotenuse of the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope, outside Tucson; the Very Large Array in west-central New Mexico; the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center at the University of Arizona, aka the "lunar greenhouse," where "researchers are demonstrating that plants from Earth could be grown without soil on the moon or Mars, setting the table for astronauts who would find potatoes, peanuts, tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables awaiting their arrival"; the surreal encrustations of the Salton Sea, a site that, in the words of Kim Stringfellow, "provides an excellent example of the the growing overlap of humanmade and natural environments, and as such highlights the complex issues facing the management of ecosystems today"; the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory, with its automated scanning systems used for "robotic searches for variable stars and exoplanets" in the night sky, and its gamma-ray reflectors and "blazar lightcurves" flashing nearby; the Grand Canyon; Red Rocks, outside Sedona; the hermetic interiorities of Biosphere 2; White Sands National Monument and the Trinity Site marker, with its so-called bomb glass; the giant aircraft "boneyard" at the Pima Air & Space Museum; and, last but not least, the unbelievably fascinating Lunar Laser-ranging Experiment at Apache Point, New Mexico, where they shoot lasers at prismatic retroreflectors on the moon, testing theories of gravitation, arriving there by way of the nearby Dunn Solar Telescope."
Must remember this itinerary if we ever do a road trip in the States...
"Our stops include the "world’s largest collection of optical telescopes," including the great hypotenuse of the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope, outside Tucson; the Very Large Array in west-central New Mexico; the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center at the University of Arizona, aka the "lunar greenhouse," where "researchers are demonstrating that plants from Earth could be grown without soil on the moon or Mars, setting the table for astronauts who would find potatoes, peanuts, tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables awaiting their arrival"; the surreal encrustations of the Salton Sea, a site that, in the words of Kim Stringfellow, "provides an excellent example of the the growing overlap of humanmade and natural environments, and as such highlights the complex issues facing the management of ecosystems today"; the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory, with its automated scanning systems used for "robotic searches for variable stars and exoplanets" in the night sky, and its gamma-ray reflectors and "blazar lightcurves" flashing nearby; the Grand Canyon; Red Rocks, outside Sedona; the hermetic interiorities of Biosphere 2; White Sands National Monument and the Trinity Site marker, with its so-called bomb glass; the giant aircraft "boneyard" at the Pima Air & Space Museum; and, last but not least, the unbelievably fascinating Lunar Laser-ranging Experiment at Apache Point, New Mexico, where they shoot lasers at prismatic retroreflectors on the moon, testing theories of gravitation, arriving there by way of the nearby Dunn Solar Telescope."
Saturday, June 04, 2011
It’s Not About You - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/opinion/31brooks.html
Is it graduation time again? Already? Where does the tme go, eh? Anyway, an interesting article here which laments the advice given to college graduates - the idea tht they should follow their own paths, live their own dreams... just at a time when previous generations (and in all probability, they themselves) are in the process of tying themselves to a spouse, to a career, etc.
"Most people don’t form a self and then lead a life. They are called by a problem, and the self is constructed gradually by their calling."
I don't really think we should abandon our dreams and subsume ourselves in othre people's misery as a way of validating our lives, but it does have a grain of truth in it - not sure I could tell you, even now, whether my life is going in the direction it should. Assuming such a 'correct' path could ever exist.
Is it graduation time again? Already? Where does the tme go, eh? Anyway, an interesting article here which laments the advice given to college graduates - the idea tht they should follow their own paths, live their own dreams... just at a time when previous generations (and in all probability, they themselves) are in the process of tying themselves to a spouse, to a career, etc.
"Most people don’t form a self and then lead a life. They are called by a problem, and the self is constructed gradually by their calling."
I don't really think we should abandon our dreams and subsume ourselves in othre people's misery as a way of validating our lives, but it does have a grain of truth in it - not sure I could tell you, even now, whether my life is going in the direction it should. Assuming such a 'correct' path could ever exist.
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