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News for 2010-03-11

2010-03-11 in News by XiXiDu | No comments

The Speculist: Posthuman Rules http://ff.im/-hjPQq #
The Last Digit of Pi http://ff.im/-hjQeL #
The sun rises more surely with Jeffreys than Laplace http://ff.im/-hjRGh #
Photo: factorygirl-photography: http://tumblr.com/xzu7ak3hg #
Photo: (via factorygirl-photography) http://tumblr.com/xzu7ak5eg #
Photo: fringesofmind: http://tumblr.com/xzu7akag4 #
Photo: fringesofmind: http://tumblr.com/xzu7akc63 #
Photo: theantidote: http://tumblr.com/xzu7akisd #
Photo: View of the entire near-infrared sky Distant galaxy clusters mysteriously stream at a million miles… http://tumblr.com/xzu7akllq #
Photo: A Distant Progression via nihilnoetia http://tumblr.com/xzu7aktsy #
Jurassic Park Science: DNA of Extinct Bird Extracted From Eggshells http://ff.im/-hjYzb #
Gallery: The Complete UAV Field Guide http://ff.im/-hjZ68 #
An Island, Sucked Into a Giant Whirlpool http://ff.im/-hjZIB #
Photo: The Biggest Ships in the World, Part 2 http://tumblr.com/xzu7al5dq #
Video: Pink Terror Hawking http://tumblr.com/xzu7al8or #
Photo: (via littleteaspoon) http://tumblr.com/xzu7alfsd #
Video: Epibulus insidiator, the slingjaw wrasse http://tumblr.com/xzu7alimw #
hybrid medical animation 2010 reel http://ff.im/-hk3ts #
Photo: (via theantidote, mfs) http://tumblr.com/xzu7alno2 #
Is Twitter… http://ff.im/-hk52Q #
Professors banning computers http://ff.im/-hk52X #
Photo: Global warming: temporal pattern of public opinion http://tumblr.com/xzu7alvzt #
Finding awesome stuff online with Google Reader Play http://ff.im/-hk5kY #
Photo: (via fringesofmind, jamooo) http://tumblr.com/xzu7alzy0 #
Coffee: When it helps, when it hurts http://ff.im/-hk6oJ #
Can We Rely on fMRI? http://ff.im/-hk6Vh #
Every cell in a chicken has its own male or female identity http://ff.im/-hk6VN #
Cowpea Virus Delivers Drugs to Kill Cancer Cells http://ff.im/-hk6VI #
Photo: What do you see when you look at this? http://tumblr.com/xzu7am807 #
Marijuana and Divergent Thinking http://ff.im/-hk7NH #
Scientists learning how monkeys fend off "monkey AIDS" http://ff.im/-hk8Ec #
The trials of Catherine Ashton http://ff.im/-hkbV2 #
An Incredible New Video Series From Composer Steven Bryant http://ff.im/-hkcur #
Photo: theantidote: http://tumblr.com/xzu7an4bn #
Photo: Screen Grabs, Blog Jabs http://tumblr.com/xzu7an71u #
Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management http://ff.im/-hke69 #
Visualising the internet – Mapping the growth of the internet http://ff.im/-hke7j #
Photo: Scenes from Kenya – The Big Picture http://tumblr.com/xzu7ancd8 #
Museum 2.0 | The Participatory Museum Process Part 1: Overview and Statistics http://ff.im/-hkeJL #
Photo: Não é fácil… « Aliciante via theantidote http://tumblr.com/xzu7anefo #
Picking Your Guildies: The Role of Attraction, Selection, and Attrition http://ff.im/-hkfXI #
Cautionary Tale From Chechnya | Anna Badkhen | Boston.com | 11 March 2010 http://ff.im/-hkgoj #
Language according to Pinker http://ff.im/-hkgpj #
Photo: Black penguin!!! « Why Evolution Is True http://tumblr.com/xzu7annbs #
"A while ago, I was talking to a young man looking for a job, and asked him why he didn’t look online…." http://tumblr.com/xzu7anqnx #
Photo: theantidote: http://tumblr.com/xzu7ansvt #
Photo: Myke Preuss via nihilnoetia http://tumblr.com/xzu7anuhf #
If you could know only one statistic about an alien civilization http://ff.im/-hknPs #
"I see it, but I don’t believe it!" – Georg Cantor, on discovering that the set of points on the interval [0,… http://tumblr.com/xzu7aotku #
Photo: fringesofmind: http://tumblr.com/xzu7apdvg #
Basics: Finding pin 1 – Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories http://ff.im/-hktcX #
When Kurt met Tazio http://ff.im/-hkulD #
"No system can understand itself for that the very understanding would evade itself forever. A bin trying…" http://tumblr.com/xzu7apr06 #
Photo: Hawaiian Volcano Landscape post by jchip8, rd67 http://tumblr.com/xzu7aq6m3 #
Video: A year of seasonal changes at a public park http://tumblr.com/xzu7aq9vj #
Your Computer Really Is a Part of You http://ff.im/-hkzLO #
"The person and the various parts of their brain and the mouse and the monitor are so tightly intertwined…" http://tumblr.com/xzu7aqci0 #
Photo: theantidote: http://tumblr.com/xzu7aql5h #
"Probabilities do not describe reality — only our information about reality." – E. T. Jaynes http://tumblr.com/xzu7aqqvm #
Ergodic theory – Wikipedia http://ff.im/-hkDLU #
Photo: (via littleteaspoon) http://tumblr.com/xzu7ar5yp #
"Even though there are these different flavors of randomness, it is impossible to make clean distinctions…" http://tumblr.com/xzu7arcpq #
Search for Randomness | Video Lectures http://ff.im/-hkHJS #
The Audience as Prisoner: Reflections on the Activity of the Object http://ff.im/-hkIJJ #
"Whenever we try to describe or to control (or to grasp) a physical process, randomness reflects effects…" http://tumblr.com/xzu7arreg #
"An electron is not a billiard ball, and it’s not a crest and trough moving through a pool of water. An…" http://tumblr.com/xzu7as1u8 #
Photo: nihilnoetia: http://tumblr.com/xzu7au7iz #
Why choose the future over the present? http://bit.ly/aJkCRk #
Photo: chinchowdoll: http://tumblr.com/xzu7awayf #
"One of the things our grandchildren will find quaintest about us is that we distinguish the digital from…" http://tumblr.com/xzu7azeer #
First Look at SnapGroups: A Delightful Tool For Lightweight Discussion http://ff.im/-hltYb #

Why choose the future over the present?

2010-03-11 in News by XiXiDu | No comments

Why choose the future over the present? The only reason we do so is if we perceive the present not to be worthy and thus try to change it. Always picking the future over the present could be defined as making the journey the reward.

Over at lesswrong.com it’s the fate of a possible future galactic civilization people seem to care about most. But you don’t have to look that far, most people are devoting a big part of their lifes to think about and work for their future selves. Both ideas have something in common, they are both based upon imaginary entities.

But what we do has not to be bound to be about pleasing other beings, much less possible beings.

The only reasons we care about other people is either to survive, i.e. get what we want, or because it is part of our preferences to see other people being happy. Accordingly, trying to maximize happiness for everybody can be seen as purely selfish. Either as an effort to survive, by making everybody wanting to make everybody else happy, given that not you but somebody else wins. Or simply because it makes you happy.

There does exist no goal that is of objective moral superiority.

It’s all about your preferences. It is up to what we want. And what do I want? You tell me? Nope, it will come to me naturally.

The ultimate purpose on which all meaning is based is the subjective first-person knowledge of volition. A truth which is self-evident. Volition is a truth that is adequately proven by circular reasoning. I want what I want, by reason that’s what I want. Consequently, any action that helps to enforce your will is the only preferable action.

The questions are if you are happy with the present, or else, what you want to achieve. Not what is possible. It’s possible that you’re just the tribesman who’s happily trying to improve his hunting skills but ignorant of the possible revolutions taking place in a city only 1000 miles afar. Your preferences, what you really want, change as your knowledge and understanding grow. Is what we’ve been doing as kids still intellectually demanding and satisfying?

You see, what is possible is too large to be taken into account. At what point are we going to stop and enjoy? Isn’t there always more to learn? How do we ever know if there isn’t something out there that is more worthwhile, valuable, beautiful, something that makes us happier?

Thus, can there be any goals except enjoying the present or the infinite seeking of knowledge and wisdom?

But are those considerations of your future self and our collective future as a galactic civilisation not too important, too big to be ruled over by the present, by our temporal position of power?

Your continuous existence is not irrelevant to you. You care not to be wiped out. But considering future possibilities regardless of the present is missing the only piece of information that is relevant to estimate the true value of these possibilities, namely what you want right now. It means to take a look from the outside, or in other words, take an objective view and thereby deduce that the present is of no value, that our current existence is irrelevant compared to the future. Of course, from the point of view of a fictional galactic civilisation or your possible infinite future this is true. From an imagined, made up viewpoint, created to give the desired result that the future is too big to be ruled over by the present.

If you are dead, there is no will, indeed everything is irrelevant to you. Taking this standpoint and deduce that if everything is irrelevant from that point of view, it is also irrelevant from any other position is the same as preferring the future over the present for that it is larger.

Just because you can imagine that as seen from outside of your first-person view thyself might be of no relevance, it doesn’t make it true. You will never “really”, “objectively” take that position, because it does not exist!

Tags: choice, decision, future, galactic civilization, objectivity, present

News for 2010-03-10

2010-03-10 in News by XiXiDu | No comments

Poverty is Falling Fast in Africa http://ff.im/-hghhf #
Desert ants perceive odor maps in stereo and use this information for navigation http://ff.im/-hghyn #
Is Atheism the New Fundamentalism? http://ff.im/-hghE0 #
DNA Extracted From Fossil Elephant Bird Eggs http://ff.im/-hgieo #
Walking & racing to modernity http://ff.im/-hgiu1 #
Grandiose Crankery: Cantor, Godel, Church, Turing, … Morons! http://ff.im/-hgiuP #
Need a translation? Google awaits your call http://ff.im/-hgiAx #
The Secret Lives Of Objects: StickyBits Turn Barcodes Into Personal Message Boards http://ff.im/-hgiDj #
The role of the blogosphere http://ff.im/-hgiQ4 #
Cisco Announces New 322 Terabit per second Router, Cisco Claims They will be the Foundation for the Next Generation… http://ff.im/-hgiYe #
Explained: Radiative forcing http://ff.im/-hgj21 #
What Is Knowledge? http://ff.im/-hgBGt #
Kevin Warwick, Once a Cyborg, Now a Prophet of the Man-Machine Future (video) http://ff.im/-hgBMn #
The Spread of Goodness http://ff.im/-hgBPa #
Exposure to letters A or F may affect test scores http://ff.im/-hgCk5 #
Massive Repeated Explosions Halted Star Formation in Early Universe http://ff.im/-hgCk6 #
Think Progress » Limbaugh vows to flee the country if health care passes. http://ff.im/-hgI08 #
100 Amazing Videos for Teaching and Studying Physics | Online Colleges http://ff.im/-hgLXe #
Pushing Back Against the Methane Tipping Point http://ff.im/-hgOKJ #
Prosthetic Head Meets P-Zombie http://ff.im/-hgOUu #
Habitable Planets: Working the Odds http://ff.im/-hgP57 #
Photo: Hubble Sees Stars and a Stripe in Celestial Fireworks (via Goddard Photo and Video Blog) http://tumblr.com/xzu79gboi #
Photo: Artist’s Concept of Exoplanet HR 8799b (via Goddard Photo and Video Blog) http://tumblr.com/xzu79gfe9 #
Why String Theorists Should Switch Fields to Quantum Computing http://ff.im/-hgU3b #
Extreme math: 1 + 1 = 2 http://ff.im/-hh5xG #
Wednesday Round Up #106 http://ff.im/-hh7zY #
Pathways to and from Violent Extremism: The Case for Science Based Field Research http://ff.im/-hhyYM #

News for 2010-03-09

2010-03-09 in News by XiXiDu | No comments

Data driven, evolutionary, algorithmic & generative knickknacks http://ff.im/-hd05J #
Piecing Together Titan’s Landscape http://ff.im/-hd05I #
How to see through opaque materials http://ff.im/-hd2FO #
Pay it forward? Cooperative behaviour spreads through a group, but so does cheating http://ff.im/-hd3e3 #
A man with virtually no serotonin or dopamine http://ff.im/-hd3e4 #
Home-baked graphics http://ff.im/-hd5z3 #
Chile, nine days later http://ff.im/-hd5yK #

News for 2010-03-08

2010-03-08 in News by XiXiDu | No comments

Photo: Mars Over the Allalinhorn http://tumblr.com/xzu76ly01 #
Research shows online reputations matter http://ff.im/-h8Cc4 #
Getting the Most Out of Twitter, No Posting Necessary http://ff.im/-h8CVM #
Finding "cousins" through personal genomics http://ff.im/-h8DfK #
Dark, dangerous asteroids found lurking near Earth… http://ff.im/-h8EGX #
Mind Hacks: Future neuro-cognitive warfare http://ff.im/-h8HMH #
150 Kiloton Nuclear Verne Gun http://ff.im/-h8ItG #
First Ipad Commercial Aired During Oscars – Check It Out http://ff.im/-h8IMw #
First contact: The man who'll welcome aliens http://ff.im/-h8KZF #
What were Einstein and Gödel talking about? http://ff.im/-h8LkK #
Q. Could any average human , given the right circumstances, accomplish the same as Einstein and Gödel? Have they… http://ff.im/-h8PBk #
How To Sell Germ Warfare http://ff.im/-h8QCF #
"Gerba—who, incidentally, has a child with the middle name Escherichia—that’s what the “E” in E. coli…" http://tumblr.com/xzu76quok #
What is a visual stimulus? http://ff.im/-h8ZKV #
Divide individuals for utilitarian libertarianism http://ff.im/-h907d #
Net a “Fundamental Right,” Four Out of Five Say – GigaOM http://ff.im/-h9Ee7 #
De-Anonymizing Social Network Users http://ff.im/-h9Ee8 #
Video: Artificial intelligence: Noel Sharkey on the inexorable rise of robots via wildcat2030 http://tumblr.com/xzu76ya29 #
The Milky Way in Time-Lapse Video http://ff.im/-h9EW5 #
Statistics for a changing world: Google Public Data Explorer in Labs http://ff.im/-h9FbL #
Mike Treder The Uncertain Future of Transhumanism http://ff.im/-h9FbO #
Photo: Planet War: Photos from the World’s 33 Ongoing Conflicts http://tumblr.com/xzu76yhvp #
Photo: The Size of the Mobile Market (via dataviz) http://tumblr.com/xzu772a5d #
Photo: fringesofmind: http://tumblr.com/xzu772ccf #
Photo: Orion nebula in infrared. via fuckyeahspace http://tumblr.com/xzu772ece #
Photo: fringesofmind: http://tumblr.com/xzu772iyz #

News for 2010-03-07

2010-03-07 in News by XiXiDu | No comments

Photo: Candice-Swanepoel http://tumblr.com/xzu75db49 #
Billion year contract http://ff.im/-h5Ajf #
Evolution and home schooling redux http://ff.im/-h5AoJ #
Free Energy? http://ff.im/-h5LjF #
Is it okay to ignore results from people you don’t trust? http://ff.im/-h5LU6 #
On Explaining Existence http://ff.im/-h5RAu #
What the brain values vs. what you wish to buy http://ff.im/-h64K4 #

News for 2010-03-06

2010-03-06 in News by XiXiDu | No comments

YouTube – Radiometric Dating is Flawed!! Really?? How Old IS the Earth? http://ff.im/-h2l4t #
YouTube – Chiropractic vs. Science Based Medicine (1/2) http://ff.im/-h2ub5 #
Why China Does Not Join the International Space Station and is Proceeding to Make Their Own Space Station http://ff.im/-h2BlP #
"I'm going to be a star" — a correct hypothesis http://ff.im/-h2BEn #
It hurts my eyes http://ff.im/-h2C6A #
Justice Isn't Blind http://ff.im/-h2D01 #
Zoom in on galaxy ESO 306-17 http://ff.im/-h2DkD #
GEOS-5 Modeled Clouds at 3.5-km Global Resolution http://ff.im/-h2Dut #
Ben Goertzel Patterns All the Way Down! http://ff.im/-h2EX9 #
Why it matters if liberals are much smarter http://ff.im/-h2FOo #
The Philosophical Cow http://ff.im/-h2GXY #
Photo: theantidote: http://tumblr.com/xzu743ji3 #
Photo: Do these figures dance for you? « Optical Illusion http://tumblr.com/xzu743mni #
Photo: Winds of Change (via Goddard Photo and Video Blog) This is a composite image of NGC 1068, one of the… http://tumblr.com/xzu743psh #
Photo: nihilnoetia: http://tumblr.com/xzu743ui4 #
Photo: (via fringesofmind) http://tumblr.com/xzu743wtf #
Photo: fringesofmind: http://tumblr.com/xzu743ypu #
Photo: nihilnoetia: http://tumblr.com/xzu74400l #
Photo: theantidote: http://tumblr.com/xzu7442sd #
Photo: (via fringesofmind) http://tumblr.com/xzu7444e9 #
Photo: factorygirl-photography: http://tumblr.com/xzu744ejg #
Photo: factorygirl-photography: http://tumblr.com/xzu7466fa #
We're so good at medical studies that most of them are wrong http://ff.im/-h33yV #
Split Infinities http://ff.im/-h34hx #
The pros of online education – No more pencils! No more books! http://ff.im/-h3fBE #
"Nearly all flowing, changing information on the Internet will move through streams. You will be able to…" http://tumblr.com/xzu749×3g #
Photo: (via swallowgod) http://tumblr.com/xzu74a131 #
Palin as President http://www.palinaspresident.us/ http://ff.im/-h3kNV #
Photo: factorygirl-photography: http://tumblr.com/xzu74enoj #
Realistic War Films? http://ff.im/-h3EKg #
Philosophy of mathematics – Wikipedia http://ff.im/-h3FP6 #

Radiometric Dating is Flawed!! Really??

2010-03-06 in News, Video by XiXiDu | No comments

Scientists admit that radiometric dating, one of the fundamental techniques used to show the earth is billions of years old is flawed!!! The earth is not 4.55 billion years old. Watch and find out just how old it really is.

Of course, scientists are always refining their techniques, it’s part of of science works. Creationists have pointed to a number of “results” from radiometric dating that prove it doesn’t work. Here I go over all the reasons why. Why is there Carbon-14 in some coal. Why did Potassium-Argon dating of the 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens give ages on the order of hundreds of thousands of years.

To download this video, copyright free, please go to:
http://www.mediafire.com/?yytzwtrzmwh

To download the scientific paper featured in this video please go to:
http://www.mediafire.com/?mhljmmzn3m2

If you wish to translate the subtitles please download them from here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?0mynummmyz0

More: youtube.com/user/cdk007

Tags: atheism, creationism, evolution, flawed, radiometric dating, science

News for 2010-03-05

2010-03-05 in News by XiXiDu | No comments

Economics of Nanotech and AI http://bit.ly/cj7H84 #
Globe-Warning Methane Is Gushing From a Russian Ice Shelf http://ff.im/-gZvfI #
Photo: Only in America … because there’s no snow in Saudi Arabia. Police in the US state of New Jersey have… http://tumblr.com/xzu72zyyt #
Space Empire: From Mercury to Pluto (Part 2: Venus) http://ff.im/-gZwZC #
Google’s Youtube Rolls Out Automatic English Captions To All Videos http://ff.im/-gZxfX #
MeBot, the Telepresence Robot With Body Language (Video) http://ff.im/-gZxk4 #
Bing Dinged on Arab Sex Censorship http://ff.im/-gZxth #
Synthetic Biology: Ten Years Old, Ten Years On http://ff.im/-gZxte #
Google Wave Gets Email Notifications http://ff.im/-gZy2B #
Touch the Future: The Educational Utopia is Here http://ff.im/-gZy2j #
A Theory Set in Stone: An Asteroid Killed the Dinosaurs, After All http://ff.im/-gZyEV #
Google: Desktops Will Be Irrelevant in Three Years’ Time http://ff.im/-gZyOa #
iPad launches on April 3rd, pre-orders begin March 12th http://ff.im/-gZyQX #
How a Giant Shark Took Down an Airplane | Video + Infographic http://ff.im/-gZzsq #
Ubuntu Desktop In the Cloud http://ff.im/-gZAjm #
Artificial photosynthesis could power your house, even if it's not green (video) http://ff.im/-gZS4s #
World Brain: the Idea of a Permanent World Encyclopedia http://ff.im/-gZS4W #
Knowing the mind of God: Seven theories of everything http://ff.im/-gZSad #
MIT research uses information about how frequently objects are seen together to refine the conclusions of object… http://ff.im/-gZUYK #
Photo: You know, Tux always seemed so harmless… little did we know that he is actually a Che Guevara-type… http://tumblr.com/xzu733nai #
Time To Start Taking the Internet Seriously | Our Algorithmic Culture http://ff.im/-h0aIq #

Economics of Nanotech and AI

2010-03-05 in News by XiXiDu | No comments

More: overcomingbias.com/2010/03/econ-of-nano-ai.html

Slides: hanson.gmu.edu/ppt/Econ%20of%20AI%20n%20Nanotech.ppt

Robin Hanson: “Economics of Nanotech and AI” at Foresight 2010 Conference from Foresight Institute on Vimeo.

All January 2010 Foresight Conference videos:

http://www.vimeo.com/album/176287

Join email list:

http://www.foresight.org/d/list_signup

Bio for this speaker:
Robin Hanson is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University, a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University, and chief scientist at Consensus Point. After receiving his Ph.D. in social science from the California Institute of Technology in 1997, Robin was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation health policy scholar at the University of California at Berkeley. In 1984, Robin received a masters in physics and a masters in the philosophy of science from the University of Chicago, and afterward spent nine years researching artificial intelligence, Bayesian statistics, and hypertext publishing at Lockheed, NASA, and independently.

Robin has over 70 publications, including articles in Applied Optics, Business Week, CATO Journal, Communications of the ACM, Economics Letters, Econometrica, Economics of Governance, Extropy, Forbes, Foundations of Physics, IEEE Intelligent Systems, Information Systems Frontiers, Innovations, International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Evolution and Technology, Journal of Law Economics and Policy, Journal of Political Philosophy, Journal of Prediction Markets, Journal of Public Economics, Medical Hypotheses, Proceedings of the Royal Society, Public Choice, Social Epistemology, Social Philosophy and Policy, Theory and Decision, and Wired.

Robin has pioneered prediction markets, also known as information markets or idea futures, since 1988. He was the first to write in detail about people creating and subsidizing markets in order to gain better estimates on those topics. Robin was a principal architect of the first internal corporate markets, at Xanadu in 1990, of the first web markets, the Foresight Exchange since 1994, and of DARPA’s Policy Analysis Market, from 2001 to 2003. Robin has developed new technologies for conditional, combinatorial, and intermediated trading, and has studied insider trading, manipulation, and other foul play. Robin has written and spoken widely on the application of idea futures to business and policy, being mentioned in over one hundered press articles on the subject, and advising many ventures, including GuessNow, Newsfutures, Particle Financial, Prophet Street, Trilogy Advisors, XPree, YooNew, and undisclosable defense research projects. He is now chief scientist at Consensus Point.

Robin has diverse research interests, with papers on spatial product competition, health incentive contracts, group insurance, product bans, evolutionary psychology and bioethics of health care, voter information incentives, incentives to fake expertise, Bayesian classification, agreeing to disagree, self-deception in disagreement, probability elicitation, wiretaps, image reconstruction, the history of science prizes, reversible computation, the origin of life, the survival of humanity, very long term economic growth, growth given machine intelligence, and interstellar colonization.

——————————————

If you enjoyed this video, please consider making a donation to the non-profit Foresight Institute:

http://www.foresight.org/forms/php/donate.php

Tags: ai, Artificial Intelligence, economics, foresight, nanotechnology, robin hanson, singularity

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News for 2010-03-11

Why choose the future over the present?

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Radiometric Dating is Flawed!! Really??

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