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Space shuttle Discovery lifts off

Discovery lit up the sky late Saturday, blazing off for the first nighttime space shuttle launch in four years -- the latest step in NASA's ambitious schedule to complete the international space station.

THEY GET LETTERS

There's everything from misanthropy bordering on extinction fetishism to wild optimism and gung ho enthusiasm. Maybe that's part of the reason I'm so interested in space exploration - it's a subject that conventional wisdom says is dull and unappealing to the general public, yet it never fails to arouse powerful and opposing passions.

Those passions go far beyond a simple debate about the appropriateness of spending vast amounts of public funds on admittedly risky ventures. It's an argument that for better or worse, exposes our greatest aspirations, deepest fears, and our true feelings about our natures. It's an argument that gets right down to fundamental questions: do we have a right to exist or not? Does that right give us a mandate to expand our presence in the universe, and to exploit the resources of the solar system? Is what we are even worth preserving?

Blog of the day: Anomaly Television

Let's "face" it: The Cydonia Face is not pareidolia

This viewing angle makes it difficult to recognize individual facial features, and also makes the symmetric mesa wall-enclosure less conspicuous. The net effect is a far more natural appearance than in any actual spacecraft image or in any processed images except the 1998 press release from JPL, for which the posted recipe consisted of passing the actual spacecraft image through high-pass and low-pass filters and averaging the two filtered images.

James ("The Amusing") Randi exposed:

The challenge, part one

Well, it appears that JREF categorizes virtually all paranormal claims as "extraordinarily implausible" and assumes that many, perhaps most, applicants are mentally ill. JREF reserves the right to ignore an application from anyone whose claim is too "incredible" to be taken seriously, or whose claim contradicts the findings of "Science," as understood by JREF. Further, JREF reserves the right to ignore applications from people who are psychologically impaired - a determination that can be made by JREF alone.

(Via The Anomalist.)

Whoa -- these surreal toys are like what you'd expect from setting the Brothers Quay and David Cronenberg loose in F.A.O. Schwartz with a soldering iron.

Yes, NASA's initiative to return to the Moon -- to stay -- is the right one. On the other hand . . .

Fantastic!



(Hat tip: Reality Carnival.)

A few of the scariest (fictional) images ever filmed:

This is a damned good Bruce Sterling impersonation.



(For nerds only.)

Blogger is taunting me with appeals to upgrade to its beta version. Unfortunately, I can't make the switch because my blog, weighing in at around 5,000 posts, is too long.

Oh, well.

Cyberpunk Richard Kadrey ("Metrophage," "Kamikaze L'amour," "Covert Culture Sourcebook") chats about fog:

Busy, Busy, Busy: Is Man . . . Or Astro-Man? the best band ever?

Global warming is reducing ocean life, increasing atmospheric C02

Another disturbing result of reduced phytoplankton is that our atmosphere depends on the consumption of atmospheric carbon dioxide by these plants. Reduced phytoplankton means less carbon dioxide is taken up by the ocean, which could speed global warming, contributing to a vicious cycle of increased warming.

Hooverphonic: "Inhaler"

I wandered the library tonight and exited with Cory Doctorow's "Eastern Standard Tribe." I feel almost painfully out of it for not having read any of Doctorow's fiction (although I enjoy his findings at Boing Boing). Meanwhile, I'm finishing Robert Charles Wilson's Hugo Award-winning "Spin" and poring over every page -- and reading yet another critical analysis of Franz Kafka, with whom I often feel a special rapport.

I've made some extremely minor changes to my dot-com, hopefully to be followed by some more substantial revisions/additions/alternations. The Art Gallery has been upgraded a bit. And I like Justin's portrait so much I've made it the main graphic of my bio page.

Yep, that's me!





Original portrait by the omnivorously talented Justin Pasieka.

Mars Has Liquid Water, New Evidence Suggests

The unexpected find emerged from some 240,000 images taken by the long-orbiting Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft.

Images taken of the same areas over time showed investigators that liquid water likely flowed through gullies in Martian craters during the past seven years.

Telltale deposits of debris suggest that sediments were washed downhill by occasional liquid flows.

If not exactly "unexpected," this is an exciting confirmation. Moreover, it virtually cements the case for extant Martian life.

Now it's time to actually start looking for it instead of gawking at rocks.

There's Gold In Them There Cell Phones

The report runs the numbers on the financial value waiting to be extracted from dead mobiles: if all closet-sitting cell phones were recycled, they would yield $314 million worth of metal; they would also comprise 10% of the nation's recycled silver market, and 18% of its recycled gold market. If all the retired phones were recycled as well as the dust-collectors, the metal would be worth almost $400 million.

Hmmm. Now if we could only "recycle" their habitual users . . .

Blog of the day: Next Nature

Talking Heads: "Life During Wartime" (live)

Alps Warmest in 1,300 Years as 'Winter' Sets in

It is warmer in Europe's Alpine region now than at any time in the past 1,300 years, the head of a wide-ranging climatic survey said on Tuesday.

From Ottawa to Moscow, temperatures generally have been way above average at the start of winter in the northern hemisphere, with flowers blooming on snow-starved slopes of Alpine ski resorts and bears struggling to hibernate.

Own a piece of cattle-mutilation history . . . just in time for the holidays!

Horse that launched animal-mutilation UFO lore lands on eBay

Lewis told the world media there was a strange, sweet odor that she likened to incense on the rural ranch in the area where Snippy's remains were found.

The stories grew - the heart and brain were missing, too - and Snippy became the first reported case of animal mutilation by visitors from space.

Snippy, or Snippy's skeleton, dropped out of sight for decades, only to surface last week on eBay with a minimum bid of $50,000.

Rudy Rucker is back -- and, as usual, having more fun than I am.

Peter Gabriel: "Shock the Monkey"

NASA plans a permanent camp on the moon

An international team of astronauts will be living and working at a permanent moon base to be built at one of the resource-rich lunar poles within two decades, NASA announced Monday.

Earth's first off-world colonists will cruise the surface in a new generation lunar lander that will function like a low-gravity pickup truck, possibly journeying to the dark side to build the most ambitious collection of observatories ever constructed, NASA said.

The good news, of course, is that we're committing ourselves to what will almost certainly be a pivotal development in our unnecessarily prolonged effort to become a multi-planet species.

The bad news is that the LA Times seems to think the Moon has a "dark side."

SKorean robot will walk the walk as well as talk the talk

"We are now working to improve the motion and upgrade intelligence so that next-generation androids can walk like a human, engage in more sophisticated conversations and have a wider range of facial expressions."

(Via Betterhumans.)

So far androids have failed to achieve anthropomorphic escape velocity; they've remained the stuff of technology conventions and speculative prototypes. But it's not unreasonable or difficult to imagine them truly "walking among us" in the near future, probably in a subservient context.

It's tempting to presume their human veneer will fail to keep us from treating them as anything but selfless machines . . . but, then again, don't we treat machines with a certain reverence (including but by no means limited to cars and video game consoles)?

If androids -- be they supermarket cashiers, waiters, receptionists or even sex-workers -- are sufficiently practical, I think it's likely we'll bestow upon them a pragmatic sort of dignity.

But then there's Moore's Law to deal with. Regardless of whether we achieve strong AI -- of even if self-aware machines are possible (a bone of contention among Posthuman Blues readers) -- androids will likely become just smart enough to become threatening, and our relationship with them will change accordingly. And if they do become "Turing compliant," we can expect a massive sociological rift we'd be wise to observe in detail -- because androids, regardless of their intended utility, will provide us with our first glimpse of what it's like to live in a world where intelligence isn't exclusive to humans.

One way or another, we'd better learn to get used to it.

The year is 2056. The world's climate is in tatters. The atmosphere is unbreathable. Humanity has been reduced to an evolutionary footnote.





But one woman has the power to set things right . . .

Some mildly intriguing UFO pictures for your consideration. At least a couple of these look like they might be experimental blimps or unmanned aircraft.

My Paracast interview has been put online. To listen, click here. (I'm the second guest.)

4 die in Missouri as temperatures plunge

Frigid temperatures contributed to four deaths Sunday, pushing the toll from a devastating ice and snow storm to 19 as hundreds of thousands waited another day for their electricity to be restored.

It's OK where I am but apparently elsewhere it's "The Day After Tomorrow" . . .

Do posthumans dream of Philip K. Dick?

Massive ice shelf 'may collapse without warning'

The Ross Ice Shelf, a massive piece of ice the size of France, could break off without warning causing a dramatic rise in sea levels, warn New Zealand scientists working in Antarctica.

[. . .]

The team's co-chief scientist, Tim Naish, told The Press newspaper the sediment record was important because it provided crucial evidence about how the Ross Ice Shelf would react to climate change, with potential to dramatically increase sea levels.

"If the past is any indication of the future, then the ice shelf will collapse," he said.

(Via Unknown Country.)

The Seoul of a New Machine

Rity is the ghost in the machine: an autonomous agent that can transfer itself into desktop computers, PDAs, servers and robotic avatars, and adapt and evolve like a genetic organism. As researchers go from place to place, they are captured and recognized by a network of cameras in the building, allowing Rity to follow them from computer to computer.

The "sobot" can upload itself into a mobile robot -- a simpler cousin of HanSaRam called MyBot -- and follow Kuppuswamy from room to room on its servo-controlled wheels, fetching objects for the researcher with its mechanical arms. If it sees Kuppuswamy sit in front of his office PC, Rity can abandon MyBot like a husk and slip into the desktop machine, to better put itself at its human master's disposal.

(Via Communist Robot.)

Rity's body-swapping antics just might provide a glimpse of our own future abilities. If the human mind can be manipulated digitally and uploaded into a computer substrate, traveling in "meatspace" may become hopelessly outmoded. Instead, we might choose to email ourselves from city to city (or from planet to planet), taking up residence in myriad virtual and mechanical forms along the way. Or, fearing obliteration of the Self, we might elect to spawn virtual clones of ourselves to send on indeterminable errands.

In either case, we may eventually tire of the "real" world in favor of universes of our own invention. If so, we run the risk of permanently isolating ourselves from extraterrestrial intelligences. One could even argue that our perceived failure to discover ET signals or megascale artifacts is due to our universe being custom-designed by unknowable predecessors.

Humans must colonize other planets: Hawking

Humans must colonize planets in other solar systems traveling there using "Star Trek"-style propulsion or face extinction, renowned British cosmologist Stephen Hawking said on Thursday.

Referring to complex theories and the speed of light, Hawking, the wheel-chair bound Cambridge University physicist, told BBC radio that theoretical advances could revolutionize the velocity of space travel and make such colonies possible.

(Via The Anomalist.)

I understand and appreciate the fact that Hawking is a "Trek" aficionado. Nothing wrong with that -- except when it begins to adversely color his scientific declarations. The fortunate truth of the matter is that we don't need warp drive (or its equivalent) to colonize space and ensure humanity's legacy; we can start now with a robust yet economical program devoted to populating the Moon and Mars. (Contrary to some pundits, the Moon and Mars aren't mutually exclusive; we can have both if we want them badly enough.)

GM contemplates the living, breathing Hummer

GM's sketch for the "Hummer O2" was named the winner on Thursday of a design contest at the Los Angeles Auto Show that challenged major automakers to design a vehicle with a five-year life span that could be fully recycled.

The GM vision for the futuristic Hummer concept includes an algae-filled body shell, designed to shed oxygen, that also opens up like leaves on a stem to catch sunlight when parked.

UFO Crash in Russia 'False Alarm'

A "flying apparatus" had been reported as crashing in Russia by numerous Russian news agencies, but officials in the crash area are now saying that the reports have been investigated and that it apparently did not happen. A helicopter flyover identified the scene, and reported no evidence of fire or of any crash debris. Siberian Regional Center of Ministry for Emergencies spokesperson Sergey Andriyanko has now said, "we report officially that it has been a false alarm."

What do you want to bet Pravda is behind this?

Organic Material Found in an Ancient Meteorite

NASA researchers have discovered organic material inside a meteorite the recently fell in Canada's Tagish Lake. The meteorite is especially valuable because scientists collected it shortly after it crashed in 2000, ensuring it wasn't contaminated by local bacteria. The meteorite seems to contain many small hollow organic globules, which probably formed in the cold molecular cloud of gas and dust that gave birth to the Solar System. Meteorites like this have been falling to Earth for billions of years, and probably seeded the early planet with organic material.

Life originates in comets. Not on the turbulent, molten surfaces of newborn terrestrial planets. Comets.

DIY Lucid Dreaming Device Makes Your Dreams Come True, Just Not In Real Life

The best way to get yourself to lucid dream is to send yourself a signal while you're in a deep sleep, generally via a flashing light of some sort. A dude who goes by "natetrue" went and built himself a mask that does just that, flashing you about 5 hours into your sleep cycle. The best part? He's now selling kits so you can make your own for $30.

(Via Reality Carnival.)

I have spontaneous lucid dreams; I haven't yet learned how to induce them. Lately I've become acutely aware that my dreams seem to take place in a variety of interconnected locations. I'd like to explore this half-glimpsed world more deeply, test its barriers, mingle with its inhabitants, memorize its geology, and ally myself with its inherent strangeness.

Typewriter Museum - and the Hansen Writing Ball

I'm fairly sure were there a Venn diagram of those who like Steampunk, and those who would like to own the Hansen Writing Ball - one of the first ever typewriters ever produced - there would be significant overlap to say the least.

You just have to see this thing. It's like a demented computer mouse rendered in Victorian brass.

Riddle of UFO 'invasion'

A UFO scare was sparked after the police were flooded with calls about a fleet of 'spaceships' invading the coast of Britain.

Thousands of people spotted the bright orange orbs off the Channel coast at Brighton.

Police and air traffic control centres were inundated by reports of the strange spectacle, the Daily Express reported.

(Via Unknown Country.)

A Shadow Biosphere

Could there be aliens here on Earth? While this question tends to bring out tales of UFOs and bug-eyed interstellar voyagers, it is not considered a bizarre urban legend by some astrobiologists. By "alien" they don't mean "coming from beyond Earth," they mean "other" –- other forms of DNA, other amino acids used to build proteins, any other means by which the chemistry of early Earth could have combined to form life we're not familiar with. If there are forms of life on Earth today with a biochemistry not like our own, how would we even know it?

(Via The Anomalist.)

If you dig eccentric architecture as much as I do you'll like this one:

Cactus building

Rotterdam's Urban Cactus housing project (UCX Architects) uses ingenious staggered terraces to make huge, sunny spaces, and a building profile that seems to have been parachuted in from 1945's future.

If this joint has Wi-Fi it might qualify as Paradise.

Noise device tackles youth yobs

The "mosquito" unit has been installed at the Selston Health Centre near Kirkby in Ashfield, Notts, to combat vandalism and cases of attempted arson.

The noise the unit produces can only be picked up in the hearing range of young people, typically aged under 20.

Add this to my Christmas list stat. I bet this thing will clear the teenage loiterers out of Barnes & Noble in a hurry.

(I'm assuming "yob" is a contraction of "youth" and "mob." If so, isn't the term "youth yobs" redundant?)