09 JAN 2017 by ideonexus
Distopian View Praising Second-Hand Knowledge
The first of these was the abolition of respirator.
Advanced thinkers, like Vashti, had always held it foolish to visit the surface of the earth. Air-ships might be necessary, but what was the good of going out for mere curiosity and crawling along for a mile or two in a terrestrial motor? The habit was vulgar and perhaps faintly improper: it was unproductive of ideas, and had no connection with the habits that really mattered. So respirators were abolished, and with them, of course, the ter... 1 
notes
notes31 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
The Evolving View of Science and Evil
Daedalus begins with an artillery bombardment on
the Western Front, the shell bursts nonchalantly annihilating
the human protagonists who are supposed to
be in charge of the battle. This opening scene epitomizes
Haldane's hard-headed view of war. And likewise
at the end, when the biologist in his laboratory, "just a
poor little scrubby underpaid man groping blindly amid
the mazes of the ultramicroscopic," is transfigured into
the mythical figure of Daedalus, "conscious of his
ghastly mission ... 1 notes
notes07 MAR 2015 by ideonexus
Questioning Air Pollution
How should a living organism live?
When spring arrives, you open your doors, the wind blows in. The smell of flowers fills the airand colors come back to lifeSometimes when it rains or when it’s foggy out. You can’t help but breathe the air deep into your lungs and experience the feeling of small water droplets filling them up. Both piercingly cold but also pure and fresh.
In autumn, you would spend a whole afternoon with a loved one doing absolutely nothing, basking lazily in the sun.... 1 notes
notes11 JUL 2014 by ideonexus
How to Talk Math With Kids
Some simple ways to work numbers into the conversation:
Note numbers on signs when you’re walking or driving with children: speed limits and exit numbers, building addresses, sale prices in store windows.
Ask children to count how many toys they’re playing with, how many books they’ve pulled out to read, or how many pieces of food are on their plate.
Use numbers when you refer to time, dates, and temperatures: how many hours and minutes until bedtime, how many weeks and days until a hol... 1 notes
notesWork it into the day-to-day conversation.
24 JUL 2013 by ideonexus
Cost Benefits of Lead Cleanup
It's difficult to put firm numbers to the costs and benefits of lead abatement. But for a rough idea, let's start with the two biggest costs. Nevin estimates that there are perhaps 16 million pre-1960 houses with lead-painted windows, and replacing them all would cost something like $10 billion per year over 20 years. Soil cleanup in the hardest-hit urban neighborhoods is tougher to get a handle on, with estimates ranging from $2 to $36 per square foot. A rough extrapolation from Mielke's est...
1 While it would cost tens of billions to clean up lead in the environment, it would generate a hundred billion in health benefits.
16 JUL 2013 by ideonexus
O'Neill Cylinders
The O’Neill cylinder is named after an American
physicist and space scientist who sought to engage
his students by getting them to think about big
problems—space settlement, in particular. He also led
symposiums where the concepts behind large, permanent
space habitats—including the cylinder that bears
his name—were hashed out.
The basic principle is fairly simple. Construct a
cylinder at least half a kilometer in diameter so that it
can be rotated at low speed and provide 1 g of art... 1 notes
notesConcept for a space station with gravity.
13 MAY 2013 by ideonexus
Dyson Tree
Many species of terrestrial plants, including the skunk cabbage that sprouts in February in the woods of Princeton, New Jersey, where I live, are warm-blooded to a limited extent. For about two weeks the skunk cabbage maintains a warm temperature by rapidly metabolizing starch stored inside the part of its anatomy known as the spadix, which contains the hidden flowers with their male and female structures. According to folklore, the spadix is warm enough to melt snow around it. The evolutiona...Folksonomies: biology speculation
Folksonomies: biology speculation
1 notes
notesA plant that grows a greenhouse to sustain itself in persistently cold climates.
18 MAR 2013 by ideonexus
The Geoscope
Because the real planet Earth is revolving around its north-south polar axis, so, too, is mini-Earth. They are both thus revolving without effecting any change of the observed position of Polaris—the North Star—in respect to mini-Earth's north pole. Therefore, the observer at the center of the Geoscope feels spontaneously the celestial fixity not only of Polaris but also of all the other stars as seen outwardly through the Geoscope's triangular windows. Because outwardly of Geoscope's equ... 1 notes
notesAn enormous proposed model of the Earth that would teach children their orientation on our planet. With such an understanding, the term "sunset" would be replaced with "sunclipse."
28 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
Using Santa Claus as a Teachable Moment
But as our son Connor began to exhibit the incipient inklings of Kringledoubt, it occurred to me that something powerful was going on. I began to see the Santa paradigm as an unmissable opportunity—the ultimate dry run for a developing inquiring mind.
My boy was 8 years old when he started in with the classic interrogation: How does Santa get to all those houses in one night? How does he get in when we don’t have a chimney and all the windows are locked and the alarm system is on? Why do... 1 notes
notesTell the child the fantastic story about Santa Claus, but answer their skeptical questions truthfully.
18 OCT 2011 by ideonexus
Dinosauria, We
Born like this
Into this
As the chalk faces smile
As Mrs. Death laughs
As the elevators break
As political landscapes dissolve
As the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree
As the oily fish spit out their oily prey
As the sun is masked
We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which ...A poem filled with fantastic imagery of the decline and fall of Western civilization.
