29 DEC 2016 by ideonexus
How Science Fiction Got Its Start with Frakenstein
It’s not completely fanciful to say that science fiction began with three things: a dead frog, a volcano, and a teenage bride.
The dead frog was one that an Italian physician named Luigi Galvani was experimenting with in the 1780s, when he found that a mild electric shock could cause the frog’s leg to twitch. It was just an induced muscle reflex, but it suggested that there might be a connection between electricity and life.
The volcano was Mount Tambora in Indonesia, which exploded in ... 1 
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notes14 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
The Implications of a Facebook Bankruptcy
One reason companies like Facebook should be interested in what I am proposing is that planning a regulation regime is better than morphing involuntarily into a dull regulated utility, which is what would probably happen otherwise. Suppose Facebook never gets good enough at snatching the “advertising” business from Google. That’s still a possibility as I write this. In that event, Facebook could go into decline, which would present a global emergency.
It’s not an outlandish scenario....Folksonomies: social media
Folksonomies: social media
1 notes
notesPeople would lose their friends, contacts, and much online history.
14 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
Everything Won't Become Free at Once
Maybe the coolest technology could get very good and cheap, while at the same time crucial fundamentals for survival could become expensive. The calculi of digital utopias and man-made disasters don’t contradict each other. They can coexist. This is the heading of the darkest and funniest science fiction, such as the work of Philip K. Dick.
Basics like water and food could soar in cost even as intensely sophisticated gadgets, like automated nanorobotic heart surgeons, float about as dust i... 1 notes
notesThe irony of society is that digital content is growing cheaper as is technology, but food and electricity are growing more expensive.
21 AUG 2013 by ideonexus
Mandarin Character for Electricity
电 is used in many words relating to modern, electrically-powered things. For example, 电影 (electricity - shadow) means "film", 电视 (electricity - to look at) means "TV", and 电脑 (electricity - brain) means "computer".1 
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notesDescribes interesting interactions with people in how the word is used in "film," "television," and "computer."
20 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
The Plight of Man
Life through many long periods has been manifested in a countless host of varying structures, all circumscribed by one general plan, each appointed to a definite place, and limited to an appointed duration. On the whole the earth has been thus more and more covered by the associated life of plants and animals, filling all habitable space with beings capable of enjoying their own existence or ministering to the enjoyment of others; till finally, after long preparation, a being was created capa... 1 notes
notesLife has evolved into every niche over billions of years, and we show up to wonder at it all.
11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Science is Disconnected from the Needs of Man
A plain, reasonable working man supposes, in the old way which is also the common-sense way, that if there are people who spend their lives in study, whom he feeds and keeps while they think for him—then no doubt these men are engaged in studying things men need to know; and he expects of science that it will solve for him the questions on which his welfare, and that of all men, depends. He expects science to tell him how he ought to live: how to treat his family, his neighbours and the men... 1 notes
notesIt gives useless facts, while the average man is seeking meaning.
07 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Why the Pioneer Anomaly is Worth Investigating
In the short run, knowing the gravitational constant to one more decimal digit of precision or placing even tighter limits on any deviation from Einstein's gravitational theory may seem like painfully nitpicking detail. Yet one must not lose sight of the "big picture." When researchers were measuring the properties of electricity with ever more refined instruments over two hundred years ago, they did not envision continent-spanning power grids, an information economy, or tiny electrical signa... 1 notes
notesThe effect is tiny, but magnified over great distances, and if we are meticulous now, we make it possible for future generations to traverse the solar system.
22 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
The Marriage of Space and Time
The marriage of space and time that heralded the modern era began with the marriage, in 1864, of electricity and magnetism. This remarkable intellectual achievement, based on the cumulative efforts of great physicists such as AndrŽ-Marie Amp�re, Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, and Michael Faraday, was capped by the brilliant British physicist James Clerk Maxwell. He discovered that the laws of electricity and magnetism not only displayed an intimate relationship with one another but together ... 1 notes
notesOccurred when the relationship between electricity and magnetism was discovered.
21 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
Looking to the Present to Understand the Past
In using the present in order to reveal the past, we assume that the forces in the world are essentially the same through all time; for these forces are based on the very nature of matter, and could not have changed. The ocean has always had its waves, and those waves have always acted in the same manner. Running water on the land has ever had the same power of wear and transportation and mathematical value to its force. The laws of chemistry, heat, electricity, and mechanics have been the sa...Folksonomies: induction
Folksonomies: induction
1 notes
notesOceans have always had waves, streams have always worn down rocks, and other natural laws have always been the same throughout time.
13 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
All Chemical Reactions Involve Negative and Positive Forces
... every chemical combination is wholly and solely dependent on two opposing forces, positive and negative electricity, and every chemical compound must be composed of two parts combined by the agency of their electrochemical reaction, since there is no third force. Hence it follows that every compound body, whatever the number of its constituents, can be divided into two parts, one of which is positively and the other negatively electrical. Folksonomies: chemistry
Folksonomies: chemistry
1 notes
notesIn relation to one another, one compound is negatively charged, the other positively, with no other force involved.
