06 Jan

Posted at 16:31h in Scoop.it

Geraint F. Lewis’ day job involves creating synthetic universes on supercomputers. They can be overwhelmingly bizarre, unstable places. The question that compels him is: how did our universe come to be so perfectly tuned for stability and life?
 

For more than 400 years, physicists treated the universe like a machine, taking it apart to see how it ticks. The surprise is it turns out to have remarkably few parts: just leptons and quarks and four fundamental forces to glue them together.

But those few parts are exquisitely machined. If we tinker with their settings, even slightly, the universe as we know it would cease to exist. Science now faces the question of why the universe appears to have been “fine-tuned” to allow the appearance of complex life, a question that has some potentially uncomfortable answers.

 

Sourced through Scoop.it from: cosmosmagazine.com

06 Jan

Posted at 16:29h in Scoop.it

Reuben Wu is an artist with a profound interest in the ways that advancing technology can foster new forms of creative expression. Using a Fiilex AL250 in tandem…

Sourced through Scoop.it from: vimeo.com

06 Jan

Posted at 16:24h in Scoop.it

Just another period western meta comedy short film. Featuring the mellifluous voice of Nick Offerman. I hope you enjoy it! WINNER Audience Award for Best Short…

Sourced through Scoop.it from: vimeo.com

30 Dec

Posted at 18:22h in Scoop.it

Suzanne Gildert is a founder and CTO of Kindred AI – a company pursuing the modest vision of “building machines with human-like intelligence.” Her startup just came out of stealth mode and I am both proud and humbled to say that this is the first ever long-form interview that Suzanne has done. Kindred AI has raised 15 million dollars from notable investors and currently employs 35 experts in their offices in Toronto, Vancouver and San Francisco. Even better, Suzanne is a long term Singularity.FM podcast fan, total tech geek, Gothic artist, PhD in experimental physics and former D-Wave Quantum Computer maker. Right now I honestly can’t think of a more interesting person to have a conversation with.

Video is here

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.bloomberg.com

30 Dec

Posted at 18:21h in Scoop.it

Those who control the messages know how to push our buttons — to get us to buy products and vote for candidates. By helping our students to critically assess media messages, we are teaching them to be savvy media consumers.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.iste.org

30 Dec

Posted at 18:18h in Scoop.it

To a doctor, ethics are about keeping a patient alive. The modern Hippocratic oath that a doctor takes is the main example of this. A doctor must swear to “use treatments for the benefit of the ill in accordance with my ability and my judgement.” To a lawyer, the issue of ethics also relates primarily to treating clients well; although this is about ensuring that no conflicts of interest occur and that a lawyer keeps confidential any potentially damaging information they are told by a client. To a designer, at least a designer today, ethical issues are viewed as coming from the client. Rather than framing ethical questions in terms of how the designers themselves might behave professionally, designers frame these questions not around their own practice but around those of the client. What does the client do? Is this ethically acceptable or not? Indeed, is this politically acceptable or not?

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.itsnicethat.com

30 Dec

Posted at 18:13h in Scoop.it

Researchers in the UK have turned some highly specialized radar equipment to the skies to track a staggering volume of material—3.2 kilotons of it—as it transits the skies of southern England. The material in question? Insects, about 3.5 trillion of them each year. While smaller insects seem to drift on the prevailing wind, larger ones appear to undergo a directed, seasonal migration.

 

 

Sourced through Scoop.it from: arstechnica.com