[obviously, this post is ill-named. I intended it to appear on June 1 while I was on the road to Vancouver for CSHPS, the Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science, conference, of which more later. That didn't happen. Indeed, I missed a whole 'nother Sunday since. And yet, I have not changed the name. Go figure.]
- A computer bug is partially responsible for the housing credit bubble. Or else someone would like us to think that's the case.
- Optical computing gets closer.
- The secret to good sci-fi? Low budget. Probably because then it is a labor of love, and movie executives have less sway.
- Is it wishful thinking to hope that a sea of plastic trash plus plastic-decomposing bacterial equals unicorns and rainbows?
- I will derive
3 comments:
First your link to the optical computing story is wrong: proper link is here (I hope).
I think indy/low-budget sci-fi can takes risks, which means it can make a lot of money or nothing. The huge block buster while it can be a bit strong is still a lot of fun and perhaps in a perverse way less risky (if you have enough explosions your guaranteed to make back most of the cost).
The flaw with decomposing plastic is that just puts the carbon in the plastic into the atmosphere (as CO2 and methane), increasing the green house effect. However, finding and isolating plastic eating bacteria is a very cool science fair project and goes to show that there really is nothing that Bacteria can't do (Jan Sapp would love to hear this news I'm sure).
I approve of the "I will derive" video, although it should have had more about the process of finding the maximium.
Thanks, 4ll4n0, for the link correction.
The solution to the increased CO2/methane emissions is clearly to get another kid to do a science fair project isolating THAT magic bacterium and then turning it into a carbon sink. (By the way, did you happen to catch A&Es remake of Crichton's Andromeda Strain? It has some interesting deviations from the book.)
You rewrite the lyrics for "I will derive" and we can perform it at your next karaoke event.
I missed the Andromeda Strain mini series. I did catch the episode of the Colbert Report that referenced it (referencing Colbert) on the web.
I've never read the book only seen the movie.
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