Mars water, Freeman Dyson, coal,AI

nytimes
Mars water flow recent, since 1999
Prediction: exo-life will be difficult to distinguish from complex organic PAH sludge.Where life is not, then a multitude of complex carbon rings will seem like life products. blebs will resemble true cells. Only if Earth-life came from Mars will Mars-life be immediately comprehensible
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informationclearinghouse
Paying The Price: Killing The Children Of Iraq
A documentary film by John Pilger [not seen]

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informationclearinghouse
The Current Crisis in the Middle East
True to form, Noam Chomsky
try "view in RealPlayer"
http://mfile.akamai.com/12800/rm/mitworld.download.akamai.com/12800/mitw-palestine-middle-east-chomsky-21sep2006-56k.ram

The Internets is being taken over by videos, which on my screen with FlashBlock show up as big empty areas with a little arrow.
I guess USAnians dont get it unless its moving. Meanwhile I experience the biggest loss of information flow since Sydney University took Science & Nature out of the library, on the grounds that 'everyone' had electronic access.
I used to really enjoy flipping through the paper editions of those journals. Now I can only see them during business hours, when the small Biochem library is open - they still have paper copies thee tbtg.
Now it is pleasant to hear Noam Chompsky's sarcasms, but after a lifetime as a sarcastic Aspie, seeing its lack of effect, I would be content to see a transcript.

YouTube, Flash, RealMedia, pdf ruining the Internets...

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lefty??
ringoffireradio
needlenose

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fin times
Can one imagine Charles de Gaulle in the late 1950s waiting weeks for a long study by French public figures on how to end the Algerian war that was damaging France’s national unity and international reputation?

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nasa
victoria fires
nasa
nsw fires & dust
Summer's here and the time is right... for cruising out to the forest and indulging in a bit of arson.

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alternet
Travis Bradford.. Solar Revolution: The Economic Transformation of the Global Energy Industry
"Coal is the enemy of the human race"
- well now it is, but for those early steam ships and trains it meant England ruled the waves.

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December 6, 2006
Ten U.S. forces were killed in four separate incidents Wednesday in Iraq, the U.S. military said.

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2006 Shell wildlife photographer of the year
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techreview
Freeman Dyson

After the War, Smeed worked for the British government on road traffic problems and then taught at University College London, where he was the first professor of traffic studies. He applied the methods of operational research to traffic problems all over the world and designed intelligent traffic-light control systems to optimize the flow of traffic through cities. Smeed had a fatalistic view of traffic flow. He said that the average speed of traffic in central London would always be nine miles per hour, because that is the minimum speed that people will tolerate. Intelligent use of traffic lights might increase the number of cars on the roads but would not increase their speed. As soon as the traffic flowed faster, more drivers would come to slow it down.
....
Smeed also had a fatalistic view of traffic accidents. He collected statistics on traffic deaths from many countries, all the way back to the invention of the automobile. He found that under an enormous range of conditions, the number of deaths in a country per year is given by a simple formula: number of deaths equals .0003 times the two-thirds power of the number of people times the one-third power of the number of cars. This formula is known as Smeed's Law. He published it in 1949, and it is still valid 57 years later. It is, of course, not exact, but it holds within a factor of two for almost all countries at almost all times
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Smeed's Law merely defines the number of deaths that we find psychologically tolerable.
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In the last winter of the War, the German army and air force finally began to run out of oil. Bomber Command could justly claim to have helped the Allied armies

The belated success of bombing resulted from mosquito pathfinders lighting up oil production sites. It doesnt work to just saturate a city. Only 4 firestorms got up (Hamburg,Dresden,Tokyo,Hiroshima)

Traffic deaths have fallen in Aus from approaching 200 to less than 100 per million (nb within the 'factor of 2'?) 60's british cars had brakes that didnt self-adjust. You had to 'pump' the brakes. Crush zones, seat belts, and the acceptance of breath tests have lowered death rates. As have better surgical techniques. It is quite likely that the benefits have been offset by more risky driving, so Smeeds law may still have some applicability

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ucsd
DNA loops_______________________________________________________
kurzweilai
kurzweilai
the singularity is always near
mit movie
actually rather tedious debate about can a machine feel pain, would a machine commit suicide if its pain registers were full? and it was prevented from emptying them? Would it run Amok, seeking suicide by cop, if it wanted to die but was prevented from self-harm?
[actually I made up these exciting questions, the debate just blithered on about Searle's Chinese room]

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Mars water, Freeman Dyson, coal, Mars water, Freeman Dyson, coal, AI