comic | What is the meaning of life?
April 15, 2011
Most Recently Added Most commentedBy Title | A-Z
UPDATE | Kurzweil to ‘grind into smithereens’ Colbert’s understanding of world tonight, says Comedy Central
April 12, 2011 by Amara D. Angelica
Tuesday night April 12, “Ray Kurzweil — inventor and subject of the documentary Transcendent Man — stops by to take everything that Stephen thinks he understands about the world and grind it into unrecognizable smithereens before his forlorn and tearful eyes,” Comedy Central’s Indecision reports.
11:00 p.m. EDT update: In related news, at #30, Kurzweil has edged out Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert… read more
Ray,
A disturbing thought occurred to me recently: given that we are on the cusp of personal immortality and the entrance into the age of conscious information (for lack of a better term), it seems that there will eventually become a real resource shortage at the most fundamental level.
What I’m suggesting (and you’ve probably already considered) is that as individuals make the transition to electronic… read more
Film Preview | Source Code movie combines mind-uploading, parallel universes, time travel, simulated reality
April 1, 2011 by Amara D. Angelica
In the science-fiction movie Source Code (April 1 release), a secret program called “Source Code” sends a pilot back in time to cross over into another man’s identity and relive the last eight minutes of the passenger’s life on a train.
The mission: find a bomb that exploded on the train, killing everyone on board, to prevent another terrorist attack in six hours.
“People… read more
Film Review | Smart drug thriller is pretty smart
March 31, 2011 by R.U. Sirius
Limitless | Director: Neil Burger. Cast: Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Abbie Cornish
The moment I saw the film title — Limitless — I knew I was in for an oversimplified Hollywood-styled dramatization of transhuman themes, and set my expectations to a moderately amusing piece of crap.
Surprise! This is a tightly constructed and reasonably clever piece of entertainment with some… read more
Brian Malow blog & Time | Science comedian Brian Malow’s Time video: Philip K. Dick at the movies
March 30, 2011
Source: Brian Malow blog & Time — March 15, 2011 | Brian Malow
Time | The Adjustment Bureau is just the latest film to be based on a short story or novel by Philip K. Dick. Science Comedian Brian Malow is a Dick aficionado.
Brian Malow | My newest video for Time is about Philip K. Dick and all the movie adaptations of his books and stories, the latest of which is The Adjustment Bureau, based on the story “Adjustment Team” written in 1953. … read more
Films inspired by renowned sci-fi author Philip K. Dick
March 30, 2011
Philip K. Dick Films website | Since Ridley Scott turned Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? into the science fiction classic Blade Runner, eight of Philip K. Dick’s novels or short stories have made their way to the big screen.
To date, these films have generated over $1 billion in world-wide box office and ancillary revenue. This astounding success is the result of combining visionary stories with talent from… read more
EPA finds ‘slightly higher’ radiation levels in US [update 3/29]
March 29, 2011 by Amara D. Angelica
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found levels in filters in 12 of their radiation-monitoring stations “slightly higher” than those found by EPA monitors last week and a Department of Energy monitor the week before. But they are “still far below levels of public health concern,” the agency states.
EPA’s samples were captured by monitors in Alaska, Alabama, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada,
Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands and… read more
When we cannot predict
March 29, 2011 by John Brockman
About a year ago, on Wednesday April 14th, I was on the way to London from JFK, when the pilot announced a slight delay into Heathrow in order to avoid the ash cloud coming out of the Icelandic volcano eruption. This was the first time I paid any attention to the subject. But once in London that is the only subject anybody talked about for a week.… read more
In short film Blinky AI robot takes fatal cues from its human family
March 28, 2011 by Sarah Black
The new short film Blinky, by Irish film writer/director Ruairi Robinson, takes place in the not-so-distant future, where robotic household helpers are everywhere.
In the broken home of a couple who are constantly fighting, their emotionally distraught young son takes his rage and frustration out on an AI robot companion toy named Blinky.
He urged his parents to buy him the factory-fresh bot after seeing the TV ad promising that Blinky can “bring families… read more
Related:
Ruairi Robinson official website
Japan radiation levels reach new highs
March 28, 2011 by Amara D. Angelica
Radiation levels at Japan nuclear plant reach new highs: Leaked water sampled from one unit Sunday had 100,000 times the radioactivity of normal background levels…. airborne radioactivity in the unit 2 turbine building still remained so high — 1,000 millisieverts per hour — that a worker there would reach his yearly occupational exposure limit in 15 minutes. A dose of 4,000 to 5,000 millisieverts absorbed fairly rapidly will… read more
Nuclear radiation paranoid’s handy reference [UPDATED 3/22]
March 21, 2011 by Amara D. Angelica
The Likely Radiation Distribution in Japan (March 19)
Added 3/22:
Iodine from plant detected in Tokyo: .046 µSv/hr. (438 µSv per year — about 4 chest x-rays); Fukushima Pref.: 21.9 µSv/hr. (191,844 µSv per year or 1918 chest x-rays).
Dealing with radiation fears, potassium iodide requests: side effects include nausea, diarrhea, allergy, interference with the body’s normal production of… read more
Ask Ray | Science and God
March 21, 2011
Hi Ray,
It was nice to see you again at the Transcendent Man film screening. I enjoyed the movie and the discussion. The way I see it, over time we have been discovering the intelligence that is manifested in nature. This intelligence is much greater than our own — however, piece by piece, we have been stitching it together.
The point is that we have been making these discoveries… read more
Ask Ray | Welcome, new computer overlords!
March 21, 2011
Ray,
I noticed in one of your recent essays (on IBM’s Watson) you say “I, for one, would then regard it (an AI) as human.” I, for one, find that to be your most controversial statement in that article. Apparently, Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings did you one better the next day when he wrote on his screen (as part of his final written wager) before being defeated by Watson: “I,… read more
Ask Ray | The essential self and the continuity of pattern
March 21, 2011
Ray,
Congratulations! I saw you yesterday on PBS NewsHour. I had no idea that teaching a computer to win at Jeopardy was so much harder than teaching it to play chess. You explained it well. The computer has to appreciate jokes and irony, which is much harder than making logical deductions.
The Time magazine cover mentions immortality. I am convinced that through your work,… read more