[Helloooooooo future! -egg]
When eight-year-old Grady Hoffman went into the hospital for a bone-marrow transplant and a two month recovery, he stayed in touch with his family by means of a telepresence robot that rolled around the house, feeding him video and audio from home and his siblings, and letting him talk to them.
via Hospitalized kid’s telepresence bot roams at home – Boing Boing.
[Some nice hints here I didn’t know about. If anyone is interested in exchanging affiliate links, let me know. -egg]
Amazon is often our go-to place for buying things online, but the best deals aren’t always obvious. There are several ways you can save quite a bit of money when shopping on Amazon, but only if you utilize the right programs and strategies. Here’s how.
via How to Get Reduced Prices and Save Money When Shopping on Amazon.
Ephemerisle got its libertarian streak from its founders: the event was originally conceived of by the Seasteading Institute, a San Francisco nonprofit that supports the creation of thousands of floating city-states in international waters. After overseeing the first Ephemerisle in 2009, the Institute handed over responsibility for the festival to the community in 2010—it turns out a raucous floating party costs too much for a tiny think tank to insure—and last year, the group consisted of 300 amateur boaters, intoxicated partiers, and a committed clan of Seasteaders.
Seasteaders made up about a quarter of Ephemerisle’s attendees. If they took the operation somewhat more seriously than the young Californians who came just to party and build things, it’s because they dream of a day when they’ll have their pick of floating city-states to live on, work from, and eventually abandon in favor of a different platform when they get bored. Borrowing from the lexicon of evolution, the Seasteaders say that a “Cambrian explosion” of these new countries will bring about greater freedom of choice for individuals, stimulate competition between existing governments, and provide blank “nation-slates” for experiments in governance. Ephemerisle is supposed to distill the ambitious project into a weekend that would “give people the direct experience of political autonomy.” It combines its political ambitions with appeals to back-to-the-land survivalism, off-the-grid drug use, and a vague nostalgia for water parks. “There are no tickets, no central organizers, no rules, no rangers to keep you safe,” reads the Ephemerisle mission statement. It’s “a new adventure into an alien environment, with discoveries, adventures, and mishaps along the way.”
via n+1: Seasteading.
In honor of Julys resolution, “Focus on security,” Ive prepared this article on the basics of using encryption.
Encryption makes privacy a right that can be claimed rather than granted.
This article is a quick summary of basic encryption tools for protecting your data and your privacy. The goal is to raise awareness of these tools.
The dramatic nylon sculptures by Dutch artist Rosa Verloop are eerie and distorted representations of human heads and bodies. These three-dimensional bodies are held together by a series of pins and threads. The flesh tones of the nylons add a disturbing level of realism to these dysmorphic objects. Verloop is an artist based out of the Netherlands where she continues to create works that are both intriguing and at the same time grotesque.
via -| Foto-Jenn¡c |- – hifructosemag: Grotesque Nylon Sculptures by….
An estimated 10 million Britons still suck down cigarettes faster than a troupe of aging rockers in rehab straining to cough out another hit tune. In the UK, cigarette butts sully streets and parks everywhere. What if this nasty habit could contribute to, rather than subtract from, the beauty of outdoor spaces? Cigg Seeds aim to do precisely that. A variety of smokes outfitted with biodegradable filters that contain wild flower seeds, they sprout and blossom into wildflower meadows when finished and flicked, or deposited on the ground. Butts into blooms. Cigarettes into snowdrops—the floral not frozen variety, to be sure.
via -| Foto-Jenn¡c |- – sketchlynx: moshita: Cigg Seeds An estimated….
Until very recently the country’s incarcerated were still living in a world of Walkmans, radios, and cassette tapes. But finally, things are changing. SPIN goes behind bars to investigate how music makes its way inside prisons, who puts it there, and what it means to inmates.
via Captive Audience: The Music Business in America’s Prisons | SPIN.
Jake Evill is hoping that someday 3D printed casts will replace the bulky, stinky plaster casts we are all familiar with. De Zeen shares the story…
A patient would have the bones x-rayed and the outside of the limb 3D-scanned. Computer software would then determine the optimum bespoke shape, with denser support focussed around the fracture itself.
Below, you can find a list of some of the key revelations along with an analysis of the current status of each—including claims, counterclaims, and everything in between. We will update this page with the latest in order to keep as comprehensive a record as possible. If there are any particular details we’ve missed that you think are worth inclusion, please add suggestions in the comments.
via Edward Snowden fact-checking: Which surveillance claims were right?.
[Because SCIENCE. -egg]