Today’s quote is from the Christian Science Monitor, which gives a revealing look into the reasons why Africa refuses to reign in Mugabe. Most South Africans look at Mbeki’s so called “Quiet Diplomacy” (or “softly, slowly” approach) in relation to Zimbabwe, and scratch their heads in disbelief: matters have progressively gotten worse with censorship of the press, human-rights abuses and land evictions, intimidation, beatings, a crumbling economy with ever increasing inflation, poverty and unemployment.
Mbeki explaining “Quiet Diplomacy” ›
May 16th, 2007The Seven Deadly Sins of Bottled Water ›
May 8th, 2007Ever wonder what you’re really drinking when you pick up that bottled water? And I don’t just mean what’s in the water: where’s it come from? What’s its impact? What’s its future? These questions have been bugging me, so I set out to discover the answers. Turns out, there’s a lot of reasons why you shouldn’t buy bottled water any more. So, here’s the seven deadly sins of bottled water.
Quote of the Day: Albert Einstein on Bees ›
April 16th, 2007Today’s quote is via the German newspaper, Spiegel Online, and concerns the recent alarming reports of the destruction of German (and American) bee populations. In it, they refer to Albert Einstein as saying:
If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.
RIP Kurt Vonnegut ›
April 12th, 2007Human beings will be happier – not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That’s my utopia.
Kurt Vonnegut, born November 11, 1922 and died at the age of 84 on April 11, 2007. If you don’t know who he is, read his book Slaughterhouse Five.
Global Strategic Trends 2007-2036 ›
April 11th, 2007Today’s quote comes from the UK Ministry of Defence’s Development Concepts and Doctrine Centre, which recently published a report entitled Global Strategic Trends 2007-2036. The report’s purpose is to analyse a wide range of potential outcomes over the next thirty years, ranging from the impact of globalization, inequality, and poverty, to terrorism, climate change, and future technologies and weapons.
The Uncanny Valley ›
April 2nd, 2007Here’s an interesting hypothesis that I came across recently, reading through an article in the latest edition of the IEEE Spectrum about digitally animated faces. It’s called the “Uncanny Valley” effect, formulated by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori, and it basically says that, as a robot becomes more human-like in appearance, the more humans are likely to empathise with it. However, this effect reaches a point where empathy is reversed, and humans are likely to be repulsed instead. This, too, is then reversed and replaced with positive empathy once more as the appearance of the robot becomes even closer to that of a human being.