AdAstra's blog, page 1

Last login: 28 hours agoAdAstra: an upgraded animal is a 32 year old guy from Fulda, Germany.; Likes 1,025 pages, 1 video, 11 photos • 72 fans • Received 12 reviews; Member since Jun 01, 2004

Favorites » His Blog

Nikon MicroscopyU: Small World Competition: Oct 22, 2004 5:40pm 7 reviews science
http://www.microscopyu.com/smallworld/; Small is beautiful....when you have a good microscope.

Astronomy Notes: Oct 13, 2004 7:05am 4 reviews astronomy
http://www.astronomynotes.com/; Well done introduction to astronomy and astrophysics.

The Micropolitan Museum: Oct 12, 2004 12:52pm 11 reviews microbiology
http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/micropolitan/; Peeks for biogeeks. The weird world of nature's nanotech.

Free Republic | latest articles: Oct 12, 2004 11:25am 48 reviews
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/browse; PZ Meyers takes on the freepers gloating at Christopher Reeve's death in his highly recommendable Pharyngula blog:

"When you tell me you think an embryo is the same as my kids, you cheapen the worth of my children. They are much, much more than that small thoughtless blob. You reduce the value of family to mindless chemistry and metabolism.

When you damn a human being and sneer at his death, while raving desperately that every speck containing a human chromosome set must be cherished and preserved, you tell me that you are hypocrites who trivialize human loss."

The Gorilla Foundation / Koko.org: Sep 28, 2004 7:25am 32 reviews animals
http://www.koko.org/; from the FAQ: "Koko and I communicate with each other through a modified form of American Sign Language (ASL). Koko has demonstrated well over 1,000 such gestures. She also understands over 2,000 words of spoken English, so people can speak to her and she will respond in sign."

MC Hawking: Sep 28, 2004 6:57am 51 reviews satire
http://www.mchawking.com/; You all ready for the Hawkman to drop some science on your ass?

Sentient Developments: Sep 27, 2004 3:02pm 7 reviews futurism
http://sentientdevelopments.blogspot.com/; Technocultural musings from George Dvorsky, eclectic and thought-provoking.

nootropics / smart-drugs: Sep 27, 2004 2:15pm 8 reviews psychology
http://www.nootropics.com/; The best of quantitative intelligence amplification is that it could bring about qualitative advancement in the long run. Our brains have evolved to help us survive in a hunter-gatherer environment, and are therefore less than perfectly adapted to a complex information society. Surely there're possible features the natural trial-and-error process hasn't hit upon? How about kinds of insight allowing to think in 11-dimensional space and understand non-linear dynamics and time dilation as intuitively as the fall of an apple. There's probably a vast so far unexplored possibility space of modes of mind as enigmatical to our standard human imagination as romantic love to an ant or poetry to a gerbil.

Sep 27, 2004 2:13pm: "From this increase of intelligence, several effects may be confidently anticipated. First: that they will become even less willing than at present to be led and governed, and directed into the way they should go, by the mere authority and prestige of superiors. [..] The theory of dependence and protection will be more and more intolerable to them, and they will require that their conduct and condition shall be essentially self-governed." (John Stuart Mill)

The Principality of New Utopia: Sep 21, 2004 12:34am 1 review hedonism
http://new-utopia.com/; This project seems to be floundering, but the idea of building a 'land of the free' from scratch will likely resurface in one form or other.

Please login or join to view older archives