The term clean meat does not refer to the act of actually cleaning a piece of meat but rather the technology of producing meat in a laboratory through cell replication. How does that work? Well, it’s just easier to watch this video that gives you a nice intro on the subject:
When people tell me they are worried about the incoming robot revolution, I know they’ve probably seen a clickbaity article based on some well-known quote by a famous person (like Elon Musk) in which they predict an artificial intelligence-based doom for humanity. Either that or they’ve seen Ex Machina or the latest episode of Westworld or some other catastrophic movie, tv-show or book on the aforementioned theme.
This is a normal reaction. It’s the same with sharks. Even though they are responsible for a very small fraction of human deaths in the entire world per year (less that vending machines), people still have that image of the relentless killing machine from Jaws. So, the same concept applies to artificial intelligence and the image of the impending robopocalypse.
I’ve always been a fan of podcasts ever since I bought my first iPod (which is now over a decade ago), because I’m able to listen to them anywhere while doing other things (like driving, cooking, etc.). And the world of podcasting content has only gotten better. In the past few years, podcasts have gain more notoriety and stopped being viewed as that niche media that only geeks use. They have become massive online repositories of interesting audio content, specially after major radio broadcasting networks have adhered to this format so intensively.
But one of the things that I like the most about podcasts is the freedom they give to content creators to go back to one of the most interesting features that radio broadcasting used to have: telling smaller less-known stories about individuals or places that you may not have heard before. And I’ve been focusing more on listening this kind of podcasts.
I’ve always found Carl Sagan’s voice very hypnotic (if you haven’t yet, go listen to one of his audiobooks – one narrated by him, of course), allowing me to carry my imagination into faraway worlds.
This short film depicts some of those worlds with the ambition that only Carl Sagan’s words fuel:
In 1959, Isaac Asimov wrote this essay on creativity, postulating on the elements that fostered creativity in humans. As usual, he was right and I have a story from my PhD that somehow proves his statements.
The story proves the baseline argument from the essay: isolation is definitely necessary but it’s the informal discussions within small groups that allows the teams to nurture novel concepts and apply abstract ideas to other environments.
I’ve never been a petrolhead and engines, in general, have always been a mystery to me. Then I found this beautiful set of animations that explains the whole thing.
Fully recommended!
Imagine that the typical money-for-ransom is traded with a weird request like: “If you want to get your dear princess back, the prime-minister will have to have sexual intercourse with a pig on live television.” Will the prime-minister do it? Or more importantly, in a heavily socialized society where viral content dominates the people’s attention span, would they want him to do it and would they watch?
Or imagine that you live in a future where the most common way of making an income is to work on huge energy-production buildings where people pedal specialized stationary bikes to produce the energy that the rest of the world will consume. The alternative of leading this boring and tiresome life is to become a star in worldwide-broadcast reality shows that range from singing or pornography to physical abuse. Is everything better than the bike?
Or imagine instead that everyone has a brain implant that allows recording and reviewing every memory they have ever had and, by using a small external device, people can simply rewind and fast-forward to a particular memory and display it on a nearby TV for everyone to see. Now imagine you suspect your wife is cheating on you and you over-analyse every memory that you have of her with the guy you suspect she’s having the affair with. How long would it take you to go insane?