Norway Trains Its Diplomats in Black Metal

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Black Metal musicians commonly wear facepaint.

Black metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music that, to an extent, originated in Norway. It’s gaining increasing popularity across the world and is an emerging symbol of Norwegian culture. So to ensure that Norway’s official representatives can speak intelligently about it, the government is training diplomats on the subject…

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The Rise of the Cause-Architect

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Futurist Thomas Frey:  In 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed into law the famous Emancipation Proclamation, a piece of legislation that gave freedom to all of the slaves. But true freedom was still a century away for those who lived in the black vs. white world leading up to the Civil Rights movement, an effort that began in earnest in the 1950s.

 

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Energy Poverty: India’s Best Kept Secret

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If you have no electricity in your village, you are energy impoverished.

During a business luncheon with the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) in India for World Environment Day, there was a lot of talk of the steps to take to give India’s economy a green makeover and why it’s important to do so. The speeches by Minister Ramesh and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner were inspiring and made the idea of a green economy concrete and understandable. Something that befuddled me, however, was that there was no mention of energy poverty, or the electrification of rural villages on the agenda. Did I miss something?

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French Engineer Wants To Tug Icebergs To Parched Saudi Arabia

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Go, go gadget iceberg.

The man who can sell icebergs to eskimo may be a great salesman, but the guy who can tug icebergs to Saudi Arabia will be remembered as an engineering genius.

French engineer Georges Mougin may be that man.Fast Company reports that ever since the 1970s, he’s been working on a method to tow freshwater icebergs across the Arctic. Now, with 3-D tech, declassified satellite data, and tugboats, he might have cracked the way to quench the world’s thirst…

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Top 10 Most Extreme Substances

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How much do you know about extreme substances.

What are the most extreme substances in the world? No, not Mountain Dew;  this list compiles and gives the details on the hottest, most flammable and most acidic substances known to man. One of which can melt through twelve layers of concrete.

What do you get when you stack carbon nanotubes on their ends and sandwich them together? A material that absorbs 99.9% of the light that touches it…

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University Launches Degree in Comic Books

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Finally you can get a degree in comic books!

A Scottish university is to offer the UK’s first degree in comics. Dundee University said the one-year Masters in Comic Studies would be launched by its English department in September 2011.

The degree is built on “strong local traditions” in the comic book industry, the university said. Dennis the Menace, Desperate Dan, Oor Wullie and the Broons, the inventions of Dundee-based publishers DC Thomson and Co, were all born in the city…

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Talk-o-Meter Shows How Much Each Person in a Conversation Talks

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Now you can visually show who is the blabbermouth.

Talk-o-Meter is a new chat-monitoring iPhone app that shows when someone is dominating a conversation. After brief calibration, the app can recognize who is speaking and keeps track of each person’s talk time.”

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Want To Keep Your Eyesight? Study Shows Getting More Sunshine Is Key Factor

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Quantity of sunlight and eyesight have a direct correlation.

About two years ago, I was at a conference and one of the presenters brought up her idea that a significant cause of nearsightedness is the fact that so many of us spend most of the time indoors staring at computer screens, or in confined enough urban spaces that we don’t keep our eyes practiced at looking far into the distance. Turns out, she wasn’t too far off, though getting out in the open more is less about using our eyes for watching the distance and more about getting some sunlight. New research shows that if we want to prevent nearsightedness, we need to get outside into the sun.

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Apple Now Monetizing Pirated Content

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iTunes in the Cloud has one more good thing.

At WWDC 2011, Steve Jobs unveiled iTunes in the Cloud and “one more thing” goodie iTunes Match, a move that TuneCore CEO and founder Jeff Price believes will monetize piracy and reset the music industry.

iTunes in the Cloud will allow users to download any songs purchased in iTunes to all of their devices, at no extra charge (up to 5GB of music). Once the service is launched — likely Monday — any music purchased on iTunes from here will be synced automatically…

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Discover the Hidden Patterns of Tomorrow with Futurist Thomas Frey
Unlock Your Potential, Ignite Your Success.

By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.

Learn More about this exciting program.