New Viewpoints – Page 32

Animals, Art, Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, Education, Entertainment, New Discoveries, New Viewpoints

Ferrofluid Sculpture

February 4, 2012

I just learned about Ferrofluid today. It can do some amazing things, like this video shows. After the jump is a second video explaining HOW ferrofluid works.

From the YouTube descriptioin:

A steel sculpture with changing magnetisation is coated with ferrofluid.
The fluid is pulled in the direction of increasing flux density and forms peaks, which become smaller in higher flux density. At an accumulation of fluid at ridges, the flux density at the surface decreases. The flow and the distribution of the fluid can be observed at several characteristic locations…

Continue reading… “Ferrofluid Sculpture”

Art, Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, Entertainment, Great Videos, New Viewpoints

Unplayable piece used to test player pianos

February 4, 2012

It’s called “Circus Galop” or “Death Waltz”, and it’s used to test the performance of player pianos. No single person has ever played it…so far. But if we can put a man on the moon, surely we can genetically engineer a superhuman species that can perform it…

Continue reading… “Unplayable piece used to test player pianos”

Analysis, Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, Entertainment, New Viewpoints

Numbers as letters

February 3, 2012

Leet in action.

You are most likely familiar with numbers being used to implicate letters, phrases or even symbols. In SMS (txting) shortcuts, for instance, 2 can also be used for “to”, 4 can mean “for” and the 8 spells “eat” in gr8, meaning great. This is called SMSish or textese or simply SMS language.

When numbers instead of letters are used to spell a whole word it is called leet – which, in leet, is written as 1337. Another example is n00b, a term for newbie. Andsoforth.

Leet originated in the 1980s in relay chat services and on bulletin boards. If you look at it for the first time it might seem difficult to understand but you’ll be surprised how quickly you will catch it. Train your brain with this example of leet…

Continue reading… “Numbers as letters”

Analysis, Business, Latest Trend, New Viewpoints, Science & Technology News

2 Billion Jobs to Disappear by 2030

February 20, 2012

A picture of me speaking at yesterday’s TEDxReset in Istanbul.

Futurist Thomas Frey: Yesterday I was honored to be one of the featured speakers at the TEDxReset Conference in Istanbul, Turkey where I predicted that over 2 billion jobs will disappear by 2030. Since my 18-minute talk was about the rapidly shifting nature of colleges and higher education, I didn’t have time to explain how and why so many jobs would be going away. Because of all of the questions I received afterwards, I will do that here.

Continue reading… “2 Billion Jobs to Disappear by 2030”

Crazy Stuff, Current Events, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives, New Viewpoints

According to the FDA, your stem cells are now drugs

February 2, 2012

This ruling makes it physically impossible NOT to be on drugs.

In recent court filings, the Food and Drug Administration has asserted that stem cells—you know, the ones our bodies produce naturally—are in fact drugs and subject to its regulatory oversight. So does that make me (or you) a controlled substance?

Continue reading… “According to the FDA, your stem cells are now drugs”

Architecture, Art, Award Winner, Breakthrough Thinking, New Viewpoints

Wild parking garage design from Interface Studio Architects

February 2, 2012

Standing tall in with award winning architectural innovation.

Interface Studio Architects won TreeHugger’s Best of Green prize in 2010 for their gritty urban work. They demonstrated a paradigm-busting playfulness with their frenetic Granary project. They write: “We believe that creativity and innovation are triggered by limitations.”

But clearly, when there are no limitations, they go a bit wild and crazy, as they appear to have while competing to design a parking garage in Hong Kong. They describe the project…

Continue reading… “Wild parking garage design from Interface Studio Architects”

Art, Breakthrough Thinking, Entertainment, New Discoveries, New Viewpoints

Leaves made from human hair

February 2, 2012

Reality is a delicate art.

Jenine Shereos’s delicate leaf sculptures look like the real thing from a distance, but they’re actually made of hair. She made them by stitching the hairs together on a backing, then dissolving that backing in water…

Continue reading… “Leaves made from human hair”

Analysis, New Viewpoints, Science & Technology News

Revolutionary new theory says ‘inanimate’ objects also alive

January 30, 2012

Earth is alive.

A revolutionary new theory asserts that even so-called inanimate matter — DNA, water and planets included — are all alive.

Continue reading… “Revolutionary new theory says ‘inanimate’ objects also alive”

Analysis, Big Problems, Corporate Manipulation, Crazy Stuff, Culture, Current Events, Economy, Globalism, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, New Viewpoints

Is there any hope for a non-genetically modified future in America, or Africa?

January 29, 2012

It is really only a matter of time before our food crisis becomes crippling.

In the past few days a number of interesting articles have been circulating, all discussing genetically modified crops and starkly different versions of the future of food. One one hand we have the state of affairs in the US. On the other we have the future Bill Gates would like to manifest in Africa, all in the supremely laudable goal of reducing poverty and hunger, which looks an awful like the current situation in America.

It’s not a pretty picture, for people, for farmers, for the planet…

Continue reading… “Is there any hope for a non-genetically modified future in America, or Africa?”

Art, Education, Entertainment, New Viewpoints

Fibonacci Numbers, Lucas Numbers, and the way plants grow

January 28, 2012

The highly entertaining Vi Hart is back with another episode of Doodling in Math Class. Her videos are fun to watch, clear and easy to understand, and express the joy of scientific discovery: Continue reading… “Fibonacci Numbers, Lucas Numbers, and the way plants grow”

Art, Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, Historical Perspectives, New Discoveries, New Viewpoints

Tour the underground missile silo home

January 24, 2012

Haven’t you had dreams like this?

You’ve probably seen the ad for this underground missile base in New York state that’s been on the market for some time. Now you have a chance to take a virtual tour! Scout from Scouting New York went to the site and the owners were gracious enough to let him look around and take plenty of pictures…

Continue reading… “Tour the underground missile silo home”

Analysis, Breakthrough Thinking, New Discoveries, New Viewpoints

Old electric car batteries to find second life on the power grid

January 20, 2012

The Nissan Leaf batteries have extended value beyond powering the car.

Reincarnation for Lithium-Ion

It’s not because a battery pack isn’t good enough for an electric or hybrid car anymore that it should go directly to a recycling plant. There are lots of potential secondary uses for batteries that can still hold more than half of their original charge. Articles have already been written about how they could be used to store wind power to reduce the intermittency problem, but a new partnership between Nissan North-America, ABB, 4R Energy, and Sumitomo Corporation of America believes that used electric car batteries (Nissan LEAF ones, in this case) could be used for residential and commercial energy storage, even acting as emergency back-up during natural disasters like last year’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan…

Continue reading… “Old electric car batteries to find second life on the power grid”