Undead Astronauts

I missed this by a few months, but better late than never. Edge.org again asked some of the world’s preeminent thinkers a question and put up the responses. See the responses here.

Sample excerpt from Sean Carrol (physicist) – The Pointless Universe:

Human beings like to insist that there are reasons why things happen. The death of a child, the crash of an airplane, or a random shooting must be explained in terms of the workings of a hidden plan.  When Pat Robertson suggested that Hurricane Katrina was caused in part by God’s anger at America’s failing morals, he was attempting to provide an explanatory context for a seemingly inexplicable event.

Nature teaches us otherwise.  Things happen because the laws of nature say they will — because they are the consequences of the state of the universe and the path of its evolution.  Life on Earth doesn’t arise in fulfillment of a grand scheme, but rather as a byproduct of the increase of entropy in an environment very far from equilibrium.  Our impressive brains don’t develop because life is guided toward greater levels of complexity and intelligence, but from the mechanical interactions between genes, organisms, and their surroundings.

None of which is to say that life is devoid of purpose and meaning. Only that these are things we create, not things we discover out there in the fundamental architecture of the world. The world keeps happening, in accordance with its rules; it’s up to us to make sense of it and give it value.

So I’m gonna get into webcomics. I have two ideas right now. The first is tentatively titled “Blue Platypus”, which is about a group of college friends.
I did this sketch of the cast over Spring Break, ignore the title in the picture.

The other idea is called Family Zhu (or Zu, or Zoo – I haven’t settled on a name yet),  which is about a Chinese American family living in the suburbs.

I have limited access to a scanner, but I’ll post more tidied up images of the comics as I flesh the ideas out.

More Quest Crew awesomeness.

Shenzhen - Top 10 World City by 2025

Foreign Policy has an article with a number of charts showing the projected status of world cities in 2025. China makes an impressive showing, placing 7 cities in the top 25 based on GDP. Indeed, in the top 600 cities China is adding 100 new cities, while India, sometimes considered China’s Asian competitor, adds just 13. Obviously China has been rising for the past 30 years, but I didn’t really appreciate the magnitude of change. It’s frankly astounding to see some of these charts.

The other side to the rise of China’s cities is that other cities must be displaced. Take a look at this chart and theorize where the action is going to be in the future.

It might be a good time to learn some Chinese.

So much trash… I can’t wait for this to come out already.

Via AAM.

1. As I’ve mentioned previously, sports will increase brain efficiency even in cases like walking across the street. Athletes process and make faster decisions than non-athletes. The interesting thing is that researchers tested this with what amounted to a video game. I predict that pro gamers would fare just as well as the athletes if given the same test.
2. Can you spot criminals just by looking at their face? It turns out that sometimes you can. Out of 32 random young white guys with half having been convicted of a violent crime, most people will do better than chance in guessing which of them have committed a crime. I got 11 of 16 where the expected rate would be 8. They should repeat this study with other races and see if the results hold. Can non-blacks tell a convicted black criminal from a law-abiding one? What about Asians? I wonder if a study like this would even have much meaning in other contexts – like in Japan, the home of no looters ever. I don’t think China or Taiwan had much looting after their quakes either.

You shouldn’t steal at all, but if you’re stealing laptops then wipe the thing before using it. Or at least don’t do anything embarrassing. Can’t wait to see what else Mark has on this guy.

http://www.switched.com/2011/03/22/mark-bao-tracks-laptop-thief/