I will certainly check it out if it comes to fruition; but I'm not sure how enthusiastic anyone will be about this. 'Heroes' was an interesting and entertaining take on the superhero genre and I enjoyed it a lot… for the first season… enjoyed a fair bit for the second… kind of enjoyed it for the third season… then watched more out of habit. The ratings reflected that I was not the only one whose enthusiasm and interest waned over the series.

Importantly, just how is MSN/Xbox going to go about this? Are they going to try and bring back as much of the onscreen talent as they can from H:TOS and pick up with where those characters are 4-5 years later? Are they going to use the premise and aesthetic of the show and introduce entirely new characters and storylines? It is also telling that, even though I watched every episode, I can't really bring to mind how the series ended? In comparison, ask me how Firefly ended off?

Now, if I were in the room, I might want to raise my hand and point out that Microsoft actually owns the intellectual property rights to Halo, which probably has a lot more relevance, interest and mindshare than a TV series that faded off the airwaves years ago due to a declining audience?

Or how about creating an original series that could lend itself to expansion into a platform and media spanning franchise?

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Exclusive: MSN/Xbox Eye Heroes Revival
Save the cheerleader, launch a new programming initiative? MSN, which is making a big push into original programming via Xbox, is in talks to revive NBC’s superhero drama Heroes, TVLine has learned……

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+TED simply wanted to remain respectable to legitimate scientists but didn't keep as much oversight on the speakers as they should have. The result was that several people managed to get up on stage and spin wild fantasies while pretending to be rational scientists. When this was brought to the attention of the staff at TED, they took steps to limit the damage that these silly men had done.

The Huffington Post on the other hand, was more than happy to give those silly men a soapbox to rail against the "censorship" of TED for daring to stipulate the barest level of logic and support from science before speakers could pretend they were doing science.

Those like +Deepak Chopra should just be more honest and state flat out that they, like astrology, are "for entertainment purposes only" and nothing they say should be taken seriously by the grownups.

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Dear TED, Is It ‘Bad Science’ or a ‘Game of Thrones’?
It surprised the millions of admirers of TED, whose conferences attract wide attention to new, cutting-edge ideas, when that organization recently decided to practice semi-censorship.

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I actually see this as a good thing. I like that Charles and David would rather spend their money buying newspapers to try and convince people to a cause that is financially less self interested than if they just spent the same money currying favour with the ruling class… you know, like +General Electric, Haliburton or +Goldman Sachs.

Right now, there is no bigger return on investment than buying politicians. Over the last decade, a few hundred million dollars into Washington returned several trillion dollars to the crony capitalists who played the game. And rest assured that this is a bipartisan game, Bush II was ramping up the favour mongering fast before Obama took the baton and carried it on without wavering. Ignore the empty partisan rhetoric, take away a few showboating bits of legislation, step back a few paces and take a look at the fundamentals of government actions… one could be forgiven for thinking we were watching George W. Bush's fourth term.

Very much to their credit, Koch Industries does not want to play the game. The money they spend in politics hasn't been to purchase largess, subsidies or bailouts… it has been specifically targeted to try and eliminate those cornerstones of fascism and corporatism. They haven't been donating to the Republicans because they agree with the entire platform… but because even if their actions tend to negate it, their message on economics has been the lesser of two evils. Even though their forays into politics hasn't been particularly effective, it has won the Koch Brothers the undying hatred of progressives who understand that an attack on political cronyism also attacks their ability to use the threat of ruling class violence to force everyone to live by their personal ideological bias. Progressives demand to somehow limit cronyism to their causes alone… I'm not sure on the legislative legaleze that would accomplish that?

The greater balance of media has a left bias, while some talk radio and Fox News has a right bias… I would love to have a media outlet that steps off that spectrum and focuses on the libertarian ideal of free minds and free markets. +Reason Magazine has been a lonely champion of social and economic liberty for a long time.

This article was surprisingly less antagonistic than would be expected from the very left leaning +The New York Times. I suspect that the original draft of the article may have been a lot more vitriolic but some editor saw the irony of a biased screed against the idea of someone else's bias seeing print. Although, Amy couldn't help completely misunderstanding the very concept of a "free press"; a free press is one that is free from regulation and censorship by the ruling class… the author and editors seem to be working under the axiom that free press means individual authors writing articles that confirms their bias.

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Koch Brothers Making Play for Tribune’s Newspapers
Charles and David Koch, the billionaire industrialists and supporters of libertarian causes, are exploring a bid to buy the Tribune Company’s eight regional newspapers.

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While Joseph Kosinski and Travis Beacham have both shown great skill with the beautiful spectacle of sci-fi, this is an opportunity for them to really showcase the speculative side of science fiction.

It is funny that I have been mulling over the possible markets for a detective series set on a space station and AMC was on the list. Evidently "Ballistic City" is to be a police series set on a space*ship* rather than a space*station*, and it looks to be set a lot further into the future than the ten-twenty years that I was envisioning.

Also, citing 'Blade Runner' and 'Battlestar Galactica', two of my all time favorite film and television works, is not hurting their case.

If there is one bit of input I could convey to them? I am begging you, please make it hard science fiction and the spaceship an "Island Three" O'Neill Cylinder! It would have all the drama and excitement you are looking for while making rabid fans of the hardcore space advocates and giving firmer ground for those who usually switch away from the warping spaceships and bumpy headed aliens. If there is a network open to trying something new like that, it is AMC

So Mr. Kosinski, unleash the inner architect and design a generation ship that could actually be built. Then, the two of you can just imagine the social and dramatic possibilities inherent in two counter rotating cylinders, 5 miles in diameter and twenty miles long! They could each hold a hundred thousand people. Two city states inexorably connected but with different ideology on how society should function. The contrast, conflict and cooperation between the unfettered police powers (put in place with all good intentions of course) on one side- and the more liberty loving side where our protagonist struggles to work within the rules.

If I could convey a second item to them? I am available if you are still staffing up the writing room?

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AMC Developing Sci-Fi Drama From Joseph Kosinski, Hollywood Witch Hunt Project
AMC has put in development Ballistic City, a futuristic drama directed and executive produced by Oblivion helmer Joseph Kosinski and written/executive prod

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+Peter Nowak wrote an article that starts from a point I will agree with, that dedicated e-readers do not have much of a future, and then extrapolates out to the evolution of the e-books that I don't agree with… which triggers a thought that brings me somewhat back into agreement with him.

Reading is the most immersive of our storytelling experiences. When I am reading a truly well written story, my mind is fully engaged in creating that story's world… and the real world that surrounds me fades into the background.

The very idea of "stop-motion animation, digital paintings, music and gaming elements such as achievements" is the very antithesis of immersive as it drags you out of the story at every turn. Any element that forces you to stop reading and shift your mental state pulls you out of the story and collapses the carefully constructed world that you have been building in your mind.

But there is an element in there that doesn't have to pull you out of the story, the "music" portion of that list caught my eye. I would be interested in at least trying to create an e-book that had a score and very subtle sound effects. If we could cue the audio off what is being read, I think it might be possible to pull the reader deeper into the story rather than rudely yank them out of it with those other distractions. It might require eye tracking or the timing of page turns might be accurate enough to cue subtle sound effects that aren't word by word playback.

I could imagine a horror novel that, as the reader follows the character into the house that is supposed to be abandoned, the surround sound headphones relay the wind through the broken windows, the creak of your own footsteps and then…. then, slowly building right behind, the soft whisper of a breath.

No, I don't mean anybody reading the body of the work and no actors reading the dialogue; audio books have their time and place. What I would like to try is a toned down folly artist creating an atmosphere that supports what is being read without drawing undue attention to itself.

I am less enamoured with a musical score that accompanies what is being read… even though I suspect others would find it more engaging than I. Humans are inherently subject to emotional manipulation through musical cues and I suspect that, if it is done carefully and with respect to the words, it could pull us into the story rather than drop us out of it. I am thinking minimalist rather than orchestral… I suppose a fully scored e-book would allow the reader to choose the style and extent for themselves.

I suspect it is a matter of the senses being used. Our eyes are fully engaged in the reading process and forcing us to stop reading and watch something… I would appreciate that about as much as I would someone calling their friend from the theatre and loudly giving a cogent and well thought out review of the movie we are watching.

Our sense of hearing is not busy with the process of reading so I think that it can be used in a supporting role if it is done in a manner that is gentle enough not to disturb the primary intellectual role of reading, supporting the mental world building taking place.

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E-books have a lot more evolution left in them
The other day, when Canadian e-reader maker Kobo announced the release of its latest device – the Aura HD – I couldn’t help but wonder, “Who cares about e-readers anymore?” With the price, size and……

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This is a very cool infograph that live updates off a google document as new information is added. It cuts through the marketing and shyster BS and gets to the peer reviewed, double blind studies using humans.

So no anecdotal nonsense from people trying to sell you a placebo and no fanatics showing too much white around the eyes as they spin conspiracy theories about the medical industrial complex covering up that palm oil cures every disease known to man- just so they can keep selling their expensive drugs and treatments.

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Information Is Beautiful | Snake oil? Scientific evidence for health supplements
play with the interactive version | find out more about this image | post a comment | see the data | look at the previous version (Jan 2010). UPDATE 2 – 1st October 2010 -Top to bottom revise of the d…

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If "April showers" bring on May flowers, what do perpetual April snow flurries portend?

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Libertarians Stuck in Their Teens? Does That Mean Conservatives are Stuck in Their Tweens and Progressives in their Infancy?

Bill Maher keeps trashing libertarianism without seeming to understand it at all. The role of a libertarian state would simply be to ensure that people remain free from force, fraud or coercion by others. That "others" includes the ruling class themselves. Opposition to libertarianism is simply the bald statement that you wish to enlist the overwhelming force of the state to impose your ideology upon others by proxy.

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Bill Maher Trashes Libertarians: Movement Went ‘Nuts,’ ‘Intellectually Stuck In Their Teen Years’ | Mediaite
Bill Maher ended his show tonight by railing against a political movement he has aligned himself with in the past: libertarianism. He slammed the current wave of libertarians, among them Paul Ryan and…

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Reshared post from +Clint Johnson

What Would You Send to the Moon?

Even if it isn't +Bob Richards and +Moon Express supplying relatively "cheap" soft landings on the moon- it should happen within the decade. The question is, what small payloads would give the greatest return from the colonization point of view?

I really want to find out how we can best use the lunar regolith with the least processing. With so much of the regolith made up of micro fine powder, it strikes me as a highly potential manufacturing resource.

There is also some evidence the regolith isn't as homogenous as we have previously thought and I am curious how much concentration could be done without complex chemical reactions in large-ish factory settings?

My first payload to the lunar surface would be as many mechanical sifting, sorting and concentration tests as could be crammed onto the lander. What can be achieved with a dry sieve, shaker, centrifuge, electrical charge, and magnetic sorting methods? I would like to build it in a carousel platform that allowed stepping through the processes in any order and combination.

While that is going on, I would look at the 3D printing technologies that could make use of the separated regolith in as unprocessed a state as possible. What kind of 3D printing could we adapt to this if, and that is a big if, the regolith can be roughly sorted into relatively high concentrations of micro-fine powders of aluminum, nickel-iron or magnesium? Complex laser or microwave sintered aluminum alloy objects built to order on the moon could be a very valuable technology.

What is found on that first mission(s) would drive what technologies were sent on the subsequent missions as the 3D printers are sent and tested with the regolith.

While I think that the structural requirements for much of what we will be building in space points to using concentrated materials, it would actually be great if a 3D printer could be made to work with raw regolith to create items that don't have as high a demand on finished tolerances.

Anyone have a spare $100 million sitting around in a bank account doing nothing?

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Upstart Company Wants to Deliver Your Stuff to the Moon | Wired Science | Wired.com
Moon Express is a private startup working on one of the most audacious projects in the new space industry: they want to mine the moon. CEO Bob Richards explains the company’s plans to create a FedEx-l…

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Even if it isn't +Bob Richards and +Moon Express supplying relatively "cheap" soft landings on the moon- it should happen within the decade. The question is, what small payloads would give the greatest return from the colonization point of view?

I really want to find out how we can best use the lunar regolith with the least processing. With so much of the regolith made up of micro fine powder, it strikes me as a highly potential manufacturing resource.

There is also some evidence the regolith isn't as homogenous as we have previously thought and I am curious how much concentration could be done without complex chemical reactions in large-ish factory settings?

My first payload to the lunar surface would be as many mechanical sifting, sorting and concentration tests as could be crammed onto the lander. What can be achieved with a dry sieve, shaker, centrifuge, electrical charge, and magnetic sorting methods? I would like to build it in a carousel platform that allowed stepping through the processes in any order and combination.

While that is going on, I would look at the 3D printing technologies that could make use of the separated regolith in as unprocessed a state as possible. What kind of 3D printing could we adapt to this if, and that is a big if, the regolith can be roughly sorted into relatively high concentrations of micro-fine powders of aluminum, nickel-iron or magnesium? Complex laser or microwave sintered aluminum alloy objects built to order on the moon could be a very valuable technology.

What is found on that first mission(s) would drive what technologies were sent on the subsequent missions as the 3D printers are sent and tested with the regolith.

While I think that the structural requirements for much of what we will be building in space points to using concentrated materials, it would actually be great if a 3D printer could be made to work with raw regolith to create items that don't have as high a demand on finished tolerances.

Anyone have a spare $100 million sitting around in a bank account doing nothing?

Embedded Link

Upstart Company Wants to Deliver Your Stuff to the Moon | Wired Science | Wired.com
Moon Express is a private startup working on one of the most audacious projects in the new space industry: they want to mine the moon. CEO Bob Richards explains the company’s plans to create a FedEx-l…

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