Clipmarks | Exponential Clips

Quartet failing in the Middle East

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:53:14 GMT

clipped by: pedrgon

In a damning report, the agencies say the Quartet - Russia, the US, the EU and the UN - is failing in its mission.

Conditions for Palestinians, which it was meant to improve, have worsened since peace talks recommenced under US sponsorship in 2007, the agencies say.

In the West Bank there was an increase in Israeli settlement and travel curbs.

"Nearly one year on, we are seeing exponential settlement growth, additional check-points and - because of this - further economic stagnation.

The coalition of 21 aid agencies - including Oxfam, Save the Children, Care, Cafod and World Vision - warned that the peace process would fall apart unless the Quartet made swift and dramatic progress towards its goals.

The report says there has been no change in a number of the 10 main objectives set by the Quartet to help improve the daily lives of the Palestinians and in five of them an actual deterioration.

Tags: middle east, israel, palestine, quartet, ong

Cell Phone Dangers -- What They Don't Want You to See

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:22:04 GMT

clipped by: murieleileen

Clip Source: articles.mercola.com

[Video]

You need to see this video about the rapidly emerging dangers from cell phone radiation.

Here Dr. Charlie Tia, a preeminent Australian neurosurgeon discusses what he believes is a contributing factor to this exponential increase in brain tumors among children: excessive exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMF), and electromagnetic radiation (EMR) from mobile phones and other electrical and electronic equipment and appliances.

Few people realize this, but brain cancer has now surpassed leukemia as the number one cancer killer in children.

Australia has seen an increase in pediatric brain cancers of 21 percent in just one decade. This is consistent with studies showing a 40 percent brain tumor increase across the board in Europe and the U.K. over the last 20 years.

we are quite literally awash in an invisible sea of radio frequencies (RF) and electromagnetic fields (EMF). Sources include home electrical wiring, electrical appliances such as TVs, electric blankets, electric alarm clocks,

Tags: cell phones, dangers, cancer, brain tumors, children, leukimia

Cell Phone Dangers -- What They Don't Want You to See

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:37:09 GMT

clipped by: mugofcoffee

Clip Source: articles.mercola.com

[Video]

You need to see this video about the rapidly emerging dangers from cell phone radiation.

Pioneering Research in Neuromorphic Electronics that Function Like the Biological Brain

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 12:36:58 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: The HRL team's ultimate goal is to build a low-power, compact electronic chip combining a novel analog circuit design and a neuroscience-inspired architecture that can address a wide range of cognitive abilities--perception, planning, decision making, and motor control. In the initial two phases of the SyNAPSE program, the team will translate the neuronal and synaptic functions of the biological cortex into similar microelectronic functions.

Clip Source: www.alzheimer.ca

Clip Source: www.prweb.com

HRL Laboratories, LLC, will begin pioneering research to develop electronics that will simulate the cognitive capabilities and efficiencies of the biological brain.

The daunting undertaking is part of the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's (DARPA) SyNAPSE, or Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics, program. HRL will lead a group of industry and university research laboratories with expertise in core areas of neuro and cognitive science in the groundbreaking research.

Despite exponential advances in computing technology over the last decade, the limitations of hardware and architecture prohibit computers from functioning independently in real-world scenarios. The goal of the SyNAPSE program is to bridge biology and electronics and establish a new paradigm for creating more intelligent machines that can interact with, react to, and actually learn from their environments.

Tags: technology, neuromorphic electronics, electronics

Invest In Disruptive Innovation

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:12:57 GMT

clipped by: Tina Russo
clipper's remarks: Leslie Feinzaig tells you more about creative disruption and provides eight disruptive companies that provided superior returns to investors.

Clip Source: www.forbes.com

In a world of perfect information, a public company’s stock price would precisely reflect the present value of its future earnings. But there is no such thing as perfect information.

It makes sense, then, that there is a lot of money to be made from accurate forecasting. A return-seeking investor would love the ability to spot surprises--positive or negative--before the market does. Our readers know that disruptive innovators promise exponential returns. And incumbents targeted by disruptors can surprisingly stumble.

So, given the market impact of disruption, it is somewhat surprising that the body of research on disruptive innovation is not generally applied to financial analysis and forecasting.

Clayton Christensen’s seminal works have had a profound impact on industry practitioners, with a growing number of prominent companies incorporating disruptive initiatives into their innovation pipeline in order to achieve growth.

Tags: clayton christensen, disruption, google, forecasting

Google Index Reaches 1 Trillion URLs

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:03:19 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Some evidence for the exponential growth of information.

Clip Source: www.informationweek.com

Three years after Google (NSDQ: GOOG) declared that its index was three times larger than any other search engine and then declined to cite a specific number to support that claim

Well, Google has its yardstick in hand once again.

Two Google engineers on Friday said that Google's index of the Web now contains 1 trillion unique URLs.

In 1998, when Google opened for business, it had 26 million URLs.

By 2000, it had reached 1 billion.

In 2005, Google claimed it had more than 8 billion Web pages in its index, at least until it took the index count off its home page.

In 2008, Google's measure of the Web is 1 trillion Web pages.

So it appears that Google's index is exploding with new Web pages. From 2000 to 2005, Google's index grew by a factor of 8. From 2005 to 2008, it grew by a factor of 125.

There you have evidence of the information explosion that Google and other companies are trying to fight through the Information Overload Research Group.

Maybe.

Tags: singularity, information explosion, accelerating change

The Ultimate Asshole's Cafepress Store

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 01:38:29 GMT

clipped by: graphictruth
clipper's remarks: Assholes create enemies at an exponential rate, and right now, our foreign policy is being determined either by assholes like this, or the fools who PANDER to assholes like this, apparently ignorant of the brutal reality of legitimizing the opinions of Camaro-Driving Assholes.

I found the one you see at the top of the story. And that's your GraphicTruth for the day and a succinct summation of WHY civilized nations DO NOT FUCKING TORTURE PEOPLE.

Clip Source: www.graphictruth.com

John McCain, heeere's your sign!

The Ultimate Asshole Bumpersticker is available at Cafepress.
Get it now, before it Evil Liberal Censorship causes it to disappear!

RIGHTREVOLUTION.COM: "WE HAD THE REAGAN REVOLUTION IN THE 80'S AND THE CONTRACT WITH AMERICA IN THE 90'S. NOW WE NEED A NEW RIGHT REVOLUTION TO CONFRONT ALL OF OUR ENEMIES IN THE 21ST CENTURY!"

As the saying goes; "Be careful what you wish for, you might get it."

One of several products you can find in my Anti-Torture Shop.

Connections: Life Sciences @ the science museum

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 19:38:19 GMT

clipped by: rachaelkeriwilliams

Clip Source: www.sciencebuff.org

Vital Energy
Participants explore sources and types of energy, and learn how to conserve it. Topics may include wind and solar energy, exponential growth, simple machines, energy flow in a food web, decomposition, food chemistry and electricity.

Water, Water Everywhere
Participants will explore topics such as the water cycle, the many states of water from its physical and chemical characteristics, to its connection to all earth systems, within social and cultural constructs and as a managed resource.

Nature’s Diversity
Participants explore nature's biodiversity, the variety of all life forms. They will discover how we depend on biodiversity for our survival and quality of life as well as how global warming is affecting it.

Cycle of Life
Participants discover the cyclic patterns in the universe. Explorations include life cycles, food webs, ecological cycles, nutrient cycles, and the reasons for the seasons.

For more information: Call Robin at 716.896.5200 x338

Are We in the Peak of an Oil Bubble?

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:14:04 GMT

clipped by: A53GG4

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

Are We in the Peak of an Oil Bubble?

By Lisa Zyga, Physics / Physics

This figure shows the total world oil demand and supply (left scale) and the oil price (right scale) from 2004 to the first quarter of 2008. Data from: International Energy Agency and US Energy Information Administration (http://www.eia.doe.gov/ emeu/international/ oilother.html). Image credit: D. Sornette, et al.

Since 2003, worldwide oil prices have quadrupled. According to a new study, the price of oil is rising at a faster-than-exponential rate, and cannot be sustained. In other words, we’re in the midst of an oil bubble, say researchers Didier Sornette and Ryan Woodard of ETH Zurich in Switzerland and Wei-Xing Zhou of the East China University of Science and Technology in Shanghai, China.

By analyzing oil prices over the past four years, the researchers have demonstrated more support for the hypothesis that the recent oil price run-up has less to do with supply-demand interplay and more to do with speculation.

Tags: science

The Six Great Mega-Trajectories of Evolution on Earth -Is There a Seventh?

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:10:27 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: This boils down to a fascinating fact, that culture actually accelerates biological evolution and doesn't slow it down.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Milan Ćirković of the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade, and one of the world's leading authorities on astrobiology and the evolution of galaxies and baryonic dark matter, has outlined along with philosopher Robert Bradbury the six great mega-trajectories of the biological evolution on Earth:

1. From the origin of life to the ”Last Common Ancestor"

2. Prokaryote diversification

3. Unicellular eukaryote diversification

4. Multicellularity

5. Invasion of the land

6. Appearance of intelligence and technology.

a new study examining data from an international genomics project describes the past 40,000 years as a time of supercharged evolutionary change, driven by exponential population growth and cultural shifts.

Employing this test, the researchers found evidence of recent selection on approximately 1,800 genes, or 7 percent of all human genes.

This finding runs counter to conventional wisdom in many ways

The biggest new pathway for selection relates to disease resistance

Tags: evolution, human evolution

Where the Linear Crosses the Exponential

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 10:46:52 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: as always, a fascinating read from K.Kelly at the Technium

Clip Source: www.kk.org

All extropic systems -- economy, nature and technology -- are governed by self-accelerating feedback cycles. Like compounding interest, or virtuous circles, they are powered by increasing returns. Success breeds success. There is a long tail of incremental build up and then as they keep doubling every cycle, they explode out of invisibility into significance. Extropic systems can also collapse in the same self-accelerating way, one subtraction triggering many other subtractions, so in a vicious cycle the whole system implodes. Our view of the future is warped and blinded by these exponential curves.

But while progress runs on exponential curves, our individual lives proceed in a linear fashion. We live day by day by day. While we might think time flies as we age, it really trickles out steadily. Today will always be more valuable than some day in the future, in large part because we have no guarantee we'll get that extra day

Ditto for civilizations

Tags: ecology, investment, extropic systems, future, environment

No Time for the Singularity

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:24:30 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.worldchanging.com

Scientists like to low-ball their estimates. The now-famous IPCC scenarios for the effects of climate change are already known to be woefully, unrealistically conservative (Freeman Dyson's recent comments notwithstanding). Arctic changes expected 20 years from now are happening now, and in North America the beginning of spring has already been pushed back by two weeks, which is enough to play havoc with the fertility cycle of many migratory birds (among other consequences). The worst-case scenarios used in public debate ignore some extremely worrisome factors, such as the possible release of oceanic methane from clathrates. If we're going to deal with this problem, we have to do it now, as in, within the term of your next government.

The ultimate in technological optimism is the idea of the technological singularity, which posits that technological advance is exponential and, driven by progress in artificial intelligence, will soon hit the vertical slope of the curve.

Tags: singularity, scenarios

The Law of Accelerating Returns

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:12:24 GMT

clipped by: skwirlinator

Clip Source: www.kurzweilai.net

The Law of Accelerating Returns

An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense "intuitive linear" view. So we won't experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century -- it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today's rate). The "returns," such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. There's even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity -- technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. The implications include the merger of biological and nonbiological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light.

Published on KurzweilAI.net March 7, 2001.

Tags: the law of accelerating returns, kurzweilai, ray kurzweil

Is the Future Too Good to Be True?

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:22:38 GMT

clipped by: A53GG4

Clip Source: www.mindpowernews.com

Is the Future Too Good to Be True?

By John Tierney
Source: New York Times

Before we get to Ray Kurzweil’s plan for upgrading the “suboptimal software” in your brain, let me pass on some of the cheery news he brought to the World Science Festival last week in New York.

Do you have trouble sticking to a diet? Have patience. Within 10 years, Dr. Kurzweil explained, there will be a drug that lets you eat whatever you want without gaining weight.

Worried about greenhouse gas emissions? Have faith. Solar power may look terribly uneconomical at the moment, but with the exponential progress being made in nanoengineering, Dr. Kurzweil calculates that it’ll be cost-competitive with fossil fuels in just five years, and that within 20 years all our energy will come from clean sources.

Are you depressed by the prospect of dying?

Well, if you can hang on another 15 years, your life expectancy will keep rising every year faster than you’re aging.

Tags: psychology

The End of Money

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:08:41 GMT

clipped by: rustajb

Clip Source: chrismartenson.com

The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. ~Dr. Albert Bartlett

Money supply growth has gone parabolic. It took us from 1620 until 1974 to create the first $1 trillion of US money stock. Every road, factory, bridge, school, factory, and house built, every unit of economic transaction that ever took place over those first 350 years required the creation of $1 trillion in money stock. But it only took 10 months [edit: 2006 data] to create the most recent $1 trillion and I don't recall seeing an entire continent's worth of factories, schools or bridges built during that time. [Edit: that figure is now an astonishing 4.5 months as of March 2008]

Household debt has doubled in only 6 years. Think about that for a minute.

Total credit market debt (that's everything) was about $5 trillion in 1975, has increased by $5 trillion in just 2 years, and now stands at over $51 trillion.

Our monetary system must continually expand, forever.