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Category Archives: Transhuman News

A preview of self-censorship in the new political landscape – Minnesota Public Radio News (blog)

Posted: February 19, 2017 at 10:45 am

Over the next few months, therell be plenty of debate about the role of the government in funding public broadcasting.

The Trump administration reportedly has the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and a host of other cultural and arts organizations targeted for elimination.

Theres certainly a debate to be had over whether the government should provide financial assistance to a segment of the media it regulates and restricts how it can raise revenue. Theres no indication the administration nor Congress is interested in taking those restrictions off, a clear sign that the ultimate goal of politicians is to kill it.

But the New York Times media critic, Jim Rutenberg, has a cautionary tale of what can happen with a government that wants to control a message holds the money self-censorship; newsrooms that pull their punches because of the fear the government will cut the revenue.

When a Texas congressman took to the House floor to complain about the way the media has covered President Trump, a commentator for a San Antonio public TV station took notice.

Rick Casey wrote his commentary. The stations Facebook page promoted it with a nod to the upcoming broadcast.

And the stations CEO spiked it just before it was to go on the air.

When I caught up with Mr. Emerson this week he acknowledged making a mistake that should not tarnish a career spent mostly in broadcast news, starting in a $1.25-an-hour job as a cameraman. I had to make a decision in what was about 20 minutes, he said.

He acknowledged that clearly we always worry about funding for public television, but said that wasnt the principal reason for his decision to hold back the commentary. We have to protect the neutrality of the station somebody could have looked at it as slander, he said. The commentary label, he said, would take care of it.

Mr. Casey is satisfied with the result. But he acknowledged that it was a close call and that he was uniquely qualified to push back in a way others might not be. Im lucky to be in the position of being 70 years old, and not in the position of being 45, he said, meaning that job security was not the same issue. Theres no level of heroism here.

If you look at what David Brooks has said on the PBS NewsHour in his commentary with Mark Shields, hes been very forceful in his opposition to Trump, Casey told the San Antonio Express-News. So thats part of our brand, but its also part of our values. As a practical reality, if the Corporation for Public Broadcasting does lose its funding, Im too humble to think its because of a piece that I did down in San Antonio.

But the enemy of the American people is censorship, regardless of where the intimidation of an independent media originates.

Bob Collins has been with Minnesota Public Radio since 1992, emigrating to Minnesota from Massachusetts. He was senior editor of news in the 90s, ran MPRs political unit, created the MPR News regional website, invented the popular Select A Candidate, started the two most popular blogs in the history of MPR and every day laments that his Minnesota Fantasy Legislature project never caught on.

NewsCut is a blog featuring observations about the news. It provides a forum for an online discussion and debate about events that might not typically make the front page. NewsCut posts are not news stories but reflections , observations, and debate.

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A preview of self-censorship in the new political landscape - Minnesota Public Radio News (blog)

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BREAKING: Richard Spencer Kicked Out of ISFLC ’17 After Jeffrey Tucker Confrontation – The Libertarian Republic

Posted: at 10:45 am

LISTEN TO TLRS LATEST PODCAST:

by Micah J. Fleck

Just moments ago, at the latest International Students for Liberty Conference, White Nationalist and Alt-Right leader Richard Spencer had a heated confrontation with FEE head Jeffrey Tucker after the former had set up an impromptu booth in a dining hall at the hotel venue.

For close to an hour prior, Spencer sat and spoke with passerby as they questioned his being at the libertarian event and his societal views at large. Spencer at various points supported the idea of using state force to protect the rightful citizens of his ideal utopia from outsiders, as well as spoke very cynically and distrustfully of multiculturalism something he apparently thinks degrades culture and is therefore wary of.

Various attendees to the conference publicly shared or posted about the happening on Facebook and other social media, showing their unease.

Eventually, Tucker entered the scene and immediately berated Spencer. Fascists are not welcome at an anti-fascist conference! He shouted. This was met with cheers from those standing around the scene. Libertarianism is about human dignity, liberty for all, and not about fascism! Soon, Spencer and Tucker were shouting at each other in a heated back-and-forth, and as more and more people crowded around, security was ultimately called. Spencer was then booted out of the venue.

The initial hour-long discussion, as well as the confrontation with Tucker, which were both captured via nearby bystanders streaming to Facebook. can be seen below.

The round table: (https://www.facebook.com/thelmaij/videos/374888589556965/)

Richard Spencer at ISFLC

Posted by Thelma IJ on Saturday, February 18, 2017

The fight: (https://www.facebook.com/John.Lindley1988/videos/10104575049675719/)

At the Richard Spencer

Posted by John Lindley on Saturday, February 18, 2017

alt-rightfascismfeeISFLCjeffrey tuckerlibertarianismLibertynaziRichard SpencerWhite Nationalism

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BREAKING: Richard Spencer Kicked Out of ISFLC '17 After Jeffrey Tucker Confrontation - The Libertarian Republic

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Zoltan Istvan, Nick Bostrom, and the Anti-Aging Quest – The Atlantic – The Atlantic

Posted: at 10:42 am

So, you dont want to die? I asked Zoltan Istvan, then the Transhumanist candidate for president, as we sat in the lobby of the University of Baltimore one day last fall.

No, he said, assuredly. Never.

Istvan, an atheist who physically resembles the pure-hearted hero of a Soviet childrens book, explained that his life is awesome. In the future, it will grow awesomer still, and he wants to be the one to decide when it ends. Defying aging was the point of his presidential campaign, the slogan of which could have been Make Death Optional for Once. To (literally) drive the point home, he circled the nation in the Immortality Bus, a brown bus spray-painted to look like a coffin.

He knew hed lose, of course, but he wanted his candidacy to promote the cause of transhumanismthe idea that technology will allow humans to break free of their physical and mental limitations. His platform included, in part, declaring aging a disease. He implanted a chip in his hand so he could wave himself through his front door, and he wants to get his kids chipped, too. Hed be surprised, he told me, if soon we dont start merging our children with machines. Hed like to replace his limbs with bionics so he can throw perfectly in water polo. Most of all, he wants to stick around for a couple centuries to see it all happen, perhaps joining a band or becoming a professional surfer, a long white beard trailing in his wake.

Istvan made his fortunes in the real-estate business, but in 2003, he was working as a reporter for National Geographic in Vietnam when he almost tripped a landmine. The experience shook him so badly he quit journalism and devoted his life to transhumanism. I thought, death is horrible, he told me. How can we get around it?

But his central goalpushing the human lifespan far beyond the record 122 years and possibly into eternityis one shared by many futurists in Silicon Valley and beyond. Investor Peter Thiel, who sees death as the great enemy of man, is writing checks to researchers like Cynthia Kenyon, who doubled the life-spans of worms through gene-hacking, as the Washington Post reported last April. Oracle founder Larry Ellison has thrown hundreds of millions toward anti-aging research, according to Inc magazine, and Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin launched the Google subsidiary Calico specifically with the goal of curing death. Under President Donald Trump, the quest for immortality might pick up steam: Among the candidates he is reportedly considering to head the Food and Drug Administration is Jim ONeill, who sits on the board of the anti-aging SENS Research Foundation.

Some life-extension endeavors are already here. Several companies already offer cryogenic freezing to people who wish to have their dead bodies cooled with liquid nitrogen and stored for centuries, with the hope that new medical technologies will by then be available to re-animate them. A British teenager who sued for the right to be cryogenically frozen after her death from cancer in October now floats in frosty slumber in a Michigan cryostat facility.

Meanwhile, scientists in California are expected to launch a clinical trial in which participants will have their blood cleaned of age-related proteins, the Guardian reported, with the goal of helping them live longer and healthier lives. A drug called rapamycin, which extended the lives of mice by a quarter, is also being tested. The thinking is, if we figure out what chemical event signals to the body that its time to wrap things up, said Sheldon Solomon, a psychology professor at Skidmore College, you could be at a certain age for a long time.

The billionaire technologists obsession with living forever can approach a sort of parody. Oracles Ellison once said, Death makes me very angry"suggesting this pillar of nature is just another consumer pain-point to be relieved with an app.

But lets assume, for the sake of argument, that it can be. Lets say human lives will soon get radically longeror even become unending. The billionaires will get their way, and death will become optional.

If we really are on the doorstep of radical longevity, its worth considering how it will change human society. With no deadline, will we still be motivated to finish things? (As a writer, I assure you this is difficult.) Or will we while away our endless days, amusing ourselves towell, the Process Formerly Known as Deathwhile we overpopulate the planet? Will Earth become a paradise of eternally youthful artists, or a hellish, depleted nursing home? The answers depend on, well, ones opinion about the meaning of life.

I didnt realize how much mainstream support there was for eternal life until I had dinner with a friend who, its worth noting, is even more traditional than I amhes not even on Twitter.

I interviewed this guy who wants to live forever, I said. Isnt that wild?

What do you mean? my friend asked. You dont want to live forever?

If he never died, he explained, he could finally pursue all the hobbies and dreams hes never had time for. Even alternate careers, like architecture. (Hes a lawyer.) Hes never quite understood calculus, but with all the time in the world, he could master it. He would take a sabbatical every four years to travel the world.

Ill admit, his passion for a long life of solving integrals and kayaking through rainforests did drag me closer to the immortality corner. Even if I extended my life by just a few years, I could finally get to the bottom of my Netflix and Pocket queues.

And I had been silently dismissing life-extension enthusiasts spiels about seeing their great-great-grandkids grow up, since I dont have kids and probably never will.

Butbutif I was certain I could stay sharp and energetic well into my 90s, maybe my stance on motherhood would change. I wouldnt worry so much about kids cutting into my productivity if my ability to produce was limitless. Sure, Id probably have a few sleepless nights and groggy days in the early years. (Unless, of course, Silicon Valley really gets cracking on those robot wet-nurses.) But once Olga Jr. was out of the house and working as a Martian News correspondent or whatever, I could more than make up for lost time.

This feeling of abundant possibility is one of the chief motivations of the pro-longevity crowd. Projects and ambitions like mastering every musical instrument in the orchestra, writing a book in each of all the major languages, planting a new garden and seeing it mature, teaching ones great-great-grandchildren how to fish, traveling to Alpha Centauri, or just seeing history unfold over a few hundred years are not realistic: there is simply not enough time to achieve them given current life expectancy, wrote Nick Bostrom, an Oxford philosopher and grand-daddy of life-extension (so to speak), with fellow philosopher Rebecca Roache in 2008. But, they continue, if we could reasonably expect from an early age to live indefinitely, we could embark on projects designed to keep us occupied for hundreds or thousands of years.

Among the many downsides of dying is the prospect of never reaching ones full potential. Right now, Im projected to die when Im about 82. But what if it takes me until I'm 209 to write the great American blog post?

Still, a common fear about life in our brave, new undying world is that it will just be really boring, says S. Matthew Liao, director of the Center for Bioethics at New York University. Life, Liao explained, is like a partyit has a start and end time. We get excited because the partys going on for an hour, and we dont want to miss it. We try to make the most of it while were there.

But imagine theres a party that doesnt end, he continued. It would be bad, because youd think, I could go there tomorrow, or a month from now. Theres no urgency to go to the party anymore.

The Epicureans of ancient Greece thought about it similarly, Solomon said. They saw life as a feast: If you were at a meal, youd be satiated, then stuffed, then repulsed, he said. Part of what makes each of us uniquely valuable is the great story. We have a plot, and ultimately it concludes.

Dan McAdams, a psychology professor at Northwestern University, explains that people make sense of their lives through narrative arcs. Without an ending, there cant be a story. How would we process life events differently, given infinite do-overs? For example, because we have a vague sense that people are supposed to die at roughly 80, we now grieve people who die at 20 more than those who die at 78. But if people began living to 500, that might change, McAdams pointed out. There might be far more tragedy in the world if were mourning the loss of every 90-year-old the way we now would a child. Were just so much trained by evolution and culture to know that our life is going to be relatively short and constrained, he said, and to be somewhat cautious so we dont screw it all up. (Of course, if technology also makes us smarter as it makes us live longer, who knows what types of new arcs well construct for ourselves.)

Bostrom dismisses the thought that theres something about impending death that adds meaning or motivation to our days. It often seems the young are most energetically pursuing different kinds of activities, and the closer you get to death, the more people lean back, he told me. Partly its due to their reduced energy and health.

Which, of course, he hopes we can fix.

Once living longer becomes possible, who will get to do it? Istvan believes life-extension technology should be available to everyone, not just the wealthy. He supports a universal health-care system with life extension as one of its core benefits. (Health-care costs wouldnt spiral out of control, he and some others think, because the longer-living humans would also be healthier. Istvan plans to pay for this universal Zoltancare by selling government land in the western United States.)

Others believe that soon after life-extending technology becomes available, the price will drop rapidly and it will become attainable by mostjust as occurred with personal computers.

But the worry in the short-term, is what happens? The rich could get richer and the poor could get poorer, Liao said. Because the rich could afford to extend their lives first, and life-extenders could amass more resources over the course of their long lives, income inequality could grow even more profound.

Then again, thats how things work now. If someone comes up with a new cancer drug, we dont say lets not use it until every person has access to it, Bostrom told me. By that logic, we should stop kidney transplants.

Even if eternal life gets equitably distributed, theres still the problem of what to do with all the excess centenarians running around. Eventually, were going to run out of room here on Earth. One solution would be to dramatically curtail reproduction, focusing instead on the health and longevity of those already here. As the philosopher Jan Narveson put it, we are in favor of making people happy, but neutral about making happy people. That might mean, though, that you wont have a great-great-great-grandkid to attend the dance-recitals of.

There is a chance that worrying less about death might short-circuit our naturally tribalist natures, easing resource-allocation issues in the process. Solomon, the Skidmore psychologist, researches terror management theory, which suggests the knowledge of our eventual demise makes people psychologically retrench. Being reminded of death causes study subjects to adhere more firmly to their existing worldview, mistrust outsiders more, and even to, ahem, support charismatic leaders who may not be very qualified. So in some ways, eliminating the prospect of death might make us want to ratify all the climate treaties and equitably divvy up the worlds food supply.

... That is, of course, unless immortality has the opposite effect, making us paranoid that well die too soon for no reason. After all, even if we can eliminate aging, we cant eliminate chance. Lets say you expected to live to 5,000 and your heads being frozen, theres a power outage, and it turns into a pile of mush, Solomon said. We might become even more hyper-vigilant.

Liao and others think one answer to the overcrowding problem might be interstellar space travelwhich, they assume, will be invented by then. When Earth turns into an overpopulated dump, Liao says, the immortal can just hop between planets.

I told him an eternity spent on Venus among youthful billionaires does not appeal to me.

What if all your friends go to Venus? he asked. He offered an earthly comparison: Youll be here while everyones in Brooklyn?

(Everyones already in Brooklyn, though, and Im still here in Northern Virginia.)

Space travel is also how Liao envisions us overcoming the boredom problem. Right now, the journey between solar systems is too long for a human to accomplish in a normal lifespan, but with life extension, that wont be a concern anymore. We wont run out of things to do, the thinking goes, because there will always be another planet to explore. Well all cheerfully grow old aboard our interstellar minivan.

And in general, Liao explained, humans engage in lots of pleasures that arent repetitive, like forming new relationships, making music, learning things, and experiencing natural wonders.

If thats what human existence is about, and you can continue to do that, why not be able to live longer? he asked me.

I guess I do like hiking, I said.

You might even enjoy hiking on Mars, he said.

Eh, dont push it.

* * *

The somber side to the debate is whether life extension will cause us to lose our appreciation for natural human vulnerability. In other words, society might begin to preference those who have swallowed anti-aging drugs, making un-enhanced humans a sort of rotting underclass.

Parents who have babies with mild disabilities might be blamed for not doing Gattaca, as Liao puts it. (Istvans platform reads, Develop science and technology to be able to eliminate all disabilities in humans who have them.) Well have to wrestle with whether those who dont take fountain-of-youth pills should be charged more for health insurance. Worse yet, by jetting off to a new planet, the enhanced and immortal could abandon Earth to mere mortals, the cruelest and most extreme form of segregation.

Life-extensionists zeal for perfect cells does, to some, sound like an invective against uniqueness. Thats what Melinda Hall, a philosophy professor at Stetson University and author of a recent book about transhumanism, takes issue with. People with disability are saying, this is a primary part of my identity, she told me, so when youre saying you want to get rid of disability, it sounds genocidal.

Istvan dismisses disability-rights advocates as a fringe minority, saying I would bet my arm that the great majority of disabled people will be very happy when transhumanist technology gives them the opportunity to fulfill their potential. (Betting your arm is, of course, no biggie when you can just get a bionic one.)

In general, Hall said, the transhumanists have the wrong idea about the problems facing humanity. People are going to be starving and dying, but were going to build a colony on Mars? she said, Thats going to cost billions of dollars, and I think that should be spent somewhere else.

Of course, that wont stop the billionaires from following their dreams. Perhaps our best hope is that on the path to immortality, theyll discover something useful to broader swathes of society. Metformin, an old diabetes drug recently shown to extend the life of animals, is now being tested as an anti-aging pill. If it really does allow people to stay healthy in old age, some would regard it a public health revolutioneven if it fails to help Peter Thiel meet his cyborg-descendants in 2450.

In that way, todays life extensionists might follow the proud tradition of other explorers who shot for another galaxy and ended up straddling the moon. The alchemists write about trying to find elixirs of gold and immortality. They never find that, but they discovered chemistry, Solomon said. Ponce de Leon never found the fountain of youth, but he found Florida.

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Technology for the body on the road to cyborgs? – WAtoday

Posted: at 10:42 am

Speakers at a symposium on body-enhancement technology raised the idea that we may converge with our technology to the point that a superhuman entity emerges.

On September 2, 2010, Karen Throsby became the 1153rd person to swim the English Channel, taking 16 hours and nine minutes, and keeping herself going on handfuls of jelly babies.

Many Channel swimmers are purists: wetsuits are banned, never mind performance-enhancing drugs. The sport sees itself as an assertion of human ability in natural form. But Throsby, a sociologist researching the effects of extreme sports, takes a different view.

She was a speaker at Human Limits, a Wellcome Collection symposium linked to its Superhuman exhibition in London on physical and mental enhancement. The question it investigated was how much technology can humans use before they become something else a cyborg, perhaps, or a superhuman, a post-human, or a trans-human. What are our limits?

Some speakers discussed the "singularity": the idea that in a few years' time, we may converge with our technology to the point that some as-yet inconceivable superhuman entity emerges.

Others highlighted the fear we can feel when new inventions threaten our sense of who we are; uneasy about our authenticity, we look back nostalgically to an era assumed to be more human.

Throsby's contribution was to remind us that even something as apparently basic as marathon swimming involves many artificial techniques: gaining weight, acclimatising to the cold, monitoring one's psychology, and developing new micro-senses an awareness of tiny differences in water temperature, a heightened kinetic sense of the body's balance and position, and so on.

It means self-transformation, and is filled with "uncountable, mundane bodily technologies". Channel swimmers use rubber caps, sunblock, Vaseline to prevent chafing, sleek swimsuits, and energy-boosting snacks. They are accompanied by boats with GPS.

And they use goggles, an invention variously attributed to Polynesians, Persians and the Inuit, but later improved by innovators such as first female Channel swimmer Gertrude Ederle, who smeared paraffin wax on motorcycle glasses in 1926 to make them watertight. More recently, goggles have been made with better rubber, adjustable straps, and prescription lenses. It would be hard to swim far or fast without them.

As always, successful technologies tend to disappear in their use, becoming almost indistinguishable from ourselves and our own efforts. A smartphone sits in our hand announcing "I am technology", but the spectacles through which we peer at its screen and the pocket into which we slip it feel as natural as our own hands and eyes. It takes a leap of thought to realise that Vaseline and jelly babies are technology, too.

Human Limits asked how much technology we can add before losing ourselves, but there is also the question of how human we remain if familiar enhancements are taken away.

These could include both devices and practices our mastery of writing, our elaborate educations, our knives and fires and cooking-pots, our language, our laboriously polished social skills. At what point do we cross the line into being no longer ourselves?

As human beings, we tread a narrow ridge where we roughly know who we are but the ridge does not run straight, or lead in a predefined direction. It is partly up to us to decide what a human being is.

"Man is rightly called and judged a great miracle and a wonderful creature," wrote the philosopher Pico della Mirandola in 1486. He opined that we are wonderful not because we live up with the angels, or down with more modest beasts, but because we occupy an intermediate realm in which we invent and alter ourselves.

"Neither a fixed abode nor a form that is thine alone nor any function peculiar to thyself have we given thee," he imagines God saying to man. "Thou, constrained by no limits, shalt ordain for thyself the limits of thy nature."

Of course we are hemmed-in by mishaps and errors, and technology goes wrong. But to a large extent we are our own works in progress. And when all goes smoothly, we don't even know it.

Guardian News & Media

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Technology for the body on the road to cyborgs? - WAtoday

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Dhammakaya’s human shield just before deadline – Bangkok Post

Posted: at 10:41 am

Police and followers of Wat Phra Dhammakaya confront each other at a gate of the temple in Khlong Luang district, Pathum Thani, Sunday afternoon. (Photos by Pongpat Wongyala)

PATHUM THANI - Thousands of followers broke through official barricades to enter Wat Phra Dhammakaya and returned with monks to form a human shield, just before a deadline for them to leave the temple.

The followers breached the barricades at Gates 5 and 6 on Bang Khan-Nong Sua Road in Khlong Luang district at about 1pm. Temple officials let the laymen enter the vast compound through a special entrance and the people boarded vehicles to reach inner areas.

During the breach, a follower threw a newsagency camera worth about 300,000 baht to the ground, breaking it.

About ten minutes later the followers emerged with a lot of the temple's monks. Wearing face masks, they cut opened Gate 5 and formed a human shield confronting police.

Pol Lt Gen Charnthep Sesavej, commissioner of the Provincial Police Region 1, tried to calm the mob. Both sides pushed each other for about 20 minutes before stopping. Police from Saraburi province were deployed to replace police from Ayutthaya province adjacent to Pathum Thani.

Pol Lt Charnthep said police needed reinforcement to control the situation and prevent any ill-intended parties from triggering an incident.

He said officials had taken pictures of the people who broke through their barricades and would later take legal action against them.

The incident occurred two hours before the 3pm deadline of the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) for people and monks who are not a resident of Wat Phra Dhammakaya to leave the temple to facilitate searches.

DSI director-general Paisit Wongmuang later issued a summons for 14 senior monks of the temple to report to him at the Region 1 Border Patrol Police Bureau in Khlong Luang district at 6pm. They include its former abbot Phra Dhammajayo.

The DSI said on its Facebook page that officials had found a pistol and a knife in the van of a temple adherent. (DSI's photo below)

Since Thursday, DSI and police have searched the 2,300-rai temple compound for Phra Dhammajayo, 72, who is wanted for forest encroachment, money laundering and receiving stolen assets in connection with his meditation centres in several provinces and the multi-billion-baht embezzlement at Klongchan Credit Union Co-operative.

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We May Finally Get a Picture of a Black Hole – Futurism – Futurism

Posted: at 10:40 am

The Mysterious Black Hole

Believe it or not, weve never actually been able to catch a glimpse of a black hole. All those images featuring a starry sky with a perfectly circular dark blob in the middle? Simply an artists rendition.

Although scientists believe that there are hundreds, even thousands, of black holes that might be hiding in our own galaxy, its extremely difficult to prove their existence. They cannot be observed from a telescope because light is completely consumed once it passes the event horizon. To make matters more confusing, we arent even sure how black holes form, but we could be getting some answers very soon.

Last year, scientists announced the creationof the Event Horizon Telescope. This powerful telescope would be able to photograph black holes, and now, scientists are saying they believe the device willbe operable as soon as April. If it can successfully capture an image of this mysterious entity, wed retrieve a tremendous deal of evidence that would bring us several steps closer to understanding these unanswered questions.

The Event Horizon Telescope will operate through a network of radio receivers erected across the planet. Between April 5 and 14, itwill utilize a technique called very-long baseline interferometry (VLBI) in which the receivers collect radio signals emitted by a precise point in space.Once effective, sights are being set on our own galaxys black hole, Sagittarius A*,which is located 26,000 light-years from Earth with an event horizon stretching 20 million kilometers (12.4 million miles) in diameter.

Even though scientists have never been able to directly observe a black hole, there is pretty substantial evidence that points towards their existence.

For one, the influence that the proposed Sagittarius A* has on surrounding stars proves to us that something strange is affecting their orbit. The same is observed for several other black holes weve theorized to exist in our Universe.

Scientists are also able to detect the presence of a black hole by the amount of radiation being emitted from an area. The extremely hot x-rays weve detected are thought to come from the incredibly fast-moving disk of particles surrounding the hole.

The Event Horizon Telescope hopes to uncover this long-awaited evidence of a black holes existence. The images will mark a new milestone in humanitys understanding of the Universe. But given the amount of data and the time itll take to process it, images wont likely be ready until late 2017 or the beginning of 2018.

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We May Finally Get a Picture of a Black Hole - Futurism - Futurism

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The Airship and Futurism: Utopian Visions of the Airship …

Posted: at 10:40 am

Modern Mechanix magazine. October, 1934.

Airships have often served as the symbol of a brighter tomorrow.

Even before the first zeppelin was invented, airships featured prominently in utopian visions of the future. This 1898 poster advertised a musical comedy on the New York stage:

Musical theater poster. 1898.

And these German and Frenchpostcardspredicted air travel in theyear 2000:

German postcard, circa 1900

French postcard. 1910.

Futurists of the early 20th Century often combined lighter-than-air and heavier-than-air technology, as in this urban skyscraper airport and solar-powered aerial landing field:

Popular Science magazine. November, 1939

Modern Mechanix magazine. October, 1934.

Sometimes futurist airship visions were promoted by companies which were actually involved in the lighter-than-air business.

For example, the Goodyear-Zeppelin company, which built the American airships Akron and Macon, and which had a financial interest in the promotion of the passenger dirigible, frequently offered alluring illustrations of future airship travel.

Goodyear president Paul Litchfield and publicist Hugh Allen included the following pictures in their 1945 book, WHY? Why has America no Rigid Airships?:

These drawingsfrom Hugh Allens The Story of the Airship(1931)imaginedan Art Deco dining salon, promenade, and even a lounge with a fireplace.

Airships could even advance medical technology, such as this airshiptuberculosis hospital.

Under the illusion that communism was the way of the future, Soviet propagandists loved images of modernity and enlisted the airship in their cause.

Soviet poster, 1931. (We Are Building a Fleet of Airships in the Name of Lenin. Azeri text)

Sometimes illustrators got so carried away depicting lavish interiors that they neglected to leave room for much lifting gas, as in this illustration from The American Magazine.

The article described future airships to be built by the Goodyear-Zeppelin Company, which would be fitted up as sumptuously as a Palm Beach winter hotel:

The American Magazine. May, 1930.

This illustration of an atomic dirigible from a Soviet magazine in the 1960s left no room for lifting gas at all:

Soviet Atomic Dirigible

Modern Mechanics. July, 1931.

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CEO of Biggest VR Company Asserts That the Tech May Be A Complete Failure – Futurism

Posted: at 10:40 am

In Brief

Gabe Newell. the co-founder and president of Valve, has authored projects that have garnered so much attention that he has been meme-ifiedinto a god.

But looking past the deification by those who support his work, Newell is heavily involved in the future of virtual reality. His company has worked intimately with HTC to produce the Vive VR platform, one of the few mainstream software that consumers can use to access virtual reality. Yet, even though there are over 1,300 apps on the steam VR marketplace and there was an 86% growth in users in the end of 2016, the revenue stream isnt uplifting. There are30 VR apps that have made just over $250,000, which are not the most promising of figures.

SteamVR by Valve:

While Newell is optimistic, he says hes pretty comfortable with the idea that it will turn out to be a complete failure. He went on to say that, if you dont try things that dont fail you probably arent trying to do anything very interesting.

But that doesnt mean hes inclined to fail. By upgrading the VR console to have a stronger CPU and better resolution, having an open source platform for developers to tinker with software, hardware, and everything in between, and unleashing a litany of new games (valve is currently developing three games of its own). Newell believes that the shared optimism of developers and consumers alike will drive the newborn industry into its place in the family living room for years to come.

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CEO of Biggest VR Company Asserts That the Tech May Be A Complete Failure - Futurism

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Here’s Why SpaceX’s Next Launch Is Going to Make History – Futurism

Posted: at 10:40 am

In Brief

SpaceX was all set to take off from the historic launchpad at Cape Canaveral this morning, but the unmanned mission was called off due to an engine nozzle issue.

The launch is being delayed while the issue is investigated. Once its back on track, the launch will be the first to take place at Launch Complex 39A at NASAs Kennedy Space Center since the final shuttle launch back in July of 2011. NASA leased the pad to SpaceX for twenty years back in 2014.

The launchpad was built in the 1960s as a part of the fabled mid-century Space Race. The pad has been the site of some of the most significant launches in the history of space flight. Nearly all manned Apollo-Saturn V launches, commencing with Apollo 8, used Pad 39A. The pad also played important roles in the launches of Skylab as well as the first space shuttles. Once the technical wrinkles are ironed out for SpaceX, some exciting new entries will likely be added to that storied history.

SpaceX has made some significant strides in its programs, but they do often get overshadowed by theirhiccups. Back in September of 2016, the company was dealt a heavy blow with an explosion after a fueling accident that damaged their nearby launch pad at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Still, the strides SpaceX has made are remarkable. This past December, they celebrated the anniversary of the first completed launch and landing cycle of their reusable Falcon 9 rockets. Reusable rockets will significantly reduce the cost of space missions, thus making the volume of launches more accessible to greater numbers of researchers or adventurers.

One of the companys loftiest goals is to put a human on Mars by the end of 2025. Perhaps Launch Complex 39A will get to add another first to its storied history.

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Here's Why SpaceX's Next Launch Is Going to Make History - Futurism

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Futurist Theatre Live Theatre Like Youve Never Seen It

Posted: at 10:40 am

Clark Edwin February 12, 2016

The Royal Court Theatre is the leading national company in Britain that is dedicated to play the new works that are written by the innovative writers. Here are ten things that you can learn from the Royal Court Theatre @royalcourt building tour. Take a look at these below.

On closely observing the concrete walls, you can take a look at the wood grain from boxes that were employed as moulds for the blocks.The Royal Court Theatre was receiving a theatre and it is a producing theatre itself now.The Royal Court Theatre is the one and only theatre in the country that accepts spontaneous play scripts that are all read. In case you send your play script to any theatre such as the National Theatre, you will be asked to send your script to the Royal Court Theatre.

Royal Court Theatre as a theatre fosters the writing talent. Only the playwrights receive start billing and not of the actors do irrespective of who they are.Rehearsing for the play is done on site in a specific room that is created in the eaves of the Royal Court Theatre building. This region was earmarked for the officers originally. Now, even auditions are conducted on the site.The grilles of the Royal Court Theatre act a window decoration and this is found even in the stairwell that leads to the Jerwood Upstairs. These were originally the drains in the womens loo.

The trapdoor that we meant for the Jerwood Upstairs is accessed from the offices of the theatre that are located underneath. SActually, there is no stage at the Jerwood Downstairs. For each production, the boards are made and these give more flexibility to the theatre and a quicker turnaround between the different productions. For instance, for the Haunted Child set up, one could see cracks on the stage that revealed the large space below. This was a little bit frightening.

In the stalls at the Royal Court Theatre building, the very last row is called writers row as that where the playwrights will be seated and watch their plays that are performed during the preview. This way, they can make an immediate exit from the hall at the end of the play.The Jerwood Upstairs was meant for the private members club to move around the laws that approved the play scripts. Therefore, the scripts are edited and censored before they could actually be performed.

Read also :Take A Look At The Almeida Theatre Backstage Tour

Let us see the Almeida Theatre backstage tour in this content. Those who like backstage tours will definitely love the Almeida Theatres backstage tour. The highlight of the backstage tours is that you will get to see the parts of the theatre that you never get to see at the other times. There some tricks that have to be executed at the backstage to make the audience sitting in the hall watching the performance enjoy the show.

The green room as well as the dressing rooms of the theatre are the most impressive ones of the four rooms at the Almeida Theatre. There are many personal items, family photos, good luck cars, etc. at the backstage. You will get a bit of the life backstage before the performance, during the performance and after it as well. The green room has a futon bed for naps between the matinee and the evening performances. Also, there is a fridge with the favourite items of the performers.

The wardrobe department is also interesting. There are stacks of boxes that are labelled to avoid last minute confusion. There are stands with wigs drying in the corner, tumble dryers, washing machines and an industrial strength steam iron.

What kind of gadgets do theaters use that are also useful at home? If you over analyze the situation, you might start to think about common, everyday items like seats and lights or even electricity. However, most people have a tendency to miss one of the most important things that can easily be found in either location. That item is a dehumidifier. These items are designed to take the humidity out of the air, thus making it more comfortable for a person to be in that environment and making it a better environment for certain items, such as anything made out of wood, that might be in that location.

The answer is simple. They almost have to use them. Theaters are typically dark locations so they usually dont have any windows. This means there is no natural ventilation to the outside. In addition, theaters have a tendency to pack people in and depending on the size of the theater, there could easily be hundreds or even closer to 1,000 individuals located inside one large room at any given time. The more people that are in an enclosed space, the more body heat is produced. This can increase humidity levels noticeably until it is so uncomfortable it is almost impossible to stay inside. With the use of a dehumidifier, the problem is solved.

Generally speaking, the problem can easily be handled by having the right number of dehumidifiers in the right locations. The truth is, most people dont even realize that these devices or are present or that they are in use. The only thing that they do notice is that the room is much more comfortable, effectively allowing them to stay in that room for an extended period of time and enjoy whatever it is they came to see. The same is true for the home. The devices can be used to make rooms more comfortable or to take excessive moisture out of her room so that it doesnt smell musty or moldy.

The best dehumidifiers for home usework wonder for anyone that has mold problem inside their home or for those individuals who have a lot of natural wood inside the house, or even personal possessions like guitars. If there is too much moisture inside the home, the top ten dehumidifiers can be used to remove the proper amount of moisture just as a humidifier is sometimes used to add moisture when the air is too dry. Either way, it makes it much easier for both individuals and certain material possessions to be in that particular environment.

Also see:How Sophisticated is the AV Equipment in the Theatre?

When theaters first came along, nobody knew how much it would change in a century. While there has been vast improvements in picture and audio quality down the years, the trend today is now experiencing movies in a completely different way than before. Theaters are moving away from traditional audio and video equipment. Instead, the focus is on creating a more immersive experience for the viewer.

Today, theatre is about making use of technology in a big way. The innovations are being made use of both onstage as well as backstage as they need to compete with the technology which the user is used to in the digital space.

Most productions and theaters now make use of video designers in a large way to help them with their theater productions. Theaters increasingly make use of virtual reality masks, computer animation and stop motion camera work. With hardware and software getting cheaper, even fringe theaters is able to utilize this.

The audio visual equipment used in 3D theaters is a lot different than before. The RealD 3D technology, which is used in theaters, use circular polarized light. This, when used with polarized glasses, makes the right and left eyes see different pictures creating better 3D effects.

Sound effects play a huge part in theatre as they help in unfolding of the story. They tell you about the action, and about how each of the events will unfold. They also help in manipulating composed or recorded audios. Most theaters, employ sound designers whose entire job revolves around this art of sound designing.

In movie theaters, MIDI and digital audio technology are used in a big way. Computerised theatre sound systems are also used in various plays and productions. Modern audio technology like the ones in DJToolsGuide.com can easily be integrated into live performances, which makes theaters offer a more immersive experience.

IMAX 3D uses larger screens and larger film sizes with Dolby Digital sound. Some other theatres use analog technologies, but that means that if the viewer doesnt look straight at the screen, the 3D effects get lost. There are also digital projectors, LCD shutter glasses which are being used in todays world.

Dolby 3D is another popular technology in use today, and uses polarized glasses which has multiple coatings and cut out specific frequencies of light. The lenses are curved which give better effects too.

With Virtual Reality coming in, it wont be long enough before we have planetarium type shows taking over conventional movie theatres. When it comes to audio, these new theaters can be fitted with 64 speaker feeds which provide an amazing experience to the audience.

The EQ resolution is used for optimization for all types of playback content, and it is used even when the environment is acoustically challenged. The configurations provide I/O interfaces of the digital cinema and there is automatic calibration done so that the quality of playback is consistently at high quality.

These systems allow for individual amplification and equalization of surround speakers and also support bass management of subwoofers.

Jake Gyllenhaals ripped physique in Southpaw, Anne Hathaways slimmed down build in Les Miserables; stars have always taken their exercise and diet routines to extreme limits in order to play the part in films, but how do they do it?

Portman and Kunis have always had slender physiques, but in order to play cut-throat, obsessive ballerinas, the stars both had to drop 20 pounds. Kunis spent seven months training four hours per day, every day of the week, and drastically cutting back on calories, eating very small portions of a balanced diet. Portman, who was already a vegan, continued to eat many of the same foods, although in smaller portions. For nearly a year she trained with a former professional ballerina, spending up to eight hours, six days per week, doing swimming, cross-training, and ballet classes in order to get the ballerina physique.

When Hemsworth took on the role of Thor, he gained 30 pounds of muscle to transform his body into the God-like physique needed. To do this Hemsworth stuck to a strict eating schedule, packing away huge amounts of protein, rice and vegetables every three hours, even when he wasnt hungry. It also meant spending at least two hours a day doing an intense work-out regimen of not just weight-lifting in his home gym but also aspects of Crossfit, martial arts and boxing. One surprising aspect of his get-fit routine? Sleeping, which he says was an important part of the equation.

Portraying a starving prostitute meant Hathaway had to drop 25 pounds through an initial two-week cleanse, followed by two weeks of a diet of two dried oatmeal paste squares each day. Why such a harsh diet? The actress needed to look near death, her character was dying from tuberculosis after all, so exercising was off the table.

Cooper took on the role of the Navy SEAL with just ten weeks to gain 40 pounds of muscle. In order to pull of this near impossibility he turned to a professional trainer and began working out twice a day. Starting with basic exercises like deadlifts and squats he then moved on to traditional weightlifting techniques. To top it all off, Cooper ate a whopping 5,000 calories each day which included 5 meals, protein drinks and energy bars.

Beyonce needed to trim down her usually curvaceous body in order to play the slim 16-year old in the film. In order to lose 20 pounds in two short weeks, the star turned to the Master Cleanse Diet, which meant eating no solid food and drinking daily 6-12 glasses of water mixed with lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper. She does admit to cheating a bit by drinking protein drinks and eating fish and vegetables.

Aiming for authenticity, as well as a seriously ripped physique, Gyllenhaal worked with a professional boxing coach to prepare for the role. Starting at just 147 pounds, Gyllenhaal gained 28 pounds of hard muscle through running, jump roping, boxing drills, and weight training. All of that training had one benefit, an unrestricted diet with only one edict; lots of protein.

Dont think you could get the same results as your favorite star? Youre probably right, but with good reason. While the stars worked with nutritionists and personal trainers almost round the clock to obtain these extreme results, they are nearly universally considered unhealthy.

Also read:Acting in the Theatre can be Very Intense, do Actors Get Enough Sleep?

Celebrities lead fairly fabulous lives but they are often hectic as well. They frequently have to travel across the country at a moments notice, attend parties at late night hot spots for publicity, follow rigorous and demanding schedules, etc.

So, it comes as no surprise that sleep is not always their number one priority. In fact, prescription medication and insomnia have often been the culprits in a number of high-profile celebrity deaths this paints a vivid picture of how dangerous sleep problems can be if not treated responsibly.

But, did you know that the lives of theatre actors are even more hectic? This particular profession is not for the lazy and requires a lot of passion, dedication, and a number of other hardy traits. Some of these include:

There are some theatre actors who love live shows as they provide instant feedback. Still, there are others who dread it because the presence of the audience is a constant reminder that theyre acting something that can be distracting if you lack the discipline and focus needed to stay in the moment while audience members react, answer telephone calls, smoke, take pictures, etc.

Even though all actors make a lot sacrifices, sleep seems to be the hardest hit. Theatre actors, in particular, have to get up early for their day jobs and stay up late to get the chance to follow their passion. They also have to squeeze in time to memorize lines and run errands. When you finally take a minute to see how much time all these activities take, its easy to see why many theatre actors dont get the 7 hours needed for quality rest.

Most actors seem to be handling their hectic lives well but, the truth is, they arent immune to the sleep-related health problems that plague us. But when you consistently miss out on sleep, it can lead to a wide variety of serious health issues like heart problems, diabetes, obesity, and more.

Thankfully, there is some good news to be had its relatively easy to start getting better sleep. Some general rules of thumb include:

Previous post:Ten Things to Learn from the Royal Court Theatre Building Tour

Lately, there were incidences of the audience members at a theatre who did not behave brilliantly. Some of these annoying and bad experiences are given here.

The noisy headphones: A person at the Lyttleton was wearing either to using headphones to listen to music or hadnt turned off the MP3 player. No one could find where the music and singing came from but it was audible during the quieter scenes. On hearing these irritating sounds, there were a lot of puzzled looks that the audience started passing among one another. In the end, many people complained to the escort at the interval and an announcement was made in the general direction of where the noise came from and the music went off during the second half.

The giggling teenagers: One of the tiny studios is Trafalgar Studios 2 and the actors are usually within the reachable distance in this theatre. It was a play Dickens with a Difference, a Dickens themed double bill. James Swanton, the performer, took on the characters for the second show and warping himself into each one in what is said to be a gripping and skilled performance. Two teenager girls were sitting in the mid of the front row that is virtually under the nose of Swanton. They were not too gripped to the play and they decided to giggle, whisper, and snort all their way through the play. Swanton soldiered on the waiting till the curtain call to end the play thanking all for attending the play. He did not forget to point out to the girls by saying he had made the two of them laugh and stated that he hopes that he did not spoil their enjoyment.

Disturbances during play: At the Park Theatre during the Jonah and Otta play, three irritating audience incidents were reported. First, a woman with a ring tone of a child laughing decided to leave to answer the call. Later, someone wandered in the auditorium having gone through a wrong door and apologised loudly before leaving. Finally, a woman with a bad cold was coughing and sneezing for some time. She later sighed and muttered as well.

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Futurist Theatre Live Theatre Like Youve Never Seen It

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