May 25

I’m not sure how I’d use this in a story, but it’s certainly cool.

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I’m not sure how I’d use this in a story, but it’s certainly cool. Especially the parts about making shoes quickly, cheaply, locally, and out of natural, biodegradeable materials.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

How Reebok Is Breaking the Mold by ‘3D Drawing’ Shoe Soles http://bit.ly/2rl9xrq

May 24

France Declares All New Rooftops Must Be Topped With Plants Or Solar Panels

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Originally shared by Alan Stainer

France Declares All New Rooftops Must Be Topped With Plants Or Solar Panels

Excuse the pun, but this is good for the environment on so many levels.

Now why aren’t more governments doing this?

http://csglobe.com/france-declares-all-new-rooftops-must-be-topped-with-plants-or-solar-panels/

May 23

Key takeaway (one I see over and over): cheap general-purpose electronics and the accumulation of already-solved…

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Key takeaway (one I see over and over): cheap general-purpose electronics and the accumulation of already-solved problems provide a platform from which we can solve entirely different problems relatively cheaply and easily.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

Veo Gives Robots ‘Eyes and a Brain’ So They Can Safely Work With People http://bit.ly/2q8dTlG

May 23

Via Yonatan Zunger.

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Via Yonatan Zunger.

In the comments to Yonatan’s post, someone said (I paraphrase), “People of colour have been saying this for years, but now that a white man says it everyone finally listens.”

Without denying the truth of that, I’d point out that in his speech the mayor acknowledges how his black friends, by saying this for years, helped him understand the problem, so that he could use his power to solve it.

Originally shared by Rugger Ducky

If you haven’t read this transcript or heard the speech yet, do.

Landrieu hits the proverbial nail squarely on the head.

New Orleans was America’s largest slave market: a port where hundreds of thousands of souls were brought, sold and shipped up the Mississippi River to lives of forced labor of misery of rape, of torture.

America was the place where nearly 4,000 of our fellow citizens were lynched, 540 alone in Louisiana; where the courts enshrined ‘separate but equal’; where Freedom riders coming to New Orleans were beaten to a bloody pulp.

So when people say to me that the monuments in question are history, well what I just described is real history as well, and it is the searing truth.

And it immediately begs the questions: why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame … all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans.

http://pulsegulfcoast.com/2017/05/transcript-of-new-orleans-mayor-landrieus-address-on-confederate-monuments
May 23

Via Isaac Kuo.

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Via Isaac Kuo.

Originally shared by Randy Smith

A new startup is finding a way to grow crops indoors economically in the context of our current supply chain infrastructure, and with more tasty and nutritious varieties than are currently available through that infrastructure. Several things are coming together to let them do this, including substantial drops in the cost of LED lights, machine learning for placement of towers and lamps, and vertical planting allowing use of gravity to distribute water rather than pumps. The dense production (much much more produce per ft^2 than farms) allowing them to put production centers very convenient to grocery distribution centers, getting the produce to groceries much faster. That in term allows them to use varietals that are optimized for taste and nutrition instead of shelf stability (and just getting them to stores faster improves the nutrition). And being indoors means that they can minimize pests to the point where they can control them with ladybugs, avoiding pesticides.

I think there are a lot of implications to this, many positive, some disturbing.

+ It sounds like this is riding several technology curves (LED light, machine learning, IoT), so it’s only going to get more efficient.

+ It’s all technology all the time (the plants roots aren’t even in dirt, but a plastic growth medium made from recycled bottles), which may give it an “eww!” factor, but I suspect does produce nutritious, clean plants.

+ As it evolves, this technique could substantially raise the carrying capacity of the planet, which is good because AIUI convention farming with fertilizers depletes the soil and I’ve been concerned that’ll take us to a place where we suddenly have no ability to feed the people on the planet.

+ However, the same result means we’ll have less incentive to get a handle on our population growth. (Though simply getting countries through the demographic transition to wealthy societies will help here.)

+ And the same thing gives us much less incentive to take care of the environment.

So: Modified rapture?? :-} :-J

https://www.fastcompany.com/40420610/has-this-silicon-valley-startup-finally-nailed-the-indoor-farming-model

https://www.fastcompany.com/40420610/has-this-silicon-valley-startup-finally-nailed-the-indoor-farming-model