No commentary or speculation this time; I’m just throwing this up here because it tickled my WTF spot, and I thought it might do the same for you lot.
So: Soviet-era Russian forestry projects that form political slogans when viewed from space. Bam.
There’s a whole bunch of these (plus the Google Maps coordinates, so you can see they’re not ‘shopped) at the consistently bizarre EnglishRussia blog; the hat-tip goes to Strangeharvest.
An interesting science-fictional concept concerning intitutional longevity, via the late pioneering computer scientist Edsger W Dijkstra, in this essay (EWD 1175):
The Buxton Index of an entity, i.e. person or organization, is defined as the length of the period, measured in years, over which the entity makes its plans.
For the little grocery shop around the corner it is about 1/2,for the true Christian it is infinity, and for most other entities it is in between: about 4 for the average politician who aims at his re-election, slightly more for most industries, but much less for the managers who have to write quarterly reports.
The Buxton Index is an important concept because close co-operation between entities with very different Buxton Indices invariably fails and leads to moral complaints about the partner.
This is an interesting concept: and one that helps explain a lot of attitudes and responses towards issues like climate change, environmental destruction, and DRM.
In each case there are two different parties that are thinking in terms of two completely different Buxton indices. Short term profit vs. longterm survival in AGW or short term data security vs. longterm preservation of cultural artefacts in DRM.
[via this comment in Charlie’s Diary][image from Parksy1964 on flickr]
Brain scans suggest that daily writing about your emotions can help you feel better about things; writing by hand is apparently more effective than typing:
The psychologists investigated the effect by inviting volunteers to visit the lab for a brain scan before asking them to write for 20 minutes a day for four consecutive days. Half of the participants wrote about a recent emotional experience, while the other half wrote about a neutral experience.
Those who wrote about an emotional experience showed more activity in part of the brain called the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, which in turn dampened down neural activity linked to strong emotional feelings.
If pouring your heart into dreadful poetry and song lyrics really is an emotionally beneficial outlet, does it then follow that MySpace deserves some sort of award for keeping teenagers from committing suicide? [image by Boa-sorte&Careca]
Just arrived in my inbox is a note from Nick Gevers informing me that starting today, Locus Online will be running a series of interviews titled SF Quintessential.
The column will see Gevers quizzing the creators and publishers of science fiction short stories in an attempt to map the current state of play:
I intend that the series will help promote valuable short fiction publications and provide a forum for discussion of trends in the short form: creative movements and the rather troubled state of the market. There’s a huge amount to talk about; I hope “SF Quintessential” can supplement and augment existing debate, at a vital time in the history of genre literature.
The first instalment of SF Quintessential features an interview with Australia-based anthologist extraordinaire Jonathan Strahan, and Pyr’s Lou Anders is also in the pipeline. This promises to be a fascinating (if potentially grim) read for anyone writing short stories for publication.
[Full disclosure: Nick Gevers is part of the editorial team at PS Publishing, who are clients of mine.]
Here’s a quick and dirty fix for the US economy – instead of closing up the borders, why not open the gates to skilled migrant workers, and give them a free green card with every house purchased?
While his tongue was slightly in cheek, Gupta and many other Indian business people I spoke to this week were trying to make a point that sometimes non-Americans can make best: “Dear America, please remember how you got to be the wealthiest country in history. It wasn’t through protectionism, or state-owned banks or fearing free trade. No, the formula was very simple: build this really flexible, really open economy, tolerate creative destruction so dead capital is quickly redeployed to better ideas and companies, pour into it the most diverse, smart and energetic immigrants from every corner of the world and then stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat.”
[snip]
We live in a technological age where every study shows that the more knowledge you have as a worker and the more knowledge workers you have as an economy, the faster your incomes will rise. Therefore, the centerpiece of our stimulus, the core driving principle, should be to stimulate everything that makes us smarter and attracts more smart people to our shores. That is the best way to create good jobs.
It’s easy to see why that piece is in the NYT’s op-ed column… but even so, it doesn’t sound like the craziest idea for ending the recession that I’ve heard in the last week. [via MarginalRevolution]; image by TheTruthAbout]