Gargoyles and uber-geeks begarlanded with gadgets may have the Department of Defense to thank for improvements in portable power supplies. They’re sponsoring a new $1 million prize to encourage the development of a power system that weighs less than 4 kilograms and provides 96 hours of power for soldiers in the field. [image by moria] [defense tech]
Category Archives: Blog
Will cleaner fuels raise the cost of food?
The shift toward the use of biomass fuels is good news for the environment, or so we hope. But it may have other knock-on effects – like raising the price of staple foodstuffs by a significant degree. Maybe the wiser solution would be to reduce our dependence on all fuels, not just the ones that come from fossil deposits.
Changes to Fiction Submission Process
Potential fiction contributors have surely noticed by now the absence of a submission webform at the new site. This is one of the features of the old site that didn’t get transferred over. Rest assured we are still open for business as a fiction market; this is merely a brief hiatus while we get a new submission process in place. I’ll continue to review the stories we received before the shut-down, and we’ll be back accepting new submissions shortly. Thanks for your patience!
Tour de Earth
Got a few centuries under your belt? Think you could handle the Tour de France some day? You might want to check out the 2007 route on Google Earth before you get too cocky. Make sure you make the appropriate cheering noises as you zoom down the Champs Elysees for the finish. [wired]
Up To The Minute Cartography
Maps have always been more like portraits than portrayals. They are historical, sketching a place at a point in time, always in the past. The MIT Senseable City Lab aims to bring maps into the present tense. Real Time Rome is a proof of concept, a series of cartographic representations of the city, updated with real-time data from public transportation systems, cellular tower usage patterns, and much more.
This is fascinating stuff, especially when you start thinking about the relationship maps have to the place they portray. The map is not the territory. A map is not a map without abstraction. But what you choose to abstract changes when your instruments allow you to portray the dynamism of real places. [oreilly radar]