2:26:35 PM David Miller: did you note that Arthur C. Clarke died?

2:26:42 PM BK Marcus: yes

2:26:45 PM BK Marcus: age 90

2:28:13 PM David Miller: yup, interesting that technology seems to have been so much more focused on earthspace than his books suggested.

2:28:50 PM David Miller: The iPod the Web... not manned flights to Jupiter

2:30:11 PM David Miller: I wonder if I'll ever be able to enjoy sci-fi that ignores economics again.

4:19:35 PM BK Marcus: An interesting note from my wife:

Nathalie Marcus

4:01

I find this interesting.  Rothbard is talking about  the Hansen stagnation thesis: "As for technological progress, that too is slowing down. After all, the railroads have already been built and the automobile industry has reached maturity. Whatever minor improvements there might be will probably be withheld by 'reactionary monopolists,' etc."

4:01

They didn't seem to have much imagination.

4:02

Should have read more science fiction...

4:35:16 PM David Miller: yes , it is an interesting note and compliment to my observation. Economist ought to read more Sci-fi and Sci-fi writers should read more econ.

The exchange reminded me of the opening of an old friend's movie review of Speed (1994):

The day began, as all days should, with Ray Bradbury. In Saturday's early afternoon, I had just climbed back into the cab of my frequent movie partner's truck to have him tell me that the voice on the radio came from that old man of SF. While I was mailing our bills, he had tuned in Writer's Corner on our local NPR station. It must have been fifteen to twenty minutes before we were able to date the interview. For all we knew, the conversation could have been live; Bradbury could have been dead for years. I find I am able to keep track of these things less and less without cues.

We drove, listening to 1978. [Read the rest »]

Just discovered:

The Engines of Our Ingenuity is a radio program that tells the story of how our culture is formed by human creativity. Written and hosted by John Lienhard, it is heard nationally on Public Radio and produced by KUHF-FM Houston. Among other features, this web site houses the transcripts for every episode heard since the show's inception in 1988. Click here for the newest Engines episode, No. 2342. Recent Engines episodes are now available as a Podcast. Click Here. Each individual episode begins with a link to its audio version.

Also available through iTunes U.

I was reviewing a list of the kings of England today and stumbled on this interesting mix of history and technology:

Origin of the name and the logo

Bluetooth was named after a late tenth century king, Harald Bluetooth King of Denmark and Norway. He is known for his unification of previously warring tribes from Denmark (including now Swedish Scania, where the Bluetooth technology was invented), and Norway. Bluetooth likewise was intended to unify different technologies, such as computers and mobile phones.

The name may have been inspired less by the historical Harald than the loose interpretation of him in The Long Ships by Frans Gunnar Bengtsson, a Swedish Viking-inspired novel.

The Bluetooth logo merges the Nordic runes analogous to the modern Latin H and B: hagall and bjarkan from the Younger Futhark runes forming a bind rune.

unsung: stephen carson

The man credited with founding Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales — known to Wikipedians as "Jimbo" — was a finance major at Auburn University when the Mises Institute's Mark Thornton suggested he read "The Use of Knowledge in Society," a now-famous essay written by Austrolibertarian economist and Nobel laureate Friedrich von Hayek.

The essay argues that prices in the market represent a spontaneous order that results from the interaction of individuals with diverse wants, allowing them to cooperate to achieve complex goals. According to a June 2007 Reason magazine interview, this insight of Hayek's is what led Wales to found Wikipedia.

The rather lofty vision that inspired Wales?

"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."

FULL ARTICLE

I confess I felt strange about the former price tag on this, my first audio project:

$40 now $15!

I'm listening to Tom Woods's book, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, in which we learn of the 11th-century Benedictine monk named Eilmer of Malmesbury, who, having worked out his own rudimentary theory of flight, tested it by fashioning a pair of wings for himself and jumping off the roof of the abbey. He glided for some 600 feet before plunging to the ground and breaking both his legs.

"Crippled for life but undaunted," says Wikipedia, "Eilmer believed that he could make a more controllable landing if his glider were equipped with a tail, and he was preparing for a second flight when the abbot of Malmesbury Abbey forbade him from risking his life in any further experiments."

The Titzling story turned out to be apocryphal. Could the Crapper story be true?

Last night we watched the first episode of the BBC's new Robin Hood. Don't bother.

But one interesting thing about this new version is that Robin of Loxley returns to England in 1192, back from the 3rd Crusade with Saracen weapons: a scimitar and a compound recurve bow.

Robin tells a very young Will Scarlet that the Saracen bow is curved the way it is to put more power into a smaller weapon.

I have no problem with folklore revisionism; updating the story to fit current concerns is an ancient and well-established part of folklore itself. I like the idea of Loxley returning from the Crusades with a distaste for bloodshed and respect for the Saracens — or at least for their technology.

But is this curvy bow a realistic weapon to put in the hands of a medieval English hero?

I love the web. The answer I found is so much more interesting than I had expected:

[Read the rest »]

What an amazing resource from LearnOutLoud.com, gratis:

LearnOutLoud's Art Masterpieces is a collection of essays on some of the most important works of art ever created. These carefully selected writings provide exciting commentary on the work of such masters as Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael, Michaelangelo, Titian, Sandro Botticelli, Rembrandt and many more. If you've ever wanted to gain a deeper appreciation of the great works of Western painting, then this audio series will be an invaluable compliment to your exploration.

Twenty-two paintings are covered in this collection and each MP3 file covers a different painting and has a high quality image of the art work embedded into it (which can be viewed in iTunes). Also included in this collection is a supplemental PDF which features images of all 22 paintings.

[Read the rest »]

Via Walter Block:

"Malaria: Anti-DDT Policies Are Deadly."

by Thompson Ayodele and Adegoke Anthony, Lagos

Last year, one of our colleagues, his wife and their two children were diagnosed with malaria. In an instant, their lives were turned upside down, and all other priorities and plans were postponed. The new priority was getting better — and simply staying alive.

For countless families in Nigeria and the rest of Africa, this horrible drama is repeated over and over, year after year. Over 300 million Africans get malaria — and up to 1 million of our children die from it — every year.

Meanwhile, a few weeks ago, in countries that no longer have malaria, environmentalists were celebrating the 100th birthday of Rachel Carson, whose book Silent Spring helped launch the environmental activist movement and get the repellent-insecticide DDT banned nearly all over the world. Were she still alive, she would have witnessed the countless family tragedies that this ban helped cause and probably would have been appalled by them.

Keep reading …

See also: "The Spring is Silent on DDT" by Lew Rockwell

The title "who's your audience" reminded me to blog this:

I use Jott.com to send myself memos from my cellphone when I know I'm going to otherwise forget to write something down later. The reason I prefer this to using the voice memo feature of my phone (or to simply leaving myself voicemail) is that Jott.com has the voice memo transcribed and sends it to the email address of my choice. I think it's a really great service, and for now, it's gratis.

Recently, my "jotts" to myself have been things to add to a shopping list. The other day, I speed-dialed Jott.com (press 'J' and hold) and left myself the following memo:

Kosher salt and Kleenex

Here's the email I received:

This says quite a lot, I think, about whom Jott employs for transcriptions. I'm willing to believe that someone working in a cubicle farm in America's heartland doesn't know what kosher salt is, even that they might not know the word 'kosher'. I'm also willing to believe that my accent makes 'kosher' the way I say it sound like 'culture' they way they say it. But "clean X" — that's a dead giveaway that the transcriptionists aren't American. "Clean X" is a perfect phonetic representation of Kleenex® so it's not a pronunciation issue.

We've covered teleportation and warp drive. Here's how a cloaking device might work: