The explanation for this effect returns us to the benefits of not being able to pay attention. The stupor of alcohol, like the haze of the early morning, makes it harder for us to ignore those unlikely thoughts and remote associations that are such important elements of the imagination. So the next time you are in need of insight, avoid caffeine and concentration. Don’t chain yourself to your desk. Instead, set the alarm a few minutes early and wallow in your groggy thoughts. And if that doesn’t work, chug a beer.
(via curiositycounts)
Source: Wired
He may be cranky, but he’s still a genius in my book (a mad one).
“I would prefer a two-state solution. My basic premise is that human beings are amphibious, in the etymological sense of ‘two lives’. We have one life in the solid material world that is most perfectly measured by science. Science is the most exquisite tool that we’ve developed for measuring that hard, physical, material world. Then there is the world of ideas which is inside our head. I would say that both of these worlds are equally real - they’re just real in different ways. The concept of a world of ideas, yes it’s intangible, it can’t be repeated in a laboratory, but pretty much the evidence for it is all around us. In that, every detail of our clothing, our mindsets, of the buildings and the streets and cities that surround us - that started life as an idea in someone’s head.”
-Alan Moore
via Boing Boing
Source: infectedworldmind
China and Europe Both Have Plans To Prevent Deadly Asteroid Apophis from Hitting Earth in 2029 (or 2036)
Apophis is a 46 million tonne asteroid that will pass within a hair’s breath of Earth in 2029. However, Apophis’s trajectory is likely to take it through a region of space near Earth known as a keyhole that will ensure the asteroid returns in 2036.
Nobody knows how close Apophis will come on that pass. But if there’s a chance of a collision, we’ll have only 7 years to work out how to avoid catastrophe.
Researchers at Tsinghua University in Beijing say their preference is to use a solar sail to place a small spacecraft into a retrograde orbit and on collision course with Apophis. The retrograde orbit will give it an impact velocity of 90km/s which, if they do this well enough in advance, should lead to a collision large enough to do the trick.In 2002, the European Space Agency began a program called Don Quijote to find out how best to perform such a deflection.
Don Quijote involves sending two spacecraft to a near Earth asteroid; one to smash into it and the other to watch while in orbit above the impact crater. The goal is to change the asteroid’s semimajor axis by more than 100 metres and to measure the change with an accuracy greater than 1 per cent.
Source: technologyreview.com
I’ve described myself as a militant atheist for the last twenty years! I think it’s a reaction. I think a lot of us were naïve and thought that religion would quietly slip away, embarrassed and mumbling, saying “Sorry I got it so wrong guys”. Instead it’s come back and said, “We were right all along.” Well no you bloody weren’t! The world works in a certain way, and the way you find out about it is you do science, you do experiments, and you use reason, that is how you find out how the world and the universe works.
Religion just doesn’t do that, it’s a set of hypotheses arrived at by very primitive people two thousand years ago, and it’s not fit for purpose, it doesn’t describe reality, it’s that simple. You can believe whatever you want to believe, but when you start basically saying that reality isn’t reality, when you start saying this nonsense about the world is only six thousand years old, when you have this absolute refusal to meet with reality, we can’t just say, “You’re entitled to your view.” No you’re not! You’re not entitled to put that view across as being just as good as science, because we can prove that science works.
Iain M. Banks, interviewed in Wired.
(Update: I came across this interview quite late last night, and wanted to add something. The reason I like Banks’ work is the way he engages and plays with ideas. His treatment of religion isn’t just one-note dismissal, he’s genuinely interested in the impulses that drive people towards religious belief, and of the societal effects that religious organisations have. Working in science fiction allows him to conduct thought experiments and interrogate the basic precepts of belief, in ways that range from large-scale philosophical/thematic underpinnings of his stories, to dark little bits of satire.)
