Cageside Community Star Ratings: Breezango vs. The Ascension – Cageside Seats (blog)

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Welcome to Cageside Community Star Ratings for Money in the Bank 2017!

For some wrestling fans, star ratings are a way of life. Its one thing to say that a match is good or bad, but can you actually put a number on it?

The star rating system is a scale ranging from 0 to 5 with increments of 0.25. A 5-star match is as close to perfect as it gets while a 0-star match is a complete dud.

Determining the star rating for a given match is a highly subjective process. In general the goal is to wrap up all the important elements of a match into one simple number. Some factors to consider may include the story and booking of the match, the workrate of the performers, ring psychology, length of the match, audience reaction, and so forth.

There is no such thing as a wrong answer, because every wrestling fan consumes this art form in a different way.

The purpose of Cageside Community Star Ratings is for the readers to assign star ratings to every single match on a given WWE pay-per-view event. These results will be tabulated and summarized after every match on the pay-per-view has been voted on by the community.

The next match up for debate from Money in the Bank 2017 is Breezango versus The Ascension.

Please select a star rating in the poll below and discuss your thoughts on this match in the comments section.

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Cageside Community Star Ratings: Breezango vs. The Ascension - Cageside Seats (blog)

Effective Altruism Says You Can Save the Future by Making Money – Motherboard

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There is no contradiction in claiming that, as Steven Pinker argues, the world is getting better in many important respects and also that the world is a complete mess. Sure, your chances of being murdered may be lower than at anytime before in human history, but one could riposte that given the size of the human population today there has never been more total disutility, or suffering/injustice/evil, engulfing our planet.

Just consider that about 3.1 million children died of hunger in 2013, averaging nearly 8,500 each day. Along these lines, about 66 million children attend class hungry in the developing world; roughly 161 million kids under five are nutritionally stunted; 99 million are underweight; and 51 million suffer from wasting. Similarly, an estimated 1.4 billion people live on less than $1.25 per day while roughly 2.5 billion earn less than $2 per day, and in 2015 about 212 million people were diagnosed with malaria, with some 429,000 dying.

The idea is to optimize the total amount of good that one can do in the world

This is a low-resolution snapshot of the global predicament of humanity todayone that doesn't even count the frustration, pain, and misery caused by sexism, racism, factory farming, terrorism, climate change, and war. So the question is: how can we make the world more livable for sentient life? What actions can we take to alleviate the truly massive amounts of suffering that plague our pale blue dot? And to what extent should we care about the many future generations that could come into existence?

I recently attended a conference at Harvard University about a fledgling movement called effective altruism (EA), popularized by philosophers like William MacAskill and Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz. Whereas many philanthropically inclined individuals make decisions to donate based on which causes tugged at their heartstrings, this movement takes a highly data-driven approach to charitable giving. The idea is to optimize the total amount of good that one can do in the world, even if it's counterintuitive.

For example, one might think that donating money to buy books for schools in low-income communities across Africa is a great way to improve the education of children victimized by poverty, but it turns out that spending this money on deworming programs could be a better way of improving outcomes. Studies show that deworming can reduce the rate of absenteeism in schools by 25 percenta problem that buying more books fails to addressand that "the children who had been de-wormed earned 20% more than those who hadn't."

Similarly, many people in the developed world feel compelled to donate money to disaster relief following natural catastrophes like earthquakes and tsunamis. While this is hardly immoral, data reveals the money donated could have more tangible impact if spent on insecticide-treated mosquito nets for people in malaria-prone regions of Africa.

Another surprising, and controversial, suggestion within effective altruism is that boycotting sweatshops in the developing world often does more harm than good. The idea is that, however squalid the working conditions of sweatshops are, they usually provide the very best jobs around. If a sweatshop worker were forced to take a different joband there's no guarantee that another job would even be availableit would almost certainly involve much more laborious work for lower wages. As the New York Times quotes a woman in Cambodia who scavenges garbage dumps for a living, "I'd love to get a job in a factoryAt least that work is in the shade. Here is where it's hot."

There are, of course, notable criticisms of this approach. Consider the story of Matt Wage. After earning an undergraduate degree at Princeton, he was accepted by the University of Oxford to earn a doctorate in philosophy. But instead of attending this programone of the very best in the worldhe opted to get a job on Wall Street making a six-figure salary. Why? Because, he reasoned, if he were to save 100 children from a burning building, it would be the best day of his life. As it happens, he could save the same number of children over the course of his life as a professional philosopher who donates a large portion of his salary to charity. Butcrunching the numbersif he were to get a high-paying job at, say, an arbitrage trading firm and donate half of his earnings to, say, the Against Malaria Foundation, he could potentially save hundreds of children from dying "within the first year or two of his working life and every year thereafter."

Some people think superintelligence is too far away to be of concern

The criticism leveled at this idea is that Wall Street may itself be a potent source of badness in the world, and thus participating in the machine as a cog might actually contribute net harm. But effective altruists would respond that what matters isn't just what one does, but what would have happened if one hadn't acted in a particular way. If Wage hadn't gotten the job on Wall Street, someone else would havesomeone who wasn't as concerned about the plight of African children, whereas Wage earns to give money that saves thousands of disadvantaged people.

Another objection is that many effective altruists are too concerned about the potential risks associated with machine superintelligence. Some people think superintelligence is too far away to be of concern or unlikely to pose any serious threats to human survival, effect. They maintain that spending money to research what's called the "AI control problem" is misguided, if not a complete waste of resources. But the fact is that there are good arguments for thinking that, as Stephen Hawking puts it, if superintelligence isn't the worst thing to happen to humanity, it will likely be the very best. And effective altruistsand Iwould argue that then designing a "human friendly" superintelligence is a highly worthwhile task, even if the first superintelligent machine won't make its debut on Earth until the end of this century. In sum, the expected value of solving the AI control problem could be astronomically high.

Perhaps the most interesting idea within the effective altruism movement is that we should not just worry about present day humans but future humans as well. According to one study published in the journal Sustainability, "most individuals' abilities to imagine the future goes 'dark' at the ten-year horizon." This likely stems from our cognitive evolution in an ancient environment (like the African savanna) in which long-term thinking was not only unnecessary for survival but might actually have been disadvantageous.

Yet many philosophers believe that, from a moral perspective, this "bias for the short-term" is completely unjustified. They argue that when one is born should have no bearing on one's intrinsic valuethat is to say, "time discounting," or valuing the future less than the present, should not apply to human lives.

First, there is the symmetry issue: if future lives are worth less than present lives, then are past lives worth less as well? Or, from the perspective of past people, are our lives worth less than theirs? Second, consider that using a time discounting annual rate of 10 percent, a single person today would be equal in value to an unimaginable 4.96 x 1020 people 500 years hence. Does that strike one as morally defensible? Is it right that one person dying today constitutes an equivalent moral tragedy to a global holocaust that kills 4.96 x 1020 people in five centuries?

And finally, our best estimates of how many people could come to exist in the future indicate that this number could be exceptionally large. For example, The Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom estimates that some 1016 people with normal lifespans could exist on Earth before the sun sterilizes it in a billion years or so. Yet another educated guess is that "a hundred thousand billion billion billion"that is 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000people could someday populate the visible universe. To date, there have been approximately 60 billion humans on Earth, or 6 x 109, meaning that the humanor posthuman, if our progeny evolves into technologically enhanced cyborgsstory may have only just begun.

Read More: Today's Kids Could Live Through Machine Superintelligence, Martian Colonies and a Nuclear Attack

Caring about the far future leads to some effective altruists to focus specifically on what Bostrom calls "existential risks," or events that would either trip our species into the eternal grave of extinction or irreversibly catapult us back to the Paleolithic.

Since the end of World War II, there has been an unsettling increase in both the total number of existential riskssuch as nuclear conflict, climate change, global biodiversity loss, engineered pandemics, grey goo, geoengineering, physics experiments, and machine superintelligenceand the overall probability of civilizational collapse, or worse, occurring. For example, the cosmologist Lord Martin Rees puts the likelihood of civilization imploding at 50 percent this century, and Bostrom argues that an existential catastrophe has an equal to or greater than 25 percent chance of happening. It follows that, as Stephen Hawking recently put it, humanity has never lived in more dangerous times.

This is why I believe that the movement's emphasis on the deep future is a very good thing. Our world is one in which contemplating what lies ahead often extends no further than quarterly reports and the next political election. Yet, as suggested above, the future could contain astronomical amounts of value if only we manage to slalom through the obstacle course of natural and anthropogenic hazards before us. While contemporary issues like global poverty, disease, and animal welfare weigh heavily on the minds of many effective altruists, it is encouraging to see a growing number of people taking seriously the issue of humanity's long-term future.

This article draws from Phil Torres's forthcoming book Morality, Foresight, and Human Flourishing: An Introduction to Existential Risk Studies .

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Effective Altruism Says You Can Save the Future by Making Money - Motherboard

Why Invest in a Nanotech Stock? – Investing News Network (press release) (registration) (blog)

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Here, the Investing News Network provides an overview of the basics before investing in a nanotech stock.

The nanotechnology market is currently experiencing a promising stage of growth, making it an attractive space for first time and sophisticated investors.

From nanotechnology-based solar panels that increase energy efficiency to therapeutics which make use of nano tech in the biomedical field, nanotechnology investing has far reaching effects which are quickly transforming the world.

With that in mind, here the Investing News Network provides a brief overview of what nantoech is, a market overview, and the industrys future outlook to help investors decide if investing in a nanotech stock fits their portfolio needs.

Lauded as the new industrial revolution, research and development into nanotechnology has significant implications for almost every industry. Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter on a nanoscale. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter, or approximately 1/90,000th the width of a single human hair. With themarket expected to reach a staggering $75.8 billion by 2020, this microscale is producing macro returns for savvy investors.

In 2006, Lux Research estimated that revenues from products using nanotechnology would reach $2.6 trillion by 2014 (a staggering increase from the $14 billion that nanotech produced in 2004). These optimistic market predictions spurred a flurry of nano investing, including the launch of PowerShares Lux Nanotech Portfolio (NYSEARCA:PXN), an exchange-traded $89-million fund launched by Lux Research and PowerShares Capital Management.

Ultimately the PowerShares Lux Nanotech Portfolio didnt live up to its initial promise. Despite predictions at the peak of the mid-2000s nanotechnology investing bubble, nanotech stockdidnt achieve the rate of growth that investors had hoped and, after primarily incurring losses since its inception, the fund liquidated in February 2014.

However, this news isnt all bad. What has emerged out of a boom and bust market is an industry founded upon strategic long-term business plans, and in-demand innovative products. Many industrial firms receive steady revenue from nanotechnology products, which they re-invest in the market to drive innovation forward.

For example, nanotech giant 3M (NYSE:MMM) uses nanotechnology in its products destined for the dental, electronics, architecture and energy markets. Used in dental restoratives (like fillings, crowns, and orthopedic brackets) and brightness enhancing optical films (which make LCD displays bright and clear), nanotech has a diverse range of uses. Some of 3Ms core nanotech products include 3M Optical Films, Prestige, Filtek.

With an anticipated compound annual growth rate of around 16.9 percent to reach $12.83 billion by 2021according to an Industry ARC reportthe nanotech market appears to be a promising investment. Although the dramatic anticipated growth rates of the mid-2000s are a thing of the past, what remains is a solid market which consistently produces exciting, far-reaching, and potentially transformative innovation.

With the nanotech market poised for significant growth over the next several years, smaller market cap companies are sure to benefit from this flourishing industryincluding the ones listed here.

Taking all of the above into consideration, perhaps investors can now better determine whether investing in a nanostock fitsportfolio needs.

Dont forget to follow us @INN_Technology for real-time news updates.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on the Investing News Network in 2015.

Securities Disclosure: I, Jocelyn Aspa, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

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Why Invest in a Nanotech Stock? - Investing News Network (press release) (registration) (blog)

Industrial Nanotech Inc (INTK) Shares Needle Moving -5.41% – Stock Rover

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Shares ofIndustrial Nanotech Inc (INTK) is moving on volatility today-5.41% or -0.0002 rom the open.TheOTC listed companysaw a recent bid of0.0035 on261000 volume.

After conducting extensive research and thoroughly combing through fundamentals and technicals, it may be time for the investor to make some tough buy or sell decisions. Investors may be keen to the notion that the frequency of being right in making decisions may not be as important as the magnitude of the correctness.

Digging deeping into the Industrial Nanotech Inc (INTK) s technical indicators, we note that the Williams Percent Range or 14 day Williams %R currently sits at -58.33. The Williams %R oscillates in a range from 0 to -100. A reading between 0 and -20 would point to an overbought situation. A reading from -80 to -100 would signal an oversold situation. The Williams %R was developed by Larry Williams. This is a momentum indicator that is the inverse of the Fast Stochastic Oscillator.

In technical analysis prices of securities tend to move in observable trends with a tendency to stay in the trend. The trend is considered to be intact until the trend line is broken. After a trend has been established, the future price movement is more likely to be in the same direction as the trend than to be against it. This is where the old adage the trend is your friend comes from, meaning you should trade in the same direction as the trend.

Industrial Nanotech Inc (INTK) currently has a 14-day Commodity Channel Index (CCI) of -0.53. Active investors may choose to use this technical indicator as a stock evaluation tool. Used as a coincident indicator, the CCI reading above +100 would reflect strong price action which may signal an uptrend. On the flip side, a reading below -100 may signal a downtrend reflecting weak price action. Using the CCI as a leading indicator, technical analysts may use a +100 reading as an overbought signal and a -100 reading as an oversold indicator, suggesting a trend reversal.

Currently, the 14-day ADX for Industrial Nanotech Inc (INTK) is sitting at 35.88. Generally speaking, an ADX value from 0-25 would indicate an absent or weak trend. A value of 25-50 would support a strong trend. A value of 50-75 would identify a very strong trend, and a value of 75-100 would lead to an extremely strong trend. ADX is used to gauge trend strength but not trend direction. Traders often add the Plus Directional Indicator (+DI) and Minus Directional Indicator (-DI) to identify the direction of a trend.

The RSI, or Relative Strength Index, is a widely used technical momentum indicator that compares price movement over time. The RSI was created by J. Welles Wilder who was striving to measure whether or not a stock was overbought or oversold. The RSI may be useful for spotting abnormal price activity and volatility. The RSI oscillates on a scale from 0 to 100. The normal reading of a stock will fall in the range of 30 to 70. A reading over 70 would indicate that the stock is overbought, and possibly overvalued. A reading under 30 may indicate that the stock is oversold, and possibly undervalued. After a recent check, the 14-day RSI for Industrial Nanotech Incis currently at 52.44, the 7-day stands at 47.34, and the 3-day is sitting at 30.73.

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Industrial Nanotech Inc (INTK) Shares Needle Moving -5.41% - Stock Rover

Needle Action Activity Spotted in Nanotech Security Corp (NTS.V) – Ozark Times

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Shares ofNanotech Security Corp (NTS.V) have seen the needle move0.76% or 0.01 in the most recent session. TheTSXV listed companysaw a recent bid of $1.33 on7920 volume.

Many individual investors would agree that self confidence can play a major role when investing in the stock market. Learning how to trust instinct might be the difference between a good trade and a great trade. Investors who are able to develop a high level of self confidence may be able to pull the handle on a trade that most other people wouldnt. Of course this may work against the investor who pushes self confidence into over confidence territory. Investors may also have to master the art of being patient in the stock market. Often times there are strategies that take time to fully develop. Taking the time to make solid investing decisions can mean the difference between realized profits and portfolio busters.

Taking a deeper look into the technical levels ofNanotech Security Corp (NTS.V), we can see thatthe Williams Percent Range or 14 day Williams %R currently sits at -10.00. The Williams %R oscillates in a range from 0 to -100. A reading between 0 and -20 would point to an overbought situation. A reading from -80 to -100 would signal an oversold situation. The Williams %R was developed by Larry Williams. This is a momentum indicator that is the inverse of the Fast Stochastic Oscillator.

Nanotech Security Corp (NTS.V) currently has a 14-day Commodity Channel Index (CCI) of 208.94. Active investors may choose to use this technical indicator as a stock evaluation tool. Used as a coincident indicator, the CCI reading above +100 would reflect strong price action which may signal an uptrend. On the flip side, a reading below -100 may signal a downtrend reflecting weak price action. Using the CCI as a leading indicator, technical analysts may use a +100 reading as an overbought signal and a -100 reading as an oversold indicator, suggesting a trend reversal.

The RSI, or Relative Strength Index, is a widely used technical momentum indicator that compares price movement over time. The RSI was created by J. Welles Wilder who was striving to measure whether or not a stock was overbought or oversold. The RSI may be useful for spotting abnormal price activity and volatility. The RSI oscillates on a scale from 0 to 100. The normal reading of a stock will fall in the range of 30 to 70. A reading over 70 would indicate that the stock is overbought, and possibly overvalued. A reading under 30 may indicate that the stock is oversold, and possibly undervalued. After a recent check, Nanotech Security Corps 14-day RSI is currently at 58.26, the 7-day stands at 65.07, and the 3-day is sitting at 75.45.

Currently, the 14-day ADX for Nanotech Security Corp (NTS.V) is sitting at 14.96. Generally speaking, an ADX value from 0-25 would indicate an absent or weak trend. A value of 25-50 would support a strong trend. A value of 50-75 would identify a very strong trend, and a value of 75-100 would lead to an extremely strong trend. ADX is used to gauge trend strength but not trend direction. Traders often add the Plus Directional Indicator (+DI) and Minus Directional Indicator (-DI) to identify the direction of a trend.

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Needle Action Activity Spotted in Nanotech Security Corp (NTS.V) - Ozark Times

Jerusalem, Nicosia and WW3 – Dissident Voice

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How did this came about? How did the Cypriots, who are known to support the Palestinian cause, become a province of the Israeli empire?

An Israel-Europe gas pipeline deal is the answer.

In the beginning of April we learned about a proposed 2,000 kilometer subsea pipeline connecting gas fields located offshore in Gaza and Cyprus with Greece and possibly Italy.

The pipeline agreement among Israel, Italy, Cyprus and Greece leaves both the Turks and the Palestinians out. While Gaza faces a critical energy crisis with electricity reduced to less than three hours a day; Israel aims to collect billions of dollars from a significant natural gas reserve located off the Gaza shore and well within Palestinian territorial water (assuming such a term exist).

Yuval Steinitz, Israels energy minister, hailed the pipeline project expected to be in operation in 2025 as the beginning of a wonderful friendship between four Mediterranean countries. Of course, not all related Mediterranean nations are included in the deal. We can foresee that this is a recipe for disaster: the pipeline and the gas installation are soft targets. The region is volatile. Cyprus is putting its sovereignty at risk. It may, within a short time, God forbid, become a battle ground for some merciless global operators.

Cyprus leadership realises that it has to become an Israeli province if it wants an oil pipeline that dispatches plundered Palestinian natural gas. And as the video reveals, Cyprus is now protected by its Israelite big brother. The Israeli-Cypriot joint military drill was performed to deliver a message to Turkey and other regional players: any attempt to interfere with their gas theft project will be met by Israeli military brutality.

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Jerusalem, Nicosia and WW3 - Dissident Voice

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Q&A: LaughFest comedian talks science and psychedelics – Red and Black

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With AthFest around the corner, comedian Shane Mauss will be coming to Athens for the LaughFest comedy festival, headlining two separate shows. On June 21, Mauss will be bringing his Good Trip comedy tour to the Georgia Theatre, and then the next day he will hold a live recording of his Here We Are science podcast. The Red & Black spoke to Mauss about his distinct comedic style, as well as the finer details of his career in comedy.

Where would you say your interest in doing standup started?

When I was young I had a friend tell me I should be a standup comedian and it just got in my head from there. It sounded like a cool job. It was when I was nine or 10 years old when everyone was kind of thinking of what they wanted to be when they grow up.

How did your career shape up once you got your start?

You start doing open mics, you start doing spots at clubs and eventually you start hosting shows and headlining. I did some comedy festivals early on that I did well in, I was able to get on Conan really early on and [I] got on Comedy Central. Things just took off for me after that and I was able to go full time with it. Ive been a road comic ever since.

What kind of material do you tend to cover in your standup? Do you have favorite topics?

I try to incorporate a lot of the things I learn into my standup. I have this special on Netflix called Mating Season that covered a lot of the evolution of mating behavior. I had one called My Big Break which on the surface was about a hiking accident where I broke both of my feet, but it was really about the evolved function of negative emotions. My current show is about psychedelics and how our perception of consciousness is.

How have your interactions with fans been? Being a full time, on-the-road comedian, you must have some stories.

Usually, when people are leaving a comedy show theyre like hey, great job, they leave and thats that. In this show about psychedelics, which I market specifically to the different psychedelic enthusiasts and psychedelic communities in each city, the level of engagement is much higher. People want to share their stories with me and ask a million questions. Oftentimes, people dont get to talk about this stuff publicly, so it gives them an opportunity to meet other people in the community.

Could you tell me a bit about the focus of the podcast?

I talk to a lot of biologists, evolutionary psychologists, behavioral economics people, neuroscientiststhings like that. A lot of the focus of the podcast is about many of our cognitive biases and how we arent consciously aware of a lot of the ways our brain drives us to behave. Why we are attracted to the people that we are attracted to, various mating behaviors, why we spend money the way that we spend ita lot of decision making kind of stuff.

Whats one thing you would like everyone to know about yourself and your work?

My comedy is a little bit different than your average standup. Its a bit more insightful and we cover some bigger ideas. I describe my show as a third funny stories and my experiences, a third standup and a third TED talk.

Shane Mauss performs Conan, Episode 0408, May 02, 2013 Meghan Sinclair/Conaco, LLC for TBS

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Q&A: LaughFest comedian talks science and psychedelics - Red and Black

23 Best Cyberpunk Books – The Best Sci Fi Books

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If any genre of science fiction is actually right about the future, its probably cyberpunk: rule by corporations, high tech and low life, cybernetics, the use of technology in ways its creators never intended, and loners wandering a landscape covered with lenses and screens. Hell, I dont call that science fiction; I call that Tuesday.

1

by Charles Stross 2005

It is the era of the posthuman. Artificial intelligences have surpassed the limits of human intellect. Biotechnological beings have rendered people all but extinct. Molecular nanotechnology runs rampant, replicating and reprogramming at will. Contact with extraterrestrial life grows more imminent with each new day.

Struggling to survive and thrive in this accelerated world are three generations of the Macx clan: Manfred, an entrepreneur dealing in intelligence amplification technology whose mind is divided between his physical environment and the Internet; his daughter, Amber, on the run from her domineering mother and seeking her fortune in the outer system as an indentured astronaut; and Sirhan, Ambers son, who finds his destiny linked to the fate of all humanity.

About the title: in Italian, accelerando means speeding up and is used as a tempo marking in musical notation. In Strosss novel, it refers to the accelerating rate at which humanity in general, and/or the novels characters, head towards the technological singularity. The term was used earlier in this way by Kim Stanley Robinson in his 1985 novel The Memory of Whiteness and again in his Mars trilogy.

2

by Richard K. Morgan 2002

Not since Isaac Asimov has anyone combined SF and mystery so well. A very rich man kills himself, and when his backup copy is animated, he hires Takeshi Kovacs to find out why.

Morgan creates a gritty, noir tale that will please Raymond Chandler fans, an impressive accomplishment in any genre.

3

by Greg Egan 1997

Since the Introdus in the 21st century, humanity has reconfigured itself drastically. Most chose immortality, joining the polises to become conscious software.

Others opted for gleisners: Disposable, renewable robotic bodies that remain in contact with the physical world of force and friction. Many of these have left the Solar System forever in fusion drive starships.

And there are the holdouts. The fleshers left behind in the muck and jungle of Earth some devolved into dream-apes; others cavorting in the seas or the air; while the statics and bridges try to shape out a roughly human destiny.

fans of hard SF that incorporates higher mathematics and provocative hypotheses about future evolution are sure to be fascinated by Egans speculations. -Publishers Weekly

4

by Bruce Sterling 1998

Its November 2044, an election year, and the state of the Union is a farce. The government is broke, the cities are privately owned, and the military is shaking down citizens in the streets. Washington has become a circus and no one knows that better than Oscar Valparaiso. A political spin doctor, Oscar has always made things look good. Now he wants to make a difference.

Oscar has a single ally: Dr. Greta Penninger, a gifted neurologist at the bleeding edge of the neural revolution. Together theyre out to spread a very dangerous idea whose time has come. And so have their enemies: every technofanatic, government goon, and laptop assassin in America. Oscar and Greta might not survive to change the world, but theyll put a new spin on it.

Sterling once again proves himself the reigning master of near-future political SF. This is a powerful and, at times, very funny novel that should add significantly to Sterlings already considerable reputation. -Publishers Weekly

5

by Philip K. Dick 1968

When Ridley Scott made the film Blade Runner, he used a lot of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? but he also threw a lot away. Instead of Harrison Fords lonely bounty hunter, Dicks protagonist is a financially strapped municipal employee with bills to pay and a depressed wife.

Theres also a whole subplot that follows John Isidore, a man of sub-par IQ who aids the fugitive androids.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a much more sober and darker meditation of what it means to be human than the film it inspired.

6

by Cory Doctorow 2003

It takes a special mind to combine Disney and cyberpunk, and author Cory Doctorow apparently has it (in his head, or in a jar, I dont know the specifics).

Jules is a young man barely a century old. Hes lived long enough to see the cure for death and the end of scarcity, to learn ten languages and compose three symphoniesand to realize his boyhood dream of taking up residence in Disney World.

Disney World! The greatest artistic achievement of the long-ago twentieth century, currently in the keeping of a network of ad-hocs who keep the classic attractions running as they always have, enhanced with only the smallest high-tech touches.

Now, though, the ad hocs are under attack. A new group has taken over the Hall of the Presidents, and is replacing its venerable audioanimatronics with new, immersive direct-to-brain interfaces that give guests the illusion of being Washington, Lincoln, and all the others. For Jules, this is an attack on the artistic purity of Disney World itself.

Worse: it appears this new group has had Jules killed. This upsets him. (Its only his fourth death and revival, after all.) Now its war.

Juless narrative unfolds so smoothly that readers may forget that all this raging passion is over amusement park rides. Then they can ask what that shows about the novels supposedly mature, liberated characters. Doctorow has served up a nicely understated dish: meringue laced with caffeine. -Publishers Weekly

7

by John Shirley 1999

Eclipse takes place in an alternate history where the Soviet Union never collapsed, and has invaded Western Europe but didnt use its nukes. At least, not its big ones.

Into the chaos steps the Second Alliance, a multinational corporation eager to impose its own kind of New World Order.

In the United States, in FirStep (a vast space colony), and on the artificial island Freezone, the Second Alliance shoulders its way to power, spinning a dark web of media manipulation, propaganda, and infiltration.

Only the New Resistance recognizes the Second Alliance for what it really is: a racist theocracy hiding a cult of eugenics.

Enter Rick Rickenharp, a former rocknroll cult hero: a rock classicistout of place in Europes underground club scene, populated by wiredancers and minimonos but destined to play a Song Called Youth that will shake the world.

the novel offers a thrashy punk riff on science fictions familiar future war scenario. -Publishers Weekly

8

by Lewis Shiner 1984

Ten years ago the worlds governments collapsed, and now the corporations are in control. Houstons Pulsystems has sent an expedition to the lost Martian colony of Frontera to search for survivors. Reese, aging hero of the US space program, knows better. The colonists are not only alive, they have discovered a secret so devastating that the new rulers of Earth will stop at nothing to own it. Reese is equally desperate to use it for his own very personal agenda. But none of them has reckoned with Kane, a tortured veteran of the corporate wars, whose hallucinatory voices are urging him to complete an ancient cycle of heroism and alter the destiny of the human race.

Lewis Shiners Frontera is an extraordinarily accomplished first novel his pacing is brisk, his scientific extrapolation well-informed and plausible, and his characterization nothing short of outstanding This is realism of a sort seldom found in either commercial or literary fiction; to find it in a first novel makes one eager for more. -Chicago Sun-Times

9

by Masamune Shirow 1989

Chances are, if youre reading about cyberpunk, youve seen the anime film Ghost in the Shell. If you havent, give it a shot and see what you think. Notice the little details in addition to the wild cyborg violence: a single drop of water hitting the ground, the heaviness with which a tired person collapses on a chair, and more.

Deep into the twenty-first century, the line between man and machine has been inexorably blurred as humans rely on the enhancement of mechanical implants and robots are upgraded with human tissue. In this rapidly converging landscape, cyborg superagent Major Motoko Kusanagi is charged with tracking down the craftiest and most dangerous terrorists and cybercriminals, including ghost hackers who are capable of exploiting the human/machine interface and reprogramming humans to become puppets to carry out the hackers criminal ends. When Major Kusanagi tracks the cybertrail of one such master hacker, the Puppeteer, her quest leads her into a world beyond information and technology where the very nature of consciousness and the human soul are turned upside down.

Masamunes b&w drawings are dynamic and beautifully gestural; he vividly renders the awesome urban landscape of a futuristic, supertechnological Japan.- Publishers Weekly

10

by Walter Jon Williams 1986

The remnants of a war-ravaged America endure in scattered, heavily armed colonies, while the wealthy Orbital Corporations now control the world. Cowboy, an ex-fighter pilot who has become hardwired via skull sockets connected directly to his lethal electronic hardware, is now a panzerboy, a hi-tech smuggler riding armored hovertanks through the balkanized countryside. He teams up with Sarah, an equally cyborized gun-for-hire, to make a last stab at independence from the rapacious Orbitals. Together, they gather an unlikely gang of misfits for a ride that will take them to the edge of the atmosphere.

[a] heavy-metal adventure buried under an elaborate techno-punk style of the sort William Gibson popularized in Neuromancer. In both cases, it is a pose, a baroque nostalgia for Hemingway and film noir; it only plays at nihilism, terror and despair. The best effect is Williamss future version of a brain-scrambled vet: a dead buddy of Cowboys whose scattered bits and pieces of computer memory now constitute a ragged semblance of a man. -Publishers Weekly

11

by Harlan Ellison 1967

Pissing off science fiction writers everywhere, Ellison wrote the story I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream in a single night in 1966, making virtually no changes from the first draft. He won a Hugo award for it, too. Bastard.

12

by Pat Cadigan 1987

Allie Haas only did it for a dare. But putting on the madcap that Jerry Wirerammer has borrowed was a very big mistake. The psychosis itself was quite conventional, a few paranoid delusions, but it didnt go away when she took the madcap off. Jerry did the decent thing and left her at an emergency room for dry-cleaning but then the Brain Police took over. Straightened out by a professional mindplayer, Allie thinks shes left mind games behind for good but then comes the fazer: she can either go to jail as mind criminal or she can train as a mindplayer herself

13

by William Gibson 1984

Gibson rewrote the first 2/3 of this book (his first novel) twelve times and was worried people would think he stole the feel from Blade Runner, which had come out two years earlier. He was convinced he would be permanently shamed after it was published.

Fortunately for Gibson, Neuromancer won science fictions triple crown (the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick awards) and became the seminal cyberpunk work.

14

by Melissa Scott 1997

Young Ista Kelly is a foundling, the only survivor of a pirate raid on an asteroid mine. In a future where one cannot live without an official identity, this is the story of Istas harrowing journey back to the asteroid to find her true identity.

Scott here presents a well-developed future rife with cybertechnology, space travel, artificial habitats and asteroid mining. The primary cyber-innovations in this era are hammals, computer programs that function independently, devour each other, reproduce and mutate Scott explores the ramifications of virtual life through the very human eyes of her principals; this is most artful cyberpunk, told with heart. -Publishers Weekly

15

by China Miville 2000

Perdido Street Station borrows from steampunk, cyberpunk, fantasy, and a few other genres that couldnt run away fast enough.

Beneath the towering bleached ribs of a dead, ancient beast lies New Crobuzon, a squalid city where humans, Re-mades, and arcane races live in perpetual fear of Parliament and its brutal militia. The air and rivers are thick with factory pollutants and the strange effluents of alchemy, and the ghettos contain a vast mix of workers, artists, spies, junkies, and whores. In New Crobuzon, the unsavory deal is stranger to no onenot even to Isaac, a brilliant scientist with a penchant for Crisis Theory.

Mivilles canvas is so breathtakingly broad that the details of individual subplots and characters sometime lose their definition. But it is also generous enough to accommodate large dollops of aesthetics, scientific discussion and quest fantasy in an impressive and ultimately pleasing epic. -Publishers Weekly

16

by Ernest Cline 2011

In the year 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when hes jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wades devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this worlds digital confinespuzzles that are based on their creators obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them.

But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wades going to survive, hell have to winand confront the real world hes always been so desperate to escape.

This adrenaline shot of uncut geekdom, a quest through a virtual world, is loaded with enough 1980s nostalgia to please even the most devoted John Hughes fans sweet, self-deprecating Wade, whose universe is an odd mix of the real past and the virtual present, is the perfect lovable/unlikely hero. -Publishers Weekly (Pick of the Week)

17

by Neal Stephenson 1992

Stephenson explained the title of the novel as his term for a particular software failure mode on the early Apple Macintosh computer. He wrote about the Macintosh that When the computer crashed and wrote gibberish into the bitmap, the result was something that looked vaguely like static on a broken television seta snow crash.'

In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzos CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse hes a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus thats striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse.

Although Stephenson provides more Sumerian culture than the story strictly needs (alternating intense activity with scholarship breaks), his imaginative juxtaposition of ancient and futuristic detail could make this a cult favorite. -Publishers Weekly

18

by Jeff Somers 2007

Avery Cates is a very bad man. Some might call him a criminal. He might even be a killerfor the Right Price. But right now, Avery Cates is scared. Hes up against the Monks: cyborgs with human brains, enhanced robotic bodies, and a small arsenal of advanced weaponry. Their mission is to convert anyone and everyone to the Electric Church. But there is just one snag. Conversion means death.

Somerss science fiction thriller has an acerbic wit. -Publishers Weekly

19

by K.W. Jeter 1985

Despite this books obscurity, it consistently shows up on the majority of best cyberpunk lists out there.

Schuyler is a sprinterone who outruns government particle beam satellites to deliver computer chips to the European black market. He becomes a media celebrity and the icon of a new religious cult.

An endless maze of shadows and reflections, cameras and monitor screens, desert and snow, chrome and glass. Nothing is real and the only way to find this out is to self-destruct. -Justin Farrar, random person on Goodreads

20

by Alfred Bester 1956

The Stars My Destination anticipated many of the staples of the later cyberpunk movement. For instance, the megacorporations as powerful as governments, and a dark overall vision of the future and the cybernetic enhancement of the body.

Marooned in outer space after an attack on his ship, Nomad, Gulliver Foyle lives to obsessively pursue the crew of a rescue vessel that had intended to leave him to die.

Science fiction has only produced a few works of actual genius, and this is one of them. -Joe Haldeman, author of The Forever War

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The Devil Wears Prada Release Cyberpunk ‘Worldwide’ Video – Loudwire

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Last year, The Devil Wears Prada released possibly the best album of their career inTransit Blues. In eleven tracks, the band took their finely crafted metalcore to new heights by incorporating elements of sludge and doom metal, creating a wholly new sound and life for the group.Today they released a new video for one of the albums singles,Worldwide.

As the third video off the album following Daughter and To the Key of Evergreen, Worldwide continues their streak of striking visuals that tell thought-provoking stories. The visuals include different people being hooked up to a variety of different machines. The band themselves are also hooked up to luminescent wires while they play.

Song-wise, it shows off the bands ability to make a straight up rock song with a great hook. Clean singer/guitarist Jeremy DePoyster takes center stage on the song, offering up a verse that paints a map of the bands travels, a desire to get lost in the lush destinations theyve had the fortune to visit. Screamer Mike Hranica gives a sharp dichotomy to DePoysters voice, adding a sharp edge to the song.

The song matter correlates with the bands intent on the album, in wanting to be able to sing about more ordinary matters than a typical metal song would allow for. In an interview we conducted with the band, Hranica said, I wanted to be able to talk about more ordinary topics, and for the most part thats just what really has gripped me in my own musical taste, and I wanted to find a way to have these aggressive songs but be able to talk about more mundane matters, and I think thats also very much born from literature. Alot of reading is not going to be these highly intense sort of moments all the time, as compared to, you know, if you look at the substance behind a metal record, where its all so dire and dramatic.

Its too soon to tell whatll come next for the band, but hopefully well be treated to more visual components that match up with the bands music.

Watch the video for Worldwide above!

The Devil Wears Prada Play Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?

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The Devil Wears Prada Release Cyberpunk 'Worldwide' Video - Loudwire

Sen. Grassley: On Many Campuses Free Speech Is Sacrificed at the Altar of Political Correctness – Townhall

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Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) presided over a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday on The Assault on the First Amendment on College Campuses. In his opening remarks, Grassley cited several recent concerning incidents on college campuses and expressed concern that on too many campuses today, free speech appears to be sacrificed at the altar of political correctness.

Grassley cited a requirement At Kellogg Community College for prior approval for speech in public forums, a two-fold violation of the First Amendment, adding that amazingly, students there were arrested for distributing copies of the United States Constitution. Their lawsuit against the college and against its administrators in their personal capacity is pending.

He said that many students erroneously think that speech that they consider hateful is violent, but some students engage in acts of violence against speech, and universities have failed to prevent or adequately punish that violence.

He cited the instances of safety concerns over mob violence at the University of California Berkeley which the university failed to control that prevented invited speakers Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter from speaking.

Grassley emphasized that the First Amendment is clear. The Supreme Court has decided that offensive speech is protected, that speech cannot be restricted based on viewpoint, that public forums must be places where free speech rights can be exercised, and that prior restraints on speech are highly disfavored. Otherwise, any speech that anyone found offensive could be suppressed. Little free speech would survive.

This point was reaffirmed Monday when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of an Asian-American bad named The Slants being able to trademark the term because of free speech despite the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office finding it to be offensive.

Many administrators believe that students should be shielded from hate speech, whatever that is, as an exception to the First Amendment, Grassley said. Unfortunately, this censorship is no different from any other examples in history, when speech that authorities deemed to be heretical has been suppressed based on its content.

Grassley also cited a recent Gallup poll which found that students by a 69-31 margin believe that it is desirable to restrict the use of slurs and other language intentionally offensive to certain groups.

Our democracy depends on the ability to try to advocate to inform or to change minds, he emphasized. When universities suppress speech, they not only damage freedom today, they establish and push norms harmful to democracy going forward. These restrictions may cause and exacerbate the political polarization that is so widely lamented in our society.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), thought that for speeches that inspire violent protest maybe universities should be steeped in and have the ability financially to really develop the kind of intelligence you need and the kind of policing that you need at some of these events.

I think our efforts would be much better finding methodologies to handle those incidents, she explained, pointing out that many universities are dealing with real safety concerns that they do not have the resources to address.

Its not a simple matter when demonstrations become violent, she emphasized.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) pointed out that on many campuses You see violent protests enacting effectively a hecklers veto where violent thugs come in and say this particular speaker, I disagree with what he or she has to say. And therefore, I will threaten physical violence if the speech is allowed to happen.

Cruz added that far too many colleges and universities quietly roll over and say okay the threat of violence we will effectively reward the violent criminals and muzzle the First Amendment.

Peach State Beatdown: Can Handel Survive Ossoff Insurgency in GA-06?

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Sen. Grassley: On Many Campuses Free Speech Is Sacrificed at the Altar of Political Correctness - Townhall

Newly discovered fossils fill gaps in amphibian evolution – Treehugger

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The newfound fossils shed light on the early evolution of one of the planets most mysterious amphibians. Caecilians are one of the most mysterious amphibians on earth. This group of limbless, serpentine carnivores can range in size from 6 inches to 5 feet and primarily live underground in wet, tropical areas across Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia. Although there are currently about 200 known species of caecilians, little is known about their early evolution.

Caecilians, turtles and some fish are the only major vertebrate groups that paleontologists still have questions about, explained Jason Pardo, a doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. Caecilians are hard to find in the fossil record because most are so small, added Adam Huttenlocker, an assistant professor in the Department of Integrative Anatomical Sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

Bryan Small, a research associate at Texas Tech University, discovered two caecilian fossils from the late Mesozoic Era in the 1990s in Eagle County, Colorado, but these fossils had reduced limbs and resembled the caecilians of today, leaving questions about the amphibians early evolution unanswered.

However, Small, Pardo, and Huttenlocker recently discovered two new caecilian fossils from the Triassic Period in central Colorado. Named Chinlestegophis jenkinsi, the new fossils act as a sort of missing link, connecting caecilians to stereospondyls, the most diverse amphibian group during the Triassic Period over 200 million years ago.

The skulls of the new fossils were slightly under 1 inch long, implying that C. jenkinsi were about the size of a small salamander, according to Huttenlocker. Chinlestegophis jenkinsi still preserves a lot of the primitive morphology that is shared with other Triassic amphibians, namely their four legs," he added. The ancient amphibian probably ate insects and possessed tiny but functional eyes, differentiating it from modern caecilians, as many modern species either do not have eyes or hide their eyes under moist skin.

Our textbook-changing discovery will require paleontologists to re-evaluate the timing of the origin of modern amphibian groups and how they evolved, Huttenlocker noted. Prior to the discovery of the fossils, stereospondyls were believed to be unrelated to any creatures living today. However, these newfound fossils suggest that the amphibians of today evolved from a common ancestor about 315 million years ago.

Pardo argued that the discovery of the fossils could be beneficial to humans. Its possible that the things that frog and salamander tissue can do when it comes to scarless healing are also present in human DNA but may be turned off, he explained. Because humans are also vertebrates, we enhance our understanding of our own evolutionary history and genetic heritage when we gain understanding of the amphibian lineage.

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Two New Books Look at Evolution via Teeth and Tunnels – Scientific American

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Brush your fossils twice a day. Do it for yourself and for future researchers and museum visitors. Because if any part of you is going to get unearthed millions of years from now, it'll probably be a tooth. Teeth are stronger than bones, and they are much more likely to survive the ages, writes University of Arkansas paleoanthropologist Peter S. Ungar in his book Evolution's Bite: A Story of Teeth, Diet and Human Origins. Not to be confused with Felix Unger, who once invested in a dental adhesive based on the substance barnacles produce to stick to ships. (Watch The Odd Couple, season 4, episode 13: A Barnacle Adventure. Spoiler alert: the glue fails when the patient's mouth gets dry.)

In fossil bones, most of the material that existed while the animal was alive gets slowly replaced over time by minerals. The resulting buried treasure is really a natural cast of the bone with properties more like rock than like what's inside The Rock (aka Dwayne Johnson). Teeth start out most of the way there. Teeth are essentially ready-made fossils, Ungar writes. The enamel that coats ours, for example, is 97% mineral. Such prefossilization means there are often hundreds if not thousands of teeth for every skeleton or complete skull we find.... Fortunately for paleontologists, they are also excellent tools for understanding life in the past.

Teeth tell such tales because their shapes and the usage patterns etched on them offer up heaping helpings of information about what animals ate and how they lived. If we can reconstruct diet from teeth, for example, Ungar writes, we can use them as a bridge to the worlds of our ancestors. Likewise, your teeth could one day serve as a bridge. Unless, of course, you have a bridge.

While reading Ungar, I could not help but think about Don McLeroy, a man who vexed scientists and educators for the first decade of this century in his roles as a member and then chair of the Texas State Board of Education. McLeroy fought against the inclusion of evolution in curricula. He believed that the earth is only a few thousands of years old. He was quoted as saying, Evolution is hooey. And that somebody's got to stand up to experts. All those views would be irritating if McLeroy's day job had been as a plumber or an architect or an insurance agent. But what made McLeroy particularly maddening was that he worked on a daily basis with the most abundantly clear evidence of evolution that can be found in the fossil record: he is a dentist.

While you're chewing on that irony, consider that for hundreds of millions of years some animals have avoided the teeth of predators by getting down and dirty. Imagine yourself the size of a shrew and living in environments where dinosaurs are everywhere, writes Emory University paleontologist Anthony J. Martin in his book The Evolution Underground: Burrows, Bunkers, and the Marvelous Subterranean World beneath Our Feet. Yes, that's a mouthful.

Some want to eat you, while others will carelessly step on you and carry your squashed remains like chewing gum on their feet for days, Martin continues. Oh, you say you live in deep burrows where no dinosaurs can find you or compress you into two dimensions? Yes, that will do nicely.... Congratulations, shrew-sized mammal: You win the survival sweepstakes, and one tiny branch of your descendants eventually gets to a point where it can discuss how you outlived the dinosaurs. Plus, when the asteroid bit into a big chunk of what's now the Yucatn Peninsula 66 million years ago, stuff that lived undergroundand far awayclearly had a significant survival advantage.

In fact, Martin argues that the evolutionary paths taken by most modern animals, whether these are crocodilians, turtles, birds, lungfish, amphibians, earthworms, insects, crustaceans, or mammals, are connected to their burrowing ancestors. That passage can be found deep in the book under the subhead Living on Burrowed Time. Holy moly.

I dug both books. Sink your teeth into them.

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The evolution of the NBA Draft – MyAJC

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Ten years ago, the big question before the 2007 NBA draft was which of two players the Portland Trail Blazers would select with the top overall pick. One option was Greg Oden, the 7-footer out of Ohio State who was a traditional center playing near the basket. The other was Kevin Durant, a spindly, less-classifiable big man out of Texas.

It is easy to knock the Blazers for what happened. They drafted Oden, whom injuries limited to 105 games in the NBA. Meanwhile, Durant, who went No. 2, has become one of the best scorers in basketball history, and last week he was named the most valuable player in the NBA Finals as Golden State defeated Cleveland in five games.

But the most resonant lesson from that draft a decade ago is that were it held today, Portland would not need the benefit of hindsight to know to pick Durant over Oden. In fact, in todays NBA, Oden, who at the time defined his game as big-man hook shot, might not even be one of the top picks at all.

An Oden, people would look at him and want to go big, but hows he going to defend the pick-and-roll? Billy King, formerly the Brooklyn Nets general manager, said in an interview. Those guys arent involved in the game as much.

Understanding the evolution in the style of NBA basketball since the 2007 draft helps explain how Thursdays draft is likely to unfold.

The increased reliance on the 3-point shot; the constant presence of the pick-and-roll, which can be easier defended with nimble big men who can defensively switch onto traditional ball-handlers; the increased use of spacing, which requires big men who can credibly draw their defender away from the basket on offense, all mean that some of the best contemporary big men are mold breakers.

They are players like Giannis Antetokounmpo, the 22-year-old, 6-11 All-Star from Greece who has been versatile enough to play point guard for the Milwaukee Bucks, or gentle giants like the Utah Jazzs Rudy Gobert, a Frenchman who led the NBA in blocks per game while ably switching onto smaller opponents.

Youve had a bunch of very athletic guys coming in from overseas Giannis, Rudy Gobert, said player agent Marc Fleisher, and youre finding American players who are more skilled now, even though theyre big and lanky.

So among likely lottery draft picks, it seems as if for every traditional center who is focused on protecting the rim and scoring down low, there are two Swiss-Army-knife-style big men who are as comfortable shooting 18-foot jumpers as 5-foot bunnies.

So when the draft gets underway Thursday night, expect the top-drafted big man not to be Texas bruising center, Jarrett Allen, but Arizonas 7-foot forward Lauri Markkanen, who made nearly two 3-pointers per game for the Wildcats, or Florida States Jonathan Isaac, a Durant-like athlete.

And describing Edrice Adebayo, whose nickname is Bam, the Kentucky freshman whose draft stock fell because of a subpar season with the Wildcats, ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla, in a conference call, outlined the very model of a modern NBA big man: Youre looking at 6-10, strong, athletic, runs the floor, can guard pick-and-roll, can ball screen and run to the rim and catch lobs, and hes young.

Fraschilla added, Adebayo comes to mind as maybe someone that slipped in the so-called mock drafts that might be a good, really good, value.

Fleisher, copping to personal bias, had another candidate for such a player, and for the same reasons. Not to plug my own guy, he said in an interview, but thats one of the reasons Jonah Bolden is so interesting to teams. Hes 6-10, 7-4 wingspan, and can play small forward, power forward or center.

Thats the prototypical player teams are looking for now, Fleischer added. (Bolden, for those not in the know, is from Australia, played a year at UCLA and then moved to Serbia to play professionally.)

And then there are the elite point guards, with as many as five likely to be selected with the top 10 picks Thursday: Markelle Fultz (Washington), Lonzo Ball (UCLA), DeAaron Fox (Kentucky), Dennis Smith (North Carolina State) and Frank Ntilikina (France). All were just freshmen (or the equivalent, in the case of the 18-year-old Ntilikina). And all can score as well as do the more traditional point-guard work of facilitating the offense.

What this mother lode of ball-handling talent reveals along with a simple abundance of skill that happens to exist in this draft class is the increased premium on that position.

Theres no question having a really good point guard is pivotal in todays game, whereas the center position has probably been a little devalued lately, Fleisher said.

Indeed, the ever-idiosyncratic San Antonio Spurs might be the only team to make this seasons conference semifinals without an in-his-prime point guard, such as the Washington Wizards John Wall or the Boston Celtics Isaiah Thomas.

If you look at the teams winning now, King said, look at the East, with Kyrie Irving and Isaiah Thomas and John Wall. If youre going to have a good team, you have to have a setup point guard or a scoring point guard.

The fact that the Celtics possess a star point guard in Thomas, as well as the No. 1 pick (because of a fateful, four-year-old trade with the Nets) has created its own drama. The consensus best player in the draft is Fultz. So the word, first reported by Yahoos Adrian Wojnarowski, is that the Celtics will avoid that redundancy by trading their pick to the Philadelphia 76ers (who will select Fultz) and with the third overall selection they will receive in return pick one of the two traditional wing players bound to go early in the first round Josh Jackson (Kansas) or Jayson Tatum (Duke), and probably Jackson plug him in immediately and try to get past the Cleveland Cavaliers in next seasons playoffs, which they failed to do this season.

Ball, too, is the subject of much speculation, some of it manufactured by his P.T. Barnum-esque father, LaVar, who has made clear he considers the hometown Los Angeles Lakers, selecting second, to have the only glass slipper that will fit his sons otherwise ZO2-covered foot.

Still, recent chatter has the Lakers perhaps selecting Fox over Ball, and that is assuming Fultz does not drop to them.

Such details sound trivial, but they are not. The precise order of those high draft picks matters a great deal, as does good judgment. Consider what happened in 2009. That draft class was similarly stocked at point guard, with as many as five (depending on how you define them) taken with the first 10 picks that June.

The Minnesota Timberwolves used the fifth and sixth picks to select two point guards Ricky Rubio and Jonny Flynn. Since that draft, the Timberwolves have never made the playoffs. With the seventh pick, the Warriors selected what ostensibly should have been the fourth-best point guard, Stephen Curry. They have had considerably superior results.

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Bee antennae offer links between the evolution of social behavior and communication – Princeton University

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As bees' social behavior evolved, their complex chemical communication systems evolved in concert, according to a study published June 20 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

An international team of researchers, including those from Princeton University, reported that a certain species of bees, called halictid bees, have more sensorial machinery compared with related solitary species. The difference is measured by the density of tiny, hollow sensory hairs called sensilla on their antennae.

Because social living requires the coordination of complex social behaviors, social insects invest more in these sensory systems used to communicate information about resources, mates and sources of danger to their colonies and, therefore, are integral to survival than their solitary counterparts, according to Sarah Kocher, an associate research scholar at theLewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics and the paper's corresponding author.

Kocher and her colleagues imaged the antennae of adult females from 36 species that Kocher netted in the wild, mostly in France, or secured from specimens from the Museum of Comparative Zoology in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Using a scanning electron microscope at Princeton, they obtained information about the antennae's surface topography and composition and observed convergent changes in both sensilla structures and the chemical signals of the groups as sociality was gained and lost.

Sarah Kocher, an associate research scholar at theLewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics and the paper's corresponding author,and her colleagues imaged the antennae of adult females from 36 species using a scanning electron microscope. They obtained information about the antennae's surface topography and composition and observed convergent changes in both sensilla structures and the chemical signals of the groups as sociality was gained and lost.

Photo courtesy of Bernadette Wittwer, University of Melbourne

Kocher and her colleagues chose to examine halictid bees because they exhibit remarkable diversity in social behavior, from eusocial to solitary. Eusocial refers to an organizational structure in which individual insects in a colony forgo their reproductive capacity and perform a specific task, such as caring for young or gathering food, as seen in many ant, wasp and honeybee species. Also, within this family of insects, social behavior has evolved independently several times, and there are numerous examples of reversion, or a reappearance of an earlier physical characteristic, and replicated losses of sociality. These repeated gains and losses make the species one of the most behaviorally diverse social insects on the planet, and good candidates for studying sociality, according to Kocher. "What we have is a system with tremendous comparative power," she said.

Relatively little is known about the evolutionary transition between solitary and social living, according to Kocher. But in this paper, "[The researchers] provide an elegant solution to this problem," said Tom Wenseleers, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Leuven in Belgium who is familiar with the research but had no role in it. "By studying a group of primitively eusocial insects that evolved sociality more recently and on several occasions reverted back to a solitary lifestyle, [they] succeed in making an accurate comparison of the investment in chemosensory systems made by social and derived, closely related, nonsocial species."

In the paper, the researchers also noted that ancestrally solitary halictid bees those bees that had never evolved social behaviors had sensilla densities similar to eusocial species, while secondarily solitary halictid bees those bees that evolved from social to solitary and back exhibited decreases in sensilla density. Kocher was surprised by these patterns, but concluded that "sensilla density may be an important precursor to the evolution of social behavior."

"This study demonstrates that changes in social structure are reflected in changes to the sensory systems of insects," she said. "[It] not only illustrates the evolutionary shift from reproducing as an individual to having to coordinate reproduction as a group, but also how this behavioral change can create an evolutionary feedback loop in which traits are selected in order to increase sociality in subsequent generations."

Other authors on the paper, "Solitary bees reduce investment in communication compared with their social relatives" published June 20 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, were Bernadette Wittwer and Mark Elgar of School of BioSciences, University of Melbourne; Abraham Hefetz and Tovit Simon of the Department of Zoology, George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences at Tel-Aviv University; and Li Murphy and Naomi Pierce of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University.

The research was supported in part by the Holsworth Research Wildlife Endowment, the National Science Foundation (IOS-1257543), the Norman and Rose Lederer Chair of Biology at Tel-Aviv-University and Princeton University.

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Social Darwinism – RationalWiki

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They had better do it and decrease the surplus population.

Social Darwinism is a philosophy based on flawed readings of Charles Darwin's biology text On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859). The philosophy came into existence towards the end of the 19th century, though its origins can be traced all the way back to the ideas of Thomas Malthus (1766-1834).

Social Darwinists took the biological ideas of Charles Darwin (and often mixed them with Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Malthus) and attempted to apply them to the social sciences. They were especially interested in applying the idea of "the survival of the fittest" (their words, not Darwin's) in a social context, as this would excuse their existing ideas of racism, colonialism, and unfettered capitalism (for them, at least). It was also used as a tool to argue that governments should not interfere in human competition (as it existed at the time) in any way; and that the government should take no interest in, for example, regulating the economy, reducing poverty or introducing socialized medicine. In other words, have a laissez-faire policy.

The term "Social Darwinism" originated in Great Britain with the works of Herbert Spencer who coined the phrase "survival of the fittest" in the mid-19th century. However his work found more fertile ground in the US where it was taken up by William Graham Sumner who was accused of advocating a "dog-eat-dog" philosophy. This set of ideas was also influenced by the writings of Thomas Malthus, who argued that war was a check on population growth and that welfare promoted population growth among the poor and thus drove down wages. Indeed, what is often called "Social Darwinism" might be more accurately called "Social Malthusianism" since Malthus explicitly promoted policies generally construed as Social Darwinism.[1] The results of Malthus could be seen in the institution of the workhouses; reforming (in actuality virtually eliminating) the Poor Laws; and a general attitude of the upper classes of contempt for the lower classes for their demands of charity. This campaign was aided by the ideas of Jeremy Bentham's utilitarianism, one of the strongest ideologies of the British middle class, which stated that workers chose the poor life and that workhouses would encourage those who wanted to succeed to do so.

At the same time, the "struggle school" of Social Darwinism was being developed. In this view, nations grew and expanded as a result of conflicts with their neighbors. For many, this justified the overseas expansion of powerful nations at the expense of the weak and necessitated the creation of strong military forces.

At more or less the same time, the movement of "Reform Darwinism" was born. This variant emphasized the need for change and adaption in human society to meet new conditions. For example, they argued that the Constitution of the United States should be reinterpreted to meet changing conditions in the US. However some reformers felt that they could use the principles of (Social) Darwinism to justify imperialist, classist, racist, and sexist opinions. And at the extreme of these views was eugenics, originally developed by Darwin's cousin Francis Galton, certain strains of which advocated for state policy such as forced sterilization of the "unfit" (by their standards, of course)[2]

Fortunately, most of Social Darwinisms appeal left it in the early-to-middle part of the 20th century. There were a number of reasons for this including:

Finally an improved understanding of genetics and ideas about the evolutionary basis of philanthropy and compassion removed the basis of this "dog-eat-dog" philosophy.

The term "Social Darwinism" itself has been largely used as an epithet, especially after World War II, and was popularized greatly by the historian Richard Hofstadter, namely by his Social Darwinism in American Thought.[3]Revisionists have argued that Hofstadter's work has caused the term "Social Darwinism" to become wrongly associated with only laissez-faire ideology and wrongly invoked as a synonym for eugenics.[4][5][6] Hofstadter himself delineated two forms of "Social Darwinism" "laissez-faire Darwinism" and "collectivist Darwinism." The former might be represented by the likes of Spencer and Galton while the latter by Nazi biologists influenced by figures such as Ernst Haeckel. However, even this delineation still lumps opposing strains of thought together in some ways. For example, Spencer was also heavily influenced by Lamarckian conceptions of evolution while Galton was staunchly opposed to Lamarck.

The left has also embraced views that may be called forms of "Social Darwinism". Eugenics, for example, found wide support among Progressive Era figures and presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Pyotr Kropotkin, a founding thinker of anarcho-communism, was heavily influenced by Darwinian evolution but argued it supported altruism and cooperation rather than competition in his Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution.[7]Peter Singer has argued for what he calls a "Darwinian left."[8]

Indeed, evolutionary ideas have been used to support just about every ideology since (and even before) the publication of Darwin's work.[9][10] However, "Social Darwin-Lamarck-Malthus-Spencer-Galton-Haeckel-Kropotkin-ism" doesn't roll off the tongue as easily as "Social Darwinism."

Social Darwinism rests on two premises: there exists a constant struggle for survival in nature, and nature is a proper guide for the structuring of society. This is not a scientific idea at all, as it is not a statement about what is but rather a statement about what some people think "should" be.

Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection describes the propagation of hereditary traits due to the varying "success" of organisms in reproducing. Basing a moral philosophy on natural selection makes about as much sense as basing morality on the theory of gravitational success: rocks rolling down the furthest are the best rocks.

Social Darwinism is basically a circular argument. A group that gains power can claim to be the "best fit" because it is in power, but then the group claims to be in power because it is the "best fit". Any group in power can use Social Darwinist arguments to justify itself, not just right-wing groups such as fascists. Communists can claim that Communists are the best fit wherever Communists are in power. Ironically, many eugenicists and other racists will insist that DA JEWWS! are secretly in power, yet will never use this logic to insist that Jews are the "best fit".

Given some of the goals of Social Darwinism no universal health care, unfettered capitalism, laissez-faire government policies, strong military forces, and racial separation it is perhaps strange that the Religious Right use the philosophy as a snarl word. It would seem to fit their ideals nicely. Then again, it may be an example of psychological projection, or just because they see the name "Darwin" and get so angry that they ignore the rest. The big irony here is that the Religious Right rejects biological Darwinism while supporting Social Darwinism by another name.

De facto Social Darwinian arguments, such as those made by the authors of The Bell Curve, can also be used as a sort of pseudoscientific socio-economic justification for why rich people are rich ('cause they're, like, smarter) and poor people are poor (too dumb to earn more money). Such notions effectively become a sort of "biological karma" argument in favor of the status quo when used as a hand wave "explanation" for growing economic inequality, typically based on the claim that this rise in inequality reflects dumb poor people outbreeding smart rich people.

Neoreactionaries and "alt-right" types, particularly atheist ones, often openly identify as social Darwinists or as "evolutionary conservatives" (Steve Sailer being one example). These people argue that evolution implies "race realism", since different races evolved under different conditions, and therefore that racial egalitarianism is anti-scientific. On average, they tend to be much younger and more tech-savvy than Religious Right supporters, so it's possible the Republican Party and/or the conservative movement will eventually shift in their direction. These ideas are not new (Thomas Carlyle and Ragnar Redbeard had a lot of the same views), but seem to be undergoing a resurgence.

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Darwinism – RationalWiki

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["Darwinism" and "Darwinist"] suggest a false narrowness to the field of modern evolutionary biology, as though it was the brainchild of a single person 150 years ago, rather than a vast, complex and evolving subject to which many other great figures have contributed

The word Darwinism is shorthand for evolution by natural selection, named after Charles Darwin, the scientist who first developed, popularised and gathered evidence for the theory. The nuances of its use, however, are dependent on who is using the term. Within biology it is synonymous with natural selection, but within creationism it is more of a snarl word.

To creationists and intelligent design proponents, Darwinism is a derogatory phrase used to describe evolution. By retitling natural selection as "Darwinism", creationists seek to reduce the theory to the level of any other "ism", and thus no more worthy of teaching than creationism. See the evolutionism article for more.

To most biologists, notably Richard Dawkins for example, Darwinism is simply a synonym for evolution by natural selection.[2] This contrasts it against Lamarckism, which is a competing (but completely discredited) mechanism for evolution - and Dawkins often refers to natural selection as "Darwinian". Various other permutations of the term bump around the Internet and blogs. Darwinist is used to describe a vocal proponent of evolution, while neo-Darwinism - to differentiate currently accepted theories about evolution with some of Darwin's original ideas that have turned out to be incorrect. Neo-Darwinism is generally used to refer to the "Modern Evolutionary Synthesis" of Darwinian evolution and Mendelian genetics. Neo-Darwinism is sometimes contrasted with newer schools of thought such as "evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo)," which seeks to incorporate more findings from molecular genetics and developmental biology into the evolutionary paradigm.

The main problem with this term is that science is about evidence and not personality cults, so naming a branch of science directly after its inventor or discoverer is a dubious practice at best. While great contributors to a field of study are respected, they are not worshipped and revered like gurus.

It is interesting to note how this mentality of describing Darwin as the supposed "worshiped father of evolution" reflects the creationists' need for a worshiped father figure to be the head of everything. It is like calling any one who accepts gravity exists "Newtonists" or those who accept relativity "Einsteinians" or "Galileans" as if the way that the universe works is a world view, passed down and declared from on high. Although Charles Darwin is a seminal figure in the modern theory of evolution, and his contribution is certainly recognized, there have been over 150 years of advancements since his initial publication of The Origin of Species - the study of evolution has expanded well beyond Darwin's original works and the ideas he outlined, namely that evolution can now be described in terms of DNA, something that Darwin was unaware of.

While it is certainly true that the "isms" which are based on people's names (such as Thatcherism, Marxism, and Confucianism) obviously base their thoughts largely or entirely on the writings or thoughts of those individuals, the same cannot be said of "Darwinism". Therefore to think that a modern evolutionary biologist would hang on every word Darwin said as unchangeable gospel is certainly a parody of science that has no basis in reality.

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Darwinism - RationalWiki

TC Sessions: Robotics to feature talks from Rod Brooks, DARPA and … – TechCrunch

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The agenda for TC Sessions: Robotics just keeps getting more irresistible. We are happy to announce that Rod Brooks, co-founder of Rethink Robotics and iRobot, will join us on stage at TechCrunchs first ever robotics show, July 17 at MITs Kresge auditorium.

Brooks is a former director of MITs CSAIL program as well as an author and prognosticator on the future of robots. At TechCrunch Disrupt NY in May, Brooks expressed contrarian views about the imminence of driverless cars, the capabilities of artificial intelligence, and rules of engagement for robots at war. We are looking forward to taking that conversation further and learning more about Rethink Robotics progress delivering their collaborative robots, Baxter and Sawyer, to work alongside humans in factory settings.

Were also excited to announce two additional workshops for the event. Both will present attendees opportunities to get the inside track from leaders in the robotics field. The DARPA workshop will focus on the agencies aim and how to work with DARPA. It will be led by Dr. William Regli, Acting Director of the Defense Sciences Office. In the MIT CSAIL workshop attendees will get a look at some of the best projects inside MITs robotics lab.

These workshops join the agenda that also includes a workshop on educating future roboticists featuring educators from Olin College, Kettering University and Udacity.

General admission tickets are currently available, but seating in MITs Kresge Auditorium is limited. We hope to see you there.

DARPA The mission of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is to prevent and create strategic surprise by developing breakthrough technologies for national security. The agencys project-oriented approach to science and engineering, however, is different both in approach and execution from other U.S. governmental funding agencies. In this workshop, DARPA leadership will discuss the Agencys vision and goals, provide overviews of each of the organizations technical offices, in addition to an explanation of the mechanics of working with DARPA. The objective of the workshop is to elicit help in fomenting institutional evolution in Americas broader science and technology ecosystem that is needed to better and more rapidly respond to future challenges.

MIT CSAIL MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory is tasked with researching activities around the bleeding edge of technology. Attendees of this workshop will get an insiders look at some of the hottest projects being developed in CSAILs labs and engineering bays. Robert Katzschmann will present Soft Robotics and the teams creative approach to allowing robots to manipulate objects. Claudia Perez DArpinos presentation will demonstrate how robots can learn from a single demo and Andrew Spielberg will explain a novel process to create and fabricate robots.

Building Roboticists David Barrett, a professor of mechanical engineering at Olin College, Ryan Keenan, curriculum lead for Udacity, and Dr. Robert McMahan, President of Kettering University will lead a workshop discussing their views on the best way to train the next generation of roboticists. Each of these educators leads vastly different programs, but the aim is universal: to train the next generation of globally competitive engineers. Its important that these students learn through hands-on experience how to not only write code, but deploy code in a viable manner that results in a sustainable product.

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TC Sessions: Robotics to feature talks from Rod Brooks, DARPA and ... - TechCrunch

Sphero spinoff Misty Robotics gets $11.5 million to create a mainstream robot for the home – TechCrunch

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Hardware startup Misty Robotics has a daunting task ahead of it. The Boulder-based company is working on a robot aimed at mainstream consumers for employment in the home and office. But Misty certainly has a solid foundation, as a spinoff of robotic toy maker Sphero, coupled with an $11.5 million Series A led by Venrock and Foundry Group.

The new company employs about half a dozen former Sphero ex-pats, including co-founder Ian Bernstein, who will be Mistys Head of Product. Bernstein and team have been working on the seeds of Mistys first product under the Sphero banner for roughly a year and a half, ultimately opting to spin it off into a new company, given its vastly different and decidedly more ambitious goals.

At some point it just made sense for Sphero to focus on connected play, Bernstein tells TechCrunch. And it would make sense to spin off a company so we can raise more money and go bigger and faster on this idea of an autonomous robotic being in the home and office.

Founded as Orbotix in 2010, Sphero has seen rapid growth in the past several years as its transformed itself from a niche maker of a smartphone-controlled robotic ball into a full-fledged Disney co-conspirator. The company rocketed to success when its first product became the basis of the remote-controlled BB-8, a wildly successful Star Wars tie-in. Since then, the partnership has produced newCars and Spider-Man toys.

But Mistys offering is something else entirely. The company isnt ready to reveal much in the way of details at this early stage, except to say that its planting the seeds for more mainstream devices. Its understandable, of course, that its fairly modest in its projections. Countless companies have tried to bring consumer robotics to the home, but have largely failed through some combination of half-baked technologies and impossible-to-meet consumer expectations.

For a robot to succeed in the home, it has to be affordable, capable and serve some task that people either cant or simply dont want to perform. Only iRobots Roomba has come close. The product has found success, but even so, its one-note functionality feels underwhelming compared to the expectations science-fiction has been feeding us for decades. But products like it and Amazons Echo are slowly opening the door to more technology in the home. Though Misty tells me it believes a truly mainstream consumer robot is still several years away.

We dont believe its time for a mainstream robot, says CEO Tim Enwall, who also founded Google-owned home automation company Revolv. We dont believe there [is currently] a market for it. What we do believe is that there will be a robot in everyones home and office and there is a progression to that process. And that progression, like every other technology weve ever adopted as humans, doesnt start with a mainstream market. It starts with an innovator market.

Mistys first several products will be targeted at the hobbyist/maker market something more akin to where desktop 3D printing and drones have been for the past decade. From there, however, it hopes to build toward something more substantial, both through acceptance among early adopters and a fine-tuning of the multi-purpose robots functionality. But, adds Enwall, even the first-generation of product will embody the principles required for putting a robot in everyones home and office. Its just that this first version will be targeted at innovators.

The company has released the above promotional image, which highlights an early prototype. At the very least, it appears to point to something more biologically influenced that the Roombas hockey puck shape. Whether it takes the form of a humanoid robot, an animal or something else entirely, remains to be seen.

Though Mistys Sphero experience does point to a company that understands the value of imbuing a product with personality. Weve learned a lot, says Bernstein. From the progression of starting to add personality in Sphero 2.0, to the Disney deal, [weve learned] the power of creating a robot thatsmore of a character.

Mistys first product is set to hit the market next year.

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Sphero spinoff Misty Robotics gets $11.5 million to create a mainstream robot for the home - TechCrunch

Sony soft-launches an educational robotics coding kit on Indiegogo – TechCrunch

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Every tech and toy company, from Apple to Hasbro, has an educational coding offering these days. Sonys Koov kit has been kicking around Japan for a while now, and should be pretty familiar to anyone whos spent time with Legos educational initiatives its a set of blocks, sensors, motors and actuators that pair with a mobile app. Now Sony is ready to bring the kit to the U.S. albeit in a pretty measured way.

The company is the latest tech giant to use a crowdfunding platform to test the waters. In this case, Sony will essentially be using Indiegogo to gauge customer interest and hopefully gain some insight into the U.S. market as it works to shape the product for a new region. On the face of it, its a bit of an odd move from a company with global reach that has never been afraid to launch into a new category with guns blazing.

Sony certainly has the resources to do so here, but for one thing, the market is still a little shaky. There are plenty of different kits aimed at teaching kids to code and build robots. Apple recently partnered with a handful of hardware makersto help teach its Swift programming language to youngsters, and Legos new Boost line joins a number of others already produced by the company. And then there are the dozens of startups fighting for a piece of the pie. How much of that pie there actually is to go around is still a pretty open question.

Koov is also the first hardware product out of Sonys Global Education wing, a department a company rep told me is almost like a startup within Sony, which implies a certain sense of autonomy and probably goes a ways toward explaining the cautious approach. It really wants to get its first product right, and its certainly put a lot of thought into the hardware and software side of things.

The kits currency is little, brightly colored translucent blocks. The company likens them to three-dimensional pixels, which is an attempt to make the transition between the mobile app and the real world product easier to understand. Kids can use the app to build 23 different pre-determined designs or Robot Recipes with the 302 block Advanced Kit. Of course, the sky is the limit if they think outside the box.

To appease those who blaze their own paths, theres Robot Recipe Sharing, an online database of custom robots built by users. Uploads are vetted by the company for obvious reasons, given the products targeted 8 to 14 year old age range. Sony was super-psyched to show me one of the user-built robots created by a Japanese customer that was essentially a version of the companys hippo that plays custom MIDIs of J-Pop songs. At the moment, its really just show and tell, and Sony doesnt really have a good method for letting users create their own sharable robot building plans. Thats apparently in the works. All part of the aforementioned feedback process, I guess.

There are a few other roadblocks, as well. Price is the biggest red flag. Legos new Boost set starts at $160, while Koovs suggested retail price is $359 for the Starter Kit and $499 for Advanced. Thats a lot of money for a brand thats entirely untested in this space. Maybe the price will come down as the company scales up, though again, this is Sony were talking about here its not exactly a startup with limited supply chain access.

Then theres the matter of the name. I was actually sorry I asked about that one. Apparently an executive came up with the bright idea to name the system Koov, for reasons that arent worth paraphrasing, so Im going to paste the explanation here in its entirety, because its really something:

The logo imagery for KOOV calls to mind the 1s and 0s of binary code, or alternatively, I/O, the computer terminology for digital input/output. The logo is also inspired by the < and > symbols used in mathematics. In addition, the K and V that bookend the kits name stand for key and value, important concepts in the realm of computer science. But whereas key and value ordinarily form a unique, unambiguous pair as applied in computer science, they are connected by OO -representing the infinity symbol () -in the logo for KOOV. This is meant to suggest the infinite combinations possible with KOOV, limited only by the imagination. In a multitude of ways, KOOVs logo is symbolic of its blocks that are a product of the digital age, and that are therefore infinite in potential.

The other issue is one thats pretty prevalent among these devices. The coding and robotics skills that Koov teaches are pretty abstract. Unlike Apple, whose programs use the coding language used by iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, Sony developed its own language for the toy. Its built around the Scratch educational programming language, but the end goal here seems to more of building up that initial interest in coding, rather than developing concrete coding skills. Sonys kit mostly teaches kids to code for Sonys kit.

The same goes for the hardware, which is powered by a micro-controller based on Arduino. The potential for open-source learning is there, but in its current state, Sony seems to have the system pretty locked down. Perhaps thats the kind of thing the company will work toward, with the proper feedback through its Indiegogo campaign. At the moment, however, there doesnt seem to be a heck of a lot distinguishing Koov from a million other coding toys.

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Sony soft-launches an educational robotics coding kit on Indiegogo - TechCrunch

Lily Robotics Auctions Off Assets, But Many Customers Are Still Waiting For Refunds – Forbes

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Lily Robotics Auctions Off Assets, But Many Customers Are Still Waiting For Refunds
Forbes
Lily Robotics, a much-hyped San Francisco drone startup that crashed and burned last January, this week successfully auctioned off the remaining bits and pieces of the company for $750,000. The assets were split between two parties: an entity called LR ...

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Lily Robotics Auctions Off Assets, But Many Customers Are Still Waiting For Refunds - Forbes