Do yourself a favor e vão ver as outras

The human brain runs on only about 20 watts of power, equal to the dim light behind the pickle jar in your refrigerator. By contrast, the computer on your desk consumes a million times as much energy per calculation. If you wanted to build a robot with a processor as smart as the human brain, it would require 10 to 20 megawatts of electricity. “Ten megawatts is a small hydroelectric plant,” Boahen says dismissively. “We should work on miniaturizing hydroelectric plants so we can put them on the backs of robots.” You would encounter similar problems if you tried to build a medical implant to replace just 1 percent of the neurons in the brain, for use in stroke patients. That implant would consume as much electricity as 200 households and dissipate as much heat as the engine in a Porsche Boxster.

“Energy efficiency isn’t just a matter of elegance. It fundamentally limits what we can do with computers,” Boahen says. Despite the amazing progress in electronics technology—today’s transistors are 1/100,000 the size that they were a half century ago, and computer chips are 10 million times faster—we still have not made meaningful progress on the energy front. And if we do not, we can forget about truly intelligent humanlike machines and all the other dreams of radically more powerful computers.

Getting there, Boahen realized years ago, will require rethinking the fundamental balance between energy, information, and noise. We encounter the trade-offs this involves every time we strain to hear someone speaking through a crackly cell phone connection. We react instinctively by barking more loudly into the phone, trying to overwhelm the static by projecting a stronger signal. Digital computers operate with almost zero noise, but operating at this level of precision consumes a huge amount of power—and therein lies the downfall of modern computing.

In the palm of his hand, Boahen flashes a tiny, iridescent square, a token of his progress in solving that problem. This silicon wafer provides the basis for a new neural supercomputer, called Neurogrid, that he has nearly finished building. The wafer is etched with millions of transistors like the ones in your PC. But beneath that veneer of familiarity hides a radical rethinking of the way engineers do business.

"The capacity to think for oneself was and always will be, a privilege of a minority, of a elite, and respected."

The Cement Factory loft, Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill’s legendary and unusual live/work complex in Barcelona. Originally, the space was, in fact, a cement factory but it also resembles a cathedral with its high, narrow windows and gothic-style arches.

Today, the factory serves as Ricardo’s personal home, as well as offices, laboratories, and a venue for exhibitions, lectures, and concerts.

"When it comes to recent evolutionary changes, we currently maybe have the least specific details with regard the brain, but we do know from archaeological data that pretty much everywhere we can measure — Europe, China, South Africa, Australia — that brains have shrunk about 150 cubic centimeters, off a mean of about 1,350. That's roughly 10 percent," Hawks said.

"As to why is it shrinking, perhaps in big societies, as opposed to hunter-gatherer lifestyles, we can rely on other people for more things, can specialize our behavior to a greater extent, and maybe not need our brains as much," he added.

Deixo-vos com um comentário que estava no Youtube que encapsula o meu sentir:

"this video makes me just want to touch my nip nips, while cuarressing my sausage with a infant kitten"

Thermal Imaging

Vão ver as outras

Asphodel
fawn
dawn
chalice
anemone
tranquil
hush
golden
halcyon
camellia
bobolink
thrush
chimes
murmuring
lullaby
luminous
damask
cerulean
melody
marigold
jonquil
oriole
tendril
myrrh
mignonette
gossamer
alysseum
mist
oleander
amaryllis
rosemary

Há mais, mas este é o meu preferido

Tiger Tiger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

"Tiger" William Blake

he Gigatus are the largest animals living in Yabun Forest. They grow to a staggering 6.7 m in height and weigh about 7 tons. These animals are arthropods, characterized by their segmented exoskeleton and jointed limbs and they have been documented to live for 80 years or more. The breeding habits of the giant are unknown but it is believed that they are hermaphrodites and are opportunistic breeders as they meet one another rarely.

Espero ansiosamente o filme.

"Simon Mann, freed dog of war, is demanding justice"

"After more than five years in jail, the British mercenary is seeking vengeance on others he says were part of the failed 'Wonga Coup'

(...)

"Mann, 57, had spent five-and-a-half years in two of the world's grimmest jails before his pardon last Tuesday by President Teodoro Obiang, the murderous despot he hoped to overthrow, and now he was heading back to Britain, hellbent on revenge against those he believed had the power and influence to have considerably shortened that ordeal."

(...)

"

The plot itself is well documented – how in March 2004 Mann, Nick du Toit and three other South African mercenaries with wealthy international backers and the tacit approval of at least three governments, most notably the Spanish, attempted a coup which involved flying into the former Spanish colony in a plane loaded with arms and more than 50 black "Buffalo soldiers" – former members of the now disbanded South African defence forces' elite 32 battalion– to replace Obiang with an exiled opposition activist called Severo Moto.

The prize was vast, untapped reserves of oil and natural gas that an American company had recently discovered in the tiny nation. In March 2004 the plane was intercepted by the Zimbabweans at Harare airport and a jubilant President Robert Mugabe threw Mann and his fellow conspirators into jail before handing them over to Equatorial Guinea where a court sentenced the Eton-educated mercenary to 34 years in jail."

(...)

""I said but this is like the plot of a book surely, and Nick leaned forward and said quite seriously: 'It's not like the plot of a book, it is one, Frederick Forsyth's Dogs of War. You should read it'."

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has spotted a nearly invisible ring around Saturn -- the largest of the giant planet's many rings. The ring is so diffuse that it reflects little sunlight, or visible light that we see with our eyes. But its dusty particles shine with infrared light, or heat radiation, that Spitzer can see.

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