Evidently the universe may be a hologram

Evidently the universe may be a hologram. Huh. And I thought we were living in the Matrix (or is it the same thing)?

The myth of "clean coal"

The disingenuously-named American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity spent $45 million last year touting "clean coal," while in just nine months, coal and energy companies spent $125 million lobbying against federal regulations promoting clean energy. Something doesn't pass the smell test. More....

Would big pharmaceutical companies choose profits over human lives?

A scientist believed he'd found a possible cure for Diabetes and asked pharmaceutical companies to sponsor clinical trials. From the article:

One example is Weissman’s mid-’90s research on type I diabetes, in which he demonstrated the ability to fully cure type I diabetes in mice using stem cells ... Weissman implied that the pharmaceutical companies had put profit over principle, preferring to keep diabetes sufferers dependent on costly insulin than to cure them once and for all.

Via digg.

Fascinating Adobe Illustrator demo

Via boingboing.

Notes From the Chairman, in the High Life

Reading Bono's guest column for the New York times entitled Notes from the Chairman. Am struck by Bono's observation on listening to two versions of My Way: one, recorded when Sinatra was a younger man, full of bravado, the spit and vinegar of youth, "embodying all the machismo a man can muster about the mistakes he’s made on the way from here to everywhere." And then the version recorded when Sinatra was much older, now a song of defeat, and the duality this implies.

It made me remember Steve Winwood's Back in the High Life Again, a song brimming with optimism. A few years back, Warren Zevon did a cover of High Life on his Life'll Kill Ya album. Zevon turned this wildly optimistic song into a moving dirge by a defeated man. I'm still amazed that this song can go through these extremes, from optimism to defeat without changing a lyric. That's the brilliance of these artists, bringing that duality to the song.

Geek proof

This may prove that I'm a geek, but I found this hilarious.