The paper is deliberately provocative and suggests not just that economic growth was a one-time thing centred on 1750-2050, but also that because there was no growth before 1750, there might conceivably be no growth after 2050 or 2100. The process of innovation may be battering its head against the wall of diminishing returns.

Is US economic growth over? | vox

This project was conceived from an interest in Radio Astronomy, Particle physics and a discussion at a Dorkbot Meeting about a number of different project ideas I've had. The one idea that seemed to strike the most interest was a Cosmic Ray Detector.

The main aim of these projects is to develop detectors that are easy to build, low cost (relativelly speaking) and has some kind of usable output to graph, visualise or sonify. Note that in many cases here I'll be using components and materials not necessarily the most ideal for the purpose, making use of what is available or what I can scrounge including surplus or hacked equipment.

Please note, this group of projects are not intended to achieve any significant scientific outcome, other than creating interesting displays that clearly demonstrate the harmless natural radiation and interstellar high energy particles that are around us and pass through us everyday.

They have really nice displays at CERN that show cosmic rays zapping across a TV sized screen. I thought it would make a really cool decoration but apparently they are difficult to construct.

Cosmic Ray Detector | Hardware Hacking

We shot the first Werner Brandes scene at a Chinese restaurant. I am on a date with Mary McDonnell’s character, Liz, who is secretly recording me, trying to get me to say several key words that will enable her team to disarm a voice-activated security system and break into my laboratory. Phil's first piece of direction to me was "Stephen, feel free to do anything you want to make Mary laugh." Dangerous words. It set the tone for the rest of the shoot. I played with my food. I made up lines (including one about pounding chicken breasts in the kitchen during our second date). I can't remember having so much fun on a movie.

Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, Ben Kingsley, Dan Aykroyd: What it was like shooting the movie Sneakers. - Slate Magazine

The findings, which are the fruit of an immense federal project involving 440 scientists from 32 laboratories around the world, will have immediate applications for understanding how alterations in the non-gene parts of DNA contribute to human diseases, which may in turn lead to new drugs.

Way to go Dr. Nanochick!

Far From ‘Junk,’ DNA Dark Matter Proves Crucial to Health - NYTimes.com

A team of security researchers from Oxford, UC Berkeley, and the University of Geneva say that they were able to deduce digits of PIN numbers, birth months, areas of residence and other personal information by presenting 30 headset-wearing subjects with images of ATM machines, debit cards, maps, people, and random numbers in a series of experiments. The paper, titled “On the Feasibility of Side-Channel Attacks with Brain Computer Interfaces,” represents the first major attempt to uncover potential security risks in the use of the headsets.

Researchers Hack Brainwaves to Reveal PINs, Other Personal Data | Threat Level | Wired.com

If this pattern continues, 2011 will be the third straight year that conservatives significantly outnumber moderates -- the next largest ideological bloc. Liberalism has been holding steady for the past six years, averaging either 21% or 22%, although notably higher than the 17% average seen in Gallup polling during the early to middle '90s.

Longer term, the Gallup ideology trend, dating from 1992, documents increased political polarization in the country. The percentage of moderates has fallen to the mid-30s from the low 40s, while the combined percentage either liberal or conservative is now 62%, up from 53%.

U.S. Political Ideology Stable With Conservatives Leading

a million jobs

I keep hearing this - its a total fairy tale.

Fox Wildly Inflates The Number Of Jobs Keystone XL Pipeline Might Create | Research | Media Matters for America

This essay is interesting because it attempts to stab in the direction that I would like to see the left in this country move - there is a need for a liberal-tarianism that seeks to maximize personal *individual* liberty, as opposed to the libertarian movement which seeks the lowest sustainable rate of taxation, and as opposed to the liberal movement which sees the state as a way to control behavior that they find objectionable (in exactly the same fashion as the conservatives they despise).

There are a variety of circumstances in which individual *economic* liberty and lower taxation are mutually exclusive, particularly with respect to the middle and lower classes whose choices are limited by their means.

For example:

The politics of freedom does not dismiss the value or importance of state resources. But rather than conceiving of them as protections against the hazards of the market or indices of public compassion, it sees them as sources of power, as the tools and instruments of personal and collective advance. Armed with universal healthcare, unemployment benefits, public pensions and the like, I am less vulnerable to the coercions and castigations of an employer or partner. Not only do I have the option of leaving an oppressive situation; I can confront and change it—for and by myself, for and with others. I am emboldened not to avoid risks but to take risks: to talk back and walk out, to engage in what John Stuart Mill called, in one of his lovelier phrases, “experiments in living.”

I've argued elsewhere that enabling this kind of liberty makes the economy more dynamic and innovative because people have the freedom to take risks in their working life without being independently wealthy. The libertarian movement is absolutely tone deaf regarding these issues. The failure of libertarians to recognize these realities (as well as comprehend basic economic concepts such as negative externalities) makes the whole movement look like a silly cult to me, in spite of my sympathy with their general desire for freedom, my shared concern about rent seeking and corruption in government - I can't take libertarianism seriously anymore.

However, I am concerned that liberals cannot create a new movement unless they clearly draw a line in the sand regarding the liberal proclivity so see the state as a convenient mechanism for social control, and they vocally reject parts of the liberal movement concerned with social control, just as libertarians reject parts of the conservative movement associated with social control. It is here where unfortunately I do not think this author "gets it." Note the following:

The politics of freedom similarly understands liberty as, above all, a claim against—and a movement to overcome—oppressive forms of power, particularly in the private spheres of the workplace and the family.

That is why the politics of freedom refuses to view the state as the conservative does: as a constraint. Or as the welfare-state liberal does: as a distributive machine. Instead, it views the state the way the abolitionist, the trade unionist, the civil rights activist and the feminist do: as an instrument for disrupting the private life of power. The state, in other words, is the right hand to the left hand of social movement.

Reclaiming the Politics of Freedom | The Nation

Proof the SOPA Blackout had a political impact.

Hi, I’m Barack Obama, President of the United States. Ask me anything. I’ll be taking your questions for half an hour starting at about 4:30 ET.
Proof it's me: https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/240903767350968320
We're running early and will get started soon.
UPDATE: Hey everybody - this is barack. Just finished a great rally in Charlottesville, and am looking forward to your questions. At the top, I do want to say that our thoughts and prayers are with folks who are dealing with Hurricane Isaac in the Gulf, and to let them know that we are going to be coordinating with state and local officials to make sure that we give families everything they need to recover.
Verification photo: http://i.imgur.com/oz0a7.jpg

I am Barack Obama, President of the United States -- AMA : IAmA

Faux argues that by the mid-2020s, even with the most optimistic assumptions about economic growth, current trends indicate that the average American’s wages will drop about 20 percent. One big factor is that more and more good jobs will go overseas, leaving even America’s best and brightest no alternative but to enter the service industry.

Nieman Reports | The Jobs Crisis