Inside Second Life
In the real world, Philip Rosedale is a thirty-eight-year-old with California Ken Doll good looks — peppery hair and bright blue eyes, faded jeans and a loose beige sweater. He sits at the Fog City Diner, a tiny shiny restaurant off the Embarcadero in San Francisco. But when he makes pronouncements about the other world, which is often, he leans forward, drops his voice to a biblical whisper, and widens his stare. “Once we have enough computing power,” he says, “we can remake the world using simulation.”
There are certain things you will only do in reality. Like eat tuna tartare, says Rosedale, who digs into a plate of the pink stuff in front of him. But just about everything else will happen in virtual reality. “The only thing I say to people who yearn for an earlier time,” says Rosedale, “is that you’re not going to have an opportunity to hide from this phenomenon.”
By middle school, his religious conviction shifted to a place where he could really be the ruler of his own universe: his computer. Rosedale had a life-altering epiphany one day when he was goofing around with math modeling programs on a friend’s PC. With a few strokes, he discovered, he could create simulations of the real-world inside his machine. “I remember just turning to my buddy, and saying, ‘It’s all in there!,’ ” he recalls. ” ‘This is like outer space!’ ” “God is in the machine,” as he now likes to say. “The Code is law. The Code is God.”
Postcards Show the Year 2000 (circa 1900)
Postcards Show the Year 2000 (circa 1900)
Personal Airships
Paleo-Future reader Tom T. sent me an amazing collection of postcards from the dawn of the twentieth century that depict what life would be like in the year 2000. According to Tom the postcards were originally featured here but have since been removed. The site claimed that the postcards were produced by Hildebrands (a leading German chocolate company of the time).
Televised Outside Broadcasting
Hair-raising elephant plan scrapped
Hair-raising elephant plan scrapped
A plan to use human hair to lift an elephant off the ground in Taiwan has been cancelled following animal rights protests.
The National Science and Technology Museum and Wan-Pi World spent nearly £4,000 on braiding 1.6 million human hairs into a rope capable of lifting eight tonnes.
It was to be used to lift an Asian elephant, from a local zoo, and a platform on which it would stand, reports The China Post.
But following complaints from animal rights activists, they decided to use rocks and timber of an equal weight instead.
Wang Chun-fa, director of the museum, said the experiment, at an amusement park in Tainan County, was “very creative”.
_______________
from Ananova
Welcome to Modbury. Just don’t ask for a plastic bag
Welcome to Modbury. Just don’t ask for a plastic bag
Modbury is the quintessential small West Country town. Set in a hollow among rolling Devon hills just a few miles from the sea, it has 760 households, a high street, three churches, a primary school, several pubs, two takeaways, a surgery, a small supermarket and 40 or so small shops.
Not much happens in Modbury. Some say the last time the peace was disturbed was in 1643 when Roundheads and Cavaliers fought in its streets. But a revolution of another kind will take place on Monday. At 8am it will become the first plastic bag-free town in Europe.
Spurred by environmental fervour and growing concern about the 100bn or more plastic bags thought to be littering the world and clogging the seas, the town’s 43 traders have unilaterally declared their independence from the plastic bag and have pledged to no longer sell, give away or otherwise provide them to anyone in Modbury for a minimum of six months.
Op is ‘turtle’ success
Op is ‘turtle’ success
Doctors at a Chinese hospital have performed a caesarean section on a turtle.
Keepers at Chengdu City Zoo sent the turtle, called Dabao, to hospital for an x-ray to find out why she was so lethargic, reports China Central Television.
“We were amazed to see that there were 14 eggs in her body,” said Wu, the administrative director of the zoo.
“We suspect she was having a difficult labour because too many eggs were congesting the outlet.”
The zoo sent the turtle to Chengdu 416 Hospital for a caesarean delivery, and doctors more used to human patients managed to improvise.
The turtle hid inside its shell so the anaesthetist had to wait patiently and then act quickly when she popped her head out.
Hospital director Dr Liu Wei said: “We decided to open the shell covering its stomach with a skull opener since the shell is about as hard as a human skull.”
It took more than two hours for the doctors to open the shell, remove the 14 eggs and then reseal the shell with epoxy resin.
Zoo keepers say Dabao is now on the way to a full recovery and her eggs have been buried in sand to await hatching.
_______________
from Ananova
Drunk man parks horse in German bank
Drunk man parks horse in German bank
An early-morning German bank customer had a bit of a shock when he found a horse already in line at the automatic teller machine in front of him. It seems the horse’s owner, identified only as Wolfgang H., had a bit too much to drink the night before and decided to sleep it off inside the bank’s heated foyer, police said Tuesday.
The 40-year-old machinist told Bild newspaper he had had “a few beers” with a friend in Wiesenburg, southwest of Berlin, and decided to hit the hay in the bank on his way home.
“It was late, it was already dark and cold,” he was quoted as saying.
Chocolate car
Chocolate car
A Chinese car dealer covered a car in chocolate for Valentine’s Day.
About 200kgs of melted chocolate was spread over the VW Beetle after it was first wrapped in cling film.
Seven people worked overnight to make sure the chocolate car was ready to go on display on the morning of Valentine’s Day.
According to China News Network, the car attracted many viewers and lovers to the dealer in Qingdao city.