Even in this Apple-esque, highly-dramatic presentation of Canada’s new anti-counterfeiting technology can we see the unfolding of the evolution of technology, what I like to call extropy: It is seen in the accumulation of techniques and tools used to create novel products and services, to build something new and improved.

Even in these plastic bills can we see the increasing complexity of technological life, greater levels of complexity and information density. How many different safeguards do these new bills include? How many times is the number 100 written, in how many different fonts and directions?

I am not one to say what the future holds, but could future versions be made of carbon nanotubes, indestructible, spliced with some wild combination of maple-leaf DNA to lend it a deeper, more natural red color, or maybe a unique new leafy texture? Who knows? The specifics are yet to be determined, but the point is that the driving force for change and innovation is there, now built into our society. As an example, compare this new bill with Canada’s first few iterations to taste the unrelenting push of progress, the inertia of extropy (after the jump)…

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Tel-Aviv University
www.quantumlevitation.com/levitation/The_physics.html

• Thorium is 4 times more common in the Earth’s crust than Uranium, and much safer to use as fuel.
• Thorium is useless for making nuclear weapons; we can freely share the reactor designs.
• Total energy extraction from Thorium is 200 times more efficient than that of Uranium.
• Virtually all fissile material is used up in Liquid Flouride-Thorium Reactors, producing significantly less waste.
• Low-temperature, low-pressure process makes meltdowns impossible.
• Fail-safe salt plug halts reaction immediately upon loss of power or other malfunction.
• All this extra energy can be used to create synthetic fuels from water and CO2, like methanol, ammonia, and dymethyl ether (for diesel).

“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

( See more ThriveQuotes here! )

Human Development Index, Top 25 Countries (2010)

1. Norway
2. Australia
3. New Zealand
4. United States
5. Ireland
6. Liechtenstein
7. Netherlands
8. Canada
9. Sweden
10. Germany
11. Japan
12. South Korea
13. Switzerland
14. France
15. Israel
16. Finland
17. Iceland
18. Belgium
19. Denmark
20. Spain
21. Hong Kong
22. Greece
23. Italy
24. Luxemborg
25. Austria

Noteworthy runners up include: UK, Singapore, Czech Republic, Slovenia, and more here.

• Capture the most captivating of materials, content, articles and more.
• Find the most fascinating facts, images, and information available.
• Integrate with self and website the most profound wisdom and stories I can.

Captivating materials and articles should read like poetry, delectable, fluent, smooth, accessible. Fascinating information should be transformative or enlightening. Images should be beautiful or awe-inspiring. Meta-integration-worthy wisdom must be capable or proven to have stood the passage of time and reach across cultures. All new content should be exemplary (from nature, humanity, science, art, literature) or illustrative (of important trends, patterns, cycles, etc.).

FYI, here are some of the places I generally like to look…

Quotes collections and websites – BrainyQuotes, Thinkexist, and Wisdom Quotes.

Social news aggregators and engines – Stumbleupon, Reddit, and Slashdot.

In books I read, the majority being sci-fi novels (and I’d argue that I generally pick very good ones). Sci-fi favorites from recent years: Foundation Trilogy/Series, Ender’s Game(Series), The Algebraist, Pushing Ice, House of Suns, Accelerando, and The Wind-Up Girl. Non-fiction favorites from recent years: What Technology Wants, The Next 100 Years, The Narcissism Epidemic, and The Evolving Self.

And of course I must mention TED.

I plan to pursue growth and thrival-fuel through these means. Please share your thoughts with me on other great sources of news and other fascinating or captivating information…

This is how I plan to…

differentiate & integrate,

explore & reflect,

discover & synthesize,

and widgetize & optimize ; )

A WARNING TO SELF AND READER ALIKE

Do not forget that all this hunting for paths through which to expand the mind, improve the intellect, evolve the self, (the same goes for entertaining yourself), that too much time spent on transistasis (change/evolution) equates to problems with homeostasis (the renewal, detox, and settling of physical and psychological selves).

As a rule, you must stand up and move your body around every hour if you are on the computer for more than two hours per day, and who isn’t these days, right? This is very important; you must train your body as you hone your mind — they go hand in hand. If you sit for too long reading or surfing the internet, your immune system and your cardiovascular system go into hibernation and blood vessels and muscles (as well as general well-being) atrophy. Watch out for the whole, holistic self. Meditation, whether sitting-emptying-the-mind style or walking-around-reflecting-on-things, is also to be considered essential, as is being with friends and family, which is very hard to do indeed when plugged in…

As Karl Jaspers wrote: “The human being is an open possibility, incomplete and incompletable. Hence it is always more and other than what he has brought to realisation in himself.” Nevertheless, it is our responsibility to try imagining what that human being could be at the next stage of its history.

p.234 – The Evolving Self, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Beyond Self-Actualization is of course Transcendence, which is easiest to conceptualize as the light outside of the self into which the self dissolves… Symbols are unsatisfactory at this point, suffice it to say that the non-dual awareness of the unity in the cosmos which one may or may not attempt to reach or enter into is ____________________. < Just indescribable > What we can say is that for those unique souls that can and often do make a habit of self-actualizing – it is to you that Transcendence is most accessible and Enlightenment most tantalizingly close! … And we do hope that you stick around and help brighten up the place here a bit before you depart. : )