New levels of intelligence to stay the tide of human negligence and stupidity.

We live in a complex and complicated world. Such safeguards against chaos and entropy are key to maintaining our forward momentum, of course, but the Taoist in me asks: For what such momentum? For what such speed? For what such complexity?

Obviously it is good to prevent needless tragedy and destruction, but are we really building to the stars — or have we stagnated as a species?

Post your thoughts in the comments.

Stranded in this spooky town
Stoplight is swaying and the phone lines are down
Snow is crackling cold
She took my heart, I think she took my soul
With the moon I run
Far from the carnage of the fiery sun

Driven by the strangle of vein
Showing no mercy I’d do it again
Open up your eyes
You keep on crying
Baby I’ll bleed you dry
Skies are blinking at me
I see a storm bubbling up from the sea

And it’s coming closer
And it’s coming closer

You shimmy-shook my boat
Leaving me stranded all in love on my own
Do you think of me
Where am I now
Baby where do I sleep
Feels so good but I’m old
2000 years of chasing taking its toll

And it’s coming closer
And it’s coming closer
And it’s coming closer
And it’s coming closer

The gentleman in this here TED Talk leads with the astonishing and shocking statistic of the global dearth of adequate shelter: Over 1 Billion of us live in ramshackle, unsafe, and inadequate housing. Shelter is a fundamental need and construction is currently a costly, dirty, inefficient, and corruption-prone enterprise. Enter the new age of 3D-printed housing. Cheap, sturdy, adaptable, and fast!

She is the Water Bear, the Moss Piglet. She survives 6,000 meters up in the Himalayas, and down 4,000 meters under water.

She is one tough extremophile.

Blam! ¡La Señorita Tardigrada!

From Wikipedia:

Tardigrades are able to survive in extreme environments that would kill almost any other animal. Some can survive temperatures of close to absolute zero, Kelvin (−273 °C (−459 °F)), temperatures as high as 151 °C (304 °F), 1,000 times more radiation than other animals, and almost a decade without water. Since 2007, tardigrades have also returned alive from studies in which they have been exposed to the vacuum of outer space for a few days in low earth orbit.

Contribute and Spread the Word.

The Calyx Institute is a new non-profit endeavor with the goal of creating a usable, fully-encrypted, privacy-centric ISP and Mobile Phone Service. It is being designed to take all legal and technical means available into account in order to preclude spying, government surveillance, or any other kind of snooping from the realm of possibilities. All email, all traffic, all calls, all sms’s — everything private.

Donate or spread the word if you support the mission. I’d say we’ve seen too many CISPA/SOPA/BIG BROTHER encroachments these days. So, let’s put a stop to it.

Read about it here (reddit) and here (cnet).

Donate here (indiegogo).

Meets my own personal Extropian Standards of Coolness for…

• Flexibility: The ability to run any HTML5, javascript, or other general web-based code or app
• Openness: Open-source to the core, like Firefox or any other Mozilla product
• User Rights: Privacy and Do-Not-Track are built in
• Efficiency & Speed: Boots up/down in a couple of seconds, runs HD video without a fuss
• Price: It is free, as in linux, as in firefox, as in beer

Check it out:

Expect it later this year or in early 2013. FYI, Qualcomm, Telefonica, and Deutsche Telekom have partnered with Mozilla to bring it to you faster!

• 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).