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Yeah but it's unrealistic to expect people to give up carbs entirely. If you work out a lot (as in me) or have a physically stressful job then you need carbs to not feel like shit 24/7.

I have yet to find any evidence that is convincing that GMO wheat is unhealthy simply by virtue of being a GMO. The only "study" I've seen uses extremely sloppy methodology over only 5 years, and "hammers the point home" with a bunch of pictures of completely unrelated disorders causing massive benign tumors. These are the same tactics PETA uses, and are equally disgusting and shameful. There has not been a single study done that has conclusively proven GMOs are bad. I welcome evidence to the contrary.

Either way people are going to eat noodles of some kind one way or another. Spinach noodles are as close as you can come to "healthy pasta" which is why I suggested it. I hope I don't ever have to use pasta to make my food stretch again, but for some it's necessary.

Personally if I don't eat at least some carbs I can't function. Personally I will become hypoglemic and it greatly reduces my mental function. This is not a short term thing, as the longest no-carb diet I've done was 8 weeks. I become ketonic as well, and was strongly advised by my doctor never to do it again.

Carbs are absolutely required, but not refined carbs. There is a big difference between a potato and hamburger helper/ramen. There is a massive difference between refined carbs in fried foods and the carbs in say apples. You may not eat carbs, but a lot of people do not feel even remotely close to 100% without carbs. Personally going without carbs would be a major issue, but even for people without blood sugar issues it would be. I've had A1Cs done and I'm not even pre-diabetec...I'm just predisposed to hypoglycemia for whatever reason.

Either way you can't eat fats and proteins as 100% of your diet. You can link me to whatever book from whatever doctor you wish, but they are a minority for good reason. If taken too far of course you can develop things like insulin resistance and obesity. Your brain needs carbohydrates plain and simple. Anyone that says anyone ONE thing is the problem in the context of health is wrong every single time. You can't completely dismiss fats as a problem in our society for one food. Maybe grains are the largest problem, but they are closely backed by fats and sugars. Lipids are more readily converted into lipids...and SIMPLE sugars are converted almost equally readily.

Health is a lot more complicated than just one factor. As to your body needing carbs here are two "relatively trusted" sites that give more info:

http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20081212/no-carb-diets-may-impair-memory
http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/carbs.html

It's not that your brain needs the carbohydrates, as it can get it's energy from glucose. It's the ketone and aldehyde buildup due to the much higher conversion energy that impairs you . Also GMO doesn't equal bad. In my experience (albeit with a higher predisposition) was minor shaking, confusion, and unbearable fatigue.

I agree corn subsidies absolutely need to end GMO or not. The excess is used for corn syrups of various varieties any of which is highly addictive. Sugar is not necessary for a healthy diet in any way shape or form.

http://www.fi.edu/learn/sci-tech/lightning-rod/lightning-rod.php?cts=benfranklin-weather-electricity ...in addition to wanting to prove that lightning was electricity, Franklin began to think about protecting people, buildings, and other structures from lightning. This grew into his idea for the lightning rod. Franklin described an iron rod about 8 or 10 feet long that was sharpened to a point at the end. He wrote, "the electrical fire would, I think, be drawn out of a cloud silently, before it could come near enough to strike..."

Abraham Lincoln fights vampires, Ben Franklin fights Thor!

http://www.fi.edu/learn/sci-tech/lightning-rod/lightning-rod.php?cts=benfranklin-weather-electricity ...in addition to wanting to prove that lightning was electricity, Franklin began to think about protecting people, buildings, and other structures from lightning. This grew into his idea for the lightning rod. Franklin described an iron rod about 8 or 10 feet long that was sharpened to a point at the end. He wrote, "the electrical fire would, I think, be drawn out of a cloud silently, before it could come near enough to strike..."

http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/exercise.html
"If you think you're going to get smarter sitting in front of your computer or watching television, think again."

Scientists have been studying how to prevent cognitive decline for many years. For seniors, physical exercise is much more effective than any computer games.

• Ask your local science museum if they have an AI Mind exhibit. If they do not, volunteer to install MindForth as an AI exhibit.See which museum is the home of the oldest living artificial intelligence.Albuquerque NM -- New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science
• Baltimore MD -- Maryland Science Center Berkeley CA -- Lawrence Hall of Science Bloomingtown IN -- Wonderlab Museum of Science, Health, & Technology
  Boston MA -- Museum of Science
• Brantford, Ontario, Canada -- Personal Computer Museum
• Charlotte NC -- Discovery Place
• Chicago IL -- Museum of Science and Industry
• Columbus OH -- Center of Science and Industry (COSI)
• Detroit MI -- Detroit Science Center Jersey City NJ -- Liberty Science Center Kansas City MO -- Science City at Union Station
• Los Angeles CA -- the California Science Center
• Louisville KY -- the Louisville Science Center
• Manchester UK -- Museum of Science and Industry (MoSI)
• Mobile AL -- the Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center
• Mountain View CA -- Computer History Museum
• New York City NY -- the New York Hall of Science
• Norwich VT -- Montshire Museum of Science
• Philadelphia PA -- the Franklin Institute Science Museum
• Pittsburgh PA -- Carnegie Science Center
  • with RoboWorld exhibit showing how robots
    • sense;

I can't find data on causes of death amongst working age people but I don't believe you that stress is at the top (I think that's what you meant, the brackets after that sentence make your meaning unclear).

I'll elaborate (but not too much). In (statistical) populations where there are strong social ties (i.e. families drink together, employees smoke with their bosses) people tend to outlive average people who otherwise live "healthy lifestyles" (i.e. low fat diets, no smoking, etc). So in other words heavy smokers tend to outlive "healthy life-style" puritans when their environments are stress free. And stress "damages and kills brain cells." (ref. http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/stress.html).

So if you see that heart disease, lung cancer etc is high on the statistical scale you need to remember that stress lowers the immune system, constricts blood vessels, causes heart disease, etc and so on. In other words if a casual observer lists a persons cause of death as lung cancer do to smoking then chances are that person is making a lot of assumptions without doing any research. Stress is a killer, but unfortunately it is a silent killer because it is invisible. I couldn't find specific statistics myself, but there is enough secondary knowledge that I have to make me put intellectual weight into that idea. People ("scientists", "journalists", and your average Joe Schmuck) often overlook the more ubiquitous and less obvious for an easy scape goat. At the very least I merely ask people to question there own assumptions. The easy answer isn't often the correct answer. So maybe you get my point, or maybe I need to elaborate to the point of boredom. I'll leave smoking as a (good) example merely because it is so disagreeable to the majority of people (in the Western world). So, to link things together, I will merely say that simple answers (like spying on employees) are almost always the wrong approach. It would be better to put one's time and energy to positive solutions rather than negative outcomes.

your mastery of rhetoric trumps mine.

Thanks -:)

Now this is a real planetarium!
I know, because I have worked in many of the world's best known planetariums.

Glucose is the form of sugar that travels in your bloodstream to fuel the mitochondrial furnaces responsible for your brain power. Glucose is the only fuel normally used by brain cells. Because neurons cannot store glucose, they depend on the bloodstream to deliver a constant supply of this precious fuel.

Complete glucose deprivation has been shown to induce neuronal apoptosis, but the effect of moderate glucose deprivation under normal and pathological conditions is not fully understood.

Glucose is the only source of energy usually available to the brain. Without oxygen or glucose, neurons will die.

The K+ and Na+ is freely available in the bloodstream and intracellular fluid. Nerves use selective ion channels to establish the ion gradients used for depolarization but they don't require a specific source for them: they're everywhere in the body.
In contrast, without glucose your nerve cells will die. They require glucose to power aerobic metabolism and produce the ATP that they use to maintain the ion gradient.

I thought this story was going to be about the Franklin Institute, whose front page (www.fi.edu) is ad-free and looks like a normal museum page. But then when you see a page like this one, you see Google AdSense across the top. It does wonders for their credibility...

I thought this story was going to be about the Franklin Institute, whose front page (www.fi.edu) is ad-free and looks like a normal museum page. But then when you see a page like this one, you see Google AdSense across the top. It does wonders for their credibility...

Although my favrotes, The Linden jar, and the Antikythera comptuer,
( you have to keep in mind, that it is a *wired* article ),

The Turk? Jeez. What about this:

http://www.fi.edu/learn/automaton/

"Ecrit par L'Automate de Maillardet."
This translates to "Written by the Automaton of Maillardet."

"A young child whom zeal guides,
Of your favors solicits the price,
And obtains, don't be surprised,
The gift of pleasing you, a child to these wonders."

Sorry, 'The Turk' dosent even rank.

I recall seeing a NASA test plane with a swiveling wing at the EAA OSHKOSH airshow back in the early 80's. It was one place, jet powered, and was flown in the airshow with the wing rotated to a fairly steep angle several times. It was a proof of concept to explore control issues and to prove that the wing need not be swept BACK on both sides to improve aerodynamics at high speeds. They referred to is as the AD-1", an oblique wing aircraft.

--
We don't need no stinkin' sig!

Learning even some snippets of another language while trying to communicate with someone else (especially in a harmless context such as a game) would make us all smarter. Howzat?

We do not need energy drinks. The best energy drink is knowledge. You first have to cease consuming chips (French fries), coffeine, soft drinks, et cetera. Then you must scientifically design your diet. I base my diet decisions on science, id est, I study how the brain works and what it needs, and then I take care to keep it happy by feeding it well. In this site you can learn some basics. Personally, I take a lot of antioxidants, for example by consuming foods rich in vitamin C. I also try to walk a little every day or so. A tip: If you are a vegetarian nerd, like me, you must study your diet and ensure you take enough DHA omega3 fatty acid. If not, then you can try consuming sea vegetables or take vegan DHA supplements. Disclaimer: There is no health advice in my message, I am just a compsci grad, not a dietician!

I'm not sure if they're trying to say that our bodies don't naturally glue themselves back together or that we don't apply glue to cuts, but either way, they're wrong.

"A pioneer in the field of telecommunications, Alexander Graham Bell was born in 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He moved to Ontario, and then to the United States, settling in Boston, before beginning his career as an inventor. Throughout his life, Bell had been interested in the education of deaf people. This interest lead him to invent the microphone and, in 1876, his "electrical speech machine," which we now call a telephone. News of his invention quickly spread throughout the country, even throughout Europe. By 1878, Bell had set up the first telephone exchange in New Haven, Connecticut. By 1884, long distance connections were made between Boston, Massachusetts and New York City." Taken From Here

While this is a commercial link, it is on topic as this guy makes them. There is a good history here at the Franklin Institute (go there IRL if you ever have the chance) website.

I could see DNA ending up in the same situation, patent-wise.

(Reference)

it's called an Anemometer http://sln.fi.edu/tfi/units/energy/dixie.html

First of all, what did Marx do besides invent communism? And communism isn't exactly the most successful political system invented, is it? Can you name one country that is actually governed according to Marx's principles? Socialist dictatorships don't count. By comparison with Franklin, Marx was an ivory-tower academic.

In addition to Franklin's political accomplishments, which go far beyond anything you describe, he was a scientist and an inventor. Two of Ben Franklin's inventions are still in use throughout the world, and another is still in use in parts of it. Can you name them?

Also, Franklin transformed science in the 18th century when he proved that lightning and static electricity were the same phenomenon. This discovery gave him fame comparable to Isaac Newton's in Europe during his lifetime.

We'll see how important Marx still appears 75 years from now, when his distance from the present is similar to Franklin's. You can see how relevant Franklin still is here and here.

First of all, what did Marx do besides invent communism? And communism isn't exactly the most successful political system invented, is it? Can you name one country that is actually governed according to Marx's principles? Socialist dictatorships don't count. By comparison with Franklin, Marx was an ivory-tower academic.

In addition to Franklin's political accomplishments, which go far beyond anything you describe, he was a scientist and an inventor. Two of Ben Franklin's inventions are still in use throughout the world, and another is still in use in parts of it. Can you name them?

Also, Franklin transformed science in the 18th century when he proved that lightning and static electricity were the same phenomenon. This discovery gave him fame comparable to Isaac Newton's in Europe during his lifetime.

We'll see how important Marx still appears 75 years from now, when his distance from the present is similar to Franklin's. You can see how relevant Franklin still is here and here.

Presumably, the reason for special consideration for the radio is that radio spectrum is a finite resource. This should not be wasted on foul language.

I can see that as reasoning originally, although even then, it strikes me as very very weak reasoning. But then, all bandwidth is finite: there's only a certain amount of land on which we can sell newspapers, and there's only a certain amount of bandwidth through which radio waves may travel. Taken to logical extremes, the argument of finiteness of the resource is a failed one... (especially taken to merely reasonable extremes, i.e., we can slice up bandwidth more-carefully now, and we have an increased ability to share that bandwidth that we did when the FCC was formed. So in particular, from reasonable extremes, the restriction of foul language on the basis of finiteness is even weaker.)

I don't know. Are you suggesting they may have considered it, and decided that this was something they wanted to encourage?

I sincerely doubt the wanted to encourage it, and I doubt it crossed their mind (only because there's no way it could've been as prevalent as it is now). Even if it had, theirs was such a prudish society that it likely never would've been brought up.

That said, I could see many of the Founding Fathers taking the position that if such pictures are legally-available, it becomes easier to socially-demonize those who take part in their production and consumption and prosecute the sickos who engage in the *actual* act of child molestation. That is, it would be possible to regulate the consumption side via social pressure, rather than legal mandate, while prosecuting the production side from the perspective of individual liberty (i.e., the child's freedom to be left alone by sexual predators) -- even if the texts and images themselves are not illegal, the acts which they portray, *if* they involve real people, would be. (This view would additionally be backed, in spirit at least, by the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling which ruled as legal artificial (e.g. computer-generated) child porn, but not porn involving real, actual children.)

Still, that may well be an over-estimation of their consideration of the issue. The Founders may simply have feared the intrusion of government into even this part of peoples' lives (having quartered the British military in their own homes against their will, among other things) more than the effects of child porn on society...

It should have become apparent at least after a certain time that there would be military secrets that would need protection.

Given that Washington was the first President, and also given that he was the Commander-in-Chief in the American Revolution (that's how he became well-known enought to be nominated for President, even though he wasn't very keen on being President in the first place), wouldn't it seem clear to him, of all people, that protecting military secrets would be of great importance? If so, why didn't he do anything about it?

Perhaps it was that same fear of over-powerful government the other Founding Fathers had? i.e., the fear that the military would one day be too powerful for the citizenry to control (as has been the case for roughly 200 years), and hence, it was necessary to keep open for future generations the military's information so that their sad and messy history could be read by its light?

This begs the question: in present times, can we afford to open up our NBC (nuclear, biological, and chemical) weapons secrets to the nation? Open up the ongoing undercover operations of the CIA? In the case of the former, I would say no, because their magnitude of destruction is uncontrollably-great w.r.t. the individuals which may be harmed, and our ability to prevent their use on ourselves by attackers (e.g. terrorists) is quite inadequate. The latter, however, I'm remain unconvinced and open to persuasion either way. The CIA has a

Not sure if that is really good sarcasm or blunt ignorance (so hard to tell sometimes)

Molten lava has existed longer than man has, and it only does harm when brought into the environment people are in. Lead is similar, it does great harm when introduced into our bodies, but normally, it is sequestered away by nature. Lead is a potent toxin and has no known minimum safe exposure level.

It does not take an idiot green to see a real issue with a highly toxic metal being released into our water supplies that would not normally find its way into them. It does take a short sighted person to not see the harm it has cause and will cause if it is not dealt with.

A good link that summarizes pretty well is here.

InnerWeb

Maintained a mixed Windows 2000 and Linux server environment

Planned and executed a complete redesign of the TFI network

Increased the number of users from 50 to over 200.

Installed and configured tape backup systems under both Linux and Windows 2000 using Veritas.

Extensive software development in Tcl/Tk and MySQL, primarily supporting the organization's intranet.

Researched and deployed several emerging technologies including Linux Terminal Clients, Wireless Bridging, and SOAP RPC.

Architected and Coded several web-based databases for various projects in the museum (Using MySQL and TCL):

• A workorder system for the exhibit repair department
• A network and workstation inventory system
• The Aritfact, Print, and Historical Figure tracking system for the Franklin 300th Anniversary Committee.
• Interactive web components to several exhibits.

I'm not sure if you can get one of these, but the design seems pretty protective.

http://sln.fi.edu/franklin/inventor/bell.html Looks like another cheap imitation of Bell's telephone, and I don't see Nokia giving props to the man who started it: "Bell's "electrical speech machine" paved the way for the Information Superhighway" Just giving the man the respect he deserves.

A vital side note: Heinz von Foerster had published a paper in 1960 on global population: von Foerster, H, Mora, M. P., and Amiot, L. W., "Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, A.D." 2026, Science 132, 1291-1295 (1960). In this paper, Heinz shows that the best formula that describes population growth over known human history is one that predicts the population will go to infinity on a Friday the 13 in November of 2026. As Roger Gregory likes to say, "That's just whacko!" The problem is, after he published the paper, it kept predicting population growth better than the other models. (see section 4.1 "Systems Ecology Notes") One of Heinz's early University of Illinois colleagues was Richard Hamming of "Hamming code" fame. Once while visiting the Naval Postgraduate School, I asked Dr. Hamming what he thought of Heinz von Foerster. Professor Hamming's response was "Heinz von Foerster: Now there's a first class kook!" I suspect Heinz's publication of, what Transhumanists call, "the singularity" had really gotten to Hamming -- not that Heinz wasn't eccentric enough get Hamming's goat in any case. Well, to continue this digression so as to give the damn Transhumanists a much-deserved keyboard lashing: It's one thing to be a guy like Hamming and denounce Heinz as a "kook" for following his formulae where they lead -- it's another to turn Heinz's formulae into a virtual religion, call it "the singularity" and totally forget where the idea came from the first place. I suggest the Transhumanists cite Heinz in the future whenever they refer to "the singularity" and think about his assumptions -- the primary one being that societies success varies directly with population size. It might be good to see if his model fits the data subsequent to the last check of which I am aware -- 1973 -- which just happens to be right at the point high population density societies decided to abandon their forward progress toward the space frontier.

Forget weather forecasts over the internet. You should build your own barometer.

Ben Franklin, that great lightning pioneer, had
a cool device that directly used lightning to
ring bells...

Ben Franklin, that great lightning pioneer, had
a cool device that directly used lightning to
ring bells...

What's my brain made out of? Oh yeah, Fat. Let's mess with that, shall we?

I wonder how you would classify Edison, with 1368 patents to his name but no formal scientific pedagogy.

A lot of scientists incorporate & turn into businessman/scientist - eg Benjamin Franklin, Dr. Stephen Wolfram ( Founder of Mathematica ), Dr. R & Dr. A ( invented the RSA cryptographic scheme, Carl Sagan, and a whole lot of people in biotech.

The skillsets to be both seem conflicting - businessmen need a Machiavellical sense of brutal realism, while scientists are pursuing truths in the gentler idealic realm of Plato.

That's a gneiss joke.

If it's not a natural property right, it's public policy. It's a monopoly enforced by government at the point of a gun, for the collective purpose of enriching the public domain. A true libertarian would disavow all "intellectual property" and leave it to the marketplace to come up with ways of funding new art. There have been a number of funding experiments not involving the threat of enforcement by government, and they have been quite successful.

If you think IP is a natural property right, then it should never expire, any more than your ownership of your house expires. We should still be paying license fees to the descendants of Ben Franklin for bifocal glasses...except Franklin refused to patent his inventions, saying "As we enjoy great Advantages from the Inventions of others we should be glad of an Opportunity to serve others by any Invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously." (link)

Perhaps the whole story is not fully understood by those in Norway.

The United States (via a Scottish immigrant) invented the telephone and quickly built upon that technology within the country to enhance it's infrastructure. "By 1878, Alexander Graham Bell had set up the first telephone exchange in New Haven, Connecticut. By 1884, long distance connections were made between Boston, Massachusetts and New York City." Source

{{Fast forward 130 odd years}}

It may seem feasible, for someone living in a country with a lessor-established technological-infrastructure that never had a system in place such as the existing telephone system in the US, that the US is behind but the US already had a *huge* system established for over 130 years. An entire industry was created because of it and when you have a beast (or a burden) of such a large scale as the US does one does not just throw it out in favor of some other kind of system - such as the cell phone.

In the US, and correct me if I'm wrong, only something like 20-30% of household use cellphones in their daily lives. Look at Indonesia; 95-98% of their populace uses cellphone technology. Does that make them a world leader? In cell phone usage yes. Why? Cell towers. No one needs to spend billions (if not trillions!) of dollars (or dinars, or Euroes) and lay millions of miles of cable to communicate. Erect a few cell phone towers and you've connected thousands of people. Erect a few more and you've connected an entire nation in a mere fraction of the time as it took for technology to advance enough for it to become feasible for these coutries. Even in Norway.

I'm a US citizen and I cut the cord 3 years ago. Cell phone and e-mail only for me.

You want to harp on the US. Go ahead. But while you're harping, look down your nose and see that you're standing on the shoulders of giants.

Frankin Institute

Everyone forgets Rosalind Franklin. She was the first person to actually physically see the molecule. Watson and Crick would have been nowhere without her.

This site Hippocampus originally meant "Sea horse" (ship?) I wonder how this came to be known as the horse of the sea....

Depending on your definition of 'invent', you can go as far back as 1880 (finding that radio waves reflect) or 1924(first succesful radio ranging) for the invention of radar.

Practical radar systems were first built in 1935 by Watson-Watt.

AFAI can determine, Loomis didn't get into the radar business until 1939, when he copeid all the information the British had.

Go figure for the rest of similar "thruths". :-)

Franklin Institute

The point being? Modern jet fighters are catapult-launched off aircraft carriers.

The Wright Brothers were three years earlier, and were the first to achieve sustained, controlled, powered flight. That makes it hard to sustain the claim that Dumont was "the real inventor" who "invented the airplane" (as claimed in the post I responded to).

They were working in secrecy

For their first successful flight on Dec 17, 1903, the Wright Brothers invited everyone living within five or six miles. Not many attended because of skepticism, and the winter weather.

They asked their father, in this telegram, to inform the press, although it was over a year before the information appeared anywhere. For interest's sake, here's the text of the telegram:

Success four flights thursday morning all against twenty one mile
wind started from Level with engine power alone average speed
through air thirty one miles longest 57 seconds inform Press
home Christmas . Orevelle Wright

Santos-Dumont made a point of inventing for the benefit of humankind

Good for him. So you're saying that Dumont has some kind of moral advantage, but that doesn't change who achieved it first.

Try the first link on this page.

From the bottom of "Read more here": "Note: The objects pictured above are part of The Franklin Institute's protected collection of objects. The images are © The Franklin Institute. All rights are reserved." Franklin didn't patent his invention, but his heirs don't appear to share that sentiment.

I read the link on the Gaming FAQ page and noted the game play would be 40' by 60'. We have projected some non-Imax films a couple times. They showed a live 76ers game (last year) through a video projector for the staff which was probably 20-30' tall. The problem there was not grains but revolution.

They used basically a standard portable high end video projector. A $20,000 unit or higher, for example a Barco, would give a very nice resolution on the Imax dome.

You really can't compare digital video to 35mm the technologies are pretty different. In our planatarium we would often use our ~10 year old Barco projector for surfing the internet. {It had some alignment problems with the colors (due to its age) but the resolution was pretty good. The 12 point font at about 35' tall was blury but readable.

We are in the process on a full rebuild including 120 degree wrap around video using 3 modern day barco like projectors. From what I understand, the resolution could be used to have video stars on a 40' x 60' dome. Much better than before.

For those of you in the Philadelphia area, the science museum's new plantarium will open at the end of October. More Info

This message was posted by lily2skippy the "better half" of EvilTwinSkippy

Security? Seattlewireless has something to say on that... . . . tips for securing wireless networks.

A little bit on the history of the lightning rod.

Yeah, I know, pointless links. :)

I realize that all the centers won't be in third-world, poor countries - that all of the children won't be poor.

But at any rate, giving away advanced technology won't help - no matter what it is. If the infrastructure isn't in place to keep the tech going (power, supplies, repair, etc) - it will only last so long, then become another piece of "junk".

I would say the thing to give people, of any age, is education. If it has to be based on technology, then give the people enough education to know basic tech (ie, teach fundamental machines - you know, the wheel, inclined plane, lever, etc - then teach how they go together to form more advanced machinery, machinery that can help them advance).

I remember seeing a site detailing how this group help some people in a third-world country develop solar cooking techniques - by teaching them how to build a parabolic reflector from basic materials easily found in the village. The group taught the people how to form a parabola using simple techniques (that don't require complex math, just some string and nails, and straight lines), then make a template, to make a mold in the ground, to form a parabolic "mirror" using weaved mats, mud, concrete, and tinfoil or other metal.

Teaching such things is what will help. All kids should learn the basics of such applied science at an early age - whether they are from the first or third world. Show them how to construct things from available materials, cast off "junk", etc - to be self-sufficient and rely less on the "man's" expensive "new" stuff, and instead scrounge among the cast-off detritus left behind.

Move on further by teaching how to build simple steam engines and turbines (maybe simple water pumps and such first, to teach flap valves, pistons, etc). Remember, the first practicle steam engines were built in the 16th and 17th century, and other "toy" technology was developed by the Greeks much, much earlier than that! Show how to build wind generators from cast-off 55 gallon drums and car alternators (or squirrel cage motors) - think large scale anemometers, or build a Savonious Rotor - give power before tech.

There are tons of other things that could be done - but it all boils down to education. Most importantly an education in self-sufficiency, and how to recognise those that want to enslave (either litterally or via economics, social programs, or otherwise) - and how to avoid it.

The problem is huge - I really don't know if there will ever be a real solution...

However, in an interesting twist of ethics and morals, there are registered secrets ((trade secrets ) that are essentially the same thing as patents without the benefit to the general public (the military is not so restricted), except you can get sued something ugly for going public and trying to patent or use someone else's *secret* process no matter how original you though you were. Trying to prove you didn't get it from the owners of the *secret* technology is not very easy.

Considering how *new discovery* dependant Computer Science and its derived engineering disciplines are at this time, the ethical nature of I.P. and patenting are still under debate. Just look at the whole Open Source initiative: it almost tries to return the original meaning of copyright (protection of attribution) to the current twisted definition (protection of money). In both cases, the majority is hurt by the expansion of rights to the individual (i.e. corporation) whereas the individual only gets a small conjectured advantage (majority of patents are never actually implemented, just registered and defended (yet another source of income not derived from meaningful work)). Not a surprise for a system whose major originating proponent created such patents as the patent covering his *long arm* - a device that consists of a long pole with a grasping device at the end to help get books off tall shelves (even though such devices had been used for centuries by his contemporary farmers for occasional chores.)

"The fact that it works is immaterial,"

L. Ogborn.

Then again, Ben Franklin didn't need the money from his new stove; he was probably already a pretty wealthy man. Check out this timeline to see where his stove invention fits in. He already had Poor Richy's Almanac and the Pennsylvania Gazette going for him; by this point he was probably more interested in benevolent pursuits (such as his electricity experiments a few years later), not profit.

Had he been some poor schmoe working in a forge and invented this new stove, I don't think the Open Source community would have this bit of evidence to back up their utopian beliefs.

---------------

The idea that progress is going through a sharp turn upward is not supported by the Kurzweil's reference to the "exponential", a curve that looks basically the same at any scale -- but on a more radical mathematical formulation that goes to infinity in finite time -- specifically by Friday, 13 November, A.D. 2026 (give or take). No, this isn't just some New Age eschatology -- it was actually arrived at by looking at historic data and extrapolating into the future.

Here is an excerpt from "Spasim (1974) The First First-Person-Shooter 3D Multiplayer Networked Game" that discusses the origin of the Transhumanist conception of "The Singularity":

They were trying to realize a man-machine cybernetic vision of this magical little gnome named Heinz von Foerster and needed an email system to go along with it.
...
When the semester was over, I threw a few things into my '64 Chevy Impalla, and headed east on Interstate 80 across the Illinois border for Urbana and CERL. It was my first paying job as a programmer.

Arriving at the Mecca of networking and meeting the magical little gnome who founded second order cybernetics (symbolized by the Ouroboros) in his Biological Computer Laboratory was an amazing experience.
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A vital side note: Heinz von Foerster had published a paper in 1960 on global population: von Foerster, H, Mora, M. P., and Amiot, L. W., "Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, A.D." 2026, Science 132, 1291-1295 (1960). In this paper, Heinz shows that the best formula that describes population growth over known human history is one that predicts the population will go to infinity on a Friday the 13 in November of 2026. As Roger Gregory likes to say, "That's just whacko!" The problem is, after he published the paper, it kept predicting population growth better than the other models. (see section 4.1 "Systems Ecology Notes") One of Heinz's early University of Illinois colleagues was Richard Hamming of "Hamming code" fame. Once while visiting the Naval Postgraduate School, I asked Dr. Hamming what he thought of Heinz von Foerster. Professor Hamming's response was "Heinz von Foerster: Now there's a first class kook!" I suspect Heinz's publication of, what Transhumanists call, "the singularity" had really gotten to Hamming -- not that Heinz wasn't eccentric enough get Hamming's goat in any case. Well, to continue this digression so as to give the damn Transhumanists a much-deserved keyboard lashing: It's one thing to be a guy like Hamming and denounce Heinz as a "kook" for following his formulae where they lead -- it's another to turn Heinz's formulae into a virtual religion, call it "the singularity" and totally forget where the idea came from the first place. I suggest the Transhumanists cite Heinz in the future whenever they refer to "the singularity" and think about his assumptions -- the primary one being that societies success varies directly with population size. It might be good to see if his model fits the data subsequent to the last check of which I am aware -- 1973 -- which just happens to be right at the point high population density societies decided to abandon their forward progress toward the space frontier.