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Fictional Town "Eureka" To Become Real?
Zarath writes "The fictional town of Eureka (from the TV series by the same name) is going to potentially become a real life town as the University of Queensland, in Australia, plans to build a multibillion-dollar 'brain city' dedicated to science and research. The city, hoping to hold at least 10,000 people, is looking to attract 4,500 of the brightest scientists from around the world to live and work there. The city is planned to be built west of the city of Brisbane, in Queensland. While not funded by the Department of Defense (like the [city of the] TV series), the potential for such a community is very interesting and exciting."
Fictional Town "Eureka" to Becomes Real?
They forgot to link to the image for this story.
My work here is dung.
but we call ours Los Alamos...
A town entirely full of science geeks ?
Well, at least they shouldn't expect a very high birth rate...
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
...keep all of our best and brightest in one location. What could possibly go wrong?
the research triangle park
Because it is fairly isolated. If it gets blown up, space-time torn, or radiated, there is less chance of contamination to other continents.
One of the most interesting decisions in Soviet science was the establishment of Akademgorodok, an enclave outside Novosibirsk dedicated entirely to scientists (see e.g. Josephson's New Atlantis Revisited published by Princeton University Press). I don't understand why that wasn't more popular in Western countries. Maybe sciences move ahead when you give scientists peace, a sense of respect and dignity, and ability to manage their own work. Of course, generous funding is essential, lest it all go down the tubes.
So... you want intelligent people to move to Australia?
This, being the same Australia that's introducing filtering and censorship to its entire Internet?
Yeah, good luck with that... Oh, and enjoy your forthcoming Dark Age.
I haven't seen the show, so forgive me if the writers have handled my objections in some clever fashion in one of the episodes, but..
I don't see the upside to this, it's easier now than ever before for people to collaborate remotely, negating much of the need for being in the same physical location.
I do see a downside to this, putting all our intellectual eggs in one basket makes a pretty attractive target for terrorists, whether they be Islamic, Luddite, or some other group in the future that isn't particularly keen on progress or reason as a means of dealing with reality.
Sounds a bit like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademgorodok except actually open and international. (also not in Siberia)
I thought nerds preferred the cold dark of their parents basements or garages, to any kind of socialization?
Not entirely true. Geeks love to be around geeks, and only get awkward in the general population. We nerds are highly gregarious whenever we're in friendly company.
As an example go check out a gaming convention.
BTW, I think this town sounds like a lot of fun. I'm probably not bright/geeky enough to be invited to live there, but it would be cool to visit. I'm betting it would be worth it just for all the little inside jokes you'd see around. I'll bet the graffiti alone would be worth it.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Towns and cities are located and populated naturally. Towns are near a river or a port or an important crossroads. Or they grew up from nothing over the course of many decades. The people that live there settled there for natural reasons, usually related to jobs and opportunity.
Towns can be created artificially. Almost every attempt to do it is a failure though. Success usually takes HUGE amounts of money and some other factor to draw people to the location. This one claims to have the money, but they probably don't have enough. And it seems to lack any other incentive to draw folks there.
...and let scientist do research in any field they want without goverment intervention. What could go wrong?
I thought nerds preferred the cold dark of their parents basements or garages, to any kind of socialization?
Didn't you read the summary? They're "looking to attract 4,500 of the brightest scientists from around the world" for a city that's supposed "to hold at least 10,000 people". So obviously they're accounting for all the parents as well.
#DeleteChrome
you'll get a town full of people who have a desperate and ego-driven need to be seen as smart
kind of like joining mensa. anyone who needs that sort of attention and reinforcement is not exactly niels bohr
the smart guys in any room are always low key and in the back, not attention whores
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Two of the smartest people I have ever met married and began cranking out kids. They now have one of the biggest collection of marginal morons you have ever seen. Nice kids, yes. Well behaved kids, yes. But they don't have the sense God gave a herd of cows. All I can figure is that the parents IQ waves were 180 degrees out of phase. Either that, or they are putting on one helluva show when company is around.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
An amusing meme, but far from the truth. From a history of Los Alamos Lab :
One resident recalled that "the Hill dwellers were amateur everything: hikers, riders, photographers, ethnographers, mineralogists, musicians, and artists-craftsmen in all assorted fields. Saturday nights they partied and square danced. Sundays they fished or exploited their hobbies."
The parties were frequent and well attended. Resident Jean Bacher recalled that "Saturday nights, the mesa rocked... fenced in as we were, our social life was a pipeline through which we let off steam."
Some of the most brilliant minds of the last century seemed perfectly capable of having fun together and blowing off steam. Maybe this time there will be more LAN parties than square dances, but people will figure out how to get together.
The first tenant at the famed Stanford Research Park was Varian, and the government was at the time Varian's only customer. Many of the other spin-offs were organized around government-funded research labs, many also at/near Stanford, the most famous of which was probably Engelbart's lab (which invented the mouse).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
These are not the actions of normal people.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
A.) You were promulgating a bit of disinformation that gets stronger every time it gets repeated in a public place.
/. is still one of the biggest fora on the web and I reserve the right to cut down the damage that you'll do rather than limiting myself to only what *you* consider accountable behavior.
B.) You were creating an implied equivalancy between two "equally ridiculous", "equally false" public statements. Which isn't so nice when one of those statements not only isn't equivalently false but was, in fact, used as a key part of a still ongoing and successful campaign to establish and maintain the larger and equally false supposed equivalency between the level of lying and overall fraud between Democrats and Republicans.
After years as a policy guy trying to change behavior through reason I came to the sad conclusion that behavior is, in fact, largely determined not by fact but by perception and that many of the most destructive false perceptions are those spread mostly under the cover of "I'm just joking", which is no different from the frat boy who hits one of the "nerds" in the face, knocking him down, and then claims that the nerd has no legitimate grounds to be angry, let alone fight back. After all, "I was just messing with you".
Sorry, I have no opinion of nor much interest in your intent; I post in response to expected consequences.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.