Craig Damrauer put together a slideshow at The Atlantic Monthly demonstrating the math of the technology he expected by now:

When you get right down to it a lot of the ‘future’ things I saw in cartoons, TV shows and movies while growing up have come true. We have instant food (TV dinner + microwave), video phones and 3D television. Robots help fight our wars (drones) and the cops are armed with guns they can set on stun. So it’s helpful to see this as a glass half full kind of scenario. However, there are a few things I’d hoped for that I’ve yet to see. Here’s a small selection.

(via @tcarmody)

Things that happened during our date include, but are not limited to, the following:

You played with your hair a lot. A woman playing with her hair is a common sign of flirtation. You can even do a google search on it. When a woman plays with her hair, she is preening. I’ve never had a date where a woman played with her hair as much as you did. In addition, it didn’t look like you were playing with your hair out of nervousness.

We had lots of eye contact during our date. On a per-minute basis, I’ve never had as much eye contact during a date as I did with you.

You said, “It was nice to meet you.” at the end of our date. A woman could say this statement as a way to show that she isn’t interested in seeing a man again or she could mean what she said–that it was nice to meet you. The statement, by itself, is inconclusive.

We had a nice conversation over dinner. I don’t think I’m being delusional in saying this statement.

In my opinion, leading someone on (i.e., giving mixed signals) is impolite and immature. It’s bad to do that.

Just to be clear, this comment was intended as a response to “Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing is the best thing since gravity”. Just so everyone’s clear: Gravity < Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing. That is all.

Andreas Gursky’s “Rhein II” set a new record for the highest selling price for a photograph ($4.3 million) yesterday. I must say I rather like it, though I do wonder how these things happen.

by 1960 it is estimated that 55% of photos were of babies.

the 20th century was the golden age of analog photography peaking at an amazing 85 billion physical photos in 2000 — an incredible 2,500 photos per second.

When the first few hundred thousand digital cameras shipped in 1997 their memory was strictly limited (in fact cameras like the Sony Mavica took floppy disks!).

That might sound implausible but this year people will upload over 70 billion photos to Facebook, suggesting around 20% of all photos this year will end up there.

And other statistics about the history of photographs.

The heart of the program is the belief that criminals often commit a second or third crime in the same location and the same time as a first successful crime. For example, if a burglar is successful breaking into a home at 2 p.m. in a certain neighborhood because no one is home, the criminal will use that experience to do it again to another house in the same neighborhood around the same time.

In the case of Santa Cruz, on California’s central coast and home to a University of California campus, that would be about four days later.

The algorithm knows this because Mohler has fed eight years of data on crimes in Santa Cruz into the algorithm.

Now you know, and I guess, so do the criminals.

The first thing Romer did was analyze every fourth down during the first quarter of every NFL game between 1998 and 2000. (He had help from a computer program.) Then, he figured out the fluctuating value of a first down at each point on the football field. After all, a first down was more valuable for a team if it occurred on an opponents two yard line than on their own twenty yard line. The next thing Romer calculated was the statistical likelihood of going for it on fourth down under various circumstances and actually getting a first down. He also calculated the probability of kicking a successful field goal from various spots on the field.

silly question, why don’t we use a few crop dusters to knock out all the drug fields in central and south america? Same in afganistan, if the alledged taliban is funded by opium sales, why not knock they out to? Such a simple solution, makes you think there are people in our country that want these wars. “In God We Trust?” God doesn’t want any part of the gun companies.

I have the perfect solution to the drug problem. This will work. Pay any informant 10% of monies recovered or 10% of the wholesale value of the drugs confiscated. Give them the money tax free and make it anonymous so as to prevent retaliation and to encourage others. Let capitalism do it’s thing. Turn the profit angle against them and they will be out of business in no time. Thoughts anyone?

There are as many Amandas as there are Michaels. We are a pluralistic union.