What's in a hostname?
The common definition of a ‘valid hostname’ is often reduced to a simple regular expression, but as the saying goes: ‘Now you have two problems.’ Because hostnames are DNS labels and those… well, it's the DNS. All bets are off.
The Library of Babel is a place for scholars to do research, for artists and writers to seek inspiration, for anyone with curiosity or a sense of humor to reflect on the weirdness of existence – in short, it’s just like any other library.
Every possible permutation of letters is accessible at this very moment in one of the library's books, only awaiting its discovery
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Guns, Germs, and Steel is a Powerful Anti-Racist Book. So Why Doesn’t the Left Love It?
In terms of its sweeping scope, it might be compared to Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens (which has an even broader scope). But Diamond and Harari are very different kinds of writers. Harari is a historian who skips lightly from subject to subject with a “trust me, this happened” approach; Diamond is a scientist to his core.
Homesick Sounds (via densediscovery.com).
A soundboard designed to recreate your home office's ambient noises.
On the origin of minds.
(…) life is self-producing, not merely self-organising or self-maintaining. If an Airbus A380 performed the same feat, it could seek out, take in and transform into fuel sources of matter and energy from its surroundings and manufacture the components that enable it to function (taxi, take off, fly, maintain a stable inner environment, touch down) while in flight. And that’s saying nothing about reproduction.
The Metaverse Is Bad.
In Snow Crash, as in other cyberpunk stories (including the 1995 Kathryn Bigelow film Strange Days), the metaverse comes across as intrinsically dangerous. The book’s title refers to a digital drug for denizens of the metaverse, with harmful neurological effects that extend outside it.
That danger hasn’t survived the metaverse’s translation into contemporary technological fantasy. Instead, the concept appeals to tech magnates because it connects the rather prosaic reality of technologized consumer attention to a science-fictional dream of escape.
Vienna museums open adult-only OnlyFans account to display nudes.
Tourist board in Austrian capital rails against censorship of art on social media platforms.
And so does Eric Hoel, obviously.
Futurists have their heads in the clouds.
The truth is that most futurists are attracted to speculating about the future for the same reason as science fiction writers: they like geeking out about technological possibilities and the associated metaphysics. That’s how you get a sci-fi book without the plot.