Category: ideas

“It’s not just about modeling the statues on a screen. All of the digital files from Scanathon will be available on the 3-D object compendium Thingiverse, free for anyone to download and even print.”

“What do we actually mean by reality? A straightforward answer is that it means everything that appears to our five senses – everything that we can see, smell, touch and so forth. Yet this answer ignores such problematic entities as electrons, the recession and the number 5, which we cannot sense but which are very real. It also ignores phantom limbs and illusory smells.”

“Philosophers are not being rude when they describe the approach most of us take as naive realism. After all, when they cross the street on the way to work, they tend to accept implicitly – as we all do – that there is an external reality that exists independently of our observations of it. But at work, they have to ask: if there is, how can we know?”

“Whatever kind of reality you think you’re living in, you’re probably wrong. The universe is a computer, and everything that goes on in it can be explained in terms of information processing.”

One New York real-estate company has an answer: On, and in, its properties.

“Technologically speaking, turning a building into a living, self-sustaining one is complex, typically requiring a combination of sunshades, solar panels, and ventilation to catch water.”

“If this technology takes off, we’ll all need to agree on a new language of gestures.”

There’s the guy who wanted his prosthetic to match his Harley, the woman with a lacy shin, the soccer player with a built-in shin guard – and 3D printing makes it all possible.

The Kickstarter-like Indiegogo leaps into the spotlights as fans use it to raise $1.3 million for a museum honoring NIkola Tesla.

Can a native speaker ever make an actual error? Were Strunk & White too oppressive (while flouting their own rules)? Does anyone beyond your 8th-grade English teacher care about the word “enervate”?