National Geographic magazine had an interesting feature on the work of researchers at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, from 2008, finding that the blood of alligators and other similar swamp denizens has prized anti-microbial properties, which can stave off infections from many types of bacteria, including a few that have developed resistance to human antibiotics through keeping too neat and tidy and abuse of our resources. Five years on, the research still, I think, merits a look and an update.
Saturday, 16 February 2013
polk salad annie, gator’s got your granny
catagories: ⚕️, environment
awareness, knowledge, liking, preference, conviction, purchase
I suppose all targeted advertising, by its nature, is somewhat recursive, and there are limitations to what product or service can be matched to content, but for those of you who dare dither towards the bottom of the page, perhaps you’ve discovered more about “decorating the walls,” my sponsors and just perhaps, a little bit about yourselves (or rather at least how demographic sub-routines and marketing algorithms might describe you, though we don’t care what they think or give them any credence).
Meditating on these strange and spammy haikus, however, I grew more and more intrigued about the workings behind these simple text ads. I imagine it’s quite primitive and probably would not yield anything useful—the mechanism, but I wonder if there are some sort of organic, spontaneous commercials that build themselves according to the latest visitor and content of the web site, rather than being apportioned from a pool of existing advertisements. It’s primitive, I guess, in so far as no one is really paying for that service and the effectiveness would be too big of a gamble (right now, at least), but it would be pretty keen if computers could generate a well-executed ad and find a product for it afterwards.

catagories: ๐ฅธ, networking and blogging
valkyrie or learning-curve
Here is another interesting find from the vintage science fiction archives of Project Gutenberg, which presents an eerily modern commentary on drones and action-at- a-distance, the short story from 1953 called “Watchbird” by Robert Sheckley. All these ebooks are available at no cost in a variety of formats, including epub for viewing on iPads. The images are taken from BLDGBLOG’s latest discovery of expansive bird’s eye view eye-charts, laid out in remote areas of US testing grounds (rediscovered via satellite maps) used to calibrate spy cameras dispatched on weather balloons from that same era.
Such test-pattern topology probably is not necessary for autonomous UAVs whose sharp sensors and acuity have become sort of a moral unto themselves, and that’s exactly the quandary that Sheckley’s prescient tale addresses, in a future-present where we’ve released judge, jury and executioner as stand-alone extensions of law-enforcement.
Such test-pattern topology probably is not necessary for autonomous UAVs whose sharp sensors and acuity have become sort of a moral unto themselves, and that’s exactly the quandary that Sheckley’s prescient tale addresses, in a future-present where we’ve released judge, jury and executioner as stand-alone extensions of law-enforcement.
catagories: ๐ญ, ๐, ๐ฅธ, technology and innovation
kiosk oder sehen, staunen, verstehen
