Ivan recently left iRobot in Boston, where he worked as a software engineer for their Government & Industrial Division, to found Tipjoy. Tipjoy is a micropayment tipping sys that enables content creators to monetize what otherwise would have been free content.

How will micropayment systems change the way content creators are compensated? And how will the Web continue to transform our thinking about how value is created and transferred?

Click "Continue Reading" for the show notes:

Meanwhile, Harvey recommends this YouTube snippet concerning a shocking display from a recent college girl's softball game:

That's right -- a shocking display of decency and sportsmanship. What is the world coming to, folks? Oh, wait -- I think I have the answer to that. More on the story here.

We'll try this out as a regular feature every Friday. If you have video recommendations, let me know.

One of the reasons I don't lose sleep over Peak Oil is that there is such a broad range of alternative energy sources under development. The list includes, but is not limited to, the following:

Nuclear Fission
Solar
Concentrated Solar
Ethanol -- from switchgrass, cornstalks, etc.
Ethanol -- from waste
Methanol -- from coal
Synthfuel -- from coal
Synthfuel -- from shale
Synthfuel -- from tar sands
Biodiesel -- from waste
Biodiesel -- from algae
Nuclear Fusion

Progress is being made on all of these fronts. And if oil shoots up to $200, $300, $400 per barrel over the next couple of years, we can expect interest in these (as well as funding applied to them) to skyrocket.

Let's look at just the second and third items on the list, the two major forms of harnessing energy from the sun. What we normally think of as "solar energy" is the application of photovoltaic technology -- turning the sun's power directly into electricity. "Concentrated solar" power, AKA solar thermal energy, involves concentrating and capturing heat from the sun, which is then used to create steam and move an electricity-producing turbine.

We wrote about the tremendous promise of concentrated solar power just a few weeks ago, so I won't rehash all that here. Suffice it to say that, even if photovoltaic technology had hit some kind of peak of its own, meaning that we wouldn't expect much more from it than what we're getting now, concentrated solar would remain as a major potential energy source that we have barely even begun to exploit.

But the truth is that photovoltaic solar energy is far from any peak. Ray Kurzweil has repeatedly stated his assessment that solar energy is on a Moore's-Law-style trajectory of its own, and that all the worlds energy could be supplied by solar in as little as 20 years. So if Moore's Law is leading us to The Singularity, is this acceleration of solar power capability leading us to a solar singularity?

Some probably wouldn't like that term, seeing as it could make the whole question as to what exactly we mean by "singularity" even murkier than it currently is. But it has a ring to it, doesn't it?

Solar Singularity.

Anyhow, if we are going to get to the point where solar really does (or even could) supply all the world's power within a couple of decades, we are obviously going to have to see:

Accelerating progress in solar energy technology culminating in a fundamental shift in how the world's energy needs are met.

And that, then, can be how we define the solar singularity. It seems unlikely that it could be confused with any other kind of singularity, doesn't it?

We talked briefly on the most recent FastForward Radio about how we would know when we've reached the solar singularity. One suggestion was "when solar is cheaper than anything else." Another was "when they don't even bother to drill any more." Those are both good candidates. But how could we ever get to that point?

Hmmm, this is pretty pro-transhumanist. The hero has an awesome robot suit, an interesting gadget built in his chest, and a friendly AI. He also has an intriguing collection of modern and near future technology. All of this is portrayed in a mostly positive light.

One of the played-to-death tropes of future disappointment is the lack of flying cars. I used to trade in that one myself, but I got tired of it. Part of what we do at The Speculist is attempt to develop new future-related tropes. I like to think of myself as a memetician, but I will quickly admit that I don't have any academic credentials in the field. Anyhow, one trope that Stephen and I have been developing for some time is that, in the future, we will all be super-heroes. This started way back in '05 with our second FastForward Radio, wherein I suggested that -- in the future, we will all be Batman.

But it doesn't stop there. As we noted in our most recent FFR, a Japanese company is now working to make us all Iron Man -- or at least make those of us who want or need to be...

Nice! Now some will be happy to start at having a few gadgets (Batman) or maybe access to equipment that gives the impression of having advanced powers (Iron Man), but for others that won't be enough. One of the more obscure comics that I enjoyed in my youth was OMAC: the One-Man Army Corps. Set in the "world thats coming," OMAC definitely played with some transhumanist ideas, as detailed by Wikipedia:

One-Man Army Corps (OMAC) is a superhero comic book created by Jack Kirby and published by DC Comics. Set in the near future ("the world that's coming"), OMAC is a corporate nobody named Buddy Blank who is changed by an A.I. satellite called Brother Eye into the super-powered OMAC.

OMAC works for the Global Peace Agency, a group of faceless people who police the entire world using pacifistic weapons. The world balance is too dangerous for large armies, so OMAC is used as the main field enforcement agent for the Global Peace Agency.

All kinda dumb, and it didn't last, but one thing I remember Kirby writing in an editorial he provided in the first issue of OMAC was the idea that these kinds of things might really be on their way, that one day OMAC might be "just another Joe" and that Superman might be our ultimate dream come true.

So in the future, will we all wear a cape with matching boots? Probably not. I'm not even sure I can see the path forward that would get us to OMAC (much less Superman-level) abilities. I mean, we could probably do some astounding stuff with utility fog, but that would make us more like Green Lantern and his power ring than it would Superman...not that there's anything wrong with that! GL is very cool! But ultimately even the power ring is just an extension of Bruce Wayne's gadgets or Tony Stark's exoskeleton. It is technology external to the individual using it, not a reflection of innate physical ability.

If it is our destiny to be Superman, it is probably not going to happen in this substrate. It's a lot easier to be Superman in a virtual world than it is in this one. And, in fact, in Second Life, everyone can fly -- it is one of the chief means of transportation. It's also interesting to note that in Second Life, there is a functioning Green Lantern Corps -- acting as a kind of virtual Guardian Angels to protect some virtual activities from being disrupted by virtual bad-guys. Nice!

The problem with being superman in the virtual world -- or even up here in meatspace assuming the technology to get us there shows up eventually -- is that it isn't as big a deal if everyone else is Superman.

Breakthroughs in regenerative medicine have received quite a bit of attention on the web recently, with this particular story making the rounds several times. We linked to it back in March after 60 Minutes did a piece on it, although then (and today) our emphasis is more on Wake Forest University's efforts to grow human tissues and organs than the University of Pittsburgh's use of extracellular matrix to regrow body parts. Both are very exciting lines of research, but it was the latter that caught the attention of the BBC and ultimately the Volokh Conspiracy, who subsequently linked to this piece, wherein a "leading plastic surgeon," apparently after carefully viewing the entire 59-second BBC clip -- possibly more than once! -- declared the entire matter "junk science."

Meanwhile, following up on our original piece on this subject, we recently caught up with Dr. Anthony Atala, the director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and got some more information on his team's efforts to grow human tissues and organs, essentially "replacement parts" for the sick and injured. Here he talks about using inkjet printers to literally "print out" new tissues, and addresses the question of whether his research in regenerative medicine has implications for life extension research.

You've been quoted as saying that it is "just a matter of time" before someone grows a human heart. So let's start with the basic question -- how does one grow a heart? We've read how an artificially grown human bladder was recently implanted into a patient: that it was built using layers of tissue attached to a bladder-shaped scaffolding which eventually dissolved, leaving an intact organ in place. Will a human heart be built by similar means? If so, where do these layers of tissue come from? Are they grown from stem cells?

It’s hard to predict which form of regenerative medicine will eventually be used to help patients with damaged heart muscle. There is the possibility of injecting stem cells that will find their way to the damaged tissue as well as the approach of creating patches of the tissue in the lab that can be used to mend a poorly functioning organ. In many cases, you don’t need an entire new heart to dramatically improve the patient’s life. It may be possible to change a patch of non-functional tissue the same way you change a malfunctioning heart valve. Our interest isn’t specifically to build a human heart, but to make patients better – no matter what strategy is used. Not one technology is going to be best for all patients. I foresee a time when we’ll have a boutique of technologies and will select one based on the patient’s needs. Currently, we are attacking this challenge on multiple fronts, including using a modified ink jet technology to “print” a small two-chamber heart.

In attempting to describe the implications of the research you are doing, I wrote: "If this research leads to the ability to grow new kidneys, patients with severe kidney disease will be able to get replacement kidneys without a healthy person having to give one of theirs up. If this research leads to the ability to grow new hearts, patients with severe heart disease will be able to get replacement hearts without someone having to die." Is that an accurate assessment? And, ultimately, will fully compatible replacement organs grown using these kinds of techniques eliminate the need for organ donation, and all of the logistical, ethical, and immunological difficulties associated with that practice?

There are currently almost 99,000 people on the waiting list for an organ transplant and nowhere near enough donors to meet their needs. Our goal is certainly to develop organs and tissues in the laboratory to help solve this shortage. As you know, we have already created bladders in the laboratory that have been successfully implanted in patients. These are grown from a patient’s own cells, so there were no issues with rejection. Similarly, if organs/tissues are grown from stem cells that are a genetic match to a patient, rejection will not be a problem. It is much too soon to predict whether we’ll be successful growing all organs and whether the need for organ donation can eventually be eliminated.

What is at stake? What can we learn by studying possibilities and scenarios? And why do we Speculists spend time blogging and podcasting about this stuff? Do we have a contribution to make?

Click "Continue Reading" for the show notes:

This is a great movie. Not just a great comic book movie... its a great movie.

I won't spoil it.

Oh, stay through the credits. You'll be glad you did.

NASA credits the images as follows:

1. The Mercury image was taken by Mariner 10,
2. The Venus image by Magellan,
3. T the Earth image by Galileo,
4. The Mars image by Viking, and
5. The Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were taken images by Voyager.

Pluto is not shown as no spacecraft has yet visited it.

That omission will eventually be rectified. At that point, the NASA folks will face the difficult decision to make as to whether to include Pluto in this picture. You know, seeing as it's no longer considered a planet!

Of course, the moon isn't it a planet, and it made the cut...

On this date in 1993, Cern made the Worldwide Web public domain and the rest, as they say, is history. Cern had actually developed the technology in the late 80's.

I remember living in a pre-Web world. I used a Mac with a dial-up Internet connection. The service was called Delphi. I used it mostly for chatting, playing games, and accessing files. Gee, that sounds just like the Web! So what was the difference?

It was all 100% text-based.

Wow, what a difference Cern made in pushing the Web out free. I was an avid HyperCard scripter back in those days, and I knew that eventually the Internet would go in a hypertext direction.

And then this thing showed up:

Nothing was ever the same after that!

Highlight: we could grow all the fuel the United States needs using 1/10th of the land space of New Mexico.

And by doing this in the desert we wouldn't sacrifice farm land.

H/T Al Fin

NPR published a great radio segment a couple of weeks ago titled "Lucy's Laugh Enlivens the Solar System." It's about television and radio being broadcast into space. It's 6 minutes long. Have a listen. I'll wait.

...

"I Love Lucy" and other shows of that era were broadcast over 57 years ago. That means that original broadcast has traveled over 57 light years. There are many other star systems in that range, but astronomer Chris Impey points out the Lucy wouldn't be detectable over the cosmic background noise past, say, Pluto. And apparently there's no foreseeable technology out there that could improve on that. If you're thinking that future broadcasts will be stronger, well, it doesn't seem to be going that way. Our planet has gotten quieter cosmically-speaking since the heyday of Lucy.

This would seem to indicate that SETI is likely to fail, but such failure doesn't rule out the existence of other civilizations.

Via GeekPress, Nick Bostrom has a fascinating essay at Technology Review in which he lays out his case for hoping that we don't find evidence that life ever existed on Mars or that it exists elsewhere in the universe. Why would we not want to find evidence of life?

According to Bostrom, the apparent silence of our galaxy -- the lack of even one civilization which has advanced to the galactic colonization stage, which we ought to know about if it ever happened, because they would be here -- is evidence either that there is no life out there or that life is in some way blocked from developing to that level. He talks in terms of a "great filter" that evolving life must pass through on the way to the galactic colonization stage. If life is evolving out there in the galaxy, and no aliens have ever shown up here, that suggests that no life anywhere has ever successfully made it through the filter. And if nobody else ever makes it through the filter, we have very little reason to hope that we ever will.

The filter could take many forms. It could be some stage in biological evolution that is just plain difficult to get through. For example, if life rarely makes it to the stage of producing multicellular organisms, and that's the reason nobody is out there, then we've already passed through the filter and it would seem that we are in the clear.

Woo hoo! Let's start colonizing the galaxy.

New Scientist reports:

Red blood cells travel through the bloodstream delivering vital oxygen to body tissues and taking away unwanted carbon dioxide – and they have to squeeze through blood vessels as thin as 3 micrometres across to do it. But in some diseases, such as malaria and sickle cell disease, red blood cells lose this ability to deform.

Because of the small size of red blood cells and the demanding work they do, nobody has succeeded in making artificial versions to help people with such conditions.

Now though Joseph DeSimone, a chemical engineer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, US, thinks he knows how.

He has created tiny sacks of the polymer polyethylene glycol just 8 micrometres across – in the range of human red blood cells – that are capable of deforming in a way that allows them to pass through the tiniest capillaries.

Polyethylene glycol is biologically benign, but binds easily with other substances, which makes it ideal for carrying cargo through the blood, says DeSimone.

Artificial blood replacement is likely to be a key biomedical enhancement technology in the near future. Ray Kurzweil frequently talks about the "respirocytes" which will act as supplemental mechanical red blood cells, 1000 times more efficient than their biological counterparts. Those who choose to replace even a small portion of their red blood cells with respiorocytes will be capable of what today could only be viewed as superhuman feats: running at sprinting speed for a quarter of an hour or more without breathing; sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool for hours at a time.

Of course, most of us don't want or need to be able to do such outrageous things. Respirocytes will initially be implemented to address many of the same kinds of conditions that DeSimone's polymer blood-cell substitutes are proposed for.They will also probably be used to give a much-needed boost to those recovering from serious illnesses or who have suffered some kind of major trauma. And speaking of illnesses and trauma, I can imagine respirocytes also serving as a delivery mechanism -- one of many that nanotechnology will provide -- for much more effective, and much less traumatic treatments for diseases such as cancer than anything currently available.

As you might imagine his book, The Universe - Solved, covers a lot of scientific and philosophical ground. A big topic of discussion was whether we live in a computer simulation. If so, are there Easter Eggs in the cosmos?

Click "Continue Reading" for listening options and the show notes:

Lighting Science Group says they are. And to back it up, they're introducing a new line of LED-based lightbulbs that plug into a regular light socket. Check out the bulb shown here.

Looks pretty neat. And as we can see from this page, it can be had for a mere $110.

What the...$110???

For a LIGHT BULB?

Well, hang on. LSG has an answer to that:

At $40 to $110 apiece, the LED "in-screw" bulbs may still seem too pricey for a lot of consumers. But Lighting Science Group's pitch is that a 50 cent Edison bulb will last for 750 to 3,000 hours, while an LED has to be replaced only every 50,000 hours (or 10 to 30 years). The company says the cost savings is almost $740 over a lifetime due to much lower energy consumption.

That's the same argument that's made in favor of the compact fluorescents, but these bulbs last longer and are even easier on the old electric bill.

Plus, I think I already mentioned -- no mercury.

Bring 'em on, I say.