Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Peter Thiel

Naked Capitalism on Peter Thiel :
A few more details to consider here, in case you’re curious and not satisfied with the “our wives made us do it” theory [of Ron Paul's tacit support for Romney]:
* Ron Paul’s SuperPAC sugar daddy, Peter Thiel, whom I wrote about for The Nation, has a proven track record of using his money to play the cynical game of politics. According to a recent San Francisco Chronicle profile, “libertarian” Peter Thiel is funding a Democrat and former Obama trade official, Ro Khanna, in a primary challenge against anti-war, anti-PATRIOT Act liberal Democrat Congressman Pete Stark.
* Ron Paul’s SuperPAC sugar daddy Peter Thiel also funds other candidates supposedly anathema to antiwar, anti-PATRIOT Act, pro-gay marriage libertarians, including frothing pro-war GOP social conservatives Dana Rohrabacher, Ed Royce and Dan Lungren.
* Dr. Paul’s SuperPAC sugar daddy Thiel also donated the maximum allowable to the 2010 gubernatorial campaign of Meg Whitman, who was Mitt Romney’s campaign finance chair in 2008. Whitman was a protege of Romney’s when she worked at Bain capital; later, when Whitman was CEO of eBay, she made Peter Thiel rich when she bought out his PayPal in a deal roundly slammed as bad for eBay, but good for Thiel and Whitman.
Look, I’m just laying out some interesting leads here for journalists with budgets, leads that involve money and oligarchy in politics—someone out there with an expense account, for fuck’s sake, do your work! Sure, there may be nothing there—heck, it may have been Dr. Paul’s wife who suggested to Mrs. Romney what a wonderful idea it would be to base Paul’s SuperPAC in Salt Lake City. But if the media is willing to raise the question about the strange and rather unnerving alliance, it should be willing to look in strange places for unsettling answers.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

The Subsidy Of Limited Liability

Vinay very interesting on the implicit subsidy that government gives to business in the form of limited liability.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Micro Drones

I'm, frankly, gob-smacked by this video :


Both by the implication of how cheap and simple it will be to manufacture micro-drones (or anything else) with cut laminates and folding techniques. And the widespread ubiquity of drones that it implies.

via Global Guerrillas. (WarpLink RoboFold)

DIY Drones also links a printed quad-copter : 


We have no idea what's about to hit us here ... 

Friday, February 10, 2012

Something Moon Wiring

This Moon Wiring Mix looks (and indeed sounds) awesome.

Hauntology, England's Hidden Reverse, G-Funk, Trip Hop, IDM, Dilla, Zelda, Grime, Wonky, Witch-house ... and then some really crazy stuff.

Only thing missing is my new favourite sound : Maribou State (think Lucky Dragons meets James Blake in a Glo-fi House vibe.)

Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Resilient Manufacturing and SpimeScript

Something I'm thinking about a lot at the moment is resilient, local, sustainable, on-demand manufacturing :

  • I'm currently organising the London Future Manufacturing meetup. And having some parallel conversations at the London Hackspace. If you're in London and into this stuff, get in touch.
  • I have a new project in the works which I'll be unveiling soon ...

Thursday, February 02, 2012

A Swarm of Nano-Copters

This is probably the thing that will change the world more profoundly and shockingly than almost anything else over the next 5 years.

That's about the time it took smartphones to become ubiquitous in the developed world, and for business and culture to re-organize themselves around them. (If you're conservative, you can assume it took 10 years.)

Now imagine that nano-quadcopters (with video surveillance) hit hundreds of millions of cheap units in the next 5-10 years. What happens when everyone from concerned parents to nosy teenagers, criminals to police to political protestors have them. What happens when they routinely monitor traffic in the streets? Routinely carry out inspections of industrial infrastructure? Routinely patrol your house when you're out? When they're a standard tool of industrial espionage and gutter journalism? Where they guide automated cranes and architectural scale printers in docks and on construction sites? Where they monitor pollution and conduct ecological surveys in forests?

Nano-quadcopters and sousveillance are coming. And the world is going to be unimaginable.