This Time magazine article from late 2007 sets the scene:

Geoengineering has long been the province of kooks, but as the difficulty of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions has become harder to ignore, it is slowly emerging as an option of last resort. The tipping point came in 2006, when the Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric scientist Paul Crutzen published an editorial examining the possibility of releasing vast amounts of sulfurous debris into the atmosphere to create a haze that would keep the planet cool. “Over the past couple of years, it’s gone from an outsider thing to something that is increasingly discussed,” says Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University.

Wired’s Danger Room blog has the details:

One scheme calls for adding iron to the ocean, to stimulate the growth of greenhouse gas-absorbing algae. Another for “loading the skies” with sulfate particles that “act as mini-reflectors, shading out sunlight and cooling the Earth.” A third, “covering the Arctic with dust.”

Yes, yes – spread tiny reflectors throughout the stratosphere to reflect away all that dangerous sunlight! What could possibly go wrong? And, who better to explore this topic than… the U. S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency?

Science magazine’s Science Insider blog tells us that

An official advisory group to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is convening an unclassified meeting next week to discuss geoengineering… DARPA is the latest in a number of official science funding agencies or top scientific societies that are exploring the controversial idea. But one leading advocate of the work opposes the military developing geoengineering techniques.

I think I’ll let Mr. Burns, that paragon of virtue and human compassion, have the last word:

“Since the beginning of time man has yearned to destroy the sun. I will do the next best thing…block it out!”

Don’t you just love it when you stumble onto a whole net niche you never knew about? I suppose I could have guessed it was out there, but I just discovered the world of retro design blogs…

My favorite so far is SO MUCH PILEUP, which offers such excellent features as Classic Bank Logos, weekly “Philately Fridays” with gems like these:

and don’t miss all the beautiful animated tv logos like these CBC bumpers!

Our buddy Ray has found a new way to market his vision of the future — right around the corner from me, at NASA Ames Research Park.

From CNET:

Starting this summer, some of the world’s leading thinkers in exponentially growing technologies will be gathering annually at NASA Ames Research Center, in the heart of Silicon Valley, for 10 weeks of discussions on how to change the future. And you could join them.

The gatherings will be part of what is known as Singularity University, a brand-new academic institution co-founded by inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, X Prize chairman and CEO Peter Diamandis, and former Yahoo Brickhouse head Salim Ismail, and anyone can apply.

I’ll admit that I didn’t read this whole article, but I did skim for the punchline that I knew had to be there:

The students, meanwhile, will need to pony up some serious money to take part in Singularity University. The base fee for the 10-week program is $25,000, though Diamandis said that there will be a significant number of full and partial scholarships available, funded by private companies, and other contributors.

Nice gig, Raymona!

Long before anyone had heard of the Internet, early home computer users could read their morning newspapers online … sort of. Steve Newman’s 1981 story was broadcast on KRON San Francisco.

lots of factoids with neat gfx:

IRAQ WAR ENDS and other great headlines in today’s (fake) New York Times (courtesy of The Yes Men).

Nate Silver over at 538 has a post that argues against the assertion that the “Obama voters” (read non-white) were responsible for prop 8’s passage.

At the end of the day, Prop 8’s passage was more a generational matter than a racial one. If nobody over the age of 65 had voted, Prop 8 would have failed by a point or two … The good news for supporters of marriage equity is that — and there’s no polite way to put this — the older voters aren’t going to be around for all that much longer, and they’ll gradually be cycled out and replaced by younger voters who grew up in a more tolerant era. 

Read it and be reassured.

From 52 to 48 With Love.

I may be depressing some of you with my recent posts which have offered criticism of the Obama transition team’s hiring decisions. I’m not anti-Obama (far from it!), I just want us all to be realistic about what’s happening, and to apply what pressure we can to keep things moving in the right direction.

I also want to give credit where credit is due. This is from the transition team’s official website, change.gov:

The Obama-Biden Transition Project does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or any other basis of discrimination prohibited by law. (Emphasis added)

Right on.