Reducing Health Costs With Voluntary Death Panels

If you’re 77 years old and receive a medical diagnosis that implies you have eighteen months to live without treatment, the government will spend large sums of money on trying to extent your life twelve months further. The government won’t pay for you to take a trip to visit the Church of the Nativity in… Continue reading Reducing Health Costs With Voluntary Death Panels

A working robot controlled by a slime mould, Dalek anyone?

A working robot controlled by a slime mould, and designed and built in ECS-Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, will play a starring role in a major BBC4/Discovery Channel feature to be aired in the autumn. A production team from BBC Scotland spent a whole day in ECS this week, filming with… Continue reading A working robot controlled by a slime mould, Dalek anyone?

Freedom and The Weak State

Francis Fukuyama challenges the assumption that freedom and a strong central state are opposing values: … In contemporary China, many of the worst abuses of peasant rights, violations of environmental and safety laws, and cases of gross corruption are the work not of the central government in Beijing but of local party officials or of the… Continue reading Freedom and The Weak State

The Moore’s Law of solar energy

That is changing. Over the last 30 years, researchers have watched as the price of capturing solar energy has dropped exponentially. There’s now frequent talk of a “Moore’s law” in solar energy. In computing, Moore’s law dictates that the number of components that can be placed on a chip doubles every 18 months. More practically… Continue reading The Moore’s Law of solar energy

30 percent of households making 250k+ think “upper-income” people pay too little?

Gallup poll that found only 6 percent of households making over $250,000 think their taxes are too low but 30 percent of that same group thinks “upper-income” people pay too little in taxes. She blames “this disconnect on the fact that upper-income people don’t realize they’re upper income.” From Andrew Sullivan – The Daily Beast Maybe… Continue reading 30 percent of households making 250k+ think “upper-income” people pay too little?