Monday, August 30, 2010

NASA Photos Online (Images) *The Universe, Solar System, Earth, Aeronautics, Astronauts*

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NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes joined forces to create this striking composite image of one of the most popular sights in the universe.
Image Release Date: 2005/05/04


NASA Photos Online: NASA Website and Flickr

Some NASA photos are now on Flickr, but more images are also online at NASA Images. Both websites have not only historical photos, but images such as above from the composite images of the Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes. The NASA Images website has categories: Universe, Solar System, Earth, Aeronautics, and Astronauts.

There are websites, blogs, and other media that present a space photo of  the day, week, etc. How about presenting you space photos for a lifetime? lol

Selected photos, some of my favorites, are below. It is difficult to top the Sombrero Galaxy above except for the Hubble Deep Field images.


Links
NASA on The Commons' photostream (Flickr)
NASA Images (NASA)
Big Bang Big Boom: The History of Everything (Video) (MountainVision)
The Intelligent Universe, Bio-Cosm, ET, AI, & Evolution (Audio) (MountainVision)


This image taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the comet Encke riding along its pebbly trail of debris (long diagonal line) between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
Image Release Date: 2005/01/11


During its flight, the Galileo spacecraft returned images of the Earth and Moon. Separate images of the Earth and Moon were combined to generate this view.
Image Release Date: 01/02/1990



Astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., lunar module pilot, walks on the surface of the Moon near the leg of the Lunar Module (LM) "Eagle" during the Apollo 11 exravehicular activity (EVA).
Date of Image: 20 July 1969


Neil Armstrong: First man to land a craft on the Moon and the first man to step on its surface
Neil Armstrong, donned in his space suit, poses for his official Apollo 11 portrait
Date of Image: 1969-01-09





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Observations & thoughts by a sojourner through space & time...
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Friday, August 27, 2010

Ray Kurzweil: The Singularity Is Near (Videos) *The ethics of human enhancement*

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Ray Kurzweil and the Technological Singularity


Ray Kurzweil: Ethics of Human Enhancement

Ray Kurzweil was recently featured on the PBS show Religion and Ethics Weekly in a segment titled Ethics of Human Enhancement. He discusses the eventuality of the man/machine future: "we are going to become a hybrid of machine and our biological heritage. We are not going to be transcending  our humanity, we are going to be transcending our biology".

Mr. Kurzweil  predicts by 2050 that non-biological, artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence - the Technological Singularity. Can human limitations and death be overcome via exponential growth in technology?

E. Christian Brugger, Associate Professor of Moral Theology at Saint John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado, takes the counterpoint and a traditional, mainstream religious view. He disagrees with the philosophy that humans can overcome their  limitations - that "spirit", as defined in traditional theology, is being ignored. He disagrees that technology can replace God.

John Donoghue, PhD, MS, Professor, Neuroscience & Engineering, at Brown Institute for Brain Science disagrees with the exponential increase in technology in his field but does give examples of what technology is doing to assist disabled people.

Colin Angle, CEO and co-founder of iRobot, says the future will even be stranger than we imagine.

PBS "Ethics of Human Enhancement" Futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts that in the future humans will use technology to become smarter and healthier.




Ray Kurzweil discusses the concept of "God", the future of humanity, the exponential increase of technology, and the future of the Universe. Machines of the future will be indistinguishable from humans in thought and consciousness. The Universe will become filled with intelligence.

PBS "Ray Kurzweil Extended Interview" Biological and technological evolution "is a spiritual process," says this leading futurist. "Entities become more godlike, never reaching that ideal but moving in that direction exponentially."






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Observations & thoughts by a sojourner through space & time...
Technological singularity, transhumanism, reality (objective, virtual, programmed, augmented), Universe, future.


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