Elon Musk has a knack

Posted on April 18, 2014 by hanshowe

for getting it right…

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Good Friday Blue

Posted on April 18, 2014 by hanshowe

Emilio DeGrazia…

After catechism, Communion, Confirmation,
The hardening of trust into truth,
We expected rain Good Friday afternoons.

No baseball then, no playing in streets,
No kicking the can, no
Playing robbers or war
Those painful hours from noon to three.

In those days we always saw the evidence: Rain,
A steady stream of punishment,
The Holy Spirit’s drizzle descending like ash,
Or wayward bursts, big as water balloons,
Dropped from passing clouds
Flying in formation overhead,
A certain proof of God.

Today, that April day again
When the only gospel is the same old news,
The dying still goes on.
But the sky is faultlessly blue,
An Easter sky ahead of its times,
One more kind of progress to endure.
In such skies one famous old death
Happened once and for all,
But new ones everywhere provide
Too much cause to agonize.

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A Sentinel steam bus

Posted on April 18, 2014 by hanshowe

Sentinel Waggon Works was building steam-powered road vehicles up to 1950
h/t Comrade Misfit

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Novel Open Source Seed Pledge aims to keep new vegetable and grain varieties free for all

Posted on April 18, 2014 by hanshowe

Novel Open Source Seed Pledge aims to keep new vegetable and grain varieties free for all

April 15, 2014 by Nicole Miller

Jack Kloppenburg (left), professor in the Department of Community and Environmental Sociology, Irwin Goldman (center), chair of the Department of Horticulture, and Claire Luby (right), graduate student in the UW’s Plant Breeding and Plant Genetics program, fill envelopes with non-patented seeds in the Horticulture office in Moore Hall.

Photo: Bryce Richter

This week, scientists, farmers and sustainable food systems advocates will gather on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus to celebrate an unusual group of honored guests: 29 new varieties of broccoli, celery, kale, quinoa and other vegetables and grains that are being publicly released using a novel form of ownership agreement known as the Open Source Seed Pledge.

The pledge, which was developed through a UW-Madison-led effort known as the Open Source Seed Initiative, is designed to keep the new seeds free for all people to grow, breed and share for perpetuity, with the goal of protecting the plants from patents and other restrictions down the line.

Continue reading →

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Plant Breeders Release First ‘Open Source Seeds’

Posted on April 18, 2014 by hanshowe


NPR version… some organic seed outfits are making these seeds available; unfortunately NPR doesn’t name them or provide any info on suppliers… which is typical of them

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Big Data is the new Artificial Intelligence – I, Cringely

Posted on April 18, 2014 by hanshowe

a must read… known unknown unknowns
http://www.cringely.com/2014/04/15/big-data-new-artificial-intelligence/

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