February 8, 2010
"It is time, finally, to learn from our mistakes. While global leaders focused single-mindedly on cutting fossil fuel use by promising to cut carbon emissions, they have failed to invest anywhere enough money into ensuring that alternative technologies are ready to take up the slack. Keep in mind that global energy demand will double by 2050. Based on our current progress, it is clear that alternative technologies will not be ready to play a significant role."

— Climate strategy on a road to nowhere - The Globe and Mail

12:45pm  |   URL: http://matt.routleynet.org/post/378362902/it-is-time-finally-to-learn-from-our-mistakes
"Welcome to the fun house, friends. The 21st century is going to be the most dangerous and the most complicated (and the most exciting and dynamic) century in the history of the human race. The politics of science are going to get more complicated, more confusing and more contentious — even as the political impact of scientific findings looms ever larger in our lives."

— Why Climate Science Is On Trial - Walter Russell Mead’s Blog - The American Interest

10:22am  |   URL: http://matt.routleynet.org/post/378197503/welcome-to-the-fun-house-friends-the-21st
January 31, 2010
"Secretly, I suspect, we technologists quite liked the idea that Normals would be dependent on us for our technological shamanism. Those incantations that only we can perform to heal their computers, those oracular proclamations that we make over the future and the blessings we bestow on purchasing choices."

— Future Shock (via Instapaper)

11:01am  |   URL: http://matt.routleynet.org/post/363335189/secretly-i-suspect-we-technologists-quite-liked
January 29, 2010
"In the New World, computers are task-centric. We are reading email, browsing the web, playing a game, but not all at once. Applications are sandboxed, then moats dug around the sandboxes, and then barbed wire placed around the moats. As a direct result, New World computers do not need virus scanners, their batteries last longer, and they rarely crash, but their users have lost a degree of freedom. New World computers have unprecedented ease of use, and benefit from decades of research into human-computer interaction. They are immediately understandable, fast, stable, and laser-focused on the 80% of the famous 80/20 rule."

— stevenf.com

1:27pm  |   URL: http://matt.routleynet.org/post/359942485/in-the-new-world-computers-are-task-centric-we
January 26, 2010
"A great episode of Quirks and Quarks with slime moulds that can build engineering networks and photosynthetic sea slugs. There’s a very funny line in the sea slug segment that almost derails Bob McDonald with laughter."

— CBC Radio | Quirks & Quarks | Jan. 23, 2010

6:57am  |   URL: http://matt.routleynet.org/post/354257296/a-great-episode-of-quirks-and-quarks-with-slime