Todd Hoff

Like everything mediated one has to wonder if these prices are really market driven or if they are simply set to maximize revenue? - Todd Hoff

"“This means clumps of atoms surrounded by a bath at some temperature, like the atmosphere or the ocean, should tend over time to arrange themselves to resonate better and better with the sources of mechanical, electromagnetic or chemical work in their environments,” England explained. Courtesy of Michael Brenner/Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Self-Replicating Sphere Clusters: According to new research at Harvard, coating the surfaces of microspheres can cause them to spontaneously assemble into a chosen structure, such as a polytetrahedron (red), which then triggers nearby spheres into forming an identical structure. Self-replication (or reproduction, in biological terms), the process that drives the evolution of life on Earth, is one such mechanism by which a system might dissipate an increasing amount of energy over time. As England put it, “A great way of dissipating more is to make more copies of yourself.”" - Todd Hoff

"he island has dealt with erosion issues since at least the 1950s. But now climate change is exacerbating the problem considerably. Average temperatures are increasing faster in Alaska than they are in the rest of the United States, warming 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 50 years. The higher temperatures are causing the subsurface layer of permanently frozen soil typically found in the Arctic to thaw in some areas. This weaker permafrost is more vulnerable to storms and tidal activity, fueling the loss of Shishmaref's shores." - Todd Hoff

Taraji P Henson, she's excellent. - Starmama

From the previews it looks like she's even better in this show. - Todd Hoff

very true indeed. - DS

I see he stopped just short of the Electronic Citizen Happiness Band Act of 2038. - Technodad

"They may be fewer in number and older in years, but the pride in their expressions is undimmed by the passing years. Some of the last of the band of women who helped to crack Nazi codes as part of Britain’s war effort have been reunited for the first time in 70 years. The women, who were then only in their late teens, used Colossus, the world’s first electronic computer, to decipher messages exchanged by Hitler’s generals. Now, after a photograph of their team of codebreakers appeared in the Telegraph, they have been reunited at Bletchley Park for the first time since the end of the war. The photograph, which broke secrecy rules, was kept hidden in a desk draw for decades by Joanna Chorley. She discovered it shortly before the 70th anniversary of Colossus, in February." - Todd Hoff

"Illan Kramer, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, and IBM Canada’s Research and Development Center has invented a new way to spray solar cells onto flexible surfaces using minuscule light-sensitive materials known as colloidal quantum dots (CQDs)—a major step toward making spray-on solar cells easy and cheap to manufacture.  “My dream is that one day you’ll have two technicians with Ghostbusters backpacks come to your house and spray your roof,” says Kramer. Solar-sensitive CQDs printed onto a flexible film could be used to coat all kinds of weirdly shaped surfaces, from patio furniture to an airplane’s wing. A surface the size of your car’s roof wrapped with CQD-coated film would produce enough energy to power three 100-Watt light bulbs—or 24 compact fluorescents." - Todd Hoff

"ThyssenKrupp proposes a new kind of elevator system, one controlled by a system of magnets, which could run multiple elevator cars within the same shaft and move both vertically and horizontally. The company estimates that this system, which requires less space for elevator shafts than traditional systems, reduces the space elevators take up in a building by as much as 50%. It also promises that MULTI's cable-less technology will do away with the height challenges presented by conventional elevators. Supertall skyscrapers can only rise as high as the elevators that move people through them—by one estimate, cable hoist elevators can only reach about 1,500 feet. An electromagnetic system could reach even higher." - Todd Hoff

Doesn't Willy Wonka have the patent on this? - Todd Hoff

Wokavator! - Jennifer Dittrich

Who wouldn't want one of those? - Todd Hoff

"One of the questions I often get asked about Transition and the idea of intentional localisation is “surely we need everybody to be trading with each other?” and I  say – well, up to a degree, but when different communities are more able to meet their own needs, and have an economy when they’re more self-reliant, not self-sufficient, but there is that cultural sense that people are able to turn their hands to address issues that arise rather than each community, each settlement being completely unskilled and dependant on imports for absolutely everything. Then the quality of the relationship between those two settlements is very different. When two people meet each other and they’re both very skilled, adaptable, resilient, can turn their hands to anything, it’s a very different relationship to two people meeting each other who don’t have those skills. I wonder what your sense is from your study of the Edo period in terms of how that was. What was the quality of the relationships between neighbouring settlements and how they maybe differ from today?" - Todd Hoff

"The amazingly terrible new spending agreement reached by the House and Senate this week illustrates the heavy price we all pay for a government increasingly influenced by big corporate and financial industry donors." - Todd Hoff

"That suggests “you don’t want the ‘best’ community structure,” Moore says. “Instead, you want to understand what all the good community structures have in common with each other. The consensus of many good solutions is better than the ‘best’ single one.” To find that consensus, the pair turned to the notion of free energy, which in statistical physics takes into account the twin pressures of lowering a system’s energy and increasing its entropy -- the number of different configurations a system has at a given energy. In community detection, that translates into finding many structures with high modularity while at the same time ensuring that each individual structure is fairly similar to the next." - Todd Hoff

Dark market hedges in the form of futures contracts mostly. It's a commodity so derivatives would not work the same way as bundling debt. - Eric Logan

I'm not sure this is a normal "squeeze" - OPEC is awash in oil and demand keeps falling.. Wall Street Bankers cratered economy, nobody has a job, or a house or money to fill their gas tank. Demand isn't going to recover! The American Middle class is decimated and China as no middle class With their number one market dying Chinese are unlikely to find a middle class any time soon. Add in even modest improvements in energy efficiency and tiny advances things like wind and solar and energy industry is long term in a very bad place Hard to lock in production costs with futures when oil prices drop right past them into cellar - WarLord

"Calling the result of their work on what they refer to as Biomimetic Responsive Surface Structures “the transfer of biological principles to architectural systems,” what comes out of the process are hygrocopically-actuated wood-veneer composite systems like those used at the HygroScope Installation in Paris and the HygroSkin Pavilion in Orleans. It comes down to using 3D printing technologies to take on design challenges at the material level." - Todd Hoff

"While conventional engineering systems rely on sets of discreet, functional components like sensors, actuators, and controllers, their biological-like systems rely on differentiated materials and structured material systems which act in concert – and in a single harmony – as a combined system which mimics those sensor, actuator, and regulator reactions to create fantastic forms which slowly open, close, and morph like flowers or leaves" - Todd Hoff

"Working out of his one-man workshop inside a mid-19th century barn, artist Bob Potts (previously) builds wonderous kinetic sculptures that replicate the motions of birds, fish, or other natural motions. The 72-year-old artist utilizes hand-crafted gears, levers, cranks, and chains to create these minimalist pieces that are focused solely on motion rather than ornamentation. Each piece can consume nearly a year’s worth of labor in his upstate New York shop where he works without the aid of computer, instead relying on decades of carpentry and skills learned while collaborating with painter and sculptor George Rhoads." - Todd Hoff

These are beautiful! The Cosmographic Voyager is amazing! http://www.mbandf.com/mad-gal... - Ken Morley

Agreed, amazing work. - Todd Hoff

In a huff and puff she blew through the door and has made herself comfortable. I suspect she'll stay a while. Maybe I'll offer her tea? That's the polite thing to do. - Todd Hoff

Wife? - Steve C, Team Marina

Sorry, I don't have a spare. - Todd Hoff

"When people bring up the market in discussions like these, they make it sound like it’s a force of nature. It’s not. It’s just a word that describes the collective actions of people under some circumstances. Mary’s situation didn’t automatically get fixed because it’s a free market. Mary’s rejection by the recruiter got undone when I complained to my engineering director, who put me in touch with an HR director who patiently listened to the story and overturned the decision4. The market is just humans. It’s humans all the way down. We can fix this, if we stop assuming the market will fix it for us, and fix things ourselves." - Todd Hoff

"“Our study suggests that through appropriate investment in agroecological research to improve organic management and in breeding cultivars for organic farming systems, the yield gap could be reduced or even eliminated for some crops or regions,” said the study’s lead author, Lauren Ponisio, a graduate student in environmental science, policy and management. “This is especially true if we mimic nature by creating ecologically diverse farms that harness important ecological interactions like the nitrogen-fixing benefits of intercropping or cover-cropping with legumes.” The researchers suggest that organic farming can be a very competitive alternative to industrial agriculture when it comes to food production." - Todd Hoff

"Off the West Coast of the United States, methane gas is trapped in frozen layers below the seafloor. New research from the University of Washington shows that water at intermediate depths is warming enough to cause these carbon deposits to melt, releasing methane into the sediments and surrounding water. Researchers found that water off the coast of Washington is gradually warming at a depth of 500 meters, about a third of a mile down. That is the same depth where methane transforms from a solid to a gas. The research suggests that ocean warming could be triggering the release of a powerful greenhouse gas." - Todd Hoff

"Norway is one of the brightest Scandinavian jewels, and even its toughest and most rugged landscapes shine beautifully. Norway is widely known and admired for its wide range of natural peculiarities and beauties: deep forests, arctic tundras, grand mountain tops, colorful grass-roofed houses, and, of course, its majestic fjords. It’s no wonder that it attracts travelers from all around the globe. If you haven’t visited this heavenly country, here are 28 pretty solid reasons for you to visit Norway as soon as you can!" - Todd Hoff

"1. Small individual bias → Large collective bias. When someone says a culture is shapist, they're not saying the individuals in it are shapist. They're not attacking you personally. 2. The past haunts the present. Your bedroom floor doesn't stop being dirty just coz you stopped dropping food all over the carpet. Creating equality is like staying clean: it takes work. And it's always a work in progress. 3. Demand diversity near you. If small biases created the mess we're in, small anti-biases might fix it. Look around you. Your friends, your colleagues, that conference you're attending. If you're all triangles, you're missing out on some amazing squares in your life - that's unfair to everyone. Reach out, beyond your immediate neighbors. - Todd Hoff

"Not to worry! As many of you may know, a gigantic hole in the Sun’s atmosphere is not terribly unusual. But you have to admit: This one is pretty dramatic. The image above is actually a composite of three acquired by the Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft this past week. Each color highlights a different part of the Sun’s extended outer atmosphere — the corona. The coronal hole is that big, dark-blue splotch at the bottom." - Todd Hoff

As she slips quietly out of their bedroom, she says "Thank you Victor, that's the best birthday present ever!" - Todd Hoff

needed: an ontology of threshold types - Sean McBride

"The abandoned towers in Isfahan, Iran feature a honeycomb-designed interior, which was beautifully constructed for a pretty gross purpose. No two towers were built alike, they're all designed differently. Each tower was built to house between 5,000 and 7,000 pigeons. Why? To collect their droppings for fertilizer. Pigeons were often prey during the nighttime, so the towers provided them protection." - Todd Hoff

Disgustingly awesome! - Ken Morley