More weather-based wonder in the works. Welcome.

We back wit dat conceptual freshness. Will we ever run out of hot newness? Don’t count on it.

Hurricane Happy Hour

• “Scientists have spiders producing enhanced web that can hold a human”
• “Denmark’s Corporate Sector Just Sold Off Its Last Oil Company”
• “Take Elon Musk Seriously on the Russian AI Threat”
• “Leading AI country will be ‘ruler of the world,’ says Putin”
• Watch a bunch of Deadliest Warrior, why don’t you?
• “A lot of people ask me why I fight, and the answer is pretty simple: I see mixed martial arts as the ultimate form of competition. If you’re a hockey or football buff, you might disagree with me. After all, both sports are competitive and oftentimes violent. But what do the players from either sport do when they can’t settle a dispute on the field? They don’t challenge the person they have a problem with to a race or a goal-shooting contest. No, they rip off their gear and throw down. Why? Because fighting is the ultimate form of competition. If you get beat in Ping-Pong or darts or basketball, you can always save face by saying, ‘Well, I could still kick his ass.’ If you lose in fighting, you simply got beat. Never once will you hear a fighter say, ‘He might have beat me in the cage, but I would slaughter him in shuffleboard.'” Forrest Griffin, from his book Got Fight?
• The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker
• “Repeating radio signals coming from space”
• Our 45th episode: “Seth Shostak on SETI, METI and Fermi”
• “Computer knows how much pain you are in by studying your face”
• In fact checking Zach—my eternal burden—I could not find a source for AI being able to determine a person’s IQ based on image analysis of facial features. However, people themselves are capable of this feat. And given that AI can maybe predict who will be criminals based on their facial features, it doesn’t seem a leap to assume AI will also hack the former task.
• The 19th episode of John Danaher’s Algocracy & Transhumanism Podcast: “Andrew G Ferguson on Predictive Policing”
• “This Tiny Country [the Netherlands] Feeds the World”
• “This High-Tech Vertical Farm Promises Whole Foods Quality at Walmart Prices”
• Sam Harris’s podcast with Joseph Romm: “What You Need to Know About Climate Change”

Media Mentions

Tom

• Roger Gracie on The Jiu Jitsu Brotherhood Podcast

Scott

• Fasting Talk featuring me (Scott)!
• Primer
• StayFocusd

Zach

• Predestination, based on ” ‘—All You Zombies—’ “ by Robert Heinlein
• Midnight Special