Sustainability and Futurism

News source for what we can learn from ancient wisdom coupled with rampant futurism. We discuss sustainability, self enhancement, Eastern medicine, diet/sustainability, futurism, self-improvement, diet, cognitive enhancing drugs (nootropics), world politics, community development, gardening, urban agriculture, design, privacy and ethical research.

[the-future-now-deactivated20170]

These electronic tattoos are fully interactive. They can adjust music, answer a call and even light up to deliver notifications. The potential here is endless.

follow @the-future-now

[marcitlali]

in 1994, the gay and lesbian latino arts group viva did a calendar project addressing support for and discussion of hiv in the latino community. based on the concept of the calendarios which are given out by mexican bakeries, carnecerias, markets and restaurants - viva wanted an image that was culturally a synthesis of both our latin@ / mexican heritage and our identity as queer / gay. i chose to reinterpret an image by the mexican painter jesus helguera whose work illustrating aztec mythology (albeit in a classical western european method) has been reproduced for decades on calendars, the calendars have become a staple of chicano popular culture underneath the image is the edict: ‘apoya tus hermanos con vih / support your brothers with hiv.’

la historia de amor joey terrill (1994)

[universalequalityisinevitable]

From this video.

[sciteachers]

Why an Iron Fish Can Make You Stronger

When Canadian science graduate Christopher Charles visited Cambodia six years ago he discovered that anaemia was a huge public health problem. In developing countries, such as Cambodia, the condition is particularly widespread with almost 50% of women and children suffering from the condition, which is mainly caused by iron deficiency. 

Dr Charles had a novel idea. Inspired by previous research which showed that cooking in cast iron pots increased the iron content of food, he decided to put a lump of iron into the cooking pot, made from melted-down metal.

“Boil up water or soup with the iron fish for at least 10 minutes. That enhances the iron which leaches from it. You can then take it out. Now add a little lemon juice which is important for the absorption of the iron.”

If the iron fish is used every day in the correct way, Dr Charles says it should provide 75% of an adult’s daily recommended intake of iron - and even more of a child’s.

One woman and her daughter, who are part of a current trial in Preah Vihear Province, told the BBC they would use it during cooking.

“I’m happy, the blood test results show that I have the iron deficiency problem, so I hope will be cured and will be healthy soon. I think all the people in Sekeroung village will like the fish, because fish is our everyday food.”

-> Read more about Dr. Charles’ research

-> Learn about the effects of anemia

Give this man a Nobel Prize!

For teaching: public health, human anatomy and physiology

[thinksquad-deactivated20190405]

Facebook DOES collect the text you decided against posting

Ever written out a status update or comment but decided against posting it? One techie has discovered Facebook collects this content, despite the company’s claims to the contrary

Facebook collects all content that is typed into its website, even if it is not posted, a tech consultant has discovered.

In December 2013, it was reported that Facebook plants code in browsers that returns metadata every time somebody types out a status update or comment but deletes it before posting.

At the time, Facebook maintained that it only received information indicating whether somebody had deleted an update or comment before posting it, and not exactly what the text said.

- See more at: http://www.information-age.com/technology/information-management/123459286/facebook-does-collect-text-you-decided-against-posting#sthash.p7mNRiJR.dpuf

[bestoffates]

For years, I opened my 11th-grade U.S. history classes by asking students, “What’s the name of that guy they say discovered America?” A few students might object to the word “discover,” but they all knew the fellow I was talking about. “Christopher Columbus!” several called out in unison. “Right. So who did he find when he came here?” I asked. Usually, a few students would say, “Indians,” but I asked them to be specific: “Which nationality? What are their names?” Silence. In more than 30 years of teaching U.S. history and guest-teaching in others’ classes, I’ve never had a single student say, “Taínos.” So I ask them to think about that fact. “How do we explain that? We all know the name of the man who came here from Europe, but none of us knows the name of the people who were here first—and there were hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of them. Why haven’t you heard of them?” This ignorance is an artifact of historical silencing—rendering invisible the lives and stories of entire peoples.

Rethinking Columbus: Towards a True People’s History by Bill Bigelow 

[fullpraxisnow]

There is no war on drugs because you cannot have a war against inanimate objects. There is only war on drug addicts. Which means we are warring on the most abused and vulnerable segments of the population.

Dr Gabor Maté | Capitalism Makes us Crazy 

[esotericworld]

Link: http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5961748

A documentary about the CIA’s cocaine scandal is coming out soon

[heyallykatt]

If I had a penny for everyone who’s called me crazy off this shit.

[libertariantimes]

[theroguefeminist]

also notice that the times we weren’t at war for an extended period we had economic downturns (30’s and 70’s) because our capitalist economy is fueled by war

[champagnepapucho-deactivated201]

[champagnepapucho-deactivated201]

Materials scientist John Rogers and his firm MC10 have developed flexible electronic circuits that stick directly to the skin like temporary tattoos and monitor the wearer’s health. The Biostamp is a thin electronic mesh that stretches with the skin and monitors temperature, hydration and strain. MC10

[stressposmoderno-deactivated202]

Paprika, Satoshi Kon (2006).

[desaparecidos]

Pretty little 16-year-old middle class chick comes to the Haight to see what it’s all about & gets picked up by a 17-year-old street dealer who spends all day shooting her full of speed again & again, then feeds her 3000 mikes and raffles off her temporarily unemployed body for the biggest Haight Street gang bang since the night before last. Rape is as common as bullshit on Haight Street. Kids are starving on the Street. Minds & bodies are being maimed as we watch, a scale model of Vietnam. There are people — Our people — dying hideous long deaths among us & the Council is planning alternative activities. Haight Street is uglyshitdeath & Alan Watts suggests more elegant attire. They do not realize that they & Uncle Timothy have lured an army of children into a ghastly trap from which there is no visible escape. They do not see that they are destroying a whole generation of American youth. The HIP Merchants have lured a million children here recklessly & irresponsibly, & now that the children are arriving, more & more every day, the HIP Merchants are maintaining their irresponsibility with an iron-clad firmness that borders on criminal insanity.

Uncle Tim’s Children, Chester Anderson. 

A different description of the much-venerated and easily idealized Haight St “freelove” scene in San Francisco during the ’60s. 

[asustainablefuture]

Astroturf [fake and corporate grassroots movements] and manipulation of media messages by Sharyl Attkisson.

You may never fully trust anything you read on wikipedia again. And nor should you. 

[asustainablefuture]

I AM NOTHING IF NOT LITERAL-MINDED. TRICKERY WITH WORDS IS WHERE HUMANS LIVE. ‘All right,’ said Susan. ‘I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable.’ REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE. ‘Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—‘ YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES. ‘So we can believe the big ones?’ YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING. ‘They’re not the same at all!’ YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET— Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MIGHT BE JUDGED. ... YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN’T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?

Terry Pratchett, Hogfather 

[asustainablefuture]

Facebook Advertising Fraud Uncovered

[asustainablefuture]

Some day soon, perhaps in forty years, there will be no one alive who has ever known me. That's when I will be truly dead - when I exist in no one's memory. I thought a lot about how someone very old is the last living individual to have known some person or cluster of people. When that person dies, the whole cluster dies,too, vanishes from the living memory. I wonder who that person will be for me. Whose death will make me truly dead?

Irvin D. Yalom

[asustainablefuture]

But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better, by far, to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable.

Carl Sagan