Some serious play ..... all links via MetaFilter.

Test your senses A 10 minute flash test. This is from the BBC - i did the test and was told quite politely that i am sense challenged :).  Still - some interesting quizzes and tests there if you want some mind-crunching fun !

The Dark Side of the Rainbow. The Synchronicity Archives includes the well known synchronization of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon with a viewing of The Wizard of Oz, as well as other entertaining combinations. Has anyone tried Led Zeppelin and Lord of the Rings ?

Everything About Everywhere. Nation Master An amazing resource that displays all sorts of comparative national statistics on practically everything, and with an option of selecting any region / list of countries you choose. It plugs itself as "The world's biggest general stat site" (which might or might not be true I don't know), and it has a wealth of data on economics, sports, population, geography and a dozen more categories. Some interesting statistics; Top 100 in Olympic medals per Capita. Top 100 Murders with firearms (per capita). Top 100 Military Expenditures as a percent of GDP . Top 100 Net migration rate .
A heaven for data freaks.

Singularity. What Happens When Technology Zooms Off the Chart? (pdf) Singularity is the subject of the Spring 2003 issue of Whole Earth magazine. [MetaFilter]

This is a fascinating area in its visioning of the future.  The author, Alex Steffen, raises some issues about and questions Moore's Law - what happens when technology zooms off the chart  - leans on Verner Vinge's stunning work, articulations and revelations on The Singularity and on the philosophy of Artificial Intelligence.  For the uninitiated, here's a very brief outline of the basic principles of Vinge's Singularity :

The acceleration of technological progress has been the central feature of this century. I argue in this paper that we are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth. The precise cause of this change is the imminent creation by technology of entities with greater than human intelligence. There are several means by which science may achieve this breakthrough (and this is another reason for having confidence that the event will occur):

• There may be developed computers that are "awake" and superhumanly intelligent. (To date, there has been much controversy as to whether we can create human equivalence in a machine. But if the answer is "yes, we can", then there is little doubt that beings more intelligent can be constructed shortly thereafter.)
• Large computer networks (and their associated users) may "wake up" as a superhumanly intelligent entity.
• Computer/human interfaces may become so intimate that users may reasonably be considered superhumanly intelligent.
• Biological science may provide means to improve natural human intellect.

Back to the article - the author makes a few interesting points :

- if it happens, the Vingean Singularity will be the most important event since our ancestors learned to dig grubs with twigs. But as the original concept ages, it seems to be springing leaks. 

- birthing sentient artificial intelligences may be helluva lot harder than first thought - the more we found out about the brain, the slipperier the concept of "mind" gets

- in his portrayal of Green Singularity Scenario - he says - what would happen if the world's poorest people had access to the best emerging technologies and were taught to innovate solutions to their problems? Would it be a global paradise or the progenitor of unimaginable social, economic, and cultural upheaval?  He talks of a village in Africa equipped with hi-speed satellite communications, a homegrown biotech lab, water microfilteration systems, cheaply produced vats of tailored bacteria that turn sewage into hydrogen to fuel vehicles and tools for instance.  He continues to say - Imagine what people of this village might accomplish if freed from constant and immediate threats of starvation, disease and oppression?  Then multiply by millions of villages, connect those villages together and accelerate rapidly.

Exciting stuff - can be hairy-scary too.  Wish there was some way to peek into the future and see the world our children and grand-children will inhabit !

A tale of real-life horror - Troubled Youth Gulag - Tranquility Bay .... [via What is The Message?]  "There are times when I read accounts of such extreme inhumanity and cruelty that I am stopped in thought and action. Today, reading these articles - The last resort (part one) and The last resort (part two) - from UK's Observer Guardian was one such time. It describes a behaviour modification camp to which wealthy Americans (primarily) send their troubled teens to be "rehabilitated." The conditions, as described, would do Josef Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung or Adolf Eichmann proud.

Most of the children are abducted, bound and forced aboard an aircraft to Jamaica. There, they are taught to submit. "Guards take them (if necessary by force) to a small bare room and make them (again by force if necessary) lie flat on their face, arms by their sides, on the tiled floor. Watched by a guard, they must remain lying face down, forbidden to speak or move a muscle except for 10 minutes every hour, when they may sit up and stretch before resuming the position. Modest meals are brought to them, and at night they sleep on the floor of the corridor outside under electric light and the gaze of a guard. At dawn they resume the position. This is known officially as being 'in OP' - Observation Placement - and more casually as 'lying on your face'. Every 24 hours, students in OP are reviewed by staff, and only sincere and unconditional contrition will earn their release. If they are unrepentant? 'Well, they get another 24 hours.' One boy told me he'd spent six months in OP."

Worse than the Observer article are the postings on a message board from some survivors. Inexplicably, the original message board is down. The Google cache version is here.  And I found transcripts of court proceedings in which three former inmates testify to the torture and inhuman conditions on behalf of one teen who is subsequently ordered released and returned to the U.S."

This is simply shocking.   Why would a parent hand over their child to such a program ? Is this it a reflection of complete anarchy and normlessness in 'civilised' society? 

A tale of potential real-life horror - Big Brother gets a Brain - the cameras are already in place. The computer code is being developed at a dozen or more major companies and universities. And the trial runs have already been planned.  Everything is set for a new Pentagon program to become perhaps the federal government's widest reaching, most invasive mechanism yet for keeping us all under watch. Not in the far-off, dystopian future. But here, and soon.

...... Right now, this may be a military program," added Lewis. "But when it gets up and running, there's going to be a huge temptation to apply it to policing at home"—to keep tabs on ordinary citizens, whether or not they've done something wrong."

Wonder whether this is what Truman felt in the Truman Show !