April Fools from Google for 2013?

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Sees like YouTube is shutting down for a decade to review all the videos
and pick the best ones?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57577172-93/google-declares-end-of-youtube-in-april-fools-prank/

I'm of course routing for my own, despite the low production quality. :-)
"Five Interwoven Economies: Subsistence, Gift, Exchange, Planned, and Theft"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY
"The Richest Man in the World: A parable about structural unemployment
and a basic income"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p14bAe6AzhA

And Google seach can now apparently provide smells as search results by
combining ultrasonics and photonics?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57577210-1/something-april-fishy-in-google-nose-odor-search-engine/

Meanwhile, things like the falling costs of of 3D printing, the spread
of advanced robotics useful for space operations, and continual
improvements to space launch technology bring OpenVirgle a little closer
every day whether people work directly on it or not:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/03/29/009210/gartner-says-3d-printers-will-cost-less-than-2000-by-2016
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/13/03/30/2137208/making-robots-mimic-the-human-hand
http://science.slashdot.org/story/13/03/03/2044221/spacex-cargo-capsule-reaches-international-space-station

Related slow progress towards OpenVirgle: :-)
http://openvirgle.net/
http://twirlip.com/

And there are others making independent progress:
http://openluna.org/
http://www.marssociety.org/
http://tmp2.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

BTW, here are a bunch of links I've collected on ways for people to stay
healthy while watching this all play out:
http://www.changemakers.com/discussions/discussion-493#comment-38823

And here are some ideas by me and my wife towards Civic Sensemaking to
help move this all along in a healthy way for our increasingly global
society:
https://www.newschallenge.org/open/open-government/submission/civic-sensemaking-by-working-with-stories-using-rakontu/

Remember, our path out of any technological singularity may have a lot
to do with our moral path into one:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3598839&cid=43324617
http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/09/paul-fernhout-open-letter-to-the-intelligence-advanced-programs-research-agency-iarpa/

Happy spring for those in the Northern Hemisphere!

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/
====
The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies
of abundance in the hands of those thinking in terms of scarcity.