here we go again......
Bush offers another take on energy solutions.... this time he is hyping new refineries and new nuclear power plants. He admits (hey, some unhyped truth) that there is no quick fix. Personally I do not know that his plan is as wrong as some would like to make it out to be. We need alternatives. Right now we need to do away with the coal fired power plants, and we have nothing that can take its place except maybe nuclear.... just that nuclear waste issue that keeps coming back to bite us.... oh well, i will think on it.
Speaking of energy alternatives: FREE ENERGY FOR EVERYONE, NEXT WEEK! or not. actually, definitely not. But it is a breakthrough in tabletop fusion (not fission). If this turns out to be something that can be scaled up.... it might just become an answer to our global energy problems... or the start of a new war... who knows. Here is the new scientist article.
hmmm.... seems the white house security staff is a wee mite nervous..... I wonder what they think is out there?
20% of american children under the age of 2 are not properly immunized.
How would you react? I bet your wrong, I bet you would react very differently then you think you would. It seems that 45% of people freeze for 30 seconds or longer, unable to move or even speak. Here is a quick quote
"In the hours just before the Tenerife crash, Paul Heck did something highly unusual. While waiting for takeoff, he studied the 747's safety diagram. He looked for the closest exit, and he pointed it out to his wife. He had been in a theater fire as a boy, and ever since, he always checked for the exits in an unfamiliar environment. When the planes collided, Heck's brain had the data it needed. He could work on automatic, whereas other people's brains plodded through the storm of new information. "Humans behave much more appropriately when they know what to expect--as do rats," says Cynthia Corbett, a human-factors specialist with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)."
Every time I go to a hotel I check the location of the fire exit on my floor, and I don't mean read the sign on my door. I walk to it, I count the number of doors between me and it, I figure out which way the hallway bends. All of this takes about 2 minutes. Its important. It has been shown that most of the people who die in hotel fires, die from smoke inhalation because they got lost in the hallway looking for the exit. I have not yet been in an actual disaster, but I intend to survive the should I find myself in one. A little bit of knowledge can be very useful in the right circumstance.
A very cool article on a little known avionics maneuver that could greatly reduce our reliance on helicopters for dropping off and picking up heavy loads in tight spaces. Basically the maneuver constitutes twirling a rope. So the top end of the rope makes a very large circle and the bottom end simply revolves or almost stands still. Its very neat.
Those bunker busters that Bush wants, the nuclear ones.... turns out they are as bad for the civy population as a nuke dropped right on them. who knew?
Damnit why couldn't I be a mutant? It seems that a gene mutation (at least in fruit flies) slashes need for sleep by 30%. That would mean a human could get by on 5.5 hours and be as alert as some one getting 8 hours sleep. Better yet, because most of us are sleep deprived by about 30% already, it would mean that such a person could get by on 3.85 hours sleep and be as productive (or un-productive) as the rest of us.
NEED TO LEARN THIS TRICK! I have terrible allergies and if a little self hypnosis can reduce my suffering, I am all for it.
Speaking of altered behavior, it seems that there is some proof that chemicals leaching into natural environments are altering the behavior of wild and domesticated animals and begs the question: what are they doing to us?
Neat little poo powered fuel cell.
The first step in moving away fro silicon has been taken.
An article touting the beginning of the space tourism industry, saying its taking shape nicely.
Interesting take on shopping an privacy.
Based on numbers from this article, we the consumers of the world have nothing and no one but ourselves to blame for making big oil into the very powerful (and greedy and not really nice) industry it is. Ick.
thats all for now, tune in later for more yammering
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
serius stuff and child safety
Worlds largest plane takes to the air. Thing weighs 308 tons and was carrying 22 tons of test equipment. um.... wow. thats one heavy turkey.
Vegetable Ivory. Once popular, now little known but maybe coming back into vogue. Some people think it will reduce the need/interest in animal ivory. I don't think so. Animal ivory is no longer sought after for its mechanical or physical properties. It is sought after because it is pleasant to look at and hard to get. You want to reduce the world interest in animal ivory? Start producing large amounts of vat grown animal ivory that is indistinguishable from the wild form and flood the black market with super cheap supply. the poachers will disappear.
EXPLODING FROGS, well toads actually. They don't know what is causing it. I can think of a number of items. Yeast, any number of bacteria, several acid/base reactions.... What someone needs to do is grab a few dead toads, a few living ones and some water/mud/dirt samples. Geez, how hard is it to think this through.
the BBC is reporting that the 2004 report on world terror activity is missing large numbers of attacks that actually show an INCREASE in terrorist activity. This is the second report that the US has put out showing its success in the war on terror that is actually a load of crap. President Bush, thank you for turning America in to a nightmare of security elated infringements on personal freedoms all to win a war you should not be fighting and are currently losing. May I suggest changing your tactics?(The Washington Post also picked up the story)
It so sad when a company chooses a losing business model and then pounds it into the ground with a vengeance rather then step back and say 'what is wrong with this, why is it losing?' If Real Networks wants to sell music, then let them SELL music, not rent it. People still cling to what real would call outdated views of ownership and property, but you gatta play by those rules if you want to get their money (legally). Those rules include, I pay for it, so i own it. Once they pay for it, they get to listen to it as many times as they like on as many devices. Now Apple hit on a compromise with their music system. Its easy to beat (record it to audio and rip it again) and its relatively nice even if you don't 'beat' it. I mean three devices and you OWN the music. Please not that this article points out in its first paragraph that real is fighting both pirating songs for free and buying them from apple as its main competitors. If their business model worked then their only major competitor SHOULD be the pirating. But buying is better then renting when music is involved.
The marburg outbreak continues to worsen, as much from bad information and lack of infrastructure as anything else. The story is a grim one with no happy ending in sight.
um... I am usually glib and crack jokes about even the worst things (marburg for instance), but not this time. This is a story about an anti-child porn police force in Canada. Its frightening. First off, its scary because of how many children are out there that are being abused. Secondly its scary cause of how little can be done. Lastly its scary because its happening here, not in some ex-communist bloc country, not in some third world brothel. Here in the US and in Canada and in Europe. If anyone out there can help stop it, PLEASE DO SO. If you find out someone is collecting the pics, tell them to stop. Its not like collecting playboy, this is something that hurts, and it hurts for life. The kids in those pics are never normal again. The cops in this story have pictures of crime scenes, go look, if you recognize anything, call them. (The pics have been sanitized.) This is the web site of the crime unit involved in the story. I am a big fan of bit-torrent. I was a big fan of e-mule before bit-torrent. Now I have to think about what it is I am a fan of. These anonymous file sharing systems (ok, e-mule is not truly anonymous) allow me to download tv shows without worry that some lawyer for some media company will sue me into oblivion for it. The problem is they also allow child pornographers to trade their pics and avoid capture.
One last point: Parents, if you don't know what your child is doing on the computer your asking for trouble. Its not that i think your child will look for trouble, its that trouble will find your child. Sick people know that the internet allows them to get instant access to children and like minded individuals. Five minutes in any public chat room posing as a child will result in more propositions than you would believe. Talk to your kids about it, and make certain you know who your kids are talking to online. Don't intrude, just ask. If you have to, install net nanny or something. Don't sit back and watch and then get surprised when something happens.
New tapes are online, recordings of the president's daily doings. If this is the stuff we are seeing I wonder what we don't see?
We will sell the arms, but nobody is allowed to use them(at least that is how america has acted in the past).... reminds me of an old law on firecrackers that said you could sell them and buy them just not own them.
weird
Oxygen deprivation at 10,000 feet. Turns out the stingy practices of the air lines by which they give the freshest air to the first class and recycled to the rest of us might just result in low O2 levels, which in turn aint good.
A quick behind the scenes look at the new hitchikiers movie.
Remote control bomb sniffing rats. The problem is that when they try to sneak through a tight hole and rip off their electronics and end up in agonizing seizures. Otherwise, its really cool.
SemaCodes as tour guides.... jewish ones no less.
A data transfer system that has a lettuce based guidance sub-system. cool.
COFFEE! I like tea, I am addicted to coffee. Here is a personal coffee machine, something I would even think about buying if I had available cash.
thats all for today.
Vegetable Ivory. Once popular, now little known but maybe coming back into vogue. Some people think it will reduce the need/interest in animal ivory. I don't think so. Animal ivory is no longer sought after for its mechanical or physical properties. It is sought after because it is pleasant to look at and hard to get. You want to reduce the world interest in animal ivory? Start producing large amounts of vat grown animal ivory that is indistinguishable from the wild form and flood the black market with super cheap supply. the poachers will disappear.
EXPLODING FROGS, well toads actually. They don't know what is causing it. I can think of a number of items. Yeast, any number of bacteria, several acid/base reactions.... What someone needs to do is grab a few dead toads, a few living ones and some water/mud/dirt samples. Geez, how hard is it to think this through.
the BBC is reporting that the 2004 report on world terror activity is missing large numbers of attacks that actually show an INCREASE in terrorist activity. This is the second report that the US has put out showing its success in the war on terror that is actually a load of crap. President Bush, thank you for turning America in to a nightmare of security elated infringements on personal freedoms all to win a war you should not be fighting and are currently losing. May I suggest changing your tactics?(The Washington Post also picked up the story)
It so sad when a company chooses a losing business model and then pounds it into the ground with a vengeance rather then step back and say 'what is wrong with this, why is it losing?' If Real Networks wants to sell music, then let them SELL music, not rent it. People still cling to what real would call outdated views of ownership and property, but you gatta play by those rules if you want to get their money (legally). Those rules include, I pay for it, so i own it. Once they pay for it, they get to listen to it as many times as they like on as many devices. Now Apple hit on a compromise with their music system. Its easy to beat (record it to audio and rip it again) and its relatively nice even if you don't 'beat' it. I mean three devices and you OWN the music. Please not that this article points out in its first paragraph that real is fighting both pirating songs for free and buying them from apple as its main competitors. If their business model worked then their only major competitor SHOULD be the pirating. But buying is better then renting when music is involved.
The marburg outbreak continues to worsen, as much from bad information and lack of infrastructure as anything else. The story is a grim one with no happy ending in sight.
um... I am usually glib and crack jokes about even the worst things (marburg for instance), but not this time. This is a story about an anti-child porn police force in Canada. Its frightening. First off, its scary because of how many children are out there that are being abused. Secondly its scary cause of how little can be done. Lastly its scary because its happening here, not in some ex-communist bloc country, not in some third world brothel. Here in the US and in Canada and in Europe. If anyone out there can help stop it, PLEASE DO SO. If you find out someone is collecting the pics, tell them to stop. Its not like collecting playboy, this is something that hurts, and it hurts for life. The kids in those pics are never normal again. The cops in this story have pictures of crime scenes, go look, if you recognize anything, call them. (The pics have been sanitized.) This is the web site of the crime unit involved in the story. I am a big fan of bit-torrent. I was a big fan of e-mule before bit-torrent. Now I have to think about what it is I am a fan of. These anonymous file sharing systems (ok, e-mule is not truly anonymous) allow me to download tv shows without worry that some lawyer for some media company will sue me into oblivion for it. The problem is they also allow child pornographers to trade their pics and avoid capture.
One last point: Parents, if you don't know what your child is doing on the computer your asking for trouble. Its not that i think your child will look for trouble, its that trouble will find your child. Sick people know that the internet allows them to get instant access to children and like minded individuals. Five minutes in any public chat room posing as a child will result in more propositions than you would believe. Talk to your kids about it, and make certain you know who your kids are talking to online. Don't intrude, just ask. If you have to, install net nanny or something. Don't sit back and watch and then get surprised when something happens.
New tapes are online, recordings of the president's daily doings. If this is the stuff we are seeing I wonder what we don't see?
We will sell the arms, but nobody is allowed to use them(at least that is how america has acted in the past).... reminds me of an old law on firecrackers that said you could sell them and buy them just not own them.
weird
Oxygen deprivation at 10,000 feet. Turns out the stingy practices of the air lines by which they give the freshest air to the first class and recycled to the rest of us might just result in low O2 levels, which in turn aint good.
A quick behind the scenes look at the new hitchikiers movie.
Remote control bomb sniffing rats. The problem is that when they try to sneak through a tight hole and rip off their electronics and end up in agonizing seizures. Otherwise, its really cool.
SemaCodes as tour guides.... jewish ones no less.
A data transfer system that has a lettuce based guidance sub-system. cool.
COFFEE! I like tea, I am addicted to coffee. Here is a personal coffee machine, something I would even think about buying if I had available cash.
thats all for today.
Friday, April 22, 2005
need more sleep, and hibernation does not count
ok, real fast (yeah right) lets see what's doing in the world that I find interesting.
Apparently Bush has an excellent plan to reduce mercury pollution, however it won't be feasible until 2020 at a minimum and more likely 2030. So... its important to reduce mercury, but not on a time-scale that will save lives. I love our government, it makes so much sense.
In further news regarding our government and the environment, a bit of congressionally requested climate research is behind schedule (gasp) and missing major portions that would make it useful.
Greenspan warns that the US deficit is out of control and a danger to future economic health.... gee.... whoda-thunk?
Good news for children fighting malaria, a combination of two drugs seems to be 99% of treated children. That's good news, but as someone pointed out to me recently, 99% effectiveness is good for hair spray but not for life saving medicine or machinery.... 99.999999999% is closer to what you need. Why? well if only 100 people a year got sick from malaria, then curing 99 of then would be excellent. That last person, well we would do what we could. But if 1 out of every hundred people are unaffected by the treatment, and 100 million people (exaggeration, I think) get sick, than 1 million people will be without cure. Thus, we need far better than 99% effectiveness. HOWEVER, considering that up until now we did not even have that, I am VERY happy at this news.
Amazing expedition breaks its own record for deepest human exploration into the earth. The team has a sense of humor and absolutely no fear.Very impressive work, i wonder what they will find if they continue.
I want one of these. Don't need it, and these days I can barely afford what i need, but I want one all the same.
Honda has started reatailing natural gas powered civic in the US. You have to buy a refueling appliance with it, but even so, its cheaper than gasoline by a long shot. Plus it runs cleaner. Pretty interesting. I don't think it will take off but its a nice new option.
An interesting correlation, daycare for infants seems to correlate with lower leukaemia levels.
A claim by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory says that growth in US biomass could put us on the road toe energy independence and away from mideast oil. I will believe it when someone else does the same work and can say they found the same result.
If you live to the beat of your internal clock, your healthy, if you can't seem to get it all in gear to the same beat... well.... This study says that the internal clock that times everything from heart beats to cellular processes is one possible root cause of obesity.
Lastly it would seem there is a Hibernation Trick that some scientists think might help humans with long space flight. I don't know about that. Problem is that while rodents, some anyway, have built in abilities to hibernate, there is only one primate known to hibernate and it lives in a warm climate (madagascar). This means that while puffing nasty smelling stuff into the face of a mouse might make it hibernate, puffing nasty smelling stuff into the face of a human is far more likely to make him punch you.
A quick comment on something that came into my mind. The eureka moment. While the concept is famous (greta mind is thinking about something else, and suddenly the answer to a different problem pops into his head causing him to shout 'EUREKA' and run naked through the streets of his home town) the truth is that it rarely happens, and even when it does, it is more often in the form of someone who is brilliant and well trained recognizing something unusual happening and investigating it with all the hard work and scientific expertise at their disposal. While it looks like a eureka moment (such as the discovery of teflon, it was found by a researcher looking for freon substitutes during WWII, and when he saw the white flaky stuff he recognized it for what it was and brought it to the attention of someone better trained in that field (polymers). Had he not known what a polymer was, or been less well trained as a scientific observer, he would have simply thrown it away as a failed freon replacement experiment) is actually the application of training and knowledge to an even that was unexpected. So all in all, scientific breakthroughs reward the prepared mind, not the lucky or the merely brilliant. This massively truncated diatribe on the eureka moment and scientific preparedness has been brought to you by my complete lack of sleep. When I am more awake I will track down where I got all this claptrap from.
Apparently Bush has an excellent plan to reduce mercury pollution, however it won't be feasible until 2020 at a minimum and more likely 2030. So... its important to reduce mercury, but not on a time-scale that will save lives. I love our government, it makes so much sense.
In further news regarding our government and the environment, a bit of congressionally requested climate research is behind schedule (gasp) and missing major portions that would make it useful.
Greenspan warns that the US deficit is out of control and a danger to future economic health.... gee.... whoda-thunk?
Good news for children fighting malaria, a combination of two drugs seems to be 99% of treated children. That's good news, but as someone pointed out to me recently, 99% effectiveness is good for hair spray but not for life saving medicine or machinery.... 99.999999999% is closer to what you need. Why? well if only 100 people a year got sick from malaria, then curing 99 of then would be excellent. That last person, well we would do what we could. But if 1 out of every hundred people are unaffected by the treatment, and 100 million people (exaggeration, I think) get sick, than 1 million people will be without cure. Thus, we need far better than 99% effectiveness. HOWEVER, considering that up until now we did not even have that, I am VERY happy at this news.
Amazing expedition breaks its own record for deepest human exploration into the earth. The team has a sense of humor and absolutely no fear.Very impressive work, i wonder what they will find if they continue.
I want one of these. Don't need it, and these days I can barely afford what i need, but I want one all the same.
Honda has started reatailing natural gas powered civic in the US. You have to buy a refueling appliance with it, but even so, its cheaper than gasoline by a long shot. Plus it runs cleaner. Pretty interesting. I don't think it will take off but its a nice new option.
An interesting correlation, daycare for infants seems to correlate with lower leukaemia levels.
A claim by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory says that growth in US biomass could put us on the road toe energy independence and away from mideast oil. I will believe it when someone else does the same work and can say they found the same result.
If you live to the beat of your internal clock, your healthy, if you can't seem to get it all in gear to the same beat... well.... This study says that the internal clock that times everything from heart beats to cellular processes is one possible root cause of obesity.
Lastly it would seem there is a Hibernation Trick that some scientists think might help humans with long space flight. I don't know about that. Problem is that while rodents, some anyway, have built in abilities to hibernate, there is only one primate known to hibernate and it lives in a warm climate (madagascar). This means that while puffing nasty smelling stuff into the face of a mouse might make it hibernate, puffing nasty smelling stuff into the face of a human is far more likely to make him punch you.
A quick comment on something that came into my mind. The eureka moment. While the concept is famous (greta mind is thinking about something else, and suddenly the answer to a different problem pops into his head causing him to shout 'EUREKA' and run naked through the streets of his home town) the truth is that it rarely happens, and even when it does, it is more often in the form of someone who is brilliant and well trained recognizing something unusual happening and investigating it with all the hard work and scientific expertise at their disposal. While it looks like a eureka moment (such as the discovery of teflon, it was found by a researcher looking for freon substitutes during WWII, and when he saw the white flaky stuff he recognized it for what it was and brought it to the attention of someone better trained in that field (polymers). Had he not known what a polymer was, or been less well trained as a scientific observer, he would have simply thrown it away as a failed freon replacement experiment) is actually the application of training and knowledge to an even that was unexpected. So all in all, scientific breakthroughs reward the prepared mind, not the lucky or the merely brilliant. This massively truncated diatribe on the eureka moment and scientific preparedness has been brought to you by my complete lack of sleep. When I am more awake I will track down where I got all this claptrap from.
Thursday, April 21, 2005
back on a mac
back to my mac.
Blogged yesterday from my pc and it sucked, was missing my tool for handling links... tried to move it to my mac to finish... never did... might post it anyway....
Egyptologists find really old tomb.... that was raided a long time ago so its unclear what is inside of it. ie. are the contents the original or was it reused for burial of later peoples.... unknown.
A nice look at innovation on the NYTimes web site, most of it is obvious to people who are in the business of innovation, but a good read anyway.
This blurb is little more than an unpaid advertisement for Adobe Photoshop CS2, however it mentions vanishing point, which would seem to be a VERY impressive tool added to the new version.
the good news: oil companies cannot pollute without fear of litigation. The bad news, that litigation will be paid for at the pump by each and every one of us.
This kind of thing always makes me laugh. I mean, 50 years ago they expected personal flying machines by the turn of the century and underwater and moon dwellings to be the norm. Making predictions about the future is harmless fun, but investing money into designs for something more than ten years away, especially something as mutable and ephemeral as the design tastes of future consumers as it applies to car interiors and technology...... now thats just a waste. Anything you come up with will be either woefully inadequate, ridiculously unattainable, or so far off the mark no-one will remember it in 5 years let alone twenty. Let me explain what I just said. Inadequate: the tech the person uses or envisions will be nothing compared to what exists and will not work well with any of it. Example: The computer of the future (not the one faked out of old nuclear sub parts, but the real deal made by GE and IBM YEARS ago) looked nothing like todays home OR super computers, and every part of it was an extension of the tech of that day, and has been leapfrogged by the tech of today. Ridiculously unattainable: the objects envisioned by the designer are beyond anything that will actually be available at the expected time of manufacture. Example: flying cars, personal robots, moon bases, undersea cities.... all these are technically attainable but only by the barest thread. None of these were available at the turn of the century, as was expected. Off the mark: think just about any design for the future that came out of the 1970s. These were.... interesting, but these days they laughably un-hip/un-cool/un-marketable. Result, if you tried to make a marketing plan based on them you would go bankrupt.
A nice article on those home-made fan movies of the star wars genre.
Nice discussion of inventions and inventiveness, worth a read.
Now lets take technology that is ubiquitous and mix in a good amount of bureaucracy and then add a dollop of politics. yup, i'm talking about Cable/broadcast/phone company bru-ha-ha on the subject of TV over fiber. Basically the local chanels want the government to impede the whole thing cause it is unfair competition. The cable companies want to impede the whole thing because it IS competition. The phone companies want it because it lets them finally compete. Ok, so why is it unfair? thats simple, its better and costs less to run. So why should the broadcasters be protected? Because this is america and they paid for those congressmen and they expect to see something for their money. Seriously folks, its called free market, the broadcasters do not give us ANYTHING anymore that we can't do without, and if they do, it will be reason enough for them to continue existence. Let the competition begin. Maybe then we can finally get some decent service/prices fromt he cable companies.
The tests are in, if your paranoid, the only way to ensure data security on a hard drive being thrown away is to physically destroy it.... after wiping it.... and maybe praying.
The 'No Child Left Behind' program is being tested in court because of the really terrible funding scheme it has. About time, that thing sucks.
This is a wonderful article on tea, which you know I love, but have no time to do properly.
As it turns out, old stem cells can turn cancerous. This makes total sense to me, and even makes me wonder if the source of some cancers normally found int he body are old stem cells gone rouge.
Great article on tree ants the amazon that use some pretty neat tactics to bring down larger prey. Though in actuality its kinds gruesome for the prey, its still pretty damn cool. (Nature is rarely soft and fuzzy, and when it is, its cause its been dead for a while.)
I wonder if this actually works, its anti thermal imaging creme.... but if you blocked all thermal energy from dissipating off your body, wouldn't you overheat and die real quick?
This is a great idea, but doomed to failure unless they can totally rework their pricing scheme.
Why societies and startups collapse.... or so this author says.
DNS Cache poisoning is back with a vengeance.
bdya bdya byda thats all folks
Blogged yesterday from my pc and it sucked, was missing my tool for handling links... tried to move it to my mac to finish... never did... might post it anyway....
Egyptologists find really old tomb.... that was raided a long time ago so its unclear what is inside of it. ie. are the contents the original or was it reused for burial of later peoples.... unknown.
A nice look at innovation on the NYTimes web site, most of it is obvious to people who are in the business of innovation, but a good read anyway.
This blurb is little more than an unpaid advertisement for Adobe Photoshop CS2, however it mentions vanishing point, which would seem to be a VERY impressive tool added to the new version.
the good news: oil companies cannot pollute without fear of litigation. The bad news, that litigation will be paid for at the pump by each and every one of us.
This kind of thing always makes me laugh. I mean, 50 years ago they expected personal flying machines by the turn of the century and underwater and moon dwellings to be the norm. Making predictions about the future is harmless fun, but investing money into designs for something more than ten years away, especially something as mutable and ephemeral as the design tastes of future consumers as it applies to car interiors and technology...... now thats just a waste. Anything you come up with will be either woefully inadequate, ridiculously unattainable, or so far off the mark no-one will remember it in 5 years let alone twenty. Let me explain what I just said. Inadequate: the tech the person uses or envisions will be nothing compared to what exists and will not work well with any of it. Example: The computer of the future (not the one faked out of old nuclear sub parts, but the real deal made by GE and IBM YEARS ago) looked nothing like todays home OR super computers, and every part of it was an extension of the tech of that day, and has been leapfrogged by the tech of today. Ridiculously unattainable: the objects envisioned by the designer are beyond anything that will actually be available at the expected time of manufacture. Example: flying cars, personal robots, moon bases, undersea cities.... all these are technically attainable but only by the barest thread. None of these were available at the turn of the century, as was expected. Off the mark: think just about any design for the future that came out of the 1970s. These were.... interesting, but these days they laughably un-hip/un-cool/un-marketable. Result, if you tried to make a marketing plan based on them you would go bankrupt.
A nice article on those home-made fan movies of the star wars genre.
Nice discussion of inventions and inventiveness, worth a read.
Now lets take technology that is ubiquitous and mix in a good amount of bureaucracy and then add a dollop of politics. yup, i'm talking about Cable/broadcast/phone company bru-ha-ha on the subject of TV over fiber. Basically the local chanels want the government to impede the whole thing cause it is unfair competition. The cable companies want to impede the whole thing because it IS competition. The phone companies want it because it lets them finally compete. Ok, so why is it unfair? thats simple, its better and costs less to run. So why should the broadcasters be protected? Because this is america and they paid for those congressmen and they expect to see something for their money. Seriously folks, its called free market, the broadcasters do not give us ANYTHING anymore that we can't do without, and if they do, it will be reason enough for them to continue existence. Let the competition begin. Maybe then we can finally get some decent service/prices fromt he cable companies.
The tests are in, if your paranoid, the only way to ensure data security on a hard drive being thrown away is to physically destroy it.... after wiping it.... and maybe praying.
The 'No Child Left Behind' program is being tested in court because of the really terrible funding scheme it has. About time, that thing sucks.
This is a wonderful article on tea, which you know I love, but have no time to do properly.
As it turns out, old stem cells can turn cancerous. This makes total sense to me, and even makes me wonder if the source of some cancers normally found int he body are old stem cells gone rouge.
Great article on tree ants the amazon that use some pretty neat tactics to bring down larger prey. Though in actuality its kinds gruesome for the prey, its still pretty damn cool. (Nature is rarely soft and fuzzy, and when it is, its cause its been dead for a while.)
I wonder if this actually works, its anti thermal imaging creme.... but if you blocked all thermal energy from dissipating off your body, wouldn't you overheat and die real quick?
This is a great idea, but doomed to failure unless they can totally rework their pricing scheme.
Why societies and startups collapse.... or so this author says.
DNS Cache poisoning is back with a vengeance.
bdya bdya byda thats all folks
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
mostly pointless
ahh, blogging! I think i remember how to do this.... i type and you ignore it.... right, ok, lets get started!
I have a hard enough time with existing languages, how about a new one created for a video game?
The US government wants a new navy, but are unwilling to pay for it. Oddly enough the same goes for the air force except that there they already have working craft. Both are being hit by politics and price padding. Where the navy wanted 24 ships, they can now only afford 5. The airforce will begetting half the planes they wanted. Strange that in this day and age of spend without fear, the guys in the war business are having money problems.
always someone wants to re-write history. This guy wants someone else written in as first US President.... I don't think he's gonna get it.
The marburg outbreak is expected to get worse. The WHO thinks that they have not yet broken the cycle of infection. I find this whole thing very weird. Historically the infection cycle was easy to break because the virus has a relatively short incubation time. Keep everyone, and i do mean EVERYONE, quarantined and at home for 48 hours and the thing is broken, then just reduce it to those who live with infected and eventually to just those infected. Sad as it might be, you fight this thing by isolating it and then waiting for the infected to die off (or get better).
JUNK FOOD IS BAD FOR YOU! Wow, who would have thought that research would show such a thing. I mean.... how could a bunch of man made chemicals meant to keep large amounts of sugar and fat from spoiling, mixed with other chemicals made to create color, be BAD for you? seriously.... as it turns out the fats in most junk foods see to interfere with the normal functioning of your brain.
In other somewhat obvious news, Happiness makes people healthier.
it may not be the ONLY man-made object that can be seen from space but it is likely the largest. The great wall of china has been identified from space by the naked eye.... sortof.
Overly complicated de-humidifier touted as 'new way to water the world'.
and lastly:
Tea may help prevent diabetes and cataracts.
I have a hard enough time with existing languages, how about a new one created for a video game?
The US government wants a new navy, but are unwilling to pay for it. Oddly enough the same goes for the air force except that there they already have working craft. Both are being hit by politics and price padding. Where the navy wanted 24 ships, they can now only afford 5. The airforce will begetting half the planes they wanted. Strange that in this day and age of spend without fear, the guys in the war business are having money problems.
always someone wants to re-write history. This guy wants someone else written in as first US President.... I don't think he's gonna get it.
The marburg outbreak is expected to get worse. The WHO thinks that they have not yet broken the cycle of infection. I find this whole thing very weird. Historically the infection cycle was easy to break because the virus has a relatively short incubation time. Keep everyone, and i do mean EVERYONE, quarantined and at home for 48 hours and the thing is broken, then just reduce it to those who live with infected and eventually to just those infected. Sad as it might be, you fight this thing by isolating it and then waiting for the infected to die off (or get better).
JUNK FOOD IS BAD FOR YOU! Wow, who would have thought that research would show such a thing. I mean.... how could a bunch of man made chemicals meant to keep large amounts of sugar and fat from spoiling, mixed with other chemicals made to create color, be BAD for you? seriously.... as it turns out the fats in most junk foods see to interfere with the normal functioning of your brain.
In other somewhat obvious news, Happiness makes people healthier.
it may not be the ONLY man-made object that can be seen from space but it is likely the largest. The great wall of china has been identified from space by the naked eye.... sortof.
Overly complicated de-humidifier touted as 'new way to water the world'.
and lastly:
Tea may help prevent diabetes and cataracts.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
rushed rushed rushed... and late
First blog update in WEEKS
weeks I tell you!
dear lord.... I hate it when work gets in the way of things I like to do.
I have come tot he conclusion that my blog will never be popular because I do not have the time or energy needed to get truly new and interesting stuff on it.
oh well.
First up, the westernized world is lazy. I honestly think you can tell how westernized a civilization/society is by how many services they have to allow people to be lazy. Americans have taken it to the extreme by having generalized services for the lazy. Disagree? Well did you know that pizza delivery started in america? How about drive through windows? We started them for fast food and moved them on to Funerals!!!! Thats right, there are drive through body viewing windows in funeral homes in Florida. We have maids, personal shoppers, handy-men, people to organize our collections (isn't that supposed to be part of the fun of collecting?), people to sell things on e-bay for us and people to plan our every daily move.
As if bird flu were not enough, lets bring back epidemics from years gone by. No I am not talking about the idiots who are sequencing and recreating the 1918 flu (which had a 25% mortality rate, not as bad as some would think) but rather some brilliant people who sent a testing kit (testing for what?) containing the 1957 H2N2 strain (killed between 1 and 4 million world wide, disappeared by 1968) to 3,700 laboratories including 61 outside the US and Canada. The international labs included such trustworthy places as Lebanon. The WHO says the threat is minimal.... unless of course the strain should get out of the lab.... then no one born after the flu season of '67 will have immunity and no vaccines are ready or likely to be made ready. Thats sort of like saying 'We will all survive the danger of this volcano as long as it does not erupt, if it does, we are mostly all dead'. More on this here and here and here and thats all.
Lexus Nexus, renowned for collecting data on everything and everyone.... and then giving it inappropriately to anyone who asks for it may have a bigger screw up on their hands. Recently it was revealed they had allowed the identities of 30,000 people to be stolen..... well now it turns out it was more like 310,000.
need to finish quickly:
Very cool article on extreme textiles in the NYTimes. From a diffarent source, really cool photos of the fibers.
From a few days ago, the article on how IBM hopes to make cash by giving away usage rights to its patent library.
Very cool paper buildings, I just wonder what happens if it rains.....
TAKE NOTE: this will change the way we do things. A company says they have a paint that dries in seconds and has no fumes.
In politics: The deficit reaches an all time high...... yeah thats good for the country.
Some very embarrassed Israelis out there.
This is another thing that just seems so obvius. That keyboards, which EVERYONE shares...might spread disease.
Op-ed piece on eating healthy.
Those Sharper Image Ionic breeze air purifiers may be giving you lung damage.
Cool way to create energy from waves.
A robot for building planes.
thats it for now.
weeks I tell you!
dear lord.... I hate it when work gets in the way of things I like to do.
I have come tot he conclusion that my blog will never be popular because I do not have the time or energy needed to get truly new and interesting stuff on it.
oh well.
First up, the westernized world is lazy. I honestly think you can tell how westernized a civilization/society is by how many services they have to allow people to be lazy. Americans have taken it to the extreme by having generalized services for the lazy. Disagree? Well did you know that pizza delivery started in america? How about drive through windows? We started them for fast food and moved them on to Funerals!!!! Thats right, there are drive through body viewing windows in funeral homes in Florida. We have maids, personal shoppers, handy-men, people to organize our collections (isn't that supposed to be part of the fun of collecting?), people to sell things on e-bay for us and people to plan our every daily move.
As if bird flu were not enough, lets bring back epidemics from years gone by. No I am not talking about the idiots who are sequencing and recreating the 1918 flu (which had a 25% mortality rate, not as bad as some would think) but rather some brilliant people who sent a testing kit (testing for what?) containing the 1957 H2N2 strain (killed between 1 and 4 million world wide, disappeared by 1968) to 3,700 laboratories including 61 outside the US and Canada. The international labs included such trustworthy places as Lebanon. The WHO says the threat is minimal.... unless of course the strain should get out of the lab.... then no one born after the flu season of '67 will have immunity and no vaccines are ready or likely to be made ready. Thats sort of like saying 'We will all survive the danger of this volcano as long as it does not erupt, if it does, we are mostly all dead'. More on this here and here and here and thats all.
Lexus Nexus, renowned for collecting data on everything and everyone.... and then giving it inappropriately to anyone who asks for it may have a bigger screw up on their hands. Recently it was revealed they had allowed the identities of 30,000 people to be stolen..... well now it turns out it was more like 310,000.
need to finish quickly:
Very cool article on extreme textiles in the NYTimes. From a diffarent source, really cool photos of the fibers.
From a few days ago, the article on how IBM hopes to make cash by giving away usage rights to its patent library.
Very cool paper buildings, I just wonder what happens if it rains.....
TAKE NOTE: this will change the way we do things. A company says they have a paint that dries in seconds and has no fumes.
In politics: The deficit reaches an all time high...... yeah thats good for the country.
Some very embarrassed Israelis out there.
This is another thing that just seems so obvius. That keyboards, which EVERYONE shares...might spread disease.
Op-ed piece on eating healthy.
Those Sharper Image Ionic breeze air purifiers may be giving you lung damage.
Cool way to create energy from waves.
A robot for building planes.
thats it for now.
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