Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Flying car captured on Google Earth | The Register

Flying car captured on Google Earth | The Register It just does not look like a car to me.

New Scientist SPACE - Breaking News - Augmented reality telescope brings universe closer

New Scientist SPACE - Breaking News - Augmented reality telescope brings universe closer

A telescope that automatically projects high-quality astronomical images, such as those captured by Hubble, atop those seen through its own eyepiece has been produced by German researchers.

New Scientist SPACE - Breaking News - Gravity theory dispenses with dark matter

New Scientist SPACE - Breaking News - Gravity theory dispenses with dark matter

A modified theory of gravity that incorporates quantum effects can explain a trio of puzzling astronomical observations – including the wayward motion of the Pioneer spacecraft in our solar system, new studies claim.

Bits of News

Bits of News

About Mockup

About Mockup

Mockup is an Open Source effort to create a desktop operating system that's both usable and accessible.
The so called "Linux distributions for the desktop" don't fit our requirements because they are bloated and full of a lot of stuff that a desktop user doesn't or doesn't want to use. Mixed applications are another problem, for example most distributions mix Qt applications with GTK+ software like GIMP with GNOME applications and software that uses its own widget toolkit like OpenOffice.org.
The lack of an integrated and unique desktop environment is a problem, the most used desktop operating system (such as Microsoft Windows and Apple MacOS X) are (almost and often) coherent and integrated systems.

Boing Boing: StarForce threatens to sue me for criticizing its products

Boing Boing: StarForce threatens to sue me for criticizing its products: I hate this type of software, thank you for the info.

"Yesterday, I posted about StarForce, a harmful technology used by game companies to restrict their customers' freedom. StarForce attempts to stop game customers from copying their property, but it has the side-effects of destabilizing and crashing the computers on which it is installed.

Someone identifying himself as 'Dennis Zhidkov, PR-manager, StarForce Inc.' contacted me this morning and threatened to sue me, and told me that he had contacted the FBI to complain about my 'harassment.'

If you're looking for reasons to boycott StarForce-crippled games (besides the obvious ones), you might add their use of bullying legal threats to your list."

Performancing.com | Helping Bloggers Succeed

Performancing.com | Helping Bloggers Succeed I can't belive I am just now finding this page.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Mother and Daughter China Travelers

Mother and Daughter China Travelers

thebrassthief

thebrassthief

Cinema 4: Cel Bloc

Cinema 4: Cel Bloc

French Cuisine Pictures

French Cuisine Pictures Made me hungry.

pastrulames de viaje

pastrulames de viaje

Welcome to the Monkey House

Welcome to the Monkey House

film noirs,tres-chic and all its glory

film noirs,tres-chic and all its glory

Just Me

Just Me

White Room

White Room

JAlbum - free web photo album software and photo gallery software

JAlbum - free web photo album software and photo gallery software

Digital camera photo galleries, gallery database, info and forums

Digital camera photo galleries, gallery database, info and forums

Darkette's Psychedelic World

Darkette's Psychedelic World

Pjamus

Pjamus

NeoCOUNTER by NeoWORX - A unique free web counter that displays on your website the number of online visitors by country

NeoCOUNTER by NeoWORX - A unique free web counter that displays on your website the number of online visitors by country

Sound Devices: 744T 4-Channel Portable Audio Recorder with Time Code

Sound Devices: 744T 4-Channel Portable Audio Recorder with Time Code

TwentyFan

TwentyFan

QM is here !

QM is here !

Saturday, January 28, 2006

Overview

Overview of IceCube:

" IceCube is a one-cubic-kilometer international high-energy neutrino observatory being built and installed in the clear deep ice below the South Pole Station.
IceCube will open unexplored bands for astronomy, including the PeV (1015 eV) energy region, where the Universe is opaque to high energy gamma rays originating from beyond the edge of our own galaxy, and where cosmic rays do not carry directional information because of their deflection by magnetic fields. The instrument may, for example, answer the question of whether the fascinating multi-TeV photons originating in the Crab supernova remnant and near the supermassive black holes of active galaxies are of hadronic or electromagnetic origin. IceCube will provide a totally novel viewpoint on the multi-messenger astronomy of gamma ray bursts, which have been identified as a possible source of the highest energy particles in nature.
IceCube also occupies a unique place in the multi-prong attack on the particle nature of dark matter, with unmatched sensitivity to cold dark matter particles approaching TeV masses. As a particle physics experiment with the capability to detect neutrinos with energies far beyond those produced at accelerators, IceCube will join the race to discover supersymmetric particles and the topological defects created in grand unified phase transitions in the early universe. The detection of cosmic neutrino beams would open the opportunity to study neutrino oscillations over Megaparsec baselines. "

South Pole Neutrino Detector Could Yield Evidences of String Theory

South Pole Neutrino Detector Could Yield Evidences of String Theory

Friday, January 27, 2006

InkRepublic.com - Your Best Source For Bulk and Continuous Ink System

Bulk and Continuous Ink System for R800

Main Page - Wikitravel

Main Page - Wikitravel





Moved the plants outside to get some sun.

Red's Good Vs. Evil Cow Barn

Red's Good Vs. Evil Cow Barn
Austin blog

Conversas Da Tanga More nice ideas in a blog to check out.

IXP425????

IXP425????

F...O.O.T...P....R..I..N.TS...

F...O.O.T...P....R..I..N.TS...

Saddle Tramp

Saddle Tramp I like the style of this blog, need to go back when I am more alert and check it out.

BLOVIATE: home of the well-reasoned rant

BLOVIATE: home of the well-reasoned rant

mettaville

mettaville

... Life In Still Mode ...

... Life In Still Mode ..

Philosophers' Carnival

Philosophers' Carnival

Photoblogs.org - The Photoblog Resource

Photoblogs.org - The Photoblog Resource

01.25.2006 - Life leaves subtle signature in the lay of the land, UC Berkeley researchers report

01.25.2006 - Life leaves subtle signature in the lay of the land, UC Berkeley researchers report

Build-It: AHome Linux Server

Build-It: AHome Linux Server

Thursday, January 26, 2006

MonarchComputer.com: Tyan S2895A2NRF K8WE Audio/GB-LAN/IEEE-1394/USB/PCI-E/SATA/DDR/E-ATX Opteron

MonarchComputer.com: Tyan S2895A2NRF K8WE Audio/GB-LAN/IEEE-1394/USB/PCI-E/SATA/DDR/E-ATX Opteron

ChessBrain

ChessBrain

ChessBaseUSA

ChessBaseUSA

MPAA accused of motion picture piracy

MPAA accused of motion picture piracy:

"THE MOTION PICURE ASS. of America stands accused of breaking its own piracy guidelines after it admitted making unauthorised copies of a film submitted to it for classification.

The accuser is film director Kirby Dick who sent a copy of his documentary 'This Film Is Not Yet Rated' to the MPAA back in November.

The film is to debut at the Sundance Film Festival this Wednesday and happens to take a critical look at the workings of the MPAA."

Google, Sun, others band to fight spyware, adware | CNET News.com

Google, Sun, others band to fight spyware, adware | CNET News.com

Contrary Brin

Contrary Brin

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

MIT starts second wireless revolution - MIT News Office

MIT starts second wireless revolution - MIT News Office:

"Ribbon beam amplifiers (RBAs) are smaller, generate less heat, require smaller backup batteries, are more electrically efficient and cost thousands of dollars less than solid-state amplifiers. And because they could be mounted directly on a base-station tower, less signal decay would occur during transmission."

Chimps close the gap on humans | Science Blog

Chimps close the gap on humans | Science Blog:

"Appearing in the January 23, 2006 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, biologist Soojin Yi reports that the rate of human and chimp molecular evolution – changes that occur over time at the genetic level – is much slower than that of gorillas and orangutans, with the evolution of humans being the slowest of all."

SORE THUMBS * Mon-Wed-Fri * Insane Political Gaming Manga-Type Comics by Owen Gieni and Chris Crosby

SORE THUMBS

shutterbug:

MPAA finds itself accused of piracy - Los Angeles Times:

"The Motion Picture Assn. of America, the leader in the global fight against movie piracy, is being accused of unlawfully making a bootleg copy of a documentary that takes a critical look at the MPAA's film ratings system.

The MPAA admitted Monday that it had duplicated 'This Film Is Not Yet Rated' without the filmmaker's permission after director Kirby Dick submitted his movie in November for an MPAA rating. The Hollywood trade organization said that it did not break copyright law, insisting that the dispute is part of a Dick-orchestrated 'publicity stunt' to boost the film's profile."

Scheduled to debut at the Sundance Film Festival on Wednesday night, "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" examines what Dick believes are the MPAA's stricter standards for rating explicit depictions of sex than for gruesome violence. Dick also explores whether independent films are rated more harshly than studio films, whether scenes of gay sex are restricted more than scenes of straight sex, and why the 10 members of the MPAA's ratings board operate without any public accountability.

Michael Donaldson, a lawyer representing Dick, has written the MPAA demanding that it "immediately return all copies" of the film in its possession, and explain who approved the making of the copy and who within the MPAA has looked at the reproduction.

Dick said he was "very upset and troubled" to discover during a recent conversation with an MPAA lawyer that the MPAA had copied the film from a digital version he submitted Nov. 29 for a rating. ("This Film Is Not Yet Rated" was rated NC-17 for "some graphic sexual content," a rating upheld after Dick appealed.) The MPAA's copy of Dick's film was viewed by Dan Glickman, the MPAA's new president, the MPAA said.

The standard the MPAA is using for itself appears to be at odds with what the organization sets out for others: "Manufacturing, selling, distributing or making copies of motion pictures without the consent of the copyright owners is illegal," the MPAA's website says. "Movie pirates are thieves, plain and simple…. ALL forms of piracy are illegal and carry serious legal consequences."

Aetiology

Aetiology :Discussing causes, origins, evolution, and implications of disease and other phenomena.

One historical event that has been the subject of much speculation over the decades has been the Plague of Athens, a mysterious outbreak that is thought to have changed the direction of the Peloponnesian War, and for which the cause still remains uncertain.

This plague has been attributed to bubonic plague, toxic shock syndrome and/or necrotizing fasciitis due to Streptococcus pyogenes or Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella, yellow fever, malaria, Ebola, influenza, and smallpox, to name just a few. Typhus seems to fit the description best, but it's likely that a cause will never be known with certainty.

So, what good does this do us? The bodies are almost 2500 years old; surely they can't provide a testable sample. Right? Luckily, people cleverer than I have figured out a way to search for microbial DNA in ancient samples: via dental pulp. This is used because it's well-protected, and generally considered to be free of contamination (until you break open the tooth, that is). That's what they did in this study as well, using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to search for DNA from Yersinia pestis, typhus, anthrax, tuberculosis, cowpox, and cat-scratch disease (Bartonella henselae) in addition to S. enterica. But, there are a number of problems with the study.

Sunday, January 22, 2006






John Kessel's 1997 Moment-Universe

John Kessel's 1997 Moment-Universe

226 mg/dl after dinner feel hypo



230 mg/dl before lunch, feel hypo

228 mg/dl before breakfast feeling hypo, before exercise


Shadow of the Hegemon: Intelligent Design won?

Shadow of the Hegemon: Intelligent Design won?

Saturday, January 21, 2006




219 mg/dl at night

Tulips



Almost open.


229 mg/dl, before dinner feel hypo, before exercise

Glucose level


109 after lunch

CBBC Newsround | Sci/Tech | Mountain to host giant seed bank

CBBC Newsround | Sci/Tech | Mountain to host giant seed bank:

"A massive vault big enough to hold every single type of seed that can grow into food is being planned by Norway.
The Norwegian government is going to dig out a huge cave inside a mountain on an island called Spitsbergen with space for around two million seeds."

CBBC Newsround | TV/Film | Pratchett book set for big screen

CBBC Newsround | TV/Film | Pratchett book set for big screen:

"Terry Pratchett could be coming to the big screen, as rumour has it that his hit book the Wee Free Men is being made into a film."

Friday, January 20, 2006

- toledoblade.com -

- toledoblade.com -:

"FURTHER evidence that Ohio’s Board of Education has become a painful carbuncle on the posterior of state government comes from the close vote by which the board decided to retain a high school lesson plan that includes intelligent design.
Some members of the board wanted to avoid a lawsuit over the teaching of intelligent design, now that the handwriting is on the courtroom wall with a strong ruling by a federal judge in Pennsylvania.
But the right-wing ideologues who apparently have taken over the Ohio panel prevailed in a 9-8 vote to retain the lesson plan, saying, in effect, go ahead and sue us."



Dee loves these plants, I forget what they are called, we have them all over the house. They look good at first then they get all thin, tall, and ugly; she does not seem to be able to take care of them.

Cheeta



Cheeta seems like a strange name for this cat. When we got her she was named Pancita, for her healthy appetite, we just shortend it to Cita then Cheeta.

Tulips



Watching tulips grow.

Doctor's appointment


I have a doctor's appointment today, to get the cat bite I got a week ago looked at. It's not healing. In fact it has slowly been getting worse.

Maria called


Maria called me today, she wanted to know Ester's last name. She is going to retire next year, when she turns 62 that way she gets both her retirement and Social Security.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | World's biggest fish 'shrinking'

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | World's biggest fish 'shrinking': "Whale sharks spotted off the coast of Australia are getting smaller, researchers have said.

In a decade the average size recorded by observers has shrunk from 7m to 5m.

Whale sharks, the world's largest fish, are caught for food in some east Asian countries and Australian researchers suspect this is causing a decline."

BBC NEWS | Americas | Alito looks forward after gruelling week

BBC NEWS | Americas | Alito looks forward after gruelling week

BBC SPORT | Other Sport... | Baseball | US allows Cuba to play in Classic

BBC SPORT | Other Sport... | Baseball | US allows Cuba to play in Classic: "

The US government has backed down on a decision to ban Cuba from playing in the inaugural World Baseball Classic.
The US Treasury Department issued a licence on Friday allowing the Cubans to participate in the 16-team event."

BBC NEWS | UK | England | London | Whale spotted in central London

BBC NEWS | UK | England | London | Whale spotted in central London:

"A seven-tonne whale has made its way up the Thames to central London, where it is being watched by riverside crowds.
The 16-18ft (5m) northern bottle-nosed whale, which is usually found in deep sea waters, has been seen as far upstream as Chelsea."

tandems

tandems

Outside Dyson shells

Outside Dyson shells:

"Assuming our sphere appoximates a blackbody (e ~= 1) and then substituting ideal conditions (g = 9.81 m/s2, T = 300 K), we find that M must vary between 0.054 and 0.079 masses solar (the variance is caused by 3.5 <= nu <= 4.0).

By comparison, the 'end of the main sequence' -- that is, the theoretical point at which a main sequence star is unable to sustain itself by hydrogen fusion -- is at about 0.08 masses solar, but is not precisely known. Thus it might be possible to have Dyson shells with Earthlike conditions on their outside surfaces around the smallest hydrogen-burning stars in the Universe.

One other advantage to using red dwarfs is their immense lifespan -- the least-massive red dwarfs can last hundreds of billions or trillions of years."

Matrioshka Brains

Dyson sphere - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dyson sphere - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Pluto probe launches from Florida

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Pluto probe launches from Florida:

"The probe lifted off at 1900 GMT aboard an Atlas 5 rocket on a 10-year journey to the planet, some five billion km (three billion miles) from Earth."

Tales of the Questor - Thursday, January 19, 2006

Tales of the Questor - Thursday, January 19, 2006:Getting interesting.

Bayou Quilts

Bayou Quilts

Unpredictable's Blog

Unpredictable's Blog

First;Last and Only

First;Last and Only

usatrip2006

usatrip2006

Hope's Stories

Hope's Stories

The Circadian Saga: 0001. Welcome to Haggor

The Circadian Saga: 0001. Welcome to Haggor

school festival

school festival

THE ECONTRARIAN

THE ECONTRARIAN

Friends of Africa

Friends of Africa

Thoughts and Pictures

Thoughts and Pictures

DOCFILES

DOCFILES

shiNsan

shiNsan

The Long Black Veil

The Long Black Veil

The Long Black Veil

The Long Black Veil

P29ZAD

P29ZAD

ion.:. Just Be .:.Peety Pass

ion.:. Just Be .:.Peety Pass

Someone has put alot of work into this site.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

The L Word Season Three Pics

The L Word Season Three Pics See the pictures of naked lesbians.

--> Blogged <--

--> Blogged <--

The Far Traveler

The Far Traveler

I was doing the random blog (clicking on next blog) thing and my blog came up. Blew my mind.

THE THIRD BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS

THE THIRD BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS

them chickens is ash and i'm lotion

them chickens is ash and i'm lotion

Tulips




I can't belive how fast they are growing? The first buds are starting to show.

the shadowkeeper is a chick

the shadowkeeper is a chick

Prepare to be Assimilated

Prepare to be Assimilated

Evidence of a Stolen Election by Paul Craig Roberts

Evidence of a Stolen Election by Paul Craig Roberts:

"As coincidence would have it, Mark Crispin Miller’s new book, Fooled Again (Basic Books), documenting the Republican theft of the 2004 presidential election, arrived in the same mail delivery with the January 12 edition of the Defuniak Springs Herald, the locally owned weekly newspaper in a Florida panhandle county seat."

About.com: http://www.wimp.com/presidential

About.com: http://www.wimp.com/presidential

fyi by amy

fyi by amy

elimination station

elimination station

Katie Eating Popcorn

Katie Eating Popcorn

Trying to make sense of it all...

Trying to make sense of it all...

No Diet Coke for Mommy.

No Diet Coke for Mommy. Interesting

C'est la vie

C'est la vie

Mystical Paths: Kabbalah,Prophecy,Life!

Mystical Paths: Kabbalah,Prophecy,Life!

The Hurricane's Art

The Hurricane's Art

gardening

gardening

?????

?????

Neo-Souljah's - Chronicle: Music & Philosphy

Neo-Souljah's - Chronicle: Music & Philosphy

The Smirking Chimp

The Smirking Chimp:

"Jim Oberg: 'No pendulum swing in public opinion can stop this regime'
Contributed by JWO on Thursday, January 19 @ 09:50:12 EST
This article has been read 3419 times."

TPMCafe || The Coffee House

TPMCafe || The Coffee House

It's a Jat's Life

It's a Jat's Life

H A L C Y O N 9

H A L C Y O N 9

The Idea Girl

The Idea Girl

Follow The Moon

Follow The Moon

SnapStream Blog ? Blog Archive ? Godzilla PVR

SnapStream Blog ? Blog Archive ? Godzilla PVR:

"With the third installment of our Monster PVR series, we here at SnapStream asked ourselves, “How can we beat the Medusa PVR, our 6 tuner beast, and our Hydra PVR, our 10 tuner monster?”

Why, by making an 11 tuner system with HDTV support, of course! This is when the Godzilla PVR system, king of all monsters was born. How do we top the Hydra PVR? This system is an ultra high end HTPC showcasing Beyond TV 4 and capable of recording 11 shows, 4 high definition and 7 standard definition, at once. With Beyond TV 4’s HDTV support and with its unlimited tuners, you can create your own monster system."

Evolutionblog: The Republican War on Mooney

Evolutionblog: The Republican War on Mooney

The Loom: A blog about life, past and future

The Loom: A blog about life, past and future

The Return of the Puppet Masters. The Loom: A blog about life, past and future

The Return of the Puppet Masters. The Loom: A blog about life, past and future: Now this is a little scary.

"Some scientists believe that Toxoplasma changes the personality of its human hosts, bringing different shifts to men and women. Parasitologist Jaroslav Flegr of Charles University in Prague administered psychological questionnaires to people infected with Toxoplasma and controls. Those infected, he found, show a small, but statistically significant, tendency to be more self-reproaching and insecure. Paradoxically, infected women, on average, tend to be more outgoing and warmhearted than controls, while infected men tend to be more jealous and suspicious."

The Crowning Indignity, Pt. 2: BLOG: SciAm Observations

The Crowning Indignity, Pt. 2: BLOG: SciAm Observations

The California high school that recently started teaching a course aimed at promoting Intelligent Design "critiques" of science has decided to stop... after the Discovery Institute said it was a bad idea.

Folks, if you preach I.D. and even the Discovery Institute is staring at you with pity, then it's time to sit quietly and reassess whether you understand what science is.

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: New Neurons Go with the Spinal Fluid Flow

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: New Neurons Go with the Spinal Fluid Flow:

"Recent research has revealed that brains continue to produce new neurons throughout life, helping create new neural networks. This neurogenesis only takes place in a few specific areas, such as the area in which the brain and spinal column meet. The new cells, however, can migrate throughout the brain and turn up as far away as the olfactory bulb--a cluster of nerve cells at the front surface of the brain responsible for the sense of smell. A recent study in mice has revealed that these neurons make the long and complicated journey by going with the flow of spinal fluid circulating in the brain."

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Owl's Ability to Link Sight and Sound Could Be Key to Treating Attention Disorders

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Owl's Ability to Link Sight and Sound Could Be Key to Treating Attention Disorders:

"Owls are already extremely gifted at tuning in a particular sound, the authors note in their paper published in the current issue of Nature, but pairing a sound with a sight enhanced that ability even further. 'The ability to hear and the direction of gaze aren't necessarily linked,' Winkowski says. But 'the circuits in the brain that control gaze direction affect how the brain processes auditory information.'

Similar sound-and-vision circuitry has already been demonstrated in monkeys and humans, but the owls represent the first nonprimates to show this.'The fundamental mechanisms are probably going to be the same in all vertebrates, as even frogs and fish have gaze control,'"

Increased competition for pollen may lead to plant extinctions

Increased competition for pollen may lead to plant extinctions:

"The decline of birds, bees and other pollinators in the world's most diverse ecosystems may be putting plants in those areas at risk, according to new research. The finding raises concern that more may have to be done to protect Earth's most biologically rich areas, scientists say in an article appearing in the Jan. 17 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The analysis shows that ecosystems with the largest number of different species, including the jungles of South America and Southeast Asia and the rich shrubland of South Africa, have bigger deficits in pollination compared to the less-diverse ecosystems of North America, Europe and Australia.

'The global pattern we observed suggests that plants in species-rich regions exhibit a greater reduction in fruit production due to insufficient pollination than plant species in regions of lower biodiversity,' said Susan Mazer, a co-author of the article and a biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She and her colleagues believe such biodiversity 'hotspots' are characterized by stronger competition among plant species for pollinators, such that many plant species simply don't receive enough pollen to achieve maximum fruit and seed production."

Bio-archaeologists pinpoint oldest northern European human activity

Bio-archaeologists pinpoint oldest northern European human activity:

"Scientists at the University of York used a 'protein time capsule' to confirm the earliest record of human activity in Northern Europe.

A team of bio-archaeologists from York were able to provide the final piece of scientific evidence which confirmed that primitive stone tools discovered in East Anglia dated back around 700,000 years – 200,000 years earlier than any other traces of human colonisation of northern latitudes."

Ahead of the game

Ahead of the game:

"The disappearance of Neanderthals is frequently attributed to competition from modern humans, whose greater intelligence has been widely supposed to make them more efficient as hunters. However, a new study forthcoming in the February issue of Current Anthropology argues that the hunting practices of Neanderthals and early modern humans were largely indistinguishable, a conclusion leading to a different explanation, also based on archaeological data, to explain the disappearance of the Neanderthals. This study has important implications for debates surrounding behavioral evolution and the practices that eventually allowed modern humans like ourselves to displace other closely-related species."

The researchers use new archaeological data from a Middle- and Upper-Paleolithic rock shelter in the Georgian Republic dated to 60,000–20,000 years ago to contest some prior models of the perceived behavioral and cognitive differences between Neanderthals and modern humans. Instead, the researchers suggest that developments in the social realm of modern human life, allowing routine use of distant resources and more extensive division of labor, may be better indicators of why Neanderthals disappeared than hunting practices.

"The establishment of larger social networks allowed the replacement of Neanderthals in the Caucasus," write the authors. "Our study also indicates that this process of replacement by modern humans spread beyond the traditional biogeographical barrier [of] Neanderthal mobility represented by the Caucasus Mountains."

Current Anthropology

Current Anthropology

UNC Charlotte linguist restores lost language, culture for 'The New World'

UNC Charlotte linguist restores lost language, culture for 'The New World':

"The truism is that if you want to know a culture, learn the language. But what if the language and the culture are both dead – long, long dead?

Historical linguists, social scientists who are the archaeologists of cultures' ephemeral linguistic artifacts, have developed techniques that allow them to realistically re-create lost languages. The process, known as 'language revitalization,' has at least partially restored numerous languages that were known to have existed but were never recorded (or fully documented), literally allowing us to hear what the dead spoke.

Generally, this has been done for academic reasons or because a culture's descendants want to try to re-establish their identity by recovering some of their lost past. Now it has been done in order to create a major motion picture.

Language can be like cultural DNA, the genetic blueprint of how a civilization communicated and thought, containing the essence of a people's perspective and character. This is what Terrence Malick, director and writer of New Line Cinema's recent release The New World, discovered when he hired University of North Carolina at Charlotte linguist Blair Rudes to lend historical realism to the movie by coaching the cast in Virginia Algonquian, the language spoken by Pocahontas and other Native Americans who John Smith encountered in the founding of Jamestown."

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Dead whale left outside embassy

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Dead whale left outside embassy:

"Activists are trying to demonstrate that there is no need to kill the mammals for research - as Japan does - because cadavers can be found.
Japan is expected to kill 935 minke whales in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary during the first four months of 2006."
The International Whaling Commission imposed a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986, but Japan resumed whale hunting the following year.

American Scientist Online - Old Gas, New Gas

American Scientist Online - Old Gas, New Gas:

"In a hurry to get to methane hydrates, I began by writing, 'Along with petroleum and coal, methane is a fossil fuel, of plant origin…'—at which point I got corrected by the president of Sigma Xi. When I changed what I wrote, geologists gave me more trouble. I had stumbled right into a nest of controversies. Or, an area of current research.

It appears that methane on Earth has not one source, but many. Most (but not all) of the commercial methane in natural gas is thermogenic—thought to derive from petroleum (originally from plants) that is heated and processed deep underground. It's old.

A great deal of additional methane, however, is sequestered in sediments, at sea bottom and in permafrost, in a remarkable set of structures I will soon describe. And its origins are controversial. Much (some think all) is made by archaeans—the neither-bacterial-nor-eukaryotic microorganisms that were only distinguished in recent decades.

But there is an abiogenic source of sequestered methane too. Mantle rocks that contain the mineral olivine (which describes a range of minerals from Mg2SiO4 to Fe2SiO4) are often altered to serpentine ((Mg,Fe)3Si2O5(OH)4), a change that also produces brucite ((Mg,Fe)(OH)2) and magnetite (Fe3O4). "

Material Reveals Unexpected, Intriguing Behavior | Science Blog

Material Reveals Unexpected, Intriguing Behavior | Science Blog:

"In the “before” case, the x-rays scattered about in many different directions, indicating that the PNR fields were oriented in many different ways. After applying the external field, the researchers expected a significant change in the x-ray patterns, showing that the PNR fields — somewhat like magnetic metal filings in a magnetic field — had neatly aligned with it. But the patterns changed in a different way than predicted. They indicated, instead, that the PNR fields preferred to line up perpendicular to the external field, even as the surrounding atomic lattice lined up along it."

Darkness unveils vital metabolic fuel switch between sugar and fat | Science Blog

Darkness unveils vital metabolic fuel switch between sugar and fat | Science Blog:

"Constant darkness throws a molecular switch in mammals that shifts the body's fuel consumption from glucose to fat and induces a state of torpor in mice, a research team led by scientists at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston reports in the Jan. 19 edition of Nature.

While their findings could provide new insight into mammalian hibernation, researchers note that the pivotal metabolic signal that emerged from the dark also presents a new target for obesity and type 2 diabetes research. A series of experiments pinpointed 5-prime adenosine monophosphate (5'-AMP) as the key molecular mediator of the constant darkness effect, switching mice from a glucose-burning, fat-storing state to a fat-burning, glucose-conserving lethargy.

Active mammals – a bear foraging for food or a human running a marathon – also undergo a similar switch, burning glucose first to fuel their efforts, and as blood sugar is consumed, their bodies switch to burning fat."

UNC Health Care - Researchers find effective, cheap treatment for cystic fibrosis lung disease

UNC Health Care - Researchers find effective, cheap treatment for cystic fibrosis lung disease:

"The new therapy, identified through studies supported chiefly by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, also appears to be safe and easy to take.

By inhaling a saltwater aerosol solution almost twice as salty as the Atlantic Ocean for between 10 and 15 minutes at least twice a day, young patients should be able to avoid a significant part of the damage the disease causes to their lungs, the researchers said. That's because the aerosolized saltwater restores the thin lubricant layer of water that normally coats airway surfaces. This water layer promotes the clearance of the naturally occurring mucus the body uses to trap harmful bacteria, viruses and other foreign particles.

One scientific team consists of faculty members at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and UNC Hospitals. The other, also supported in part by the U.S. and Australian CF foundations, includes faculty and staff at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, the University of Sydney and the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research, all in Sydney.

Reports on both studies, which were collaborative and complementary, appear in the Jan. 19 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
"

EETimes.com - AMD licenses Innovative Silicon's SOI memory

EETimes.com - AMD licenses Innovative Silicon's SOI memory:

"Microprocessor company Advanced Micro Device Inc. has signed a technology license for 'floating-body' silicon-on-insulator (SOI) memory developed by startup company Innovative Silicon Inc. AMD (Sunnyvale, Calif.) said it is interested in the Z-RAM (zero capacitor) technology for use in its microprocessors.

The embedded memory is a good fit with AMD, which has moved all its microprocessor production over to SOI manufacturing processes. ISi (Santa Clara, Calif.) has claimed that Z-RAM can achieve five times the density of embedded SRAM, the conventional memory choice for on-chip caches, and twice the density of embedded DRAM."

BBC NEWS | Business | Konica Minolta quits photo market

BBC NEWS | Business | Konica Minolta quits photo market:

"Japanese photographic equipment maker Konica Minolta has announced plans to withdraw from the camera business.

Konica Minolta said the market had become too competitive, and added it would sell its digital camera business to Japanese electronics giant Sony."

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

the Green board - pure BeOS discussion forums

the Green board - pure BeOS discussion forums

Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute Press Releases

Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute Press Releases:

"On Tuesday 17 January 2006 the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute's World Trace Archive database of DNA sequences hit one billion entries. The Trace Archive is a store of all the sequence data produced and published by the world scientific community, including the Sanger Institute's own prodigious output as a world-leading genomics institution.

The Archive is 22 Terabytes in size and doubling every ten months - perhaps the largest single scientific database in Europe, if not the world.

All the data are freely available to the world scientific community (http://trace.ensembl.org/), as a resource to geneticists all over the globe. When a researcher is studying a disease or gene, they can download the genetic information known about the area they are studying."

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Cheeta



Cheeta sleeps.

Tulips



The Tulip Monitoring Project continues.

Dominic Giampaolo's Home Page

Dominic Giampaolo's Home Page

A List Apart: A List Apart

A List Apart: A List Apart

Project collaboration, management, and task software: Basecamp

Project collaboration, management, and task software: Basecamp

Welcome to Flickr - Photo Sharing

Welcome to Flickr - Photo Sharing

The Annotated XML Specification

The Annotated XML Specification

vol59no1p36_41.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Oil on Troubled Waters: Benjamin Franklin and the Honor of Dutch Seamen vol59no1p36_41.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Evidence of a false thumb in a fossil carnivore clarifies the evolution of pandas -- Salesa et al. 103 (2): 379 -- Proceedings of the National Academy

Evidence of a false thumb in a fossil carnivore clarifies the evolution of pandas -- Salesa et al. 103 (2): 379 -- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:

"These data suggest that the false thumbs of S. batalleri and Ailurus fulgens were probably inherited from a primitive member of the red panda family (Ailuridae), which lacked the red panda's specializations for herbivory but shared its arboreal adaptations. Thus, it seems that, whereas the false thumb of the giant panda probably evolved for manipulating bamboo, the false thumbs of the red panda and of S. batalleri more likely evolved as an aid for arboreal locomotion, with the red panda secondarily developing its ability for item manipulation and thus producing one of the most dramatic cases of convergence among vertebrates."

Sunday, January 15, 2006

BeDrivers Driver Matrix

BeDrivers Driver Matrix

Cheeta

Cheeta insists that I stop playing Diablo and play with her.


Tulips



They are getting taller every day.

Going to play Diablo II.


GTD Wannabe: New Header Graphic

GTD Wannabe: New Header Graphic

Blogger Hacks - The Series - Freshblog

Blogger Hacks - The Series - Freshblog

Tagging with BlogThis! - Freshblog

Tagging with BlogThis! - Freshblog

PSP blog

PSP blog

Educational Technology and Life

Educational Technology and Life

itinerario

itinerario

The Officers' Club

The Officers' Club

cave canem

cave canem

My former office. Rachel invited me in for a look around. Things have changed. It has been two years so I guess I should not be suprised.







Tree of Life Web Project Home

Tree of Life Web Project Home

Sonofusion Bubbles Up

Sonofusion Bubbles Up:

"Sonofusion works, according the latest volley in the argument over the feasibility of acoustically driven nuclear fusion."

Indications bird flu virus mutating British scientists

Indications bird flu virus mutating British scientists:

"The British government-funded Medical Research Council (MRC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) said the analysis suggested the potentially deadly H5N1 strain is mutating towards a form adapted to humans. "

Researchers find new source of coherent light

Researchers find new source of coherent light:

'To our knowledge, coherent light never has been seen before from shock waves propagating through crystals because a shocked crystal is not an obvious source to look for coherent radiation,' Reed said. 'The light and radiation was in a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is not usually observed in these types of experiments.'

Ancient death may be solved: Eagle did it

Ancient death may be solved: Eagle did it

PM: 15 New Tech Concepts For 2006

PM: 15 New Tech Concepts For 2006
I think these are good choces.

Space propulsion breakthrough new spacecraft ion engine tested

Space propulsion breakthrough new spacecraft ion engine tested:

"The European Space Agency and the Australian National University have successfully tested a new design of spacecraft ion engine that dramatically improves performance over present thrusters and marks a major step forward in space propulsion capability."

Friday, January 13, 2006

United States Patent: 5,067,932

United States Patent: 5,067,932: Neat

"Dual-input infinite-speed integral motor and transmission device

Abstract

A combination electric motor and transmission unit device has two inputs and a rotational mechanical output, at least one of the inputs being of electrical power, to a corresponding integral combination of an electric motor means with a transmission means. The directions of rotation and the rotational speeds of the two inputs can be controlled to provide the mechanical output at any desired rotational speed with peak power output, depending on the controls, thus providing an ideal infinite speed device. The device employs a novel arrangement of a differential unit or a planetary gear unit. The combined motor and transmission device is lightweight, requires a small number of moving parts, and is useful in vehicles powered by electricity, including for regenerative braking. Another embodiment of the drive device is useful for a flywheel for peak power supplementation and also regeneration."

DRM

GROKLAW: [[Catagory:DRM]]

"Sony BMG put DRM software onto CDs that broke the basic system security and made the entire system slower and less reliable. Imagine that your children put such a CD on your computer and opened an avenue for hackers to make copies of your business memos and personal email. Imagine what would happen to the PC running a safety monitoring system for a nuclear power plant that was also used by a technician who wanted to listen to CDs on the job."

Wednesday, January 11, 2006



My rose is still doing well.

Tulips



I got these tulips at Costco today.

:: SCRIPPS INSTITUTION OF OCEANOGRAPHY ::

:: SCRIPPS INSTITUTION OF OCEANOGRAPHY ::

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Techworld.com - Open-source software revolutionises patent system

Techworld.com - Open-source software revolutionises patent system: "The most dramatic part of the three-part initiative will establish open-source software as prior art. Prior art refers to existing inventions that can prevent a new patent from being awarded. OSDL, IBM, Novell, Red Hat and SourceForge.net are developing a searchable database of open source code so patent examiners and the general public can search for prior art from the open source community when considering a patent application. Such a storage system would satisfy legal requirements for the code to qualify as prior art, IBM said."

Jahmm - A HMM implementation in Java

Jahmm - A HMM implementation in Java

Gunnerkrigg Court - By Tom siddell

Gunnerkrigg Court - By Tom siddell

Sinfest

Sinfest

AlterNet: Blogs: The Mix

AlterNet: Blogs: The Mix

Presidential signing statements are, thankfully, front and center in the press right now. A fascinating breed of pseudo-legislation, the signing statements allow the President to essentially add a "P.S." to Congress' legislation. They don't technically have the force of law. Yet, the statements do maintain an influence in future judicial interpretations of the legislation as they go on legal record. So it's essentially a subversive, and unchecked, way of influencing future lawmaking.

The most recent use of the statments seems to be in the case of McCain's torture legislation in which Bush agreed that the U.S. would not torture people unless it did. Under the scrutinization of the press, studies have emerged revealing that President Bush has utilized these "signing statements" far more than any other president. In fact you might say that President Bush founded the use of the statements as a nice and quiet tactic through which to ignore Congress' will. But you would be wrong. That's because our new friend Samuel Alito, back in the days of Reagan, was actually the brains behind the concept of using these "signing statements" as a way to impact the future balance of power. The Washington Post reports

In a Feb. 5, 1986, draft memo, Alito, then deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, outlined a strategy for changing that. It laid out a case for having the president routinely issue statements about the meaning of statutes when he signs them into law.

Such "interpretive signing statements" would be a significant departure from run-of-the-mill bill signing pronouncements, which are "often little more than a press release," Alito wrote. The idea was to flag constitutional concerns and get courts to pay as much attention to the president's take on a law as to "legislative intent."

It seems an exhausting effort to try to counteract this logic which asserts that a law is only a law if the President decides to follow it. Knight-Ridder reports that

In 2003, lawmakers tried to get a handle on Bush's use of signing statements by passing a Justice Department spending bill that required the department to inform Congress whenever the administration decided to ignore a legislative provision on constitutional grounds.

Bush signed the bill, but issued a statement asserting his right to ignore the notification requirement.

Blind Oversight and Custer Battles

Blind Oversight and Custer Battles:

"by Onnesha Roychoudhuri

Last week, the Senate Democratic Policy Committee set up an oversight hearing to discuss 'waste, fraud, and abuse in U.S. government contracting in Iraq.' Notably absent were any Republicans or, for that matter, the administration officials who are actually supposed to oversee this issue. The hearings touched on a variety of outrages, including: Halliburton charging the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) for 42,000 daily meals for soldiers while only serving 14,000; the CPA's Inspector General finding that the Iraqi ministry could account for only 602 of the 8,206 guards on payroll; and a truck driver for one company describing a policy of abandoning or torching $85,000 trucks if they had a flat tire or minor mechanical problem."

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | US troops seize award-winning Iraqi journalist

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | US troops seize award-winning Iraqi journalist:

"Monday January 9, 2006
The Guardian

American troops in Baghdad yesterday blasted their way into the home of an Iraqi journalist working for the Guardian and Channel 4, firing bullets into the bedroom where he was sleeping with his wife and children.

Ali Fadhil, who two months ago won the Foreign Press Association young journalist of the year award, was hooded and taken for questioning. He was released hours later.

Dr Fadhil is working with Guardian Films on an investigation for Channel 4's Dispatches programme into claims that tens of millions of dollars worth of Iraqi funds held by the Americans and British have been misused or misappropriated.

The troops told Dr Fadhil that they were looking for an Iraqi insurgent and seized video tapes he had shot for the programme. These have not yet been returned.

The director of the film, Callum Macrae, said yesterday: 'The timing and nature of this raid is extremely disturbing. It is only a few days since we first approached the US authorities and told them Ali was doing this investigation, and asked them then to grant him an interview about our findings."

AlterNet: Bush's Unlikely Co-conspirators

AlterNet: Bush's Unlikely Co-conspirators:

"The domestic spy scandal first looked like another unilateral move by a president bent on doing secretly what he refused to admit publicly. After 9/11, President Bush ordered the National Security Agency to surveil phone calls and emails of Americans in the U.S. In an amazing confession last month, Bush admitted disregarding the law in authorizing the spy program in 2002, opening himself to impeachment charges and NSA officials to criminal indictment.

Underscoring the gravity of the president's actions, last Friday the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan research arm of Congress, found that Bush apparently had no authority to bypass Congress in ordering domestic spying, saying in a polite understatement that the legal rationale 'does not seem to be as well-grounded.'

The congressional report is another blow to Bush's flimsy argument that his spying order is legal. But it is now clear that Bush has a second defense that is more difficult to dismiss: the claim that by briefing selected members of Congress on the program, he essentially sought and gained legislative approval for domestic spying.

Indeed, at least seven Democrats in the House were briefed by the Bush administration on the spy program as far back as four years ago. Among those briefed include Nancy Pelosi, House Democratic leader. Last week, Pelosi released a previously classified letter documenting some of her concerns about NSA spying. The question that went unanswered is why Pelosi -- and the other Democrats, including former South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle and West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller -- never blew the whistle publicly on the program."

AlterNet: Rights and Liberties: Sun Tzu and the Art of Spying

AlterNet: Rights and Liberties: Sun Tzu and the Art of Spying:

"Like Nixon more than 35 years ago, Bush has ordered the NSA to conduct electronic snooping on communications of hundreds of people, including U.S. citizens. Unlike Nixon, however, this president has fully admitted spying and shown no remorse. Watergate settled Fourth Amendment law that the Executive Branch may not engage in wiretapping or other forms of electronic surveillance of the contents of private communications without probable cause and a warrant. Moreover, since the 1950s, the U.S. Supreme Court has clearly held that the president's power as commander in chief provides authority over the military and its battlefield operations but does not provide any comparable authority on matters at home."

Stop The ACLU ? Blog Archive ? The ACLU Combating GOD - Not a Good Idea

Stop The ACLU ? Blog Archive ? The ACLU Combating GOD - Not a Good Idea: "Pure fud, if there was a single true statement in Gribbit’s unreasoned rant, I did not find it. He did however manage to turn my stomach. The ACLU is one of the great forces for truth, justice and the American way that remain in the world."

Anonymous, Spam Free Public eMail.

Anonymous, Spam Free Public eMail.

Monday, January 09, 2006

Dispatches from the Culture Wars

Dispatches from the Culture Wars

A friend sent me this item in the news this morning, which is appropriate given the recent discussions of using noms de plume on the internet. Under a new law signed by the President last week, sending any email or posting any messages that are "annoying" to others without revealing your identity is a crime.


This ridiculous prohibition, which would likely imperil much of Usenet, is buried in the so-called Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act. Criminal penalties include stiff fines and two years in prison.

"The use of the word 'annoy' is particularly problematic," says Marv Johnson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "What's annoying to one person may not be annoying to someone else."

Buried deep in the new law is Sec. 113, an innocuously titled bit called "Preventing Cyberstalking." It rewrites existing telephone harassment law to prohibit anyone from using the Internet "without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy."To grease the rails for this idea, Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, and the section's other sponsors slipped it into an unrelated, must-pass bill to fund the Department of Justice. The plan: to make it politically infeasible for politicians to oppose the measure.The tactic worked. The bill cleared the House of Representatives by voice vote, and the Senate unanimously approved it Dec. 16.

AlterNet: Home

AlterNet: Home

David Brock - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

David Brock - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

...he became a liberal and now works to dismantle the conservative media "machine" of which he was once a part. He tells his personal story in his memoir Blinded by the Right and describes how it operates in The Republican Noise Machine. His work on the latter book led him to found Media Matters for America, a non-profit organization that describes itself as a "progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media."[1]

Bernie Sanders - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bernie Sanders - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

During his first term, supporters of Sanders formed the Progressive Coalition, forerunner of Vermont's Progressive Party. The Progressives never held more than six seats on the 13-member city council, but it was enough to keep the council from overriding Sanders' vetoes. Under Sanders, Burlington became the first city in the country to fund community-trust housing. His administration also sued the local cable provider and won considerably reduced rates and a substantial cash settlement.

Walter Cronkite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Walter Cronkite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Outfoxed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Outfoxed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

AlterNet: "OutFoxed": How Rupert Murdoch Is Destroying American Journalism

AlterNet: "OutFoxed": How Rupert Murdoch Is Destroying American Journalism

The documentary portrays Fox News' top host Sean Hannity as a bully, and its biggest star, Bill O'Reilly, a consistently documented liar with an anger problem. In one of the most powerful moments in the film, Jeremy Glick, a son of a worker killed in the World Trade Center disaster, appears as a guest on O'Reilly's show and takes him on, refusing to buckle in to his berating. O'Reilly invites "liberals" on to his show to turn them into punching bags, but in this case, when the plan goes astray, he loses it, threatening Glick with outlandish accusations, and then pulling the plug on his microphone.

jimlog Outfoxed archives

jimlog Outfoxed archives

Lawrence Lessig

Lawrence Lessig

This clip gives you a sense of the issues we faced. And so you'll see how relieved I was to read Dianna Brandi's (VP for legal affairs at FOX) comment in the Washington Post: "People steal our footage all the time.... We generally sort of look the other way."

I take it she's referring to the fair use by others of FOX's footage, and if so, then bravo FOX. Fair use, of course, is not stealing, even though lawyers who know better like to use that false description as often as they can. (But if she really means FOX footage is being stolen, then that's awful. Get better locks, Fox.)

I actually knew nothing about FOX News before working on this film - not much time for network news, and I had only ever heard Bill O'Reilly once, on Fresh Air. And while I came to the project with low expectations about any news network, I was still astonished. As you'll see when you buy the DVD or host a MoveOn.org house party, there's a lot to be amazed at. The most powerful is an amazingly unFAIR and unBALANCED clip with Jeremy Glick and Bill O'Reilly. Not unlike (but much worse than) the exchange Georgetown Professor David Cole described. (Washington Post).

Wired News: Outfoxed: A Unique Sleeper Hit

Wired News: Outfoxed: A Unique Sleeper Hit:

" Robert Greenwald's latest film, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, went straight to video.

Greenwald's Los Angeles production company has sold more than 50,000 copies of the DVD on the Net since the film had its world premiere on July 13 at The New School University in New York City. Five days later, it was shown at more than 3,000 house parties organized by MoveOn.org.

Outfoxed has been one of the three most popular DVDs on Amazon.com's best-seller list since July 13,,,

In a week, BuzzFlash sold 1,000 copies of the DVD. 'It's selling like hot cakes,' said Mark Karlin, the site's editor. 'BuzzFlash readers feel about Fox News the same way that dissidents felt about Pravda in the old Soviet Union. Fox News claims it is 'fair and balanced'; Pravda claimed it was the 'truth.''"

Outfoxed | Personalize your internet.

Outfoxed | Personalize your internet.

HubbleSite - Full story about "There's More to the North Star Than Meets the Eye"

HubbleSite - Full story about "There's More to the North Star Than Meets the Eye"

"The star we observed is so close to Polaris that we needed every available bit of Hubble's resolution to see it," said Smithsonian astronomer Nancy Evans (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics). The companion proved to be less than two-tenths of an arcsecond from Polaris — an incredibly tiny angle equivalent to the apparent diameter of a quarter located 19 miles away. At the system's distance of 430 light-years, that translates into a separation of about 2 billion miles.

Landing The Job

Landing The Job

Bamboo Flooring: Features and Benefits

Bamboo Flooring: Features and Benefits: [[Category:Bamboo flooring]] Still have not found a definitive review of bamboo flooring.

"Amazing as it may seem, this hollow, grass-family plant is actually stronger than most hardwoods. Some species of bamboo have obtained Janka hardness ratings higher than maple and nearly double that of red oak the benchmark of hardwoods. Besides its hardness quality, bamboo is also very resilient and can take a greater impact than most hardwoods without denting. Hardness and resilience: a dynamic duo for durability.

Other outstanding properties of bamboo are its dimensional stability and moisture resistance. Because bamboo flooring is a laminated product, the likeliness of gapping, cupping, or warping is greatly reduced.

Another factor that makes bamboo less likely to warp is that it grows in tropical regions. Therefore, it is naturally resistive to moisture. This makes it suitable for use in areas like bathrooms and kitchens where hardwood flooring is usually not recommended. Of course, being resistive to moisture means bamboo is also resistive to spills, and thus resistive to stains certainly a desirable feature for any elegant floor."

Bamboo & Exotic Wood Floors Forum at DoItYourself.com Community Forums

Bamboo & Exotic Wood Floors Forum at DoItYourself.com Community Forums

Sunday, January 08, 2006

My minature rose has only one flower right now, but it's a beautiful one.



Optical Mouse cam

Optical Mouse cam

BubbleShare: Slideshow Editor - CES Album

BubbleShare: Slideshow Editor - CES Album

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

The linear ion trap One of the most powerful experimental devel- opments of the last few decades was the devel-

The linear ion trap One of the most powerful experimental devel- opments of the last few decades was the devel-

TechCrunch ? AllPeers Is The FireFox “Killer App”

TechCrunch ? AllPeers Is The FireFox “Killer App”

Dispatches from the Culture Wars

Dispatches from the Culture Wars:

"Everyone who has ever formed a non-profit organization knows that the first secret is to get a legislator or two involved on the board or in some manner. You have to have the legislator's name on the letterhead somewhere and you have to have their full support. It may be a pet cause they really believe in and you have to seek out the one who might get involved, and preferably it will be someone who chairs a powerful committee. Why? Because there are limits on what a lobbyist or a corporation can donate to that legislator directly, to their PAC, or to the party. Once that is maxed out, the lobbyist has to find other ways of influencing the legislator and the primary alternative is to give money - without limit, I might add, and tax-deductible on top of that - to a non-profit organization that the legislator supports. That's how politics works in the real world, folks, and it's true of both parties. Always follow the money."

Think Progress ? Abramoff: The House That Jack Built

Think Progress ? Abramoff: The House That Jack Built

DrugBank Homepage

DrugBank Homepage

Giant ape lived alongside humans

Giant ape lived alongside humans: "Gigantopithecus"

Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: Claiming the right to break the law

Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: Claiming the right to break the law:

"They have now advanced a theory of Presidential power so radical and extreme that it really is not hyperbole to call it tyrannical. The power the Executive is claiming for itself is the power of a monarch. And the President has now obviously decided to proudly proclaim his right to exert this power and is daring anyone to stop him. "

US CODE: Title 50,1809. Criminal sanctions

US CODE: Title 50,1809. Criminal sanctions:

"TITLE 50 > CHAPTER 36 > SUBCHAPTER I > ? 1809 Prev | Next

? 1809. Criminal sanctions
Release date: 2005-03-17

(a) Prohibited activities
A person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally—
(1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute; or
(2) discloses or uses information obtained under color of law by electronic surveillance, knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through electronic surveillance not authorized by statute."

Hullabaloo

Hullabaloo:

"The central problem for the Administration is that George Bush deliberately engaged in conduct which FISA clearly and expressly makes it a crime to engage in. All of the legalistic smoke screens aside, the issue really is that clear."

C&EN: Latest News - Tabletop Nuclear Fusion Device

C&EN: Latest News - Tabletop Nuclear Fusion Device

Dr. David Goodstein -- Recent Articles

Dr. David Goodstein -- Recent Articles:

"I suppose that, if nuclear fusion really does take place whenever x is greater than 0.85 in palladium, the world of conventional science will eventually be forced to take notice. If not, then the whole story I have told you is nothing but a curious footnote to a bizarre and ugly episode in the history of science. Either way, I think the story illuminates the inner dynamics of the scientific enterprise in a way that few other stories have done. For that reason alone, it may be worth telling."

PowerPedia:Cold fusion - PESWiki

PowerPedia:Cold fusion - PESWiki

Edmund Storms_Cold Fusion

Edmund Storms_Cold Fusion

Coming in out of the cold: Cold fusion, for real | csmonitor.com

Coming in out of the cold: Cold fusion, for real | csmonitor.com:

"The new cold fusion experiment went something like this: scientists inserted a small pyroelectric crystal (lithium tantalite) inside a chamber filled with hydrogen. Warming the crystal by about 100 degrees (from -30 F to 45F) produced a huge electrical field of about 100,000 volts across the small crystal.

The tip of a metal wire was inserted near the crystal, which concentrated the charge to a single, powerful point. Remember, hydrogen nuclei have a positive charge, so they feel the force of an electric field, and this one packed quite a wallop! The huge electric field sent the nuclei careening away, smacking into other hydrogen nuclei on their way out. Instead of using intense heat or pressure to get nuclei close enough together to fuse, this new experiment used a very powerful electric field to slam atoms together."

New Energy Times

New Energy Times

Wired 6.11: What If Cold Fusion Is Real?

Wired 6.11: What If Cold Fusion Is Real?

New Scientist Features - 13 things that do not make sense

New Scientist Features - 13 things that do not make sense

Amygdala

Amygdala

As I've said elsewhere, many many many times now, in varying words, since December 20th, in answer to the endless mantra of "but why couldn't they just get FISA warrants?": bottom line: if you're doing a multiplexdata-mining pattern analysis on tens of thousands or more people, shifting by possibly tens of thousands of people per day, or more, you can't get warrants. It's not humanly possible.

Which, as I keep explaining, only makes the threat exponentially larger than most non-tech oriented left/lib/progressives seem to understand, with this antediluvian focus on "wiretaps" and "why can't you get a FISA warrant?" That's a question that was entirely sensible when we all asked it last month. It's long been answered and answered and answered and answered.

It's far greater reason for Congress to get the truth out, and possibly impeach, then simple wire-tapping. It's as if people kept decrying the threat of TNT when we're talking about the fact that the fusion bomb has been invented and put to use.

Background on some of the history and technology behind the ECHELON precursor to this: see Duncan Campbell's 2000 summary of his 1999 report to the EU Parliament. Or a FAS selection of pieces from circa 1999, but going back to 1996. Final EU Echelon report here.

Also: The point I'm trying to emphasize is that datamining is vastly more threatening to our privacy and liberties, by many orders of magnitude, than mere wire-tapping is.

The most alarming part is the total-information data-mining (or so it appears to be; we know very little as yet; but it's the mostly likely thing).

Data-mining, for those unfamiliar with it, simply put, collecting every available bit of information about you, public and that which comes up via investigation of others, accurate or inaccurate, putting it all in a massive file about you updated on a constant real-time basis, and then integrating that into a massive data-matrix that shows all perceived links between you and other people and enterprises, and then analyzes that, and then washes, rinses, and repeats, non-stop.

The second most frightening thing going on here is the revealed colloborative relationships with, apparently, all the major U.S. telecommunications providers, which has involved direct tapping into the "switches" through which all traffic flows (other than completely independent systems, which I won't detail, and only know a little about, anyway). Repeat: all (relatively and simply put) traffic.

Surely I shouldn't have to over-emphasis just how vastly more potentially totalitarian even this is, let alone the Total Information data-mining it's a part of, then mere wire-tapping. Even if they had been slapping on 5,000, or hell, 50,000, new individual taps a day (not that that would be humanly possible, of course), it would be relatively trivial compared to just how massively, wholly, totalitarian these two vastly more important issues are.

Trying to get people to understand this is not an attempt to minimize the issue. It's to point out how completely anyone instead talking just about "wiretaps" is fricking minimizing the issues at stake here.

People have to learn how datamining threatens them
.

Case Western Reserve University

Case Western Reserve University

Pharyngula

Pharyngula: "The Religious Right has their administration in place, and what do we get? A 'crusade' in the Middle East. Torture. Erosion of civil liberties. Televangelists on the 'news' shows every night, damning liberals. The spectacle of the Schiavo case, which had the Religious Right barking like jackals. Assaults on reproductive rights of women, and a parade of anti-choice judges. A growing rich-poor divide. Abandonment of the poor in a city struck by catastrophe."

Pharyngula

Pharyngula:

"'Modern theists,' writes Dawkins, 'might acknowledge that, when it comes to Baal and the Golden Calf, Thor and Wotan, Poseidon and Apollo, Mithras and Ammon Ra, they are actually atheists. We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.'"

The Brights' Net - Home Page

The Brights' Net - Home Page

Pharyngula

Pharyngula: "This is a planet of bats and rats, of sparrows, of beetles and ants, but mainly - to a first approximation - this is a planet of bacteria. One could call us an afterthought, if one granted that thought played a role in our steppping onto life's stage, which I do not."

Blog 702

Blog 702:

"So too for members of the Republican Party, whose posture toward science may also be on a collision course with itself. On the one hand, there is the programmatic desire, among the party elite, to govern largely through an ideology of Official Science, according to which no danger can be counted as serious unless generally recognized as such by an institutional scientific community that happens, by Remarkable Coincidence, to be increasingly dominated by the very corporate interests responsible for creating the dangers in the first place. This philosophy of governance permits critics to be pegged as fuzzy-headed alarmists who should grow up, take a science course, and abandon an insidious cultural pessimism that springs (so goes the ideology) more from ignorance and childish superstition than from the cold, hard, complicated facts. Of course, this is a primarily rhetorical strategy of governance, and one that works only so long as the rhetoric is taken at face value and the science largely ignored. But as ID proponents have already found, science is not some taxicab from which riders may necessarily disembark at will. Once its logic is embraced, consequences follow. And so, on the other hand, the elite must confront those of the rank-and-file who may have little left to them, in late capitalism, except for cherished beliefs to which scientific learning is rightly seen as a major threat. Organized capital operating within a globally competitive economy needs workers and managers who are capable of analyzing empirical reality with eyes wide open, undimmed by religious or ideological preconception. In the long run, it can't afford to train them, in high-school, to disregard whatever scientific teachings may be dismissed, by fundamentalist religiosity, as heretical. And yet that educational program is precisely what many of the rank-and-file will no doubt continue to demand, from organized capital's party of record.

posted by pn at 1:30 PM"

Scrivener's Error

Scrivener's Error

xooqi: xooqi means Internet books

xooqi: xooqi means Internet books

City At World's End, by Edmond Hamilton

City At World's End, by Edmond Hamilton

Pennock - LBS 492 ?3: Evolution & Creationism

Pennock - LBS 492 ?3: Evolution & Creationism

Eschaton

Eschaton

Blogger Hacks - The Series - Freshblog

Blogger Hacks - The Series - Freshblog

A Fine Idea At The Time? …Now It’s a Brilliant Mistake?

A Fine Idea At The Time? …Now It’s a Brilliant Mistake?

- Katey's Kafe-

- Katey's Kafe-

Darwin Awards

Darwin Awards

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

The Dover ruling sends a message across the country

The Dover ruling sends a message across the country:

"Unfortunately, the decision means that the small community of Dover will be saddled with the plaintiff's legal bills, probably in the neighborhood of a million dollars. And two school-board members could face charges of perjury."

Weblog: Dover Board Lied! Intelligent Design Died! - Christianity Today Magazine

Weblog: Dover Board Lied! Intelligent Design Died! - Christianity Today Magazine:

"Witnesses either testified inconsistently, or lied outright under oath on several occasions," Jones wrote. "The inescapable truth is that both [Alan] Bonsell and [William] Buckingham lied at their January 3, 2005 depositions. … Bonsell repeatedly failed to testify in a truthful manner. … Defendants have unceasingly attempted in vain to distance themselves from their own actions and statements, which culminated in repetitious, untruthful testimony."

Jones was particularly grieved that board members denied using the term "creationism" before switching the term to "Intelligent Design," and that some board members claimed not to know how copies of the book Of Pandas and People were donated to the school when Buckingham personally raised funds for the books at his church. If you're interested in the details, the York Daily Record has enough to choke a panda.

York Dispatch - York Today

York Dispatch - York Today: "

Judge John E. Jones III's statements - made in a 139-page ruling against the school district and its former board -- named former board members William Buckingham and Alan Bonsell as among those whose testimony contained 'flagrant and insulting falsehoods.'"

Industry Feeling Presence of the 800-Pound Google - Los Angeles Times

Industry Feeling Presence of the 800-Pound Google - Los Angeles Times:

"Sources say Google has been in negotiations with Wal-Mart Stores Inc., among other retailers, to sell a Google PC. The machine would run an operating system created by Google, not Microsoft's Windows, which is one reason it would be so cheap — perhaps as little as a couple of hundred dollars."

Oregon researchers make big advance on road to 'superlens' | Science Blog

Oregon researchers make big advance on road to 'superlens' | Science Blog:

"A functional superlens would be a major breakthrough in optics and was first envisioned five years ago. The idea is to use exotic types of materials, proposed in the late 1960s, to create 'negative' refraction of light, which literally means steering it in the opposite direction of that found in the natural world. The first materials that could do this were created a few years ago and the field is one of significant scientific interest, but many obstacles remain."

Swedish pirates form political party

Swedish pirates form political party:

"A BUNCH of Swedish file sharers have got together to form their own political party.

The Pirate Party (Piratpartiet) said that it is tired of being deemed a criminals and terrorists by the system for sharing a few measly files for no financial gain or loss to anyone.

In its manifesto, here, which is in Swedish, the party says that it is against seeing the developing world starve because the developed world refuses to share its intellectual property.

Its massage is that corporations are engaging in racketeering in the developing world and a few power hungry individuals and greedy corporate entities are infringing on privacy and integrity. Piratpartiet says that it will strike out immaterial law, ignore WIPO and WT, and annul any further treaties or policies that hinder the free flow of information. They will refuse to allow data retention nonsense based on terrorism claims or failed RIAA business models."

Running Key to Shapely Human :: Astrobiology Magazine :: Search for Life in the Universe

Running Key to Shapely Human :: Astrobiology Magazine :: Search for Life in the Universe:

"Another of humankind's most distinctive features, the gluteus maximus muscle that comprises the buttocks, also helps establish humans as far more skilled runners than their ancestors: A quick look at fossil australopithecines reveals that their pelvises, like those of chimps, support only a modest gluteus maximus.

'Your gluteus maximus stabilizes your trunk as you lean forward in a run,' Lieberman says. 'A run is like a controlled fall, and the buttocks help to control it.'

Runners also get a lot of help from their Achilles tendons, tough bands of tissue that anchor the calf muscles to the heel bone, and related tendons along the back of the leg and foot. This extensive system of springs in the leg and foot effectively store and release significant elastic energy during running, but they're not needed for walking.

'There were 2.5 million to 3 million years of bipedal walking [by australopithecines] without ever looking like a human, so is walking going to be what suddenly transforms the hominid body?' Bramble asks. 'We're saying, no, walking won't do that, but running will.'"

The Questionable Authority: Why it matters:

The Questionable Authority: Why it matters::

"By endorsing a religious view, the Dover School Board overstepped their permitted bounds, and in so doing harmed their community. I don't know how much more clearly I can say that: endorsing a religious view at the expense of others divides people along religious lines. Our founding fathers made sure that we had an establishment clause because they were tired of just that sort of foolishness. Unfortunately, more than 200 years later small minded idiots continue to try to force their views on others. Fortunately, we have (at least for the moment) an independent federal judiciary that can help us protect our rights.

posted by TQA at 8:00 AM"

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