The YouTube clip opens with a woman facing away from the camera, rocking back and forth, flapping her hands awkwardly, and emitting an eerie hum. She then performs strange repetitive behaviors: slapping a piece of paper against a window, running a hand lengthwise over a computer keyboard, twisting the knob of a drawer. She bats a necklace with her hand and nuzzles her face against the pages of a book. And you find yourself thinking: Who's shooting this footage of the handicapped lady, and why do I always get sucked into watching the latest viral video?
But then the words "A Translation" appear on a black screen, and for the next five minutes, 27-year-old Amanda Baggs — who is autistic and doesn't speak — describes in vivid and articulate terms what's going on inside her head as she carries out these seemingly bizarre actions. In a synthesized voice generated by a software application, she explains that touching, tasting, and smelling allow her to have a "constant conversation" with her surroundings. These forms of nonverbal stimuli constitute her "native language," Baggs explains, and are no better or worse than spoken language. Yet her failure to speak is seen as a deficit, she says, while other people's failure to learn her language is seen as natural and acceptable.
And you find yourself thinking: She might have a point.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
What we don't know about Autism
D&D Experience - 4th Edition previews
This afternoon Dave and I got to play in the 4th Edition Dungeon Delve, which is a group of about 10 tables set up with various dungeons pre-set that the RPGA staff (and some occasional Wizards employees) were kind enough to run. It was meant to be just hack & slash, get through the monsters in under 30 minutes. We ended up getting through almost two encounters which were both quite fun, with some surprises thrown in!Notes from the seminar with details on books, D&D Insider online, and other products. [Link]Here’s a look at the pre-made character sheets we got to keep after we played.
Teenage Girl President
Well, as the new Medium Large comic site lumbers to life it turns out Teenage Girl President may be going on air rather than online. That's because I recently signed a deal to help bring a cartoon series of TGP to a less-than-discriminating basic cable channel near you.I look forward to this as well the return of Medium Large.
Now this is all in the preliminary stages of eventual turnaround, so my saying "I signed a deal" is in no way the same as my saying "TGP is airing after Venture Bros." (Though that, in two words, would rule). But I am happy that it's moving forward and I thank each and every one who read--and commented on--the comic way back when. You gave me the confidence to seek out and sign this deal.
Bipolar blood test
According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, serious mental illnesses affect approximately 44 million Americans. Serious mental illnesses include mood disorders; depression and bipolar disorder. Unfortunately, correctly diagnosing mental illnesses, such as bipolar disorder, appears to be a sort of voodoo science that depends upon the skill of the mental health professional making the diagnosis and the patient's willingness to accurately describe their symptoms. But a research paper was just published that describes a blood test that was designed to identify bipolar disorder and thus, this test could provide an objective method for diagnosis.How did they do it?
To do this work, the researchers identified a group of 29 individuals suffering from bipolar disorder and collected a blood sample from each of them. The mRNA (messenger RNA) present in the sample was isolated, copied into a more stable form, amplified and then screened to identify those mRNAs that showed extremely variable expression patterns that correlated with changes in each person's mood shifts for all members of the study group.
Out of more than 40,000 genes that have been identified by the human genome project, the research team identified 21 novel high-threshold biomarker candidate genes, eight of which had been previously reported as showing some involvement in mood disorders by other research groups using multiple independent lines of study. These high-threshold candidate biomarkers demonstrate high degree of reliability because they were present in at least 75 percent of all study subjects at the time that they reported either a high or low mood state.
The team selected the ten best biomarkers (five for high mood and five for low mood) and used them as the basis for a screening test, which they named the BioM-10 Mood panel. The predictive value of the BioM-10 Mood panel was tested on the initial group of study subjects and found to have an 85 percent accuracy in predicting high mood and 77 percent accurate in predicting low mood. Then the BioM-10 Mood panel's accuracy was tested against two other independent groups of people, 19 suffering from bipolar disorder and 30 suffering from a variety of psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia. In this situation, the BioM-10 Mood panel's diagnostic value was 71 percent accurate in identifying high mood and 68 percent accurate in identifying low mood.
According to Niculescu, even though this isn't perfect, the BioM-10 Mood panel's accuracy rate is within range of other medical tests, such as some cancer screening methods. But even though more work needs to be done, this test could be available on the market in as little as five years from now.
Obama calls for ban on production of fissionable materials
Moe Lane, on Barack Obama’s plans to push for a worldwide ban on all fissile material:
In other words, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) just informed at least four of our allies, one friendly neutral power, one of our rivals, and not incidentally, us, that he wants to turn off the lights: and he’s also told a future strategic rival that the round-eyes are still dedicated to holding down the Middle Kingdom. Don’t think that they won’t notice: don’t think that this won’t appall some, and confirm all the stereotypes of the rest; and don’t think that the aforementioned rivals are going to be as tolerantly amused at the simplisme naif as the French will be.Foreign Relations 090, Senator: First, do no harm. It’s a simple concept to learn.
Gee. Maybe he shoulda just stuck to the whole anti-”anti-” campaign.
Interestingly, this is what American hegemony and cultural arrogance truly looks like — especially when juxtaposed against some of our other “hegemonic” and “colonialist” impulses, like, say, pushing on those not historically readied for such concepts self-determination, natural rights, and the kinds of bourgeois Enlightenment principles that can be readily deconstructed by those who’ve discovered that man is responsible for the creation of his own paradigms, and that no metaphysical necessity or objective moral reality intrudes upon the formation of myriad worldviews, each of which needs be “judged” in the pragmatic context of contingency, irony, and solidarity: the give and take of consensus as governed by persuasion and will reinforced by state force.
Islamic Renaissance
Outposts Abroad
The American system of higher education, long the envy of the world, is becoming an important export as more universities take their programs overseas.
In a kind of educational gold rush, American universities are competing to set up outposts in countries with limited higher education opportunities. American universities — not to mention Australian and British ones, which also offer instruction in English, the lingua franca of academia — are starting, or expanding, hundreds of programs and partnerships in booming markets like China, India and Singapore.
And many are now considering full-fledged foreign branch campuses, particularly in the oil-rich Middle East. Already, students in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar can attend an American university without the expense, culture shock or post-9/11 visa problems of traveling to America.
At Education City in Doha, Qatar’s capital, they can study medicine at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, international affairs at Georgetown, computer science and business at Carnegie Mellon, fine arts at Virginia Commonwealth, engineering at Texas A&M, and soon, journalism at Northwestern.
In Dubai, another emirate, Michigan State University and Rochester Institute of Technology will offer classes this fall.
But this does have some critics, particularly if the programs are men only.
California Polytechnic University, known for its efforts to nurture female engineers, plans an engineering program in Saudi Arabia that will be men only.And in Turkey, is a Reformation is in progress? Only time will tell.The proposal to develop a program at Jubail University College has angered some students and faculty, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The student newspaper, the Mustang Daily, said in an editorial that the plan would "jeopardize the honesty and integrity of our institution in the name of money." The mechanical engineering faculty voted 15-3 last fall to protest the move.
"No matter how you cut it, we're supporting the oppression of women,"
said Jim LoCascio, who has taught mechanical engineering at the school for almost 30 years.
Jubail has women students, although they must take classes separately from men. The engineering program would be open only to men.
Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam - and a controversial and radical modernisation of the religion.
The country's powerful Department of Religious Affairs has commissioned a team of theologians at Ankara University to carry out a fundamental revision of the Hadith, the second most sacred text in Islam after the Koran.
The Hadith is a collection of thousands of sayings reputed to come from the Prophet Muhammad.
As such, it is the principal guide for Muslims in interpreting the Koran and the source of the vast majority of Islamic law, or Sharia.
But the Turkish state has come to see the Hadith as having an often negative influence on a society it is in a hurry to modernise, and believes it responsible for obscuring the original values of Islam.
It says that a significant number of the sayings were never uttered by Muhammad, and even some that were need now to be reinterpreted.
We can only hope.
Good News
In the first poll in Pakistan since the earthquake of October 8, 2005, Pakistanis now hold a more favorable opinion of the United States than at any time since 9/11, while support for Al Qaeda in its home base has dropped to its lowest level since then. The direct cause for this dramatic shift in Muslim opinion is clear: American humanitarian assistance for Pakistani earthquake victims.
The second largest and only Muslim nation with nuclear weapons, Pakistan has long been a stronghold for Islamist radicals, and is the likely base for Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders planning further attacks against the US.
The findings from Terror Free Tomorrow’s survey demonstrate the most significant shift in Pakistani, indeed Muslim, public opinion since 9/11.
Bob Geldof on Bush
I gave the President my book. He raised an eyebrow. "Who wrote this for ya, Geldof?" he said without looking up from the cover. Very dry. "Who will you get to read it for you, Mr. President?" I replied. No response.I wonder.The Most Powerful Man in the World studied the front cover. Geldof in Africa — " 'The international best seller.' You write that bit yourself?"
"That's right. It's called marketing. Something you obviously have no clue about or else I wouldn't have to be here telling people your Africa story."
It is some story. And I have always wondered why it was never told properly to the American people, who were paying for it. It was, for example, Bush who initiated the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) with cross-party support led by Senators John Kerry and Bill Frist. In 2003, only 50,000 Africans were on HIV antiretroviral drugs — and they had to pay for their own medicine. Today, 1.3 million are receiving medicines free of charge. The U.S. also contributes one-third of the money for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria — which treats another 1.5 million. It contributes 50% of all food aid (though some critics find the mechanism of contribution controversial). On a seven-day trip through Africa, Bush announced a fantastic new $350 million fund for other neglected tropical diseases that can be easily eradicated; a program to distribute 5.2 million mosquito nets to Tanzanian kids; and contracts worth around $1.2 billion in Tanzania and Ghana from the Millennium Challenge Account, another initiative of the Bush Administration.
So why doesn't America know about this?
Saturn by 1970
Here is George Dyson, son of Freeman Dyson, one of the scientist who came up with Orion discussing it's history.
Here's an article on Orion. [Link]
Project Orion was a space vehicle propulsion system that depended on exploding atomic bombs roughly two hundred feet behind the vehicle (1). The seeming absurdity of this idea is one of the reasons why Orion failed; yet, many prominent physicists worked on the concept and were convinced that it could be made practical. Since atomic bombs are discrete entities, the system had to operate in a pulsed rather than a continuous mode. It is similar in this respect to an automobile engine, in which the peak combustion temperatures far exceed the melting points of the cylinders and pistons. The engine remains intact because the period of peak temperature is brief compared to the combustion cycle period.
The idea of an "atomic drive" was a science-fiction cliche by the 1930's, but it appears that Stanislaw Ulam and Frederick de Hoffman conducted the first serious investigation of atomic propulsion for space flight in 1944, while they were working on the Manhattan Project (2). During the quarter-century following World War II, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (replaced by the Department of Energy in 1974) worked with various federal agencies on a series of nuclear engine projects with names like Dumbo, Kiwi, and Pluto, culminating in NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) (3). Close to producing a flight prototype, NERVA was cancelled in 1972 (4). The basic idea behind all these engines was to heat a working fluid by pumping it through a nuclear reactor, then allowing it to expand through a nozzle to develop thrust. Although this sounds simple the engineering problems were horrendous. How good were these designs? A useful figure for comparing rocket engines is specific impulse (Isp), defined as pounds of thrust produced per pound of propellant consumed per second. The units of Isp are thus seconds. The best chemical rocket in service, the cryogenic hydrogen-oxygen engine, has an Isp of about 450 seconds (5). NERVA had an Isp roughly twice as great (6), a surprisingly small figure considering that nuclear fission fuel contains more than a million times as much energy per unit mass as chemical fuel. A major problem is that the reactor operates at a constant temperature, and this temperature must be less than the melting point of its structural materials, about 3000 K (7).
A number of designs were proposed in the late 1940's and 1950's to get around the temperature limitation and to exploit the enormous power of the atomic bomb, estimated to be on the order of 10 billion horsepower for a moderate-sized device (8). The Martin Company designed a nuclear pulse rocket engine with a "combustion chamber" 130 feet in diameter. Small atomic bombs with yields under 0.1 kiloton (a kiloton is the energy equivalent of 1000 tons of the high explosive TNT) would have been dropped into this chamber at a rate of about one per second (9); water would have been injected to serve as propellant. This design produced the relatively small Isp of 1150 seconds, and could have yielded a maximum velocity change for the vehicle of 26,000 feet/second. The vehicle would have been boosted to an altitude of 150 miles by chemical rockets, and the extra 8000 ft/sec or so thus provided would have allowed it to escape the Earth's gravity (10). The Lawrence Livermore Laboratory produced a similar although much smaller design called Helios at about the same time (11).
In a classified 1955 paper (12), Stanislaw Ulam and Cornelius Everett eliminated the combustion chamber entirely. Instead, bombs would be ejected backwards from the vehicle, followed by solid-propellant disks. The explosions would vaporize the disks, and the resulting plasma would impinge upon a pusher plate. The advantage of this system is that no attempt is made to confine the explosions, implying that relatively high-yield (hence high-power) bombs may be used. Such a system is neither temperature- nor power-limited. Ulam may have been influenced by experiments conducted at the Eniwetok proving grounds, where graphite-covered steel spheres were suspended thirty feet from the center of an atomic explosion. The spheres were later found intact; a thin layer of graphite had been ablated from their surfaces (13).
Project Orion was born in 1958 at General Atomics in San Diego. The company, now a subsidiary of defense giant General Dynamics, was founded by Frederick de Hoffman to develop commercial nuclear reactors. The driving force behind Orion was Theodore Taylor, a veteran of the Los Alamos weapons programs. De Hoffman persuaded Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist then at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, to come to San Diego to work on Orion during the 1958-1959 academic year. Dyson says that Taylor adopted a specific management model for the project: the Verein fur Raumschiffahrt (VfR), the German rocket society of the 1920's and 1930's which numbered among its members Werner von Braun. The VfR had little structure: no bureaucracy and essentially no division of labor between its members; it accomplished much before it was taken over by the German army. Orion at first was similar: scientists did practical engineering and engineers built working scale models, all on a shoestring budget (14).
Here's a video of a small model propelled by small explosive charges.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
William F Buckley and Political Discourse
Alhouse
Here he is interviewing Noam Chomsky in 1969: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5. Now that's television!
AND: More video. What election commentary was like in 1969: "And yet always there is a strange seriousness, something in the system that warns us, warns us that America had better strike out on a different course, rather than face another 4 years of asphixiation by liberal premises.... No, Nixon won't bring paradise, but he could bring a little more air to breathe."
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Fishing Size Rules and Natural Selection
Rules that allow only the catching of larger fish may encourage their replacement with slower growing, more timid varieties. That, at least, is the concern of researchers who studied test populations in two artificial lakes and report their findings in this week's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.Peter A. Biro of the department of environmental science at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, explained that it's the fast-growing more aggressive fish that tend to get caught, removing them from the breeding pool.
That leaves reproduction up to slower-growing fish who are more timid, he explained in an interview via e-mail.
"This will cause evolution to slower growth rates and slow the rate of recovery for fished populations, and could explain why fisheries tend not to rebound in the manner we expect after we reduce harvest or close a fishery," he said.
"What surprised me was how fast it occurred," Biro said. He said the largest catch occurred on the first day of fishing.
Biro and his colleague, John R. Post, stocked two lakes in western Canada with different types of rainbow trout - one type was known to be aggressive in seeking food and to grow rapidly, while the other grew more slowly and tended to take fewer risks in foraging.
They set gillnets in the ponds over five days, moving them each day, and caught 50 percent of the stocked fast-growing fish but just 30 percent of the more cautious ones.
Rioting against the Modesty Police
The Iranian regime does its best to keep a tight rein on news outlets, but new media – cell phone video, YouTube, and the countless number of blogs and news forums in Farsi means that when large-scale protests against the regime occur in public they are impossible to completely conceal.
This is apparently what happened over the weekend. Sources have told PJM of a major public uprising over the weekend in Tehran – an account corroborated by other reports on the Web.
This is the story they tell: at approximately 7 pm on Saturday, February 23, the Ershad patrol, modesty police assigned to enforce clothing regulations, accosted and attempted to arrest a young woman at Goldis Shopping Mall, located in western Tehran, presumably because her dress was not sufficiently modest.
In recent weeks, the police squads charged with enforcing modesty have become more rigorous in their enforcement, with thousands of women detained, questioned, and arrested for violating hijab standards.
Instead of meekly submitting to her fate, the woman fought back. A young man - it is unclear whether he was accompanying her - came to her defense and joined her in fighting the police. In an attempt to subdue – and humiliate him - the police grabbed the young man and threw him into the garbage can nearby.That was when the large crowd, predominately made up of young people, rose up against the police and attempted to liberate the young woman themselves.
Faced with a full-blown riot - complete with angry crowds with garbage cans being set on fire - the frightened police jumped into the van and fled the scene, except for one unfortunate officer who was left behind. The policeman was reportedly attacked and beaten by the mob.
Global Cooling
Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.
Too old for school
Thirty-nine-year-old Tetsunori Nanpei told police he had bought the uniform over the Internet and put it on to take a stroll near the school in Saitama, north of Tokyo, on Wednesday, the daily Asahi Shimbun said.
When students standing outside the gates started to scream at the sight of him, he dashed inside the school grounds, hoping to blend in with the crowds of teenagers, the paper said.
They also screamed, forcing the man to flee, losing his wig in the process. A school clerk pursued him and stopped him at a nearby riverbank, the paper said.
Monday, February 25, 2008
The Tang of Korea
It was not a simple task.When South Korea’s first astronaut, Ko San, blasts off April 8 aboard a Russian spaceship bound for the International Space Station, the beloved national dish will be on board.
Three top government research institutes spent millions of dollars and several years perfecting a version of kimchi that would not turn dangerous when exposed to cosmic rays or other forms of radiation and would not put off non-Korean astronauts with its pungency.
Their so-called space kimchi won approval this month from Russian authorities.
The South Koreans created versions of several other foods for Mr. Ko’s mission, including instant noodles, hot pepper paste, fermented soybean soup and sticky rice. But kimchi was the toughest to turn into space food.
“The key was how to make a bacteria-free kimchi while retaining its unique taste, color and texture,” said Lee Ju-woon at the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute, who began working on the project in 2003 with samples of kimchi provided by his mother.
Ordinary kimchi is teeming with microbes, like lactic acid bacteria, which help fermentation. On Earth they are harmless, but scientists feared they could turn dangerous in space if cosmic rays and other radiation cause them to mutate.
Another problem was that kimchi has a short shelf life, especially when temperatures fluctuate rapidly, as they sometimes do in space.
“Imagine if a bag of kimchi starts fermenting and bubbling out of control and bursts all over the sensitive equipment of the spaceship,” Mr. Lee said.
He said his team found a way to kill the bacteria with radiation while retaining most of the original taste.
Kim Sung-soo, a Korea Food Research Institute scientist who also worked on “space kimchi,” said another challenge was reducing the strong smell, which can cause non-Koreans to blanch. He said researchers were able to reduce the smell by “one-third or by half,” according to tests conducted by local food companies.
Clbuttic
Browsing through a web archive of some old computer club conversations, I ran across this sentence:
"Apple made the clbuttic mistake of forcing out their visionary - I mean, look at what NeXT has been up to!"
Hmm. "clbuttic".
Google "clbuttic" - thousands of hits!
There's someone who call his car 'clbuttic'.
Styrofoam the Green choice?
Paper Cups Don’t BiodegradeUnintended Consequences.
Well, they do eventually (as does anything, eventually), but it takes much more time than I’d thought for a paper cup to biodegrade. The gubmint says, “Modern landfills are designed to inhibit degradation so that toxic wastes do not seep into the surrounding soil and groundwater. The paper cup will still be a paper cup 20 years from now.”
FPS and Death
The relief from engagement explanation makes sense to me and matches up with my experience. When playing a game, I'm under stress, but dying is a relief, a chance to catch my breath. Fight or flight is suspended, adrenaline stops.An article in the February issue of the journal Emotion presents some strange findings regarding players' emotional reactions to killing and being killed in a first-person shooter (FPS). In the experiment, a group of students played James Bond 007: Nightfire (Super Monkey Ball II was used as a control) while their facial expressions and physiological activity were tracked and recorded moment-to-moment via electrodes and various other monitoring equipment. Conventional FPS wisdom would suggest that players like shooting enemies and dislike getting shot. The research findings, however, paint a different picture.
From the article: "instead of joy resulting from victory and success, wounding and killing the opponent elicited anxiety, anger, or both." In addition, "death of the player's own character...appear[s] to increase some aspects of positive emotion." This latter finding the authors believe may result from the temporary "relief from engagement" brought about by character death. Whatever the underlying basis, however, the results seem highly counterintuitive.
Doomsday Vault Opening
A vault carved into the Arctic permafrost and filled with samples of the world's most important seeds will be inaugurated Tuesday, providing a Noah's Ark of food crops in the event of a global catastrophe.Aimed at safeguarding biodiversity in the face of climate change, wars and other natural and man-made disasters, the new seed bank has the capacity to hold up to 4.5 million batches, or twice the number of crop varieties believed to exist in the world today, according to the Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT), which spearheaded the project.
With European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso looking on, Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg will inaugurate the vault by symbolically depositing a few grains of rice in one of its three spacious cold chambers.
Norway has assumed the entire six-million-euro (8.9-million-dollar) charge for building the vault in its Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, just some 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from the North Pole.
There are currently more than 200,000 different varieties of rice and wheat in the world, but this diversity is rapidly disappearing due to pests and diseases, climate change and human activities.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Nuclear Oops List
No one is immune:What's amazing isn't how many of these accidents have happened, (though that's scary enough), what is scary is how many were never recovered.tyopstypos slip in, numbers get misdialed, directions are screwed up. We all make them; no one is perfect.
Except that these mistakes involved thermonuclear weapons, and could easily have reduced a sizable hunk of this world to a Geiger-clicking pit. While I don’t have the time or the space to list all of them, here’s a sample of nuclear boo-boos guaranteed to make you at least look up the next time a plane scrawls a contrail across the sky, or go fishing.
Nuclear military accidents. [Link]
and
- February 5, 1958 – Savannah, Georgia, USA – Nuclear bomb lost
- see Tybee Bomb. A B-47 bomber jettisoned a Mark 15 Mod 0 nuclear bomb over the Atlantic Ocean after a midair collision with an F-86 Sabre during a simulated combat mission from Homestead Air Force Base in Florida. The F-86’s pilot ejected and parachuted to safety. The USAF claimed the B-47 tried landing at Hunter Air Force Base three times before the bomb was jettisoned at 7,200 ft (2,200 m) near Tybee Island, Georgia. The B-47 pilot maintains he successfully landed in one attempt only after he first jettisoned the bomb. A 3-square-mile (7.8 km²) area near Wassaw Sound was searched for 9 weeks before the search was called off. The bomb was searched for in 2001 and not found. A new group in 2004 claims to have found an underwater object which it thinks is the bomb.[19]
- A B-47 bomber flying from Savannah, Georgia accidentally released a nuclear bomb after the bomb lock failed. The chemical explosives detonated on impact in the suburban neighborhood of Florence, South Carolina. Radioactive substances were flung across the area. Several minor injuries resulted and the house on which the bomb fell was destroyed. No radiation sickness occurred.
- January 24, 1961 – A B-52 bomber suffered a fire caused by a major leak in a wing fuel cell and exploded in midair 12 miles (19 km) north of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, Goldsboro, North Carolina. The incident released the bomber’s two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs. Five crewmen parachuted to safety, but three died—two in the aircraft and one on landing. Three of the four arming devices on one of the bombs activated, causing it to carry out many of the steps needed to arm itself, such as the charging of the firing capacitors and, critically, the deployment of a 100-foot (30 m) diameter retardation parachute. The parachute allowed the bomb to hit the ground with little damage. The fourth arming device — the pilot’s safe/arm switch — was not activated, and so the weapon did not detonate. The other bomb plunged into a muddy field at around 700 mph (300 m/s) and disintegrated. Its tail was discovered about 20 feet (6 m) down and much of the bomb recovered, including the tritium bottle and the plutonium. However, excavation was abandoned because of uncontrollable flooding by ground water, and most of the thermonuclear stage, containing uranium, was left in situ. It was estimated to lie at around 180 feet (55 m). The Air Force purchased the land and fenced it off to prevent its disturbance, and it is tested regularly for contamination, although none has so far been found. [22]
Space Debris and Google Earth
Kessler Syndrome could be a frightening situation for space travel. No, it's not a health risk to the human body in zero-G and it's not a psychological disorder for astronauts spending too much time from home. Kessler Syndrome is the point at which space travel becomes impossible without hitting into a piece of space junk, jeopardizing missions and risking lives. In extreme predictions, space debris from our constant littering of low Earth orbit, collisions between bits of rubbish may become more and more frequent, causing a catastrophic cascade of debris multiplying exponentially, falling through the atmosphere and making space impassable. In the meanwhile, space mission controllers must be acutely aware that there could be an odd bolt or piece of old satellite flying toward their spaceship at velocities faster than the fastest rifle shot. Spare a thought for the space debris trackers as they try to keep a record of the 9,000+ pieces of junk currently orbiting our planet… but wait a minute, Google Earth can give us a ringside seat!
Unintended Consequences
Which brings me to you, or rather to all of your soldered devices that are two years old or less. Most of these are now assembled using solder joints that have no lead in an effort to save our groundwater and our health. The fact that the lead has been generally replaced with silver or bismuth, both of which are actually greater health risks than lead, well we'll leave that one for Ralph Nader if he decides not to run for President. The longer-term trend is toward all-tin connections, anyway, but they don't work very well, either.
I wrote a column about this back in 2004 (it's in this week's links) that was heavy on information and therefore low on readership. Everything in that column has come to pass and more. Where's my Pulitzer Prize?
Costs have gone up, mean time between failures (MTBF) has gone down (accelerated MTBF tests, which are the only MTBF tests we do anymore, don't reliably pick this up, by the way), and reliability has suffered. Since we don't fix things anymore, it’s hard to say whether your gizmo failed because of bad solder or not, but the problem is becoming worse as a greater percentage of total circuits in use have lead-free solder. The military was especially concerned, even before the whisker crisis.
We're talking about tin whiskers, single crystals that mysteriously grow from pure tin joints but not generally from tin-lead solder joints. Nobody knows how or why these whiskers grow and nobody knows how to stop them, except through the use of lead solder. Whiskers can start growing in a decade or a year or a day after manufacture. They can grow at up to nine millimeters per year. They grow in any atmosphere including a pure vacuum. They grow in any humidity condition. They just grow. And when they get long enough they either touch another joint, shorting out one or more connections, or they vaporize in a flash, creating a little plasma cloud that can carry for an instant hundreds of amps and literally blow your device to pieces.
Since 2006 we have been exclusively manufacturing soldered connections thousands of times more likely to create tin whiskers than previous generation joints made with tin-lead solder. Because of the universal phase-in of the new solder technology and the fact that the solder technologies can't reliably be mixed (old solders mess with new solder joints in the same device through simple outgassing) this means that it is practically impossible to use older, more reliable technology just for mission-critical (even life-critical) connections. So we're all in this tin boat together.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
iPhone SDK to be late
There’s a week to go before Apple’s commitment to release the iPhone Software Developers Kit in February runs out of room. I’m hearing from one source that its going to be late. I’m not yet hearing any reasons why, and it’s sounding like the official release date could slide by anywhere from one to three weeks.
Apple had no comment, and as yet there’s no word on any events related to an SDK release next week. However I’m also hearing that the situation is fluid, and a lot of last-minute decisions are close to being made about what precisely will or will not be disclosed next week, if anything. There are, apparently, a lot of moving parts to something this complex.
Extract CO2 from the air for use as fuel
I don't see the downside to that. We need to be using more nuclear power, not less. New breeder reactor designs are safer and can not produce weaponized nuclear material. Plus, the nuclear waste from those will only last a few hundred years, not thousands. It's a win win situation. Cleaner air, more power, less waste.Most of us are worried about increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the air - and if you aren’t yet concerned about this, you should be. However, now there is a reason for hope: researchers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory have just announced a groundbreaking new project called Green Freedom, which will extract CO2 from the air and convert it into fuel to power cars and airplanes. Talk about killing two birds with one stone! Not only will this remove some of the greenhouse gas currently in our atmosphere, but it will prevent future CO2 from being added to our air, by providing a new renewable form of fuel to power our lives.
Green Freedom would provide a large-scale production method for carbon-neutral, sulfur-free fuels and organic chemicals from air and water. The technology essentially extracts carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and, using a form of electrochemical separation, turns it into fuel. Their goal is to create a fuel that will work with existing vehicle and aircraft infrastructure.As for the catch, the program would rely on large cooling towers and nuclear power plants from which the CO2 would be gathered. Green Freedom would use existing plants with carbon-capture equipment, so instead of constructing new facilities, the primary environmental impact would be limited to the footprint of the plant alone.
Flawless victory!
D&D 4th Rogue Class Details
Advice is good. The details look interesting.What better way to get everyone excited and talking than to show off one of the class write-ups from the new Player’s Handbook? And what class more typifies the surprise round than the rogue? What follows is the opening spread for the rogue class, as well as a few of the powers available to rogue characters.
You’re going to see something called “builds” in the information that follows. Builds present themes that you can use to guide you as you select powers and other abilities. You can follow the advice of a build, or you can ignore it. It’s not a constraint, but instead provides information to help you make informed choices as you create your character. Using a class build isn’t required; builds exist to help guide your decisions through the process of character creation and each time you level up.
I like the builds idea. It helps people build usable characters quickly. If you want to go your own way, you can, but here is a quick guide. This would probably also be useful by a DM to help make quick NPCs.Rogue
"You look surprised to see me. If you’d been paying attention, you might still be alive."
CLASS TRAITS
Role: Striker. You dart in to attack, do massive damage, and then retreat to safety. You do best when teamed with a defender to flank enemies.
Power Source: Martial. Your talents depend on extensive training and constant practice, innate skill, and natural coordination.
Key Abilities: Dexterity, Strength, Charisma
Armor Training: Leather
Weapon Proficiencies: Dagger, hand crossbow, shuriken, sling, short sword
Bonus to Defense: +2 Reflex
Hit Points at 1st Level: 12 + Constitution score
Hit Points per Level Gained: 5
Healing Surges: 6 + Constitution modifier
Trained Skills: Stealth and Thievery plus four others. From the class skills list below, choose four more trained skills at 1st level.
Class Skills: Acrobatics (Dexterity), Athletics (Str), Bluff (Cha), Dungeoneering (Wis), Insight (Wis), Intimidate (Cha), Perception (Wis), Stealth (Dexterity), Streetwise (Cha), Thievery (Dexterity)
Build Options: Brawny rogue, trickster rogue
Class Features: First Strike, Rogue Tactics, Rogue Weapon Talent, Sneak AttackRogues are cunning and elusive adversaries. Rogues slip into and out of shadows on a whim, pass anywhere across the field of battle without fear of reprisal, and appear suddenly only to drive home a lethal blade.
As a rogue, you might face others’ preconceptions regarding your motivations, but your nature is your own to mold. You could be an agent fresh from the deposed king’s shattered intelligence network, an accused criminal on the lam seeking to clear your name, a wiry performer whose goals transcend the theatrical stage, a kid trying to turn around your hard-luck story, or a daredevil thrill-seeker who can’t get enough of the adrenaline rush of conflict. Or perhaps you are merely in it for the gold, after all.
With a blade up your sleeve and a concealing cloak across your shoulders, you stride forth, eyes alight with anticipation. What worldly wonders and rewards are yours for the taking?
ROGUE OVERVIEW
Characteristics: Combat advantage provides the full benefit of your powers, and a combination of skills and powers helps you gain and keep that advantage over your foes. You are a master of skills, from Stealth and Thievery to Bluff and Acrobatics.
Religion: Rogues prefer deities of the night, luck, freedom, and adventure, such as Sehanine and Avandra. Evil and chaotic evil rogues often favor Lolth or Zehir.
Races: Those with a love for secrets exchanged in shadows and change for its own sake make ideal rogues, including elves, tieflings, and halflings.
Creating a Rogue
The trickster rogue and the brawny rogue are the two rogue builds, one relying on bluffs and feints, the other on brute strength. Dexterity, Charisma, and Strength are the rogue’s most important ability scores.
Brawny Rogue
You like powers that deal plenty of damage, aided by your Strength, and also stun, immobilize, knock down, or push your foes. Your attacks use Dexterity, so keep that your highest ability score. Strength should be a close second—it increases your damage directly, and it can determine other effects of your attacks. Charisma is a good third ability score, particularly if you want to dabble in powers from the other rogue build. Select the brutal scoundrel rogue tactic, and look for powers that pack a lot of damage into every punch.Suggested Feat: Weapon Focus (Human feat: Toughness)
Suggested Skills: Athletics, Dungeoneering, Intimidate, Stealth, Streetwise, Thievery
Suggested At-Will Powers: Piercing Strike, Riposte Strike
Suggested Encounter Power: Torturous Strike
Suggested Daily Power: Easy TargetTrickster Rogue
You like powers that deceive and misdirect your foes. You dart in and out of the fray in combat, dodging your enemies’ attacks or redirecting them to other foes. Most of your attack powers rely on Dexterity, so that should be your best ability score. Charisma is important for a few attacks, for Charisma-based skills you sometimes use in place of attacks, and for other effects that depend on successful attacks, so make Charisma your second-best score. Strength is useful if you want to choose powers intended for the other rogue build. Select the artful dodger rogue tactic. Look for powers that take advantage of your high Charisma score, as well as those that add to your trickster nature.Suggested Feat: Backstabber (Human feat: Human Perseverance)
Suggested Skills: Acrobatics, Bluff, Insight, Perception, Stealth, Thievery
Suggested At-Will Powers: Deft Strike, Sly Flourish
Suggested Encounter Power: Positioning Strike
Suggested Daily Power: Trick Strike
I am really starting to look forward to 4th edition.Rogue Class Features
All rogues share these class features.
First Strike
At the start of an encounter, you have combat advantage against any creatures that have not yet acted in that encounter.Rogue Tactics
Rogues operate in a variety of ways. Some rogues use their natural charm and cunning trickery to deceive foes. Others rely on brute strength to overcome their enemies.Choose one of the following options.
Artful Dodger: You gain a bonus to AC equal to your Charisma modifier against opportunity attacks.
Brutal Scoundrel: You gain a bonus to Sneak Attack damage equal to your Strength modifier.The choice you make also provides bonuses to certain rogue powers. Individual powers detail the effects (if any) your Rogue Tactics selection has on them.
Rogue Weapon Talent
When you wield a shuriken, your weapon damage die increases by one size. When you wield a dagger, you gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls.Sneak Attack
Once per round, when you have combat advantage against an enemy and are using a light blade, a crossbow, or a sling, your attacks against that enemy deal extra damage. As you advance in level, your extra damage increases.
Level Sneak Attack Damage 1st–10th +2d6 11th–20th +3d6 21st–30th +5d6 Rogue Powers
Your powers are daring exploits that draw on your personal cunning, agility, and expertise. Some powers reward a high Charisma and are well suited for the trickster rogue, and others reward a high Strength and appeal to the brawny rogue, but you are free to choose any power you like.
Deft Strike
Rogue Attack 1
A final lunge brings you into an advantageous position.
At-Will ✦ Martial, Weapon
Standard Action
Melee or Ranged weapon
Requirement: You must be wielding a crossbow, a light blade, or a sling.
Target: One creature
Special: You can move 2 squares before the attack.
Attack: Dexterity vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity modifier damage.
Increase damage to 2[W] + Dexterity modifier at 21st level.
Piercing Strike
Rogue Attack 1
A needle-sharp point slips past armor and into tender flesh.
At-Will ✦ Martial, Weapon
Standard Action
Melee weapon
Requirement: You must be wielding a light blade.
Target: One creature
Attack: Dexterity vs. Reflex
Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity modifier damage.
Increase damage to 2[W] + Dexterity modifier at 21st level.
Positioning Strike
Rogue Attack 1
A false stumble and a shove place the enemy exactly where you want him.
Encounter ✦ Martial, Weapon
Standard Action
Melee weapon
Requirement: You must be wielding a light blade.
Target: One creature
Attack: Dexterity vs. Will
Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity modifier damage, and you slide the target 1 square.
Artful Dodger: You slide the target a number of squares equal to your Charisma modifier.
Torturous Strike
Rogue Attack 1
If you twist the blade in the wound just so, you can make your enemy howl in pain.
Encounter ✦ Martial, Weapon
Standard Action
Melee weapon
Requirement: You must be wielding a light blade.
Target: One creature
Attack: Dexterity vs. AC
Hit: 2[W] + Dexterity modifier damage.
Brutal Scoundrel: You gain a bonus to the damage roll equal to your Strength modifier.
Tumble
Rogue Utility 2
You tumble out of harm’s way, dodging the opportunistic attacks of your enemies.
Encounter ✦ Martial
Move Action
Personal
Prerequisite: You must be trained in Acrobatics.
Effect: You can shift a number of squares equal to one-half your speed.
Crimson Edge
Rogue Attack 9
You deal your enemy a vicious wound that continues to bleed, and like a shark, you circle in for the kill.
Daily ✦ Martial, Weapon
Standard Action
Melee weapon
Requirement: You must be wielding a light blade.
Target: One creature
Attack: Dexterity vs. Fortitude
Hit: 2[W] + Dexterity modifier damage, and the target takes ongoing damage equal to 5 + your Strength modifier and grants combat advantage to you (save ends both).
Miss: Half damage, and no ongoing damage.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
THE MEANING OF THE WORD "PLEDGED"
The Clinton camp is still crying "no surrender", but with legitimate avenues to the nomination closed, they are going to have to investigate some sketchier ones. my Atlantic colleague, Clive Crook, notes that the campaign is currently exploring the notion that "pledged" delegates are not "bound". The Politico reports:
The notion that pledged delegates must vote for a certain candidate is, according to the Democratic National Committee, a “myth.”“Delegates are NOT bound to vote for the candidate they are pledged to at the convention or on the first ballot,” a recent DNC memo states. “A delegate goes to the convention with a signed pledge of support for a particular presidential candidate. At the convention, while it is assumed that the delegate will cast their vote for the candidate they are publicly pledged to, it is not required.”
Even if Hillary won the nomination this way, there's a very good chance that these antics would cost her the presidency--as well as the eternal enmity of a huge chunk of her party. I'm frankly flabbergasted they're even considering this.
Using the Sun as a Telescope
It's great, but it's almost a fixed in place telescope. Whatever you want to look at had better be very close together in the sky.Interestingly enough, some of the earliest work on solar sails in interstellar environments came out of the attraction of taking advantage of the Sun’s own gravitational lens. Push some 550 AU out and you reach the point where solar gravity focuses the light of objects on the other side of the Sun as seen from a spacecraft. Note two things: At 550 AU, electromagnetic radiation from the occulted object is boosted by a factor of roughly 108. Secondly, gravity-focused radiation does not behave like light in a conventional optical lens in one important sense. The light does not diverge after the focus as the spacecraft continues to move away from the Sun. Indeed, the focal line extends to infinity.
The Italian aerospace company Alenia Spazio (based in Turin) began investigations into inflatable sail technologies as long ago as the 1980s. Since then, physicist Claudio Maccone has continued to investigate a mission he calls FOCAL, a probe to the gravity focus. Maccone sees such a mission as inevitable, for it takes advantage of an asset every technological civilization will ultimately want to exploit. Here’s how he puts it in his 2002 book The Sun as a Gravitational Lens: Proposed Space Missions:
As each civilization becomes more knowledgeable they will recognize, as we now have recognized, that each civilization has been given a single great gift: a lens of such power that no reasonable technology could ever duplicate or surpass… This lens is the civilization’s star; in our case, our Sun. The gravity of each star acts to bend space, and thus the paths of any wave or particle, in the end creating an image just as familiar lenses do….Every civilization will discover this eventually, and surely will make the exploitation of such a lens a very high priority enterprise.
Personal Area Network
Telecom giant Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT) is planning a commercial launch of a system to enter rooms that frees users from the trouble of rummaging in their pockets or handbags for ID cards or keys.It's a personal area network. I think more and more things will be used in this way.
It uses technology to turn the surface of the human body itself into a means of data transmission.
As data travels through the user's clothing, handbag or shoes, anyone carrying a special card can unlock the door simply by touching the knob or standing on a particular spot without taking the card out.
"In everyday life, you're always touching things. Even if you are standing, you are stepping on something," research engineer Mitsuru Shinagawa told AFP.
"These simple touches can result in communication," said Shinagawa, senior research engineer at the company's NTT Microsystem Integration Laboratories.
He said future applications could include a walk-through ticket gate, a cabinet that opens only to authorised people and a television control that automatically chooses favourite programmes.
The system also improves security. It ensures that only drivers can open their cars by touching the doors if the keys are in their pockets, not people around them.
NTT has already developed technology that allows swapping data as heavy as motion pictures through a handshake, although it has not been put into commercial use.
NTT Electronics Corp., a group company, plans to start sales of the room-entry system in the coming months, probably in the spring, said NTT business creation official Toshiaki Asahi.
It will be the world's first commercial application of human body communication using electric fields, rather than sending electric currents into the human body, according to NTT.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Boxcutter smuggling attempt in hollowed out book
The X-ray image of a box cutter inside Benjamin Baines Jr.'s backpack caught the attention of federal officers Sunday morning at Tampa International Airport.But wait, it's all a big misunderstanding, it was to conceal his pot stash.But it was the packaging that really jolted them: a hollowed-out book that hid the razor-sharp tool. Also inside the backpack: a Koran, a Holy Bible and rap music lyrics referencing police, drugs and guns.
Baines, 21, of Clearwater told investigators he forgot the box cutter was inside the copy of Fear Itself when he packed his bag for a trip to Las Vegas, states a report by Tampa International Airport police.
"He's not militant," said James Layne, a 28-year-old cousin. "He's not a crazy blow-yourself-up kind of guy. It's all a major misunderstanding." Baines said that he cut the compartment into the book to conceal marijuana and to keep money from being stolen by roommates.
CCTV Blockers
High powered infrared LEDs blind CCTVs with glare, leaving the user unobserved. [Link]This German exibition is showcasing bright infrared LED devices that overwhelm the CCDs in security cameras, allowing you to move through modern society in relative privacy. I used this as a gimmick in my story I, Robot -- now I want to own one!And this will be made illegal in Britain in 5,4,3,2,1...
The URA / FILOART developed device promises to the citizens of a more reliable protection against security measures of the state (and other Überwachenden).
Brave and the Bold cartoon in works
According to this brief item at The World’s Finest fan site, Warner Bros. Animation may be producing a TV series inspired by DC Comics’ classic team-up title The Brave and the Bold:
While nothing is confirmed at this time, the The Brave And The Bold animated series will apparently center around Batman teaming up with a different DC superhero in each episode. The series will also apparently have no ties to any previous animated incarnations. The Brave And The Bold is rumored to premiere next fall though, once again, nothing is confirmed at this time.
NBC Universal to stream classic shows
NBC.com: The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, A-Team, Battlestar Galactica (1978), Buck Rogers, Emergency, Miami Vice and Night Gallery
SciFi.com: Battlestar Galactica (1978), Buck Rogers, Night Gallery and Tek War
ChillerTV.com: The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Crow, Night Gallery, Swamp Thing and Tremors
SleuthChannel.com: A-Team, Kojak, Miami Vice, Night Gallery and Simon & Simon
I'll watch some of those. Mostly as nostalgia, though.
Live action Akira films coming
Kaneda! Tetsuo! [Link]Warner Bros. will turn anime artist Katsuhiro Otomo's six-volume graphic novel "Akira" into two live-action feature films, the first of which is being fast tracked for release in summer 2009.New Manhattan? I guess it will be Ken and Tony instead of Kaneda and Tetsuo.WB, which had the "Akira" rights several years ago only to let them lapse and then recapture them in a spirited bidding battle, is planning a twin bill that the filmmakers have described as "Blade Runner" meets "City of God."
Studio has closed a seven-figure rights acquisition deal with manga publisher Kodansha and has set Ruairi Robinson to direct a script by Gary Whitta ("Book of Eli"). Andrew Lazar's Mad Chance will produce with Appian Way's Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson.
Each feature will be based on three of the books in Otomo's series. The drama takes place in New Manhattan, a metropolis that was rebuilt after being destroyed 31 years earlier.
Thought Powered Game Controller
Emotiv will be selling this "EPOC" neuroheadset, allowing gamers to control characters simply by the power of thought. (Unlike previous systems, which required the hands to act as a proxy interface.) The headset will be available around the holidays for $300 with a custom game that will take advantage of the 30 different expressions which can be recognized, including:Just like Firefox, but I's want one for day to day use as a controller. We are living in sci-fi.immersion, excitement, meditation, tension and frustration; facial expressions such as smile, laugh, wink, crossed eyes, shock (eyebrows raised), anger (eyebrows furrowed), horizontal eye movement, smirk and grimace (clenched teeth); and cognitive actions such as push, pull, lift, drop and rotate (on six different axis) as well as a completely new category of action based on visualization, the first of which is the ability to make objects disappear.The EPOC will be first released for the PC. I am less interested in how the EPOC will be used to control games and more interested in its use as a secondary interface method for general computing. I would love to be able to switch applications or control my media playback with only a raised eyebrow.
Florida Science Education Slightly Less Bad
Florida education officials voted on Tuesday to add evolution to required course work in public schools but only after a last-minute change depicting Charles Darwin's seminal work as merely a theory.Bending to pressure from religious conservatives, the State Board of Education on a 4-3 vote included the "theory" language as part of a retooling of the state's science standards for public school education.
The compromise would require teaching that Darwin's proposal -- that natural selection has driven the evolution of many species from a few common ancestors over billions of years -- has yet to be conclusively proven.
"To say there is no debate is ridiculous," said board member Phoebe Raulerson. "Then why are we here today?"
The panel includes the word "evolution" in state science standards for the first time, but it is relegated to a place among a host of ideas, including Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. By contrast Isaac Newton's law of gravity is taught as undisputed fact.
During more than two hours of testimony, scientists and religious representatives argued over whether teaching that humans evolved from a single-celled species over hundreds of millions of years should be taken as gospel.
Some religious groups believe that evolution conflicts with the Biblical account of creation, though others contend there is no conflict. These contentions have driven debates in several states, including Kansas and Pennsylvania, as to how the subject should be taught in public schools.
Proponents say the body of research is replete with data backing up evolution as the major driving force in biology, noting that the prestigious National Academy of Sciences approved the original language that said "Evolution is the fundamental concept underlying all of biology."
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Sci-Fi TV Themes Through the Ages
Here's a catchy compilation of theme tunes from the late 70s and early 80s, featuring Shaft-esque guitars and stomping drum-beats. It's amazing how every science fiction TV show from a particular era features a similar-sounding opening theme tune. And the trends in theme music say something about the shows of the eras they belong to. Click through for a complete history of TV openings.Some of my favorites:
- Original Doctor Who
- Star Trek TOS
- Firefly
- The 4400
- Battlestar Galactica
Betamax II Electric Boogaloo
Good. Now that this format war is over, I can ignore it until I get a high def tv.Tokyo—Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.
HD DVD was developed to offer consumers access at an affordable price to high-quality, high definition content and prepare them for the digital convergence of tomorrow where the fusion of consumer electronics and IT will continue to progress.
“We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called 'next-generation format war' and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. "While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality.”
Toshiba will continue to lead innovation, in a wide range of technologies that will drive mass market access to high definition content. These include high capacity NAND flash memory, small form factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies. The company expects to make forthcoming announcements around strategic progress in these convergence technologies.
Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements. The company will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Ulimate Catch Up
How soon is the Ultimate universe likely to have caught up with the main Marvel U (and, in effect, be redundant)? It seemed the only way to determine this with any accuracy would be to track plotlines in Marvel U. against when they occurred in its Ultimate alternate.
Ideological Stepchildren
LGF noticed something about the Hezbollah salute. (via memeorandum)
It’s Almost Supernatural noticed the same thing about “Palestinian Security Forces” and the “Fatah militia.”
Elder of Ziyon noticed it about “supporters of the Fatah movement” Hezbollah’s 10 year old recruits and a Gaza rally for Hamas.
Israelly Cool notices it among Palestinian security forces near Tulkarem.Repeat after me, “We have nothing against Jews, it’s the Zionists we hate.”
Marijuana for ADHD Treatment
A group of 124,000 physicians is lobbying the government to make it easier for them to study and prescribe marijuana to their patients. Once they've fully studied the drug -- something that hasn't happened before -- they're anticipating finding a lot of new, legitimate medical uses for the drug. Like calming hyperactive people down.According to the Wall Street Journal's Health Blog:
The American College of Physicians, 124,000 members strong, has issued a 13-page position paper asking the federal government to drop marijuana from its classification as a substance considered to have no medicinal value and a high chance of abuse . . . "They've said essentially that the federal government has it all wrong," Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, [says].
Friday, February 15, 2008
Sheep Pens
It's not often that I actually advocate for a lawsuit, but in this case I think it's long overdue. Every time an institution declares itself a "gun-free zone," it is making an implicit promise to the public: "you don't need to protect yourself here -- indeed, we won't allow you to do so. Instead, we will protect you." And they simply are not keeping that promise.
In essence, they are constructing sheep pens with fences just high enough to keep the sheep in, but low enough for the wolves to leap over, and rarely bothering to even get any sheepdogs. (And most of the time, those sheepdogs are toothless.) Instead, they plaster their fences with "no wolves allowed" and trust in the power of those words to keep the predators at bay.
And how well is that working out?
In Dekalb yesterday, five people were killed by the wolf. In Kirkwood, Missouri, five people (including two armed police officers) were gunned down. (The police officers, the "sheepdogs," were the first victims.) In Omaha last December, eight were murdered. At Virginia Tech, thirty-two were slaughtered.
The sole exception was the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. There the gunman started his spree in the parking lot, where he killed two teenage sisters and wounded two others (including their father). But once he entered the church, he was only able to wound one more before a volunteer security guard -- using her own privately-owned gun -- stopped him.
Now me, I have no interest in owning a gun, but I support others owning and carrying their guns.
Robert Heinlein said,
An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.and I think that is true.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Submersible Lotus Convertible
Rinspeed has taken an ordinary Lotus Elise, and turned it into a real working vehicle that drives on land and "flys" underwater. Though you're not going to stay dry if you want to go diving, because theres no airtight canopy to enclose you. To breathe, you'll have to wear a scuba mask connected to the car's integrated compressed-air tank. But who cares?! This is a car that goes underwater! And if that isn't enough, the sQuba is a zero-emissions vehicle powered by rechargeable Lithium-Ion batteries, so you don't have to worry about polluting your lake (or getting water in your intake).
Criminals are dumb
She probably has a long life of bad choices and poor impulse control ahead of her. Sad.She didn't go to jail after admitting to stealing from a Girl Scout, but she did get arrested Tuesday.
Up to now, we haven't identified her. But on Tuesday Stefanie Woods turned 18.
But spending her 18th birthday in jail is probably not how Woods thought she'd spend the day. "I know it's a crime, but it was an easy crime."
You may remember Woods from this interview last Thursday. She admitted to our cameras she helped steal $164 from a Girl Scout selling cookies in suburban Boynton Beach.
Reporter asks, "Do you have any remorse about stealing from a 9-year-old girl?"
Woods responds, "I mean, right now, no. I'm kinda pissed because I have charges, and we have to give the money back anyway."