Friday, October 23, 2009
Why the frogs are dying
Frogs an amphibians around the world have been mysteriously dying.
The cause seems to be a fungal infection.
The fungus was transported around the world decades ago when frogs were used in pregnancy tests.
A good example of why you should not move living things around unnecessarily... you move their diseases too...
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Google Books is getting better and better
When I looked at this page, they were featuring a few issues of Life Magazine. It was great to flip through an old issue.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
You can tell who the incompetent ones are
They tense up, have no clue what is going on even in their own field of "expertise", and find tiny faults so they can say "See, there is nothing wrong with me!"
George Eliot
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=317
...for the growing good of the world is partly dependant on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
Contrast with item below.
Windows 7 is Vista 2 in disguise
They couldn't possibly sell it if it were called "Vista 2", so they changed the name back to "Windows".
For one of the richest men in the world to produce such shoddy products year after year... well, I would be embarrassed... but then, the goal is to make money; if the product were good and easy to understand, there wouldn't be all those lucrative seminars and service calls.
And what profiteth a man, if he win all the world, and waste billions of hours of other people's time because he just cannot be bothered to get stuff to work before he sells it?
The clearest example of "They are not doing it for you; they are doing it for themselves" I have ever seen... except for the banksters. What we do in life echoes through Eternity... and is being broadcast throughout the entire Universe, so any extraterrestrial civilizations will be having a good laugh for the next several trillion years.
One of the best african violets ever
I lost this in a move 15 years ago, which was really too bad. Very charming. Proof that more is not necessarily better. Bought at Takashimaya near Tokyo Station.
FHA rule changes make condos effectively worthless?
Many people are chomping at the bit to buy foreclosed condos and houses because they are "cheap".
But even if you diligently check that everything is OK before closing, completely unforeseeable things can happen...
They can change the rules.
The bank might not be able to prove it actually owned the house it sold you because they were just making it all up to begin with, so there may be a chain of title problem.
Dollar drop by half within a year or two?
Those still in the denial stage or the scared stage are missing the greatest comedy of all time! I got over it three years ago and have been laughing ever since.
First, the denial. If you tell someone that the dollar will drop by half, they say it is impossible. Someone said that to me again yesterday (without even reading the article in front of him... how typical). But of course, the dollar dropped by half during the Reagan Administration, etc., and over the course of the last 7 years, it has dropped another 40%, so this is nothing new.
Second, the scared stage. Paralyzed like a deer in headlights is no way to figure out how to dodge problems.
On October 6, 2009, the top story at The Independent was the report of meetings by Russia, China, Japan, France, and the Gulf States, to end the use of dollars for oil and gas by 2018 and to move to a basket of currencies and gold.
"These plans will change the face of international financial transactions," one Chinese banker said. "America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate."
The reaction was indeed furious.
On one side, "Don't be ridiculous. This is some stupid conspiracy theory."
On the other side, "Well of course they are meeting. Why is this 'news'?"
The official reactions were things like: "I don't know anything about that", and "Only God knows the future".
Ha ha ha ha ha...
The timeline of 2018 to transition out of the dollar just seemed too long to me... a veil to make the problem seem less urgent.
Then, on Wednesday, this:
Russia is ready to consider using the Russian and Chinese national currencies instead of the dollar in bilateral oil and gas dealings, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said.
...
We are ready to examine the possibility of selling energy resources for rubles, but our Chinese partners need rubles for that. We are also ready to sell for yuans," Putin said.
And then, this:
Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar may drop to 50 yen next year and eventually lose its role as the global reserve currency, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp.’s chief strategist said.
Story in Japanese
See? A divine comedy being staged, with some pretty rough props, effects, and stage management...
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Kirk and Spock's mothers
Kirk's mother is named Winona Kirk...
Winona Ryder played Spock's mother...
so are they Twin Sons of Different Mothers?
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
We will be saved... by natural gas?
If true, this is great news, but that is if it is true. These things have a way of being much less spectacular in the end.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/6299291/Energy-crisis-is-postponed-as-new-gas-rescues-the-world.html
Reasons the picture may be too rosy.
This is a sales pitch to investors. (Houses only go up, they never go down.)
Fracking is not new. The techniques may be greatly improved. But we have seen this story before. Horizontal drilling will solve all our problems... lend us money... and after 20 years, Shell is forced to admit that horizontal drilling at most produces modest increases in yield and does get the oil out faster, but oops, we have to cut our reserve estimates by 20% and our stock crashed.
A new oil field is discovered. The geologists and engineers say it has between 1 billion and 100 billion barrels. In the end, the reality was 10 billion. Which figure does the owner of the field tell to the banks? The 100 billion barrel figure. Why? Because they can borrow more money at a lower interest rate. By the time the field goes into its terminal decline decades later, the original people who made the deals are long retired.
If the improved technique is really so good, why try to drastically expand the deployment? That would only depress the price.
Fracking can cause problems like cause small earthquakes (which, in most cases are just minor and not really a problem, except for the hysteria).
More serious is the potential to change the hydrology and contaminate wells. That could be a major fly in the ointment.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
The last time carbon dioxide levels were this high: 15,000,000 years ago
And it was a lot hotter.
The way the Earth has been for the last 10,000 years has been unusually pleasant.
Dark and cloudy
It has been so dark and cloudy for a year that a lot of plants didn't flower, shrank, or just up and died.
The summer was unusually cool.
It has been sunny for three days in a row now!
Select for tameness and all else follows
The answer to one of The Questions of the Ages: Why are humans capable of total self-sacrifice and unspeakable cruelty, that is, why are there Angels and Demons in us?
Simply select for tameness, and within four to ten generations, a cluster of visible traits beings to appear in rats, foxes, and minks. Aggression decreases, amenability to physical contact increases, brain size decreases, tooth size decreases, jaw size decreases, ears become floppy, tails become shorter, novel fur patterns appear, body shape changes, breeding becomes year round, and a generally juvenile appearance is retained throughout adulthood. These features can all be obtained simultaneously by a simple mechanism: alter the timing of gene expression so that juvenile genes are expressed for a much longer time and the expression of adult genes is greatly delayed.
I speculate that this could also automatically increase lifespan since the expression of genes that are the causes of disease in late life might be put off for even longer.
This also suggests that, absent some trauma during youth, the way people are is largely genetic and their behavior is very difficult to change.
Is this why horrible selfish people in general stay that way until they die?
Saturday, October 10, 2009
A Christmas Carol
There was a trailer at the theater for a new animated A Christmas Carol that looked quite interesting.
It will, however, have to go a long way to outdo the 1951 Alastair Sim version.
For most people like this, Marley's ghost and the three Spirits will never come. The scariest scene in all of storytelling at 6:25.
Astro Boy
I saw Astro Boy on opening day. Great eye candy. Faithful to the original story mostly. Very distinctive animation. The scene in which he is animated had brilliant visual references to the Borg Queen, and most especially to Pinocchio. I finally understand how much AI is patterned on Astro Boy, as is Caprica. Oddly disjointed in some reel transitions. When Toby is killed and when his robot is being constructed, I wondered if the projectionist had somehow skipped a reel...
With Osamu Tezuka cameos! Ha ha! And wait until you see what Astro Boy has in his butt!
He was "born" on April 7, 2003, in Takadanobaba in Tokyo. There was a huge mural and a lot of festivities around that time. To this day, the music playing when the doors are closing on the Yamanote Line Takadonobaba Station is the Astro Boy theme song.
Retrofit your house for net zero energy use
This is not as difficult as it might sound... and it might even be free...
How to read your DNA for $1000
This is brilliant, if they can get it to work.
IBM scientists have developed what they call a "DNA transistor". The transistor is a tube only a couple of atoms in diameter that pulls the DNA through, while sensors in the walls of the tube read the base pairs. This process simulates natural protein pores in cells that evolve specifically to read DNA strands. By running an entire genome through the tube, IBM hopes to lower the cost of sequencing an entire genome down to $1,000.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
The practical LED bulb is here!
Toshiba apparently will unveil an LED bulb with the light output of a 100 watt bulb that uses about 9 watts of electricity.
The only stumbling block is the price: about $100 dollars.
That should start dropping fast.
We will have to learn a measurement of brightness: the lumen (abbreviated lm)
These new bulbs do sound like you can get reasonable brightness for under 9 watts... perhaps even more efficient than compact fluorescents, which although they start off bright, lose about 20% light output after a year or so of heavy use. The LED bulbs seem to degrade much more slowly.
In practice, then, you would have to buy 4 compact fluorescents to equal the service life of one LED bulb. The 100 W compact fluorescent output would be good for a year, then be 80% for the last 4 years of its service life, let's say light output would be like an 80 W incandescent bulb but using 20 W. The new warm white bulbs seem to output about the light of an 80 W incandescent bulb, but uses about 10 watts, approximately halving the electricity use for a comparable amount of warm white light over a compact fluorescent. Good quality compact fluorescents are still about $10 dollars in Japan, 4 of them would cost $40, and therefore the premium would be about $60 if these bulbs go for about $100. Run at 10 hours per day, the compact fluorescent would consume 10 X 20W/day = 200 W/day = 4 cents per day versus 2 cents per day for the LED, over a year saving about $7, for a payback period of about 9 years. If they can just get the price down to about $40, then the payback would start immediately.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Edges of MacBooks are sharp
I have no idea why the edges of MacBooks are so sharp, but I cut my hand the other night while trying to kill a mosquito.
Buddha said
There are two mistakes you can make on the road to Truth:
not going all the way, and not starting.
Maybe this is how meteorites travel from one planet to another
NASA has already rode these currents once--the Genesis probe followed a gravitational channel en-route to collecting solar dust in 2004. By following the gravitational current, Genesis reached its mission point with ten times less fuel than it would have needed otherwise.
Speaking at the British Science Festival at the University of Surrey in Guildford, Ross highlighted the convenience of these gravity tubes, but also noted that they must be utilized in conjunction with regular rockets. For instance, riding a gravity channel from Earth to Mars without any other boosts would take a couple thousand years.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
How complicated the climate is
Many things can affect the climate.
The Sun is still nearly sunspotless for years. Its output has therefore dipped slightly, since the Sun is a variable star.
This plays some part in increased cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere and possibly increasing cloud formation in some places. Hmm, I wonder if the poles are unusually cloudy...
The NASA Administrator
Hallelujah!
Unlike his predecessor, I don't think he will ask why the Space Station doesn't go faster (Hint: It will fly out of orbit. Some truly stupid people were in charge of things under Stupid.)
Phineas Gage
Fantastic details have come to light recently about Phineas Gage. A perfect example of how the Internet can bring alive the past.
To have and to have not
The real "haves" are they who can acquire freedom, self-confidence, and even riches without depriving others of them. They acquire all of these by developing and applying their potentialities.
On the other hand, the real "have nots" are they who cannot have aught except by depriving others of it. They can feel free only by diminishing the freedom of others, self-confident by spreading fear and dependence among others, and rich by making others poor.
Eric Hoffer
Or, I might add, the know-nothings who, when they encounter something they don't know, insist it must be a lie, otherwise they would know it.
Quotes
Podcasts greatly increase retention
This agrees with my experience. Listening to a podcast twice more or less fixes the entirety of it in memory, especially for foreign languages and really complicated cell biology or astrophysics.
One group attended the live class, the other listened via podcast. When given a test on the subject a week later, the podcast group scored 71 per cent while the in-class group scored 62 per cent. Within the podcast group, those who took notes and listened to the lecture more than once came away with an average test score of 77 per cent.
Properties of black bodies and white bodies
Duh!
Black bodies are perfect absorbers of radiation and perfect emitters of radiation;
white bodies are perfect reflectors of radiation and perfect retainers of radiation.
The filament in a light bulb is shiny. If you treat it with a laser to make it black, not only does it become a better absorber, but it becomes a better emitter!
This still does not bring it anywhere near to LED efficiency, however.
I wonder if the process could be used to improve light emission from LEDs or heat dissipation from the bulb stem. The stems do get quite hot. It is puzzling to me why the stems of LED light bulbs are silver. Shouldn't they be black or at least a dark color? Perhaps it is maximally transparent in the infrared already. That would seem to be obviously desirable.
Perhaps the aluminum used in the stem could be made black, or another metal could be used that could be made black.
http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=3106
Feed-in tariff approved by PUC in Hawaii
Let's hope it really works out, especially for residential.
Solar energy advocates in particular are pleased that the new feed-in tariff policy preserves the existing net energy metering incentive currently available for home power producers, such as those who use photovoltaic systems. After the decision new feed-in tariff rates are determined, home power producers can decide to either run their meter backward to eliminate their power bill, or become a power producer and actually receive compensation from the utility for their clean energy.
LED light bulbs make sense now
If used an average of five and a half hours per day, the new bulbs can last up to 19 years, according to Panasonic. That's 40 times longer than incandescent bulbs.
Since you would have to buy 40 regular incandescents to do that, the price of the bulb (around $40) is about the same (40 incandescents at $1 each)
The bulbs use only an eighth the power of incandescents. That means a 60-watt-equivalent LED bulb would cost only 300 yen (about $3) a year instead of 2,380 yen ($25.80)--a significant savings over a lifetime.
This means $1,000 in electricity for the incandescent versus $100 for the LED.
They make economic sense now, especially for the few lights you leave on all the time, and the price should drop to less than 10 dollars in a few years.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10350053-1.html
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