EV-X7 hybrid electric motorbike
Approaching Akira stylings.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
HiveLive social networking platform
Some customizability:
Network users can choose to add their own hives to an existing social network, configure the type of hive (blog, forum, wiki, etc.), and then determine who within the network gets to use them (everyone or just a subset of friends and colleagues). This allows users to stake off their own areas of interaction and undergo activities from there.
Surfer dude with theory of everything
Even better, it does not require more than one dimension of time and three of space, when some rival theories need ten or even more spatial dimensions and other bizarre concepts... Lisi's inspiration lies in the most elegant and intricate shape known to mathematics, called E8 - a complex, eight-dimensional mathematical pattern with 248 points first found in 1887.
90 suicides a day spur Japan into action
Ninth-highest rate in the world, but well ahead for developed nations. Here's one measure:
In 2001 railway stations in Japan introduced mirrors to deter suicide attempts by showing victims their own face before they jump.
The Century of the Self -- the science of crowd control
The first part of a BBC doc on how consumer culture was engineered into existence and associated with democracy by a movement founded by Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, using applied psychology.
Awareness is not Mind
Consciousness, the fifth aggregate/heap (skandha), is still within the phenomenal realm.
25% of U.S. homeless are war vets
They only make up 11% of the adult population, but a quarter of the homeless.
Zilok -- rent anything
Some of techcrunch's reservations:
What is missing for me is a wizard to assist an owner in evaluating the rental price of his goods. If i know how to find a second hand price benchmark on the web (checking eBay for example) i would not know how to find the rental price of a piece of furniture (specially if it is unique). Zilok will not be appropriate for many categories of objects (cloths for example) and in many cases the rental price (even if rented several times) will not be a better bargain than just buying or selling the same product second hand or third hand. But i can see how this could catch with some product categories (some equipments and accessories, or utilities).
Over-the-counter painkillers can cut risk of Parkinson's by 60%?
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, more specifically.
The study volunteers were considered regular users of painkillers if they took two or more pills a week for at least one month.
The link was still in evidence up to two years after the person stopped regularly taking the drugs. The effect did not increase if the person took more than two doses a week and the drugs had no effect if the disease was already well developed.
I Hate Drake -- some fine, funny cut/paste animation
From MORTIFIED, a comedy show that allows everyday adults to read their most embarrassing and real childhood writings. This concert recording was later animated by Bill Barminski.
Random access warehouses
Fascinating packaging system. Not like Charlie Chaplin/Lucille Ball conforming to the machine at all; the machine conforms to human speed.
Zappos.com orders one.
Christian soldiers in the New Rome
A concern that there's a bit of institutional culture shift occurring in the U.S. military because of some more zealous higher-ups:
I also learned that the same Monday night Bible studies discussed at orientation were taught by bused-in members of these evangelical mega-churches and that some spouses of senior academy staff members were employed by these same religious institutions. It seemed that my beloved United States Air Force Academy had morphed into the Rocky Mountain Bible College.
How to classify supraplanetary civilizations
By energy consumption:
In a seminal paper published in 1964 in the Journal of Soviet Astronomy, Russian astrophysicist Nicolai Kardashev theorised that advanced civilisations must thus be grouped according to three Types: I, II and III, signifying mastery of, respectively, planetary, stellar and galactic forms of energy usage. He calculated that the energy consumption of these three types of civilisations would be separated by a factor of about 10 billion.
Causes of death are linked to a person’s weight
Lower weight people still get hit, of course, but their conditions come later.
Bluetooth-enabled DVR in a pen
Capturing real-time capturing video at 30 fps (320x240), the device can be set to activate based on motion detection. Recording is to flash memory or Micro SD and Bluetooth wireless transfer back to PDAs or PCs is included.Looks like any pen. Makes it sound like there's camera functionality, but where's the lens?
Bystander stem cells keep original neurons humming, restore memory
But in this case, the undifferentiated stem cells, harvested from 14-day-old mouse brains, did not simply replace neurons that had died off. Rather, the group speculates that the transplanted cells secreted protective neurotrophins, proteins that promote cell survival by keeping neurons from inducing apoptosis (programmed cell death). Instead, the once ill-fated neurons strengthened their interconnections and kept functioning.
How It All Ends -- cornered by reason into action on global warming
The rational breakdown of why we should take global warming seriously right now. Thanks to Brian.
Doubting the bilingual cognitive advantage: just an effect of socioeconomic status?
So, being multilingual confers no advantage to a poor kid (for this task anyways)?
Sirtris tests their fountain of youth pill
Damned if I had thought that this research was disregarded because the positive results were more a lab artefact or something.
SRT501 impacts a family of genes in humans and other organisms called "sirtuins," which seem to control a cornucopia of desirable functions in cells that lead to improvements in diseases ranging from obesity and diabetes to Alzheimer's and cancer.
Science of flavor
Sweetness signals the presence of calories, vitamins and minerals. Saltiness indicates the presence of sodium (important to keep your heart and neurons going). Bitterness screams "this could be poison!" at your brain.
Violence: A Micro-sociological Theory
New book:
Violence is not primordial, and civilization does not tame it; the opposite is much nearer the truth.From Marginal:
This book has soo many interesting parts, including the micro-dynamics of the Rape of Nanjing, how British soccer stadium designs were (but now less) conducive to violence, how demonstrations can turn into violent confrontations with the police (lines break down and micro-situations of overwhelming power arise), which children and schools are most conducive to bullying, why basketball has fewer fights than football or hockey (no padding), the dynamics of a mosh pit, and how hired assassins motivate themselves, among many other topics.
Neurologist Vilayanur Ramachandran on Capgras syndrome, phantom limbs, synesthesia
Quite intriguing was the assertion that metaphorical thought is a type of synesthesia.
What is life?
i.e. Once you start getting down to really fine levels, what exactly constitutes life?
Robert Reich's Supercapitalism
New book, excerpt:
Finally, I will come to some conclusions you may find surprising -- among them, why the move toward improved corporate governance makes companies less likely to be socially responsible. Why the promise of corporate democracy is illusory. Why the corporate income tax should be abolished. Why companies should not be held criminally liable. And why shareholders should be protected from having their money used by corporations for political purposes without their consent.
Subjectivity of wine
The wines were actually the same white wine, one of which had been tinted red with food coloring. But that didn't stop the experts from describing the "red" wine in language typically used to describe red wines. One expert praised its "jamminess," while another enjoyed its "crushed red fruit." Not a single one noticed it was actually a white wine.The second test Brochet conducted was even more damning. He took a middling Bordeaux and served it in two different bottles. One bottle was a fancy grand-cru. The other bottle was an ordinary vin du table. Despite the fact that they were actually being served the exact same wine, the experts gave the differently labeled bottles nearly opposite ratings. The grand cru was "agreeable, woody, complex, balanced and rounded," while the vin du table was "weak, short, light, flat and faulty". Forty experts said the wine with the fancy label was worth drinking, while only 12 said the cheap wine was.
But just how is consciousness quantum?
I sure don't get this stuff, but it seems to be a trashing of simplistic associating of a couple of unknowns.
Vitamin D affects how you age?
... those with the highest vitamin D levels had longer leukocyte telomere length ... Previous research has found that shortened LTL is linked to risk for heart disease and could be an indication of chronic inflammation – a key determinant in the biology of aging.
Marshall McLuhan's hot and cool categories
The electric media of television and computers, argued McLuhan, would liberate us from our dependence on the printed word. Print was what he called a “hot” medium, one that absorbed all of our attention and left little room for participation. The medium it had supplanted, the spoken word, was by contrast a “cool” medium that left plenty of space for participation.
Reading, to put it simply, is a lonely pursuit, while speech is a social one. So when we became readers, rather than listeners, we sacrificed our shared, tribal consciousness and became locked into private consciousness. Printed text, in McLuhan’s view, led to everything from the rise of individualism to the specialization of jobs in factories.
Wall St. alpha male checking himself
About Todd Thomson, ex-CEO of Citigroup's Global Wealth Mgmt and his splashing of company money around Maria Bartiromo. Summary paragraph of the Street's culture now:
There is a new deal for the alpha male on Wall Street. He can make his millions, and he can still strut and preen and feel important. What he can't do is sexualize his financial clout. In the late 1980s it was fairly routine for men on Wall Street trading floors to order up strippers; when a prominent bond salesman was fellated in a conference room just off the trading floor his colleagues were more amused than shocked. Not long ago a pair of Morgan Stanley employees was fired for merely attending a strip club in their off hours. As one of my former classmates put it, "the decorum in the marketplace has changed.''
Encrypted Hushmail not so hush
... court document from a federal prosecution of alleged steroid dealers reveals the Canadian company turned over 12 CDs worth of e-mails from three Hushmail accounts, following a court order obtained through a mutual assistance treaty between the U.S. and Canada. The charging document alleges that many Chinese wholesale steroid chemical providers, underground laboratories and steroid retailers do business over Hushmail.
Rosemary protects your brain from free radical damage, perhaps for Alzheimer's and strokes
In animal models, the scientific group, led by Drs. Takumi Satoh (Iwate University, Japan) and Stuart Lipton (Burnham Institute), found that CA becomes activated by the free radical damage itself, remaining innocuous unless needed, exactly what is wanted in a drug.
Confessions of an economic hitman: interview with John Perkins
About engineered crippling of poor nations with American-contracted, megaproject debt to make natural resources available for firesale prices.
He has a book and all, but I had to take pause when he referred to the NSA as being something more than a cryptology agency. There are things I just don't know about, I guess. Only caught the first twenty minutes or so.
Part 1
Part 2
Over 90 per cent of the subjects in the phase 1 trials developed an immune response to HIV
The vaccine is what is known as a genetic vaccine, which uses parts of the virus DNA to stimulate the rapid endogenous production of the proteins for which the injected DNA codes.
The trial subjects were vaccinated on three occasions with this vaccine using a needle-free method of injection. In order to enhance the effect, the researchers also gave the subjects a fourth dose of a vaccine in which parts of the HIV virus DNA had been integrated into another virus (vaccinia = the cowpox virus).
Sound training rewires dyslexic children
Infants must correctly process fast-changing sounds, like those within the syllable "ba," in order to learn language and, later, to know what printed letters sound like. Infants use sound processing to grab from speech all the sounds of their native language, then stamp them into their brains, creating a sound map. If they can't analyze fast-changing sounds, their sound map may become confused.
"Children with developmental dyslexia may be living in a world with in-between sounds," says Gaab. "It could be that whenever I tell a dyslexic child 'ga,' they hear a mix of 'ga,' 'ka,' 'ba,' and 'wa'."
Fake excuses for sale
That's right. Just buy one (it does backfire).
For about $25, students and employees can buy excuse notes that appear to come from doctors or hospitals. Other options include a fake jury summons or an authentic-looking funeral service program complete with comforting poems and a list of pallbearers.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Saturday, November 17, 2007
How to make a scary political ad
Funny deconstruction of how negative election commercials are designed.
Easy not to be racist if you're positive about everything
About 7 percent of white people, though, actually show a distinct lack of racism on probing psychological tests... It turns out that the nonracists share a unique emotional style: They rarely form any negative associations, whether they're thinking about meaningless symbols or real human beings.
Deconstruct a language to see if it's worth the effort
From Tim Ferriss, that 4-hour workweek guy (previously posted video here):
How is it possible to become conversationally fluent in one of these languages in 2-12 months? It starts with deconstructing them, choosing wisely, and abandoning all but a few of them.
Interactive map of nuclear reactors and safety problems
Moving a cursor over and/or clicking on a reactor will bring up more in-depth information about each reactor, including owner and licensing dates; local population; past and present safety issues; UCS letters to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC); and testimony to Congress.
New neurons listen before they talk
Newly created neurons in adults rely on signals from distant brain regions to regulate their maturation and survival before they can communicate with existing neighboring cells...
Enurgi -- helping the elderly and disabled find better care
Caregivers and care recipients can establish relationships by sending each other messages through the website. Enurgi will then keep track of these relationships, help schedule sessions with its calendaring system, and manage all of the payments that clients send to their caregivers through the website (powered by PayPal). Clients can also post reviews of their caregivers that can be viewed by other potential clients.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Alive and safe, the brutal Japanese soldiers who butchered 20,000 Allied seamen in cold blood
You can't wipe out older ways of seeing just with some technology and in the snap of a finger.
It was all my brain's fault
The idea is abroad that developments in neuroscience – in particular the observation of activity in the living brain, using techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging – have shown us that we are not as free, or as accountable for our actions, as we traditionally thought.Yeah, but correlation is not causation. However, there is such a thing as an afflicted prefrontal cortex and its connections.
Wild foreign phrases
Like
Kanjus Makkhicus - Hindi: a person so miserly that if a fly falls into his cup of tea, he'll fish it out and suck it dry before throwing it away.
Using incentives to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Skip the treaties:
In a peaceful world, what do the Palestinians anticipate will be their main source of economic viability? Tourism. This is what their own documents say. And, of course, the Israelis make a lot of money from tourism, and that revenue is very easy to track. As a starting point requiring no trust, no mutual cooperation, I would suggest that all tourist revenue be [divided by] a fixed formula based on the current population of the region, which is roughly 40 percent Palestinian, 60 percent Israeli. The money would go automatically to each side. Now, when there is violence, tourists don’t come.
Scientists treat cancer as an infectious agent
“We had a hunch that rapidly growing tumors can “outgrow” their blood supply, resulting in dead tumor cells that might spill their viral antigens amongst the living cancer cells,” says Dr. Arturo Casadevall, Forchheimer Professor and Chair of Microbiology & Immunology at Einstein and co-senior author of the study. “So we hoped that by injecting antibodies hitched to isotopes into the blood that they’d be carried deep into the tumor mass and would latch onto these now-exposed antigens. Then the blast of radiation emitted by the radioisotope would destroy the live tumor cells nearby.”
Meetro -- make your own forum
The project, codenamed “Makaha”, has been in development since the beginning of this year. While many forums require users to find their own hosting and install software, Makaha will enable users to create and personalize forums through a point-and-click interface.
Tax cuts stimulate the economy and bring in even more revenue, right?
An analysis from the New Yorker about the great lie of supply-side economics.
Lack of sleep a lot like mental illness
"It is thought that psychiatric conditions create sleep problems," he says. "We should entertain the possibility that it is a sleep disorder that is creating the condition."and a bit expanded here:
It is almost as though, without sleep, the brain reverts back to a more primitive pattern of activity, becoming unable to put emotional experiences into context and produce controlled, appropriate responses.
Monday, November 05, 2007
Proposed Turtle airships -- solar-powered VTOL with jet engine supplement
Lifted by helium and flying on sunlight. Backed up with Ethanol/Bio-diesel JET engines; 200 mph; able to fly as fast as small airplanes. Able to fly indefinitely, anywhere in the world, without stopping or refueling. Able to hover like a helicopter, and to land straight up or down onto any surface... grass, an airport runway... or on water. Land on lakes, on wide rivers, in harbors... land in the middle of the ocean.
Carry 400 passengers. Carry 300 tonnes of cargo.
Hydrogen fuel much less efficient than batteries
... dismal overall power-grid-to-wheels efficiency of less than 25%.Batteries can get 85%+.
Game theory analysis for business and politics
Most recently "to offer approaches for handling the growing nuclear crisis with Iran.:
The main reason that the model does this better than experts is that it "strips ideological blindfolds, cultural prejudice, and normative commitments that very often color the view of experts."
Hycrete -- waterproof, recyclable concrete
... a water based admixture that acts as waterproofing and corrosion protection when added to regular concrete. It does this by sealing the capillaries within the concrete and making the resultant product completely waterproof.
Pirate Bay sees future without bitTorrent
They're working on some protocol which will be backwards compatible, and the bigger sites have agreed to. Next year for rollout.
How far gone is Buffalo?
I have a soft spot for Buffalo for all the TV it provided in my youth. I agree that it needs to join spheres of relative prosperity like Kitchener-Waterloo or Toronto and provide complementary goods or services.
Safer gene therapy for neurological diseases
Researchers at the Board of Governors Gene Therapeutics Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center have shown for the first time that it is possible to sustain therapeutic gene expression in the central nervous system for up to a year, even in the presence of an anti-viral immune response mechanism that is normally present in humans.
Jacket with a GPS tracker
Eighteen hour charge for a $700 adult jacket, and it's still $20 per month for the service.
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Optimism circuit found in brain
... imagining a positive future event – such as winning an award or receiving a large sum of cash – activates two brain areas known as the amygdala and the rostral anterior cingulated cortex (rACC). The finding lends weight to earlier studies that suggested these brain regions malfunction in depression and hint at new ways of diagnosing the disorder.
Russia's new ballistic missile submarine
The Borei class has about half the displacement of the Typhoon, but carries about sixteen missiles, maybe twenty in future versions. Has some propulsion system known as pump jet.
65 not so old
The current practice of measuring age as years-since-birth, both in common practice and in the law, rather than alternative measures reflecting a person's stage in the lifecycle distorts important behavior such as retirement, saving, and the discussion of dependency ratios.
Gene therapy with JX-963 for colon cancer stimulates white blood cells
The chemical that the virus secretes, granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, or GM-CSF, is a protein that stimulates the production of white blood cells. The scientists must be careful, however, not to overstimulate the immune system so that it kills the virus before it has a chance to attack the cancer.
Paradoxically, the answer might lie in temporarily suppressing the immune system with drugs to allow the virus to spread rapidly. Then, after the virus has destroyed most of the tumor, GM-CSF stimulates an elevated immune system response.
Quantum cascade laser nanoantenna -- imaging molecules
By combining Quantum Cascade Lasers with optical antenna nanotechnology we have created for the first time an extremely compact device that will enable the realization of new ultrahigh spatial resolution microscopes for chemical imaging on a nanometric scale of a wide range of materials and biological specimens...
... applications... including pollution monitoring, chemical sensing, medical diagnostics such as breath analysis, and homeland security.
Major airline tips
Hadn't heard of this:
Rule 240, which states “that if an airline [can’t] get you to your destination on time, it [is] required to put you on a competitor’s flight if it would get you there faster than your original airline’s next flight.Also, the pendulum seems to be moving away again from going directly to airlines.
Italian Mafia in decline
... shot in the foot by its own loudmouth members, bloodied by scores of convictions, and crippled by a loss of veteran leaders and a dearth of capable replacements.
Device driver updates deactivating Vista
How bad is deactivation?
... your copy of Windows will stop working with very little notice (three days) and your PC will go into "reduced functionality" mode, where you can't do anything but use the web browser for half an hour.
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