Hitachi's new CP-A100J short-throw LCD projector
... 48-inch picture standing just 0.5cm back from the wall, and a 200-inch picture from 3-feet 9-inches back...
Monday, October 08, 2007
Snadboy's Revelation -- recover forgotten passwords
Well, it's saved there (the asterisks are there), but you can't recall what it is.
Memory myths exploded
Like the primacy and recency effects meaning we should take a 5 - 10 minute break every 30 minutes.
Freeman Dyson's rosy projection
Climate change is nothing to worry about, says the eminent physicist. Let's celebrate genetic engineering and our ability to design a new world of plants and creatures.Previous post of an article from him here.
Surveillance video of Gotbaum's last moments at Phoenix airport
After displaying some agitation (somewhat physical with others), Carole Anne Gotbaum was subdued:
The witnesses that saw her just before she went into the holding tank say she was completely listless and unconscious," said [family attorney] Manning.She was cuffed to a bench in the cell and found dead after some time. The initial explanation from the police was that she had strangled herself with the chain on the cuffs.
Demotivational posters
Custom-made; a few are good.
This one reads, "Because she just might want to hear about your 12th level Paladin."
Here is another site for, yet again, just a few good ones.
Link between schizophrenia, autism and maternal flu
It turned out that after a single dose of a specific cytokine known as interleukin-6 (or IL-6), a mouse would give birth to offspring who, at maturity, exhibited the familiar schizophrenia- and autism-like behaviors.
Internet business is killing the 80/20 rule
How the Long Tail is taking over:
Another online Pareto Principle killer is at Zappos.com where they’re statistics show that 20 percent of the top products create about 50 percent of the company revenue with the bottom 80 percent creating the other 50 percent.
Image recognition for pet trap door
[Flo the cat] also has a habit of catching various animals, dragging them inside through the cat door, and letting them loose so they can be chased for hours. Very cruel. To put an end to this we have built a computer-controlled device that visually determines if Flo is carrying anything in her mouth when she enters, and if she does, it simply does not let her in.
LiveMocha -- social language-learning online
Self-study modules, but then you step up to interaction with real people.
India-Pakistan nuclear war would kill a billion, cause agricultural crisis in rest of world
Links to a couple of related articles. Here's a quote from one:
Then there's the ozone destruction.Earlier studies have suggested that such a conflict would throw five million tonnes of black soot into the atmosphere, triggering a reduction of 1.25°C in the average temperature at the earth's surface for several years. As a result, the annual growing season in the world's most important grain-producing areas would shrink by between 10 and 20 days.
Helfand points out that the world is ill-prepared to cope with such a disaster. "Global grain stocks stand at 49 days, lower than at any point in the past five decades," he says.
Hans Rosling -- new insights on poverty and life around the world
From TED again in 2007. Same message of hidden improvement, but also pointing to the dimensions that need our attention and how our efforts are not wasted. Funnier moments than previous year. Previous post of '06 video here.
Levels of losing from The Sports Guy
The various dynamics of losing using various moments in sports history.
Change the registered owner in Windows
He seems to think it's useless. Aren't there some legal contexts where it is important?
Ziitrend -- latest social prediction website
You simply make a prediction, and ZiiTrend’s neural-network algorithm blends your answer with everyone else’s to come up with a statistically valid answer that captures the crowd’s intelligence. Rather than revolving around trading, which is hard for many people to grasp, the site’s main appeal is designed to be more around social news exchange.
Mother-of-pearl inspires superstrong plastic
"It is hard to imagine that a combination of pretty mundane everyday materials like clay and PVA can give such unique mechanical properties," says Kotov. Stiffness and tensile strength are at least 10 times greater than any other nanocomposite made before, he adds.
Exoneration using DNA brings change in American legal system
A few too many overturned convictions is necessitating some changes.
Private firefighting
The insurance company doesn't want to pay for the possible damage for an advancing fire, so they hire out a skeleton crew to fireproof the houses with retardant.
German vs. Chinese culture, a pictogram presentation
Pictorial contrasts of German culture compared to that of the Chinese. This one is entitled "The Boss".
Genes may hold keys to how humans learn
The reason we looked at these three individual genes in the first place, out of a huge number of possible genes, is that we have a computer model that examines how dopamine mediates these kinds of reinforcement processes in the striatum and prefrontal cortex...
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Terabitz -- customizable reader for real estate
... drag in modules to add information - local foreclosures, recent sales, listed homes, schools, even fast food restaurants.Also now,
... new feature - the ability to create a map with various modules included and then embed it on another website. So any site that wants to add a Google generated map that includes, say, local businesses and restaurants (a hotel, for example) can now do so easily.
Does closing economic inequality make the lower tier happier?
The argument here is that redistribution of the haves' wealth screws up incentives and doesn't make anyone happy. It's actually mobility and opportunity that buoys one's views.
Urbanspoon -- restaurant reviews
Enough traffic would get user reviews, I guess. Otherwise, there are reviews from more official publications. Nice maps interface.
Steve Pinker: a history of violence
Can't say I'm persuaded that data from two regions is supposed account for millenia of prehistory for the globe. Also, in my mind, recent decades of peace just means that those with war memory need to disappear from the political scene before the elements for a wide conflagration can rear their heads.
Rumi-mania
A collection of links from The Spark at Yahoo about Sufi mystic Mawlānā Jalāl-ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī.
Preparing for cybercatastrophe
Fire sales and such. Coming to realize the security vulnerability of a wired society.
Thanks to Julio.
Hitler banned from iSketch
Divorce going down in the U.S., not up
Amazing how a meme or conventional wisdom has its own momentum.
On reading the numbers here.
Map FTP to a drive in Windows
I periodically receive inquiries from friends asking for the easiest way to access files and folders on a FTP server. They normally have their own FTP server setup at home, and they want to ensure fast access to their files without having to mess with third-party applications. Is it possible to quickly map a FTP to a drive? You bet!
Evolution of language
What songbirds, dancing, and knot-tying can tell us about why we speak.Some info on genetic underpinnings.
GarageSeek -- ratings of mechanics
You can get ratings for everything at Yelp. Can GarageSeek survive?
Fascist America, in 10 easy steps
Naomi Wolf itemizes from history the necessary steps to firm control in a society.
Customize your right-click menu with ShellExView
Too cluttered? Missing something? Customize to your heart's content.
The Pudding -- free phone calls in U.S./Can, if you let them advertise to you based on your conversation
Call out from PC only:
Phone conversations are monitored only by computers, not actual human beings. The company also does not record any of the conversations or log any of the topics discussed.
Females deem aspects of past influencing future as more probable than males
... female children and adults more frequently predicted that characters [in stories] who encountered “similar perpetrators” would feel worried because they thought the new person or animal might cause the same harm as the one from the past.
India needing to outsource its work
Many executives here acknowledge that outsourcing, having rained most heavily on India, will increasingly sprinkle tasks around the globe. Or, as Ashok Vemuri, an Infosys senior vice president, put it, the future of outsourcing is “to take the work from any part of the world and do it in any part of the world.”
Monday, October 01, 2007
Is there consciousness in a vegetative state?
An extraordinary brain study concludes that a woman in a vegetative state is aware of herself. It's a dangerous claim that could throw families and physicians into turmoil.
Alibi services
They'll vouch for this and that with "restaurant and hotel bills, invitations, requests to speak at a conference, handouts and notes, plane and train reservations, badges, pens and phone calls with a male or female voice."
Too much or too little sleep is deadly
Different distribution of pathologies depending on which side of optimal 7 hours you are.
Danny Kahneman's short course in thinking about thinking
Videos as well as some text at edge. Biases, game theory, etc.
My debt is worth less, so I've made more? More playing with books
From WSJ:
If the market decides a company is a bigger credit risk and starts demanding fatter risk premiums to buy its debt, the value of its existing debt falls. Under a rule being phased in throughout corporate America known as Financial Accounting Statement No. 159, that same logic applies to a company’s own debt. Companies that mark their liabilities to a market price, as Wall Street usually does, thus record as revenue a drop in the value of their own debt obligations.
Languages dying
Every fortnight, another one gone. The map here is of areas with the highest number of endangered languages.
Sinus pain during flight
Supposedly happens even with experienced fliers, even if rarely. Only prevention seems possible.
Why demand for teachers to be excellent?
Introduction to Direct Instruction, a scripted program that seems to bring results in the classroom:
DI is scalable. Its success isn't contingent on the personality of some uber-teacher....You don't need to be a genius to be an effective DI teacher. DI can be implemented in dozens upon dozens of classrooms with just ordinary teachers. You just need to be able to follow the script.
Top streaming movie and TV sites of 2007
Autism has gut-brain connection
The bacteria produce propionic acid, a short chain fatty acid, which in addition to existing in the gut, is commonly found in bread and dairy products, MacFabe said.
To test their hypothesis that diet plays a part in generating autistic behaviour, UWO scientists administered the compound to rats' brains.
The tsar's opponent
Some background and thoughts on Putin and Kasparov's take on him. (long NYer piece)
In recent years, Putin has insured that nearly all power in Russia is Presidential. The legislature, the State Duma, is only marginally more independent than the Supreme Soviet was under Leonid Brezhnev. The governors of Russia's more than eighty regions are no longer elected, as they were under Yeltsin; since a Presidential decree in 2004, they have all been appointed by the Kremlin. Putin even appoints the mayors of Moscow and St. Petersburg. The federal television networks, by far the main instrument of news and information in Russia, are neo-Soviet in their absolute obeisance to Kremlin power.
How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now
A review of a book on the different mindsets with which one can read the bible.
Excerpts at kottke here.
Ethanol, scmethanol -- the state of biofuels
Coverage of emerging techs of improving on an otherwise dubious alternative.
Art for life's sake
How Hungary's Open School of Art saved Jews during Nazi occupation. In one case, nude art effectively distracted the bad guys from noticing a Jew behind a screen.
Alzheimer's as form of diabetes
They have shown that a toxic protein found in the brains of individuals with Alzheimer’s removes insulin receptors from nerve cells, rendering those neurons insulin resistant. (The protein, known to attack memory-forming synapses, is called an ADDL for “amyloid ß-derived diffusible ligand.”)
Getting imaginative engineers
A commercial espousing faith in the younger generation.
Nice Idea - Watch the top videos of the week here
Investing mistakes
Established advice, but the one that caught my eye was the need to pay attention to expense ratios.
Brain stem may orchestrate basics of consciousness
From cognews:
Last February, Swedish neuroscientist Bjorn Merker described how the surprising capabilities of children suffering from hydranencephaly spur a provocative proposal: Elementary awareness, which he regards as an ability to integrate sensations from the environment with one's immediate goals and feelings in order to guide behavior, springs from the brain stem. The latter also preserves hearing in someone without a cortex. If he's right, virtually all vertebrates belong to the "primary consciousness" club. Moreover, medical definitions of brain death as a lack of cortical activity would face a serious challenge.
Legal sources for free stock images
Sometimes, you just don't want to have to go out and photograph something yourself.
PBS's The Elegant Universe online
Streaming videos for the three-hour miniseries on present theories on structure of universe.
Healthiness of tart cherries
Apparently they're just named tart, and don't taste that way. Has anti-inflammatory properties as well as antioxidants.
Mencken predicts fruition of people's stupidity
On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
- H.L. Mencken, 1920
Another teardown of George W.'s administration. Just found the photo on the Web somewhere.
Women's happiness has gone down
What has changed — and what seems to be the most likely explanation for the happiness trends — is that women now have a much longer to-do list than they once did (including helping their aging parents).
Hydrogen directly from solar energy without any detours involving electrical current
At the start of the reaction, a slight formation of oxide on the titanium disilicide results in the formation of the requisite catalytically active centers. “Our catalyst splits water with a higher efficiency than most of the other semiconductor systems that also operate using visible light,” says Demuth.
Follow-up on Little Rock integration photo
The story of Elizabeth Eckford, the black student, and Hazel Bryan, her most recognizable tormentor, and their lives after the event.
Free will debate
Two senior scientists, a neurologist and a psychiatrist, debate the meaning of free will and whether brain science can, now or ever, fully explain it. Each scientist first wrote a position statement; they then exchanged statements to write rejoinders.
A few intro paragraphs and videos on the untouchable caste
Well, class is a problem in all societies.
Sun lizard -- using the sun to help cool and heat a house
A single unit is said to heat and cool an area of 100 sqm (~1,000 sq ft) to up to 10 C° cooler in summer and 4-6 C° warmer in winter. Collin reckons a Sun Lizard can cut heating and cooling costs by 60%, when properly installed on a well designed building.
Evolutionary explications of morality
Two systems: the ancient, pre-language one and the later, ideated, articulable one:
[Dr. Jonathan Haidt] likens the mind’s subterranean moral machinery to an elephant, and conscious moral reasoning to a small rider on the elephant’s back. Psychologists and philosophers have long taken a far too narrow view of morality, he believes, because they have focused on the rider and largely ignored the elephant.He does survey the moralities of the world to find different components to moral preferences.
Some musings at Evolving Thoughts.
Apps2you -- do-it-yourself web-based databases to the masses
Simply sketch the pages of your application and the flow of information across pages using the intuitive, browser-based JustSketch interface. App2you's sophisticated algorithms automatically infer the database design and logic behind the pages.
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