How to make a scary political ad
Funny deconstruction of how negative election commercials are designed.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
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.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Illegal questions a potential employer should avoid at interview
Like "Do you smoke or use alcohol?" Alternative workarounds here.
An echolocating boy
From the neurophilosophy blog at scienceblogs (first 10-minute segment of video below):
At the age of 2, Underwood was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, a rare form of cancer that that affects about one in 5 million children. One year later, his eyes were surgically removed, to prevent the tumour from spreading throught the optic nerve and into the brain.
Soon after his surgery, Underwood realized that he could use echoes to determine the positions of objects, and began to develop this "six sense." His ability to echolocate is now so sophisticated that he can ride a bike, skateboard and play computer games.
D-Lab -- MIT brains tackling technological problems of developing world
But in low tech, affordable ways.
Save a slow system with Damn Small Linux
Those old computers don't have to be junked?
Damn Small Linux is a free download that fits inside less than 50MB, so it's easily booted from a CD, a USB drive, or an ancient PC with only 8MB of memory.
Better airfares for off-peak dates
At American, the cheapest price on a Thanksgiving trip from New York to Las Vegas and back was a hefty $1,095 for travel on Nov. 21, the day before Thanksgiving, and returning on Sunday, Nov. 25. Those are the peak days for those holidays. But change your itinerary to leave Thanksgiving Day and return the following Tuesday, and the Las Vegas getaway costs only $335 on American.
More nuclear apocalypses averted
The previously posted story of Lt. Col. Petrov is here, but there's also the Americans misinterpreting for a moment. It's happened a few times on both sides.
JackBe -- mashups of all kinds of superfeed data for corporations
Mashups are created primarily in ten different ways (using graphs, maps, grids, etc.) ... If you check out JackBe’s customers page, you’ll see that Citigroup uses Presto for “Tax Collection, Bank Tellers, Credit Workflow, Branch executives, Insurance Quoting/Sales and eBanking”; the Defense Intelligence Agency uses it to “paint a picture of situational awareness across various intelligence data sources, using a paradigm of drag-and-drop and bookmarking of the resulting briefing in a private workspace for future use and sharing”; and Tupperware uses it “to provide real-time price, inventory and product updates to field sales representatives.”
Anesthesia awareness
CBS story on the phenomenon where you are paralyzed during your operation, but still awake. There's a thriller called Awake with this as a premise coming out at the end of November.
Hilarious kid's Hallowe'en costume
Very adorable homage to Alien. Click through for the larger photo at the site.
RapidTyping -- free typing tutor
I also recall there being a site zealously promoting the Dvorak layout as well. If you want speed, there are ways.
Kitty Genovese stabbing reframed
The number of witnesses may have been off a lot. And then,
Indeed, none of the witnesses reported actually seeing the stabbing. And whereas the myth states that none of the apartment residents overlooking the crime intervened, in fact the murderer felt compelled to abandon his first attack after one of the witnesses shouted at him. This led to the actual murder taking place inside a nearby building where none of the trial witnesses could see.
The movie Ratatouille and Jewish assimilation
An analysis of the the rats in the movie as Jews in a Christianized world.
Awake for eleven days
Not the record now, but did break the previous at the time.
By the fourth day, the sand-clawed demons of sleep were scraping at the back of his eyeballs. He suddenly and inexplicably hallucinated that he was Paul Lowe, a large black football player for the San Diego Chargers. Gardner, in reality, was white, seventeen years old, and 130 pounds soaking wet.The last record noted was made in 1977 -- 449 hours, some rocking chair marathon.
Chris Anderson: Technology's Long Tail
Importantly covers the four stages of tech life, implies opportunities at more than one point.
Forward GrandCentral calls to your Gizmo number
Sounds like free (no roaming charges) inbound calls from anywhere:
With this you can now be travelling anywhere on the planet and can receive calls through your Gizmo client when somebody calls your local GrandCentral number.
Arsenals of Folly -- The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race
In a narrative that reads like a thriller, Rhodes reveals how the Reagan administration's unprecedented arms buildup in the early 1980s led ailing Soviet leader Yuri Andropov to conclude that Reagan must be preparing for a nuclear war. In the fall of 1983, when NATO staged a larger than usual series of field exercises that included, uniquely, a practice run-up to a nuclear attack, the Soviet military came very close to launching a defensive first strike on Europe and North America. With Soviet aircraft loaded with nuclear bombs warming up on East German runways, U.S. intelligence organizations finally realized the danger.As a general rule, we are just way too sure of ourselves. This volume appears to be a continuation of The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb.
Foreign language acquisition assistance on the Web
Like a speech accent archive so that you know what it is supposed to sound like.
Nasal spray helps people fight chronic social phobias
Scientists say that DCS [D-Cycloserine, usually for TB] has no effect on fear on its own, but enhances the therapy sessions by changing the neurotransmitters in the brain associated with learning to overcome fear.
Boom 2 Borda
ProQuo -- stop paper junk mail
If it's free, then how does it make money?
In the future, ProQuo will allow consumers to request offers that they do want in addition to eliminating the offers that they don’t want. ProQuo will make money from the advertisers that provide these offers. ProQuo will only provide these offers when requested by consumers.
Reason for American Revolution not taxes
From Benjamin Franklin:
The Colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been the poverty caused by the bad influence of the English bankers on the Parliament, which has caused in the Colonies hatred of England and the Revolutionary War.There appears to be some kind of solution in the form of some buyout clause in the Federal Reserve Act.
A possible molelcular neurodevelopmental path in schizophrenia
The gene, GAD1, makes an enzyme essential for production of the chemical messenger, called GABA. The more the gene is turned on, the more GABA synthesis can occur, under normal circumstances. GABA helps regulate the flow of electrical traffic that enables brain cells to communicate with each other. It is among the major neurotransmitters in the brain.
Abnormalities in brain development and in GABA synthesis are known to play a role in schizophrenia, but the underlying molecular mechanisms are unknown. In this study, scientists discovered that defects in specific epigenetic actions – biochemical reactions that regulate gene activity, such as turning genes on and off so that they can make substances like the GAD1 enzyme – are involved.
Chronic subjugation of adolescent turns into aggression in adulthood
Using hamsters:
Their aggression was context dependent. In the presence of equal size hamsters, they showed little aggression; however, they were excessively aggressive toward smaller, younger animals.
Maher Arar gets apology from Congress for rendition
Monday, October 22, 2007
Level of oxytocin in pregnant women predicts mother-child bond
Oxytocin seems to be preparing mothers to engage in bonding behaviors. The findings also show that oxytocin is related to the mental, as well as the behavioral, aspect of bonding.
SueEasy -- ambulance chasers have a new home
The site is kind of a reverse directory for lawyers that’s sure to be a haven for personal injury lawsuits... Instead of searching for a lawyer, you list your case and lawyers find you. The site handles two major kinds of cases, class action and individual. Each of those sections is then divided into sub-categories such as DUI/DWI, bankruptcy, or asbestos settlements. Plaintiffs list their grievances in these categories and attach any relevant documentation.
Lawyers bid to contact potential clients with the highest bidder winning and Sue Easy getting the money.
Rat neurons in dish learn and control flight simulator
Article from 2004 that I might have mailed out pre-blog. Initially, the plane in the simulation just wanders aimlessly. The feedback cultivates patterns of recognition in the dish, and voila -- the damn plane is in controlled flight in the simulation.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Getting it real -- a print reporter turns into the creator of acclaimed HBO show, The Wire.
Using VMWare to survive a computer crash
- First, you set up a virtual machine that has everything you need to do your work - all the software, all the bookmarks, passwords and custom settings you want.
- Second, you save that “Virtual Machine” onto a DVD (or USB Flash Drive).
- Third, you save a copy of the free VMware Player and keep it handy.
HTI's revolutionary forward osmosis filtration system
The HTI products employ a proprietary membrane filter that is hydrophilic (attracts water), allows water to pass through, yet blocks very small contaminants due to the tight construction of the membrane. This allows a pure drink to be created from almost any water source, including highly turbid and toxic supply waters. A key innovation is that this is a passive system - requiring no pumping - which harnesses the osmotic potential created by the sugars and electrolytes in a sports drink syrup as the energy source to drive the filtration process.
64-bit -- more than just the RAM
Well, Vista has some hybrid thing going so that both 32- and 64-bit could be handled. I don't understand it, but we won't be going backwards.
Vitamin C and cancer
A little back-and-forth on the matter with some focus on experimental procedure.
Fujitsu advances color e-paper technology
The key to the incredibly meager power requirements is the ability of the liquid crystal display (which uses cholesteric liquid crystals) to hold a high-contrast, semi-permanent image once displayed without requiring any power whatsoever.
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