Hulleye Comes By!

you have to wonder how people with nutty minds work. it’s said that genius and insanity lie within very fine lines of each other and occasionally those paths cross over. i’m just trying to figure out what was going through the scientists minds when they thought up these science experiments. here you have the top 20 most bizarre science experiments of all time. everything from elephants on acid, to milgram’s punishment rituals, to electrically attempting to revive corpses and raising chimpanzees as their own young. it’s a fascinating read in trying to figure out what people do to achieve results within the field of science, psychology and sociology.

so a while back, there was lots of news that bee populations across the planet were disappearing. i’m not really sure why i didn’t blog it but it seemed like something that i would blog and i remember reading about it everywhere. now it seems like as bees go missing, it’s gonna cause an agricultural disaster of $9.3B in the US. alone.

We wouldn’t starve if the mysterious disappearance of bees, dubbed colony collapse disorder, or CCD, decimated hives worldwide. For one thing, wheat, corn, and other grains don’t depend on insect pollination.

But in a honeybee-less world, almonds, blueberries, melons, cranberries, peaches, pumpkins, onions, squash, cucumbers, and scores of other fruits and vegetables would become as pricey as sumptuous old wine. Honeybees also pollinate alfalfa used to feed livestock, so meat and milk would get dearer as well. Ditto for farmed catfish, which are fed alfalfa too.

And jars of honey, of course, would become golden heirlooms to pass along to the grandkids. (Used for millennia as a wound dressing, honey contains potent antimicrobial compounds that enable it to last for decades in sealed containers.)

In late June, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns starkly warned that “if left unchecked, CCD has the potential to cause a $15 billion direct loss of crop production and $75 billion in indirect losses.”

there’s not a whole lot of information on wikipedia about claytronics, but what from what i’ve understood and read about it, it will be one of the coolest new technologies of this century and may change the way we interact with objects. programmable matter. imagine that for a sec. that’s like being able to shapeshift. weirdly enough, intel is one of the big-wigs in this matter. i suppose where there’s programming, there’s a processor, and where theres a processor, it makes sense for intel to be there.

According to the Claytronics project’s Seth Goldstein and Todd Mowry, programmable matter is:

An ensemble of material that contains sufficient

local computation

actuation

storage

energy

sensing & communication
Which can be programmed to form interesting dynamic shapes and configurations.

Claytronics is their way of bringing this concept into reality.

With claytronics, millions of tiny individual devices — “claytronic atoms” or “catoms” — would assemble into macro-scale objects, connecting and disconnecting as they move.

here’s a fantastic video i saw the other day which though, in an extremely prototypical stage, can definitely demonstrate the potential of this technology. and here is the main page for the claytronics project which carnegie mellon is heading.

/. claims that Singapore Airlines will be rolling out the A380 superjumbo on October 26th, and a surprise awaits in the seat of every passenger: their personal Linux PC, running Red Hat. In addition to running the in-flight entertainment, passengers can also use a full copy of StarOffice, and there’s a USB slot for importing/exporting documents or plugging in your own keyboard/mouse. Screen size is 10.6″ (1280×768) in economy, 15.4″ in business and a whopping 23″ in first class (along with free noise-canceling headphones). The system is already available on current B777-300ER planes and will also be outfitted on the upcoming B787 Dreamliners.

I love Singapore Airlines and I’ve travelled on it quite a bit. I have always considered it one of the best airlines I’ve ever flown with. Glad to see they’re making even more upgrades.

physical modification and alteration is a culture little recognized and even less understood and widely regarded as freaky. here are the top ten freaks as per deputy dog.

more here.

Artist Frank Boelter set sails in his lifesize paper boat as he leaves a shipyard in Lauenburg, Germany.
He constructed the 9-metre vessel from ‘Tetrapack’ and fearlessly sailed it up the Elbe, despite the fact the light material is more commonly used for packaging milk.

Hi.

I’m not sure how many of you readers know me, but I’m sure its single digit. So I’m introducing myself, and that’s not something I’m really good at. I’ve been invited by the great man Halai to post on his blog. About what? Anything and everything specifically related to helping Windows users migrate to The Great Open Source Alternative, namely Linux. Actually, I’m here because this will help me get married someday in the near future in a short while. But first, some irrelevant history about me, if you may. Read the rest of this entry »

Dubai’s Chillout ice lounge is the first of its kind in the Middle East - nearly everything is made of ice, including chairs, tables, and glasses.

From the Chicago Sun-Times, Steven Pinker discusses what hangs and what doesn’t on looking at “dangerous” ideas.

• Would damage from terrorism be reduced if the police could torture suspects in special circumstances?
• Would Africa have a better chance of rising out of poverty if it hosted more polluting industries or accepted Europe’s nuclear waste?
• Is the average intelligence of Western nations declining because duller people are having more children than smarter people?
• Would unwanted children be better off if there were a market in adoption rights, with babies going to the highest bidder?
• Would lives be saved if we instituted a free market in organs for transplantation?
• Should people have the right to clone themselves, or enhance the genetic traits of their children?
• Perhaps you can feel your blood pressure rise as you read these questions. Perhaps you are appalled that people can so much as think such things. Perhaps you think less of me for bringing them up. These are dangerous ideas — ideas that are denounced not because they are self-evidently false, nor because they advocate harmful action, but because they are thought to corrode the prevailing moral order.
• By “dangerous ideas” I don’t have in mind harmful technologies, like those behind weapons of mass destruction, or evil ideologies, like those of racist, fascist or other fanatical cults. I have in mind statements of fact or policy that are defended with evidence and argument by serious scientists and thinkers but which are felt to challenge the collective decency of an age. The ideas listed above, and the moral panic that each one of them has incited during the past quarter century, are examples. Writers who have raised ideas like these have been vilified, censored, fired, threatened and in some cases physically assaulted.

• Dig unearths Neolithic settlement - The remains of a massive Neolithic settlement dating back more than 5,000 years have been discovered in Orkney
• Dust ‘comes alive’ in space - Times Online - SCIENTISTS have discovered that inorganic material can take on the characteristics of living organisms in space, a development that could transform views of alien life.
• China to map ‘every inch’ of the moon | The Register - China has announced plans to map “every inch” of the surface of the Moon as part of its ambitious space-exploration programme. (and mine the crap out of it)
• Invention: biological nanobattery - tech - 16 July 2007 - New Scientist Tech - The result is a capacitor just a few nanometres thick that can store charge between its layers - in other words a battery.
• Nanoparticles make cancer cells magnetic - tech - 16 July 2007 - New Scientist Tech - Turning cancer cells into mini magnets by using nanoparticles could make biopsies so sensitive and efficient that there will be no need to repeat these invasive tests
• Is dark energy lurking in hidden spatial dimensions? - space - 13 July 2007 - New Scientist Space - mysterious cosmic presence called dark energy, which is accelerating the expansion of the universe, might be lurking in hidden dimensions of space. The idea would explain how these dimensions remain stable

(Space Shuttle Endeavour, docked to the Pressurized Mating Adapter on the International Space Station)

• The Future of Blood
  Some researchers tinker with real blood; some create from scratch.
  
• Jaron’s World: Can Computers Recognize Faces?
  In at least one way, the smartest machines can’t match a baby.
  
• Fingerprint Technique Shows What You’ve Eaten
  Researchers can see the contaminants in an individual fingerprint.

via Discover

The Toyota pick-up truck roared through the green gates into the dusty walled compound and juddered to a halt inches from a small well. Eight figures, their faces swathed in cloth, stood up stiffly from their crouched positions before clambering down. They lifted their weapons gingerly from the floor where they had lain concealed. I counted five semi-automatics, a light machine gun and a green rocket-propelled grenade launcher before the vehicle’s driver slammed his door. Iran’s most wanted terrorist walked towards me with his hand extended, a dazzlingly white smile beneath a Pashtun hat.

But 24-year-old Abdulmalik Rigi is not Pashtun, he’s Baloch—an ethnic minority that straddles an area across southeast Iran, southwest Pakistan and south Afghanistan. In February, the Iranian city of Zahedan was hit by a bomb—for which Rigi claimed responsibility—that killed 11 Revolutionary Guards, and placed Rigi at the top of Tehran’s hitlist. A series of American media reports had linked Rigi’s guerrilla attacks to a wider US-sponsored covert war against Iran. Rigi had agreed to meet me, a western journalist, to publicly refute these allegations, which he says have been levelled against his group by the mullahs of Iran.

Balochistan is a vast expanse of territory separating the middle east from the Indian subcontinent (see below—the Baloch region is coloured pink). The Baloch people are ethnically heterogeneous but united by their language and culture, and their Sunni Islam faith. In the late 19th century, the highly tribal Baloch homeland was carved up by British India, Afghanistan and Persia, and the Baloch have thus never enjoyed a modern sovereign state. Nevertheless, the difficult terrain kept the Baloch relatively isolated, allowing them to preserve a centuries-old cultural heritage, and in both Iran and Pakistan they have offered armed resistance to central government control since the early 20th century.

keep reading.

From The New York Times:

An Indian woman in a flowing beaded gown glides through a pond. A mosquito net brushes over her lover. And to insistent drumbeats of the Indian heartland, a dancing phalanx of tunic-clad women twirls. These images appear in the trailer of a forthcoming movie, “Saawariya.” The melodramatic film, whose Hindi title means “beloved,” has an Indian director and cast. Its characters speak Hindi and burst into eight song-and-dance numbers. It is, in other words, vintage Bollywood — but for one thing.

It is brought to you by Hollywood.

The studio behind “Saawariya,” Sony Pictures Entertainment, is the first in a wave of American studios to produce their own kaleidoscopic Bollywood musicals. The American studios are keen to make money in India, but in a nation where $19 of every $20 spent at the box office goes to indigenous films, the studios are deciding to join Bollywood, not conquer it with their American-made fare.

More here.

- Scientists revive life frozen in Antarctic - Los Angeles Times
Scientists have recovered microorganisms from ancient Antarctic ice and coaxed it back to life in the lab, according to a study published today.

- BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Rare river dolphin ‘now extinct’
Yangtze river dolphins now “likely to be extinct”, a team of scientists has concluded.

- No real than you are
A huge Lego toy has mysteriously appeared on Zandvoort beach in Holland. Nobody knows where it comes from..

in light of teeth maestro tagging me, here i am with a simple statement for 14th of august this year. this is the state of affairs. this is what needs to be done to fix things and make merry. people are unhappy and unrestful. change is inevitable. i wish everyone a wonderful independence day. may the unspoken voices of the silent majority speak out and really show the government what they are capable of.

an amusing poem. if anyone knows the author of this poem, please let me know and i’ll credit it accordingly. clickety to make bigger.

here’s a translation as per zaed maqbool.

Uncle, lose the uniform, why don’t you?
Take your pension and leave, why don’t you?

Be a man for once, why don’t you?
Stick to your word, why don’t you?

Your time is at an end,
There’s no choice but to say goodbye
Haven’t you gobbled up enough already?
Broken the constitution with your own two hands
Go home with some dignity, why don’t you?
Uncle, lose the uniform, why don’t you?
Take your pension and leave, why don’t you?

Such high aims you have
To bring European culture right here
Our daughters and sisters run down the street
Running down the street in shorts
Drown yourself to a shameful death, why don’t you?
Uncle, lose the uniform, why don’t you?
Take your pension and leave, why don’t you?

You’re always running off to Washington,
Running off to butter up Bush,
Falling to his feet and groveling
And turning around and threatening the weak
Fight the real oppressor, why don’t you?
Uncle, lose the uniform, why don’t you?
Take your pension and leave, why don’t you?

Evil laid the chess board out
Found their pawn and made a move
You earned the brotherhood defeat
Stood fast by your friend, the Enemy
Be ashamed at your crime, why don’t you?
Uncle, lose the uniform, why don’t you?
Take your pension and leave, why don’t you?

Struck down and wounded your own people
Cut them up just like a butcher
Evil seems to egg you on
While all of Kashmir curses you
Show your power there, why don’t you?
Uncle, lose the uniform, why don’t you?
Take your pension and leave, why don’t you?

You kept murderers close to your heart
What did you get for all this oppression?
For spilling the blood of the Afghans?
For embarrassing Muslims everywhere?
Repent at what you’ve done, why don’t you?
Uncle, lose the uniform, why don’t you?
Take your pension and leave, why don’t you?

Open your eyes and see
America’s heartless terrorism
Killing people like insects
But honor does not fear power
So show some honor, why don’t you?
Uncle, lose the uniform, why don’t you?
Take your pension and leave, why don’t you?

Thieves and robbers of this nation
They’re all your friends, their bellies full
They run around with impunity
Going around raiding Mosques
Go right off to hell, why don’t you?
Uncle, lose the uniform, why don’t you?
Take your pension and leave, why don’t you?

i suppose i should explain my absence lately. it’s been a busy summer. let’s see, i last posted june 26th. that was about a month and a half ago. hmm…

well a lot of things been happening in the personal life. been trying to make the most of the summer. got me a new job. hanging out at sauble beach, playing my wii, spending time with the family that’s been hopping in and out of town, attempting to go camping, road trips to the states, a whole whack of weddings to attend, and a whole bunch of exciting new stuff that’s about to happen in my life.

also i’ve started creating a giant family database using open source software GRAMPS, and it’s been a very fun and rewarding project to be working with. if any of you are interested in your family history you should consider using it.

but primarily, i haven’t really had time to keep up with my feeds so i really didn’t feel it was worth giving you guys stale posts.

hopefully things will come back to normal fairly soon. thanks to all who regularly visited.

also since dave asked, and since the plastic poet has agreed, i’ll also be working on a giant FAQ page for moving users from windows to open source and document any responses to any questions you may have.