Stuff I Found

Saturday, September 30, 2006

Amazing Line Rider

Look at what this guy did with the "Draw a Snowy Hill Game" thing I blogged a few days ago... pretty darn cool.

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Famous peoples last words

Better than famous words of last people...

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Robot thinks people taste like bacon

"When a reporter's hand was placed against the robot's taste sensor, it was identified as prosciutto. A cameraman was mistaken for bacon."

Robots don't know it's not bacon!

The cameraman must be a pig.

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Friday, September 29, 2006

How well can you draw with your mouse?

Here's a fun game... but it gets hard... I am not good enough!

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Internet Channel on Wii

Surf the Internet on Wii... pretty cool, if you can get an Internet connection to work.

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Craigslist Founder Won't Sell out - Says "Who needs the Money?"

"The founder of craigslist, the free social networking and classifieds Web site, said on Thursday he is not interested in selling out, a few hours after social networking site MySpace was valued at $15 billion."

" "We both know some people who own more than a billion (dollars) and they're not any the happier. They also need bodyguards," he said. "

Aw... how nice of him I guess... yeah, who wants billions of dollars anyway?

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Thursday, September 28, 2006

Classical Guitar

Now here's some beautiful guitar playing...

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50 Pounds Of Silly Putty Off A Building

"Ever wonder what would happen if you dropped 50 lbs of Silly Putty from the 7th floor of an office building? Wonder no more!"

Hint: it doesn't bounce.

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Microsoft Sues Hacker

"The world's largest software maker is suing the developer of a program that allows users to circumvent digital rights protection from Microsoft's Windows Media Audio (WMA) song format."

According to a Microsoft spokesperson: "it's hard to get our job done when there's somebody out there that obviously knows way more about programming than we do, so we're just going to have to tell ourselves that he's cheating and sue him."

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Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Harry Potter 5 Photos...

Here are some pictures from the new Harry Potter... good thing they finally got haircuts. That is not at all how imagined Umbridge looking, but it looks like it should work well. Pink + Hogwarts = Ew...

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Space Transportation Systems: How Space Elevators Will Work

Here's a look at how space elevators will hopefully work... I didn't read it, I don't have time for that... I just looked at the pictures and it looks pretty cool, gee wiz.

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Antimatter discovery could launch new era of physics

"The discovery that a bizarre particle travels between the real world of matter and the spooky realm of antimatter 3 trillion times a second may open the door to a new era of physics, Fermilab researchers announced Monday."

As a Fermilab scientist states "What we really want to do is attach a camera to one of these particles so we can see what the world of antimatter looks like. It's kind of like holding on to a fishing rod as a big fish swims away into another dimension."

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Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Large Cave Discovered in Sequoia National Park (Pictures Included)

"Four amateur cave explorers in Sequoia National Park have discovered a vast cave formed 1 million years ago, a labyrinth that stretches more than 1,000 feet into a mountain and features some of the most beautiful rock formations ever seen."

Unfortunately there is no treasure... or anything worth anything.

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Can you defuse the bomb?

"15 minutes, and a bomb in a briefcase. Can you do it?"

This was a fun game... and it was EASY so if you blow up you are really dumb...

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Scientists Discover 'Shadow Person'

"Ever feel as though you’re being followed? As if someone is behind you, shadowing your every move? It might be your ‘shadow person’, created by unusual activity in a specific brain region, a new study shows."

Have you ever been reading a book or watching TV when you see someone out of the corner of your eye come into the room? You ignore it and focus on what you're doing, but you are conscious of the other person... and then when you look up and the person left without you noticing, you feel a bit weird? Well, if that's never happened to you, you're weird because it's happened to me... perhaps because of some of the same reasons as in the study, i.e. there's a part of your brain that stays conscious of where others are... kinda creepy...

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Monday, September 25, 2006

Funny Airport Security Flash Game

Fun game... a bit annoying though...

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NEW Sand Game

Fun toy...

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Top 10 Worst Portrayals of Technology in Film

"Here's the top 10 list of the worst techno-blunders in film. Rest assured, Hackers is not number one."

Funny stuff...

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Sunday, September 24, 2006

Nintendo's Launch Advertising Slogan to be "Wii Move You"

"Using the slogan 'Wii Move You', the Japanese gaming giant is set to take full advantage Sony's decision to hold the PlayStation 3 launch back until the New Year."

At first I read it as 'Wii Love You'... but I guess "move" can mean the same thing...

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Draw a snowy hill game...

Draw a hill, then watch a rider take it on... fun stuff.

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Triple Sunrise

"Today, the Sun rises due east at the Equinox, a geocentric astronomical event that occurs twice a year. To celebrate, consider this view of the rising Sun and a lovely set of ice halos recorded on a cold winter morning near Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA, planet Earth."

Nice, and even better than Tattooland, or whatever planet that Skywalker guy was on...

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Rocket Scientists Not As Smart as Originally Thought

"Rocket scientists, long considered the gold standard in intelligence among all professionals, are not nearly as smart as originally thought, according to a controversial new study published today by the American Association of Brain Surgeons."

The study finds that, of course, brain surgeons are the smartest. However, let's keep in mind that they truly have the ability to make the people around them dumber.

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Saturday, September 23, 2006

Gooey puzzle game

Fun game... gets boring after a while...

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Friday, September 22, 2006

Cutting in Line: The Science Behind Line Jumping

"A study was done to determine how often, and which people would object to this. When a person intruded into a line, this resulted in an objection 54% of the time."

One of the most important studies of our time!

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Leo Laporte "Person of the Year in Podcasting"

"Podcast & Portable Media Expo today announced that Grape Radio and Leo Laporte are the 2006 recipients of the conference's "Podcast of the Year" and "Person of the Year in Podcasting" awards, respectively."

Yay! I love TWiT!

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A music site provides a guilty pleasure

"Sure, the Internet has revolutionized the spread of information and all that high-minded stuff, but its combination of reach and anonymity also makes it the greatest enabler of guilty pleasures ever invented. Indulgence is just a click away, and nobody needs to know, except you and some server somewhere."

Wow, it's true! While I go around insulting any music that isn't Mozart or at least anything with too many drums, I secretly have a growing passion for them... please don't tell.

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An Artificial Heart That Doesn't Beat

"A new concept for an artificial heart could solve some of those issues. But its innovative pulse-free architecture might also raise problems of its own."

... like how to know when users officially die.

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Sony Rips off MacBook Design.

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but Sony may have taken this one a little too far. The consumer electronic giant's latest notebook looks like a blatant ripoff of Apple's wildly popular MacBook."

... says blogger Jason O'Grady. However, the truth is it looks like any other laptop, but this is only the second laptop he has a ever seen.

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Thursday, September 21, 2006

Great console game graphics... Japanese game

The game play graphics don't look that spectacular, but the cel-shading from the cut scenes is definitely the best I have ever seen. Pretty darn cool!

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Earth - View from Saturn

"Earth is captured here in a natural color portrait made possible by the passing of Saturn directly in front of the sun from Cassini's point of view. At the distance of Saturn's orbit, Earth is too narrowly separated from the sun for the spacecraft to safely point its cameras and other instruments toward its birthplace without protection from the sun's glare."

That's just a fire fly that got smooshed on the camera during take off...

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Scientists Discover New Ring and Other Features at Saturn

"Saturn sports a new ring in an image taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Sunday, Sept. 17, during a one-of-a-kind observation."

Wow, where did that ring come from? Because, of course, how many rings Saturn was thought to have was common sense.

In other news, scientists found a new creator on the moon.

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Report lays out science map for return to moon

"Scientific missions to the moon should concentrate on sampling its thin atmosphere and on examining as much of the lunar surface as possible, the National Research Council advised on Tuesday."

Scientists also want to take a trampoline to see how high they can jump.

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Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Another fun Qix like game.

Fun stuff!

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String Theory Hanging on by a Thread?

"String theory is on the ropes. After decades of prominence as the key to physics' elusive "theory of everything," challengers say the hypothesis is unraveling.
Why? Because there haven't been experiments to prove it — and there don't seem to be any on the horizon."

Well, the ether turned out to be ... oh wait.

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NASA's plans to return to the moon

"A panel of scientists strongly endorsed NASA's plans to return to the moon, saying in a report Tuesday that lunar exploration will open the way toward broader studies of the Earth and solar system."

Because something might have changed...

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Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Infect. Evolve. Repeat. - bloody addictive!

Another fun game, though I really stink at it... I could only make it to level 8.

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Tontie (Flash Game)

I always die on level 7... fun game!

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Pirates 3 will end trilogy but not sequel

"Disney head honchos have revealed that though the third ‘Pirates’ film will conclude the trilogy, it was “unlikely” that it will be the last sequel of the mega-hit movie."

Of course Disney wants to keep making money off of such momentum, so what else would they do? Remember, they've made a bunch of pretty stupid sequels to their animated movies. However, can you imagine a Pirates movie without Depp or Bloom? What fun would that be? Disney is stupid.

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Monday, September 18, 2006

Space Shuttle Atlantis Liftoff Viewed From Airplane!

This guy watched Atlantis travel into space from an air plane... pretty cool pictures!

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The Seventh Sense

"From childhood, we are taught that the human body has five senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. However, ask a neurologist how many senses the human body has, and you might get a surprising answer."

Well, it's not exactly surprising, but certainly interesting.

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Sunday, September 17, 2006

Can you get the car out?

Here's a fun little Myst-like game. It's pretty poor design... compared to Myst at least, but better than anything I could do graphics wise. It only took me about 15 minutes to pass, while others I've known have gotten stuck... what losers! It's not that hard...

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Saturday, September 16, 2006

Wii WILL Support Flash Games!

It sounds cool... but will a majority of Wii users be getting on the Internet? I doubt it, though this is interesting news nonetheless.

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Simple but addictive mouse game!

Another simple game... fun stuff!

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Over 100 Top FREE PC Games!

"A list of all the games posted in the 'Free Games' thread on the Whirlpool Broadband Forums. All games are 'freeware' and legal to download. Shareware and demo games are not included."

Woohoo! A list of free games to waste your time on!

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Math for Geniuses

Woo, this is funny stuff.

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Friday, September 15, 2006

How to Burn a Three Terabyte CD

"A research team at Harvard University has developed a technique that could help to significantly boost the capacity of conventional optical discs. They've fabricated a nano antenna--built directly onto an inexpensive, off-the-shelf laser--that focuses light to a much smaller spot size than is possible with even the best traditional lenses, potentially enabling more bits to be written onto an optical disc."

Wouldn't that be nice?

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Report: Majority Of Americans Unprepared For Apocalypse

"Over 87 percent of Americans are unprepared to protect themselves from even the most basic world-ending scenarios, according to a study released Monday by the nonpartisan doomsday think-tank The Malthusian Institute."

... the good old Onion!

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Astronomers discover strange new planet

"With a radius about 1.38 times that of Jupiter, HAT-P-1 is the largest known planet. But, in spite of its huge size, its mass is only half that of Jupiter."

Wild stuff...

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Thursday, September 14, 2006

Why Sudoku makes your brain ache

"No wonder Sudoku puzzles give your brain a good work-out. Scientists say solving them depends on neural pathways that even the most powerful computers can't replicate."

I guess I should start playing Sudoku...

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Scientists Unravel Mystery of People with No Fingerprints

"Researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have succeeded in unraveling the genetic basis of two rare congenital diseases in which afflicted persons have no fingerprints. The results will be published in the October 2006 issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics."

Yikes, and I though Mr. Lampshire was only joking! However, this does not seem to be caused by clicking too much on a computer mouse.

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Current Trends In Web Design

"The article explains current web design trends, shows distinctive elements with examples."

Cool stuff!

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Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Gear Puzzle

Here's another fun game, though not very innovative or rewarding... but nice graphics!

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Drag the dot

"Don't touch anything"

Innovative game, but gets boring after a while...

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Random Event Generators Predict The Future

"... They claim that when an important event occurs, such as the 9/11 terrorist attack or the Indian Ocean tsunami, the random event generators start to display patterns that should not exist in truly random sequences."

Wow, and I believe in ghosts too!

Now I will predict the future: it will happen... ! Oh, I was right!

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Moderate drinkers end up better thinkers

"ANU researchers Dr Kaarin Anstey and Dr Bryan Rodgers found that people who had drunk moderate amounts of alcohol (14-28 standard drinks a week for men and 7-14 standard drinks a week for women) performed significantly better than those who were heavy drinkers (over 28 and 14 standard drinks for men and women respectively) and those who rarely or never drank."

Is 14 to 28 drinks a week moderate?! Geez, you'd have to have a bit of the juice of the barley for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and as a topping on your ice-cream... *hiccup*

No wonder us Irish people is so smart! Erin go bragh!

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'Baby Bang' experiment to create min-blackholes and open new dimensions

"Deep underground on the Franco-Swiss border, someone will throw a switch next year to start one of the most ambitious experiments in history, probing the secrets of the universe and possibly finding new dimensions."

I am quite conCERNed... get it? Right now, out there somewhere, is a wee proton whose fate is to be accelerated into oblivion... and reveal the secrets of the universe... which will lead to more secrets that we cannot uncover until we build an even bigger atom smasher...

"Dr Cox dismissed worries that by adventuring into the unknown and creating tiny black holes, the machine could even destroy the planet. "The probability is at the level of 10 to the minus 40," he said."

This means if more than 10^40 experiments are carried out, the world will definitely be destroyed.

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Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Cool design for a fire station

Not really! This may be innovative for a fire station, but it's not innovative architecture. Someone pulled a Peter Keating... "oh, but I can do modern too!"

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Galileo's Middle Finger

"After Galileo Galilei died, his students stole the middle finger off of his corpse and managed to preserve it. Amazingly it still survives today in this collection."

First of all, this is utterly disgusting. Second of all, after all these years, he's still giving us the finger... tsk tsk tsk!

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Get Drunk Without the Hangover

"A British scientist's recent announcement that he had found a way to develop a drug that mimics the happy effects of alcohol--sociability and relaxation--without producing next-day headaches or ravaging the body sparked an immediate controversy."

Wow... sociability... I wonder what that would be like! Yummy, I want this drug in my cran-grape juice!

One woman says “The question I have is, do we want people that intoxicated without any negative feedback?”

What kind of a stupid question is that? Of course we do... if there is nothing negative about it then it's not negative! Stupid dunderhead!

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Monday, September 11, 2006

"Pirates" sequel third-biggest film of all time

"The swashbuckler epic "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" has become the third film to pass $1 billion at the worldwide box office, distributor Walt Disney Co. said on Saturday."

Um... yay, I guess. I just like the music... I haven't even seen the movie yet.

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Network of Small Telescopes Find a Big Planet

"A network of amateur astronomers has discovered an extrasolar planet located 500 light years away. This incredible discovery was made using a technique that measures the brightness of thousands of stars, watching for a periodic dimming."

It's too big to have life on it, but yippee anyway!

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Space shuttle Atlantis finally blasts off from Kennedy Space Center

... and I am finally blogging it!

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Sunday, September 10, 2006

Men Smarter than Women, Scientist Claims

"Men are smarter than women, according to a controversial new study that adds another cinder to the fiery debate over whether gender impacts general intelligence."

Now how will I ever get a girlfriend if I blog stuff like this?

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Atomic Clocks Are Getting More Precise

Some physicists are creating a revolution in the arcane world of ultra-precise clocks. And among them is a researcher who has trouble getting anywhere on time. "I do tend to be a little bit late," said Jim Bergquist, 58. "Quite a bit late."

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Over 60 amazing optical illusions

This is a good place to waste quite a lot of time!

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Saturday, September 09, 2006

Earth-like Planets May be More Common Than Once Thought

"More than one-third of the giant planet systems recently detected outside Earth's solar system may harbor Earth-like planets, many covered in deep oceans with potential for life, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder and Pennsylvania State University."

Um... yay! Whoop-dee-doo!

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New Theory on Particle Spin Brings Science Closer to Quantum Computing

"Physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have devised a potentially groundbreaking theory demonstrating how to control the spin of particles without using superconducting magnets — a development that could advance the field of spintronics and bring scientists a step closer to quantum computing."

Alright! Great work! Now hurry up with that quantum computer, you don't want to have to wait until my stupid generation takes over because we'd never figure it out.

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Hubble Captures Possible Planetary System

"Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have photographed one of the smallest objects ever seen around a normal star beyond our Sun. Weighing in at 12 times the mass of Jupiter, the object is small enough to be a planet. The conundrum is that it's also large enough to be a brown dwarf, a failed star."

Can a binary system form like that? Perhaps if the stars formed separately and then somehow worked themselves into an orbit... but that would be even more unlikely. I would guess it's a planet, even though I'm stupid about these "is it a planet or a star" questions.

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Researchers Identify "Male Warrior Effect"

"New research has shown that men bond together and cooperate well in the face of adversity to protect their interests more than women, which could explain why war is almost exclusively a male business, according to Professor Mark van Vugt of the University of Kent in southern England."

Unfortunately hippies were excluded from the study so scientists are not sure what effect they have on the world's population.

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Netflix sues Blockbuster for patent infringement

"A legal clash between Blockbuster Inc. and Netflix Inc. has triggered a patent debate over who has the right to offer DVD-rental services over the Internet."

Sounds like Netflix just wants Blockbuster out of the way because Blockbuster does a much better job of doing the job! Too bad, Netflix... too bad.

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Friday, September 08, 2006

Will Wright writes about games

I found this article, written back in April 2006, to be quite interesting. Will Wright is turning into my hero! Here he writes about how computer games have changed the way children are learning. He writes:

"In an era of structured education and standardized testing, this generational difference might not yet be evident. But the gamers' mindset - the fact that they are learning in a totally new way - means they'll treat the world as a place for creation, not consumption. This is the true impact videogames will have on our culture."

The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken

Here is a great video on YouTube... enjoy!

Party Animal? Don't Blame Your Genes

"According to the study, published in the August issue of PLoS Genetics, genetics account for roughly 51% of a person's height, weight and body shape, 25% of cardiovascular function and about 40% of certain blood characteristics, such as sugar and cholesterol levels. But genes only account for about 19% of many documented personality traits, such as neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness."

Wow, this is just amazing, I can't believe it!

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Wanted: Assistant for Stephen Hawking

"Wanted: Bright graduate student to assist world-famous scientist. International travel, developing computer systems and dealing with the press required."

The fame and the money would be nice, but I don't think this would be a job for the faint of heart... or the people who have useful things to do with their time, like blogging...

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Dolphins seem to be deep thinkers

"All the dolphins at the institute are trained to hold onto any litter that falls into their pools until they see a trainer, when they can trade the litter for fish. In this way, the dolphins help to keep their pools clean."

'Seem' is the key word. They are actually quite stupid. Unless you are comparing them to dust, in which case, yes, they are really smart.

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Put that in your mousetrap: mice don't like cheese!

"Mice, contrary to popular belief and cartoons like Tom and Jerry, don't actually like cheese, British researchers said Wednesday after studying their diet and those of other animals."

Please sir, I don't want some cheese! Can you believe this? Doesn't this make the trailer for Pixar's new rat movie a bit meaningless?!

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Another shuttle delay - from Thursday to FRIDAY

"NASA will postpone the launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis from Thursday to Friday to solve an electrical problem, a spokesman for the US space agency said."

Well, hopefully Friday... oh, that's today!

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Woman in coma "plays tennis"

"Brain scans of a woman who has been in a vegetative state for five months show her imagining playing tennis and responding to commands, researchers report."

The brain is quite amazing...

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Thursday, September 07, 2006

The Most Complicated Video Game Controller Ever Devised

"And you thought video game controllers were over-complicated these days; this one requires five (slightly-pudgy child) hands just to use it properly."

This is what the revolutionary Wii controllers should have looked like...

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Genetic engineers breed a mouse that's "permanently cheerful"

"Researchers at the University of Nice, in France say they have made a depression-resistant strain of mice by breeding them without the TREK-1 gene."

Wow, I wouldn't mind being a permanently cheerful person! Just think, teachers could give me homework that would waste my time and I'd say "Golly gosh! This is the bee's knees! I love you!" We'd be happy forever! Bring on the soma!

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Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Why Quantum Mechanics Is Not So Weird after All

"Richard Feynman's "least-action" approach to quantum physics in effect shows that it is just classical physics constrained by a simple mechanism. When the complicated mathematics is left aside, valuable insights are gained."

Huh? I'm still completely confused...

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Spitzers View of the Large Magellanic Cloud

"NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope recently captured this image of the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of a handful of dwarf galaxies that orbit the Milky Way."

Ain't it pretty? It's actually a mosaic made up of... say... 300,000 individual frames... whew!

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Telephone Telepathy - I Was Just Thinking About You

"Many people have experienced the phenomenon of receiving a telephone call from someone shortly after thinking about them -- now a scientist says he has proof of what he calls telephone telepathy."

"Each person in the trials was asked to give researchers names and phone numbers of four relatives or friends. These were then called at random and told to ring the subject who had to identify the caller before answering the phone. "The hit rate was 45 percent, well above the 25 percent you would have expected," he told the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science."

The 55% that got it wrong forgot to check the caller ID. Oopsies!

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Watching a Single Thought Form in the Brain

"One of the long-term goals of the field of neuro-imaging is to understand what a person is thinking just by looking at the pattern of his or her brain activity--in essence, reading the mind. While that feat is still a long way off, scientists at the University of New Mexico have taken an important step by refining neuro-imaging techniques to the point where they can reliably detect a single thought forming in an individual's brain."

Isn't the brain an insane thing?! Fascinating stuff. This articles caused many thoughts to form in my brain.

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Captain Kirk scared of space

He's not actually scared of space, he's scared of the vomit the trip might cause, not to mention the possibility of some fiery explosion, fatal crash, and some kind of horrible death that might be involved in the first passenger space flight in 2008...

I wouldn't want to be on the first flight either... I mean, this isn't Rearden Metal railroad we're talking about. Still, after crashes have killed the first few hundred thrill-seekers and all the problems get worked out, space travel would be extremely exciting!

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eBay User Pays $9,214 for AOL 1.0 Startup Disc

"This week, Todd Farmer of West Chester, PA, sold his mint-condition AOL 1.0 startup disc for over $9,000 in an online auction."

I believe the buyer said something like, "Oh, I just wanted to throw away my money in a way a lot of people notice, duh-huh-huh!"

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Facebook Users Revolt, Facebook Replies

"There has been an overwhelmingly negative public response to Facebook’s launch of two new products yesterday."

Hmmm... I didn't even notice the changes until after a joined a group against them...

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The Top 100 PC Games of the 21st Century

Wow, what an idiotic list... no Monkey Island? Interesting though...

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Tuesday, September 05, 2006

New attempts to crack Saturn's 'walnut' moon

"The mysterious equatorial ridge on Saturn's moon Iapetus is either a fossil ring system that fell to the surface, or a pile up of crustal rocks formed as the satellite changed its shape."

That is one strange looking ridge...

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Cool Sofa Morphs Into Bunk-Beds

"Doc, A sofa with removable covers and integrated/patented mechanism which transforms the sofa into a bunk bed."

I think the reason we do not see many of these is because the idea is completely stupid. How often are people sitting on the couch thinking, "man, if only this could be a bunk bed..."? Never.

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Monday, September 04, 2006

Playing with 'particles' game...

I have no idea what this is about, but it looks cool.

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Are Games Art Yet?

This is a big long article addressing the question... but I have another question: who cares? My goodness! Ebert said some time ago that video games were not art, though of course he doesn't play them or anything. However, when did anybody start caring about what Ebert says?! Now, you can write a big long article, or a college thesis, about why or why not a computer game is art and what art is and all that crap, but in the end it seems pretty irrelevant.

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Synaesthesia: The sound of paintings

"According to a University College London (UCL) neuroscientist speaking at the BA Festival of Science, music and art are connected in everyone’s brain but it takes a rare condition called synaesthesia to be conscious of it."

Well, I must admit, I am not conscious of it... but just think about how much film music affects the mood of the images.

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Australian scientists begin human tests on 'bionic eye'

"Australian researchers developing a "bionic eye" say early tests have succeeded in stimulating limited visual sensation in people suffering a rare form of genetic blindness."

Well, now, that's pretty darn amazing!

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£700,000 - Clinton's bill for just three speeches in London and Dublin

That's a lot of money to make for just blathering on and on... I'm a bit jealous...

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Toothbrush that plays music as you clean your teeth via your jawbone

"Scientists have invented a remarkable toothbrush that lets you listen to pop songs while you scrub away - by transmitting the sound waves through your teeth and jawbone to your ear."

Nothin' like a little teeth music...

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The Crocodile Man, Steve Irwin, is dead.

"The Crocodile Man, Steve Irwin, is dead. He was killed in a freak accident in Cairns, police sources said. It appeared that he was killed by a sting-ray barb that went through his chest, Queensland Police Inspector Russell Rhodes said."

His friends and family will be in my thoughts and prayers; may he be with God and rest in peace.

:(

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Want to Improve Education? Let Kids Sleep

"As a father of two teenage boys, I can attest to the fact that the single greatest teen crisis in America is not drugs, alcohol, smoking or early sexual activity, but sleep deprivation. Tuesday marks the start of the school year in our district in Fairfax, Va., and for the better part of the next nine months my kids will shuffle through the day resembling the zombies from "Night of the Living Dead." The reason that so many kids today appear to be slouching toward Gomorrah is simply that they lack sleep."

Moving back the starting bell would certainly help to a certain degree. Another way to give kids more sleep would be to stop giving out busywork. Ahem, you know who you are! Also the subjects that are taught and how they are taught need a major revisiting. Moving back the starting bell would be a good starting point.

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Amazon Book Reviews (by someone who hasn't read the books!) - Hilarious

This moron reviews a bunch of books he hasn't read... and often his review has nothing to do with the book at all... quite funny.

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Sunday, September 03, 2006

'Scream' recovered... due to candy?

"Norwegian police have recovered one of the world's most famous paintings, the expressionist work "The Scream" by Edvard Munch, they told CNN Thursday... Ironically, the painting's recovery comes just days after M&M's launched a new ad campaign offering 2 million dark chocolate M&Ms for the return of the painting."

Does this mean the Norwegian police will gain lots of weight due to high chocolate intake?

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Taking a ride on the moon - new PC gaming software

"Virtue Arts, based in Los Angeles, has developed software that renders the exact physics and topology of the moon in a 3D game, letting players drive the lunar surface, gaze at the galaxy or study objects that were left by NASA astronauts on real missions."

This looks extremely interesting, but I don't have time to get into it right now. Somebody please test it out for me and tell me how it is... thanks!

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Hyrule to take 45 minutes to cross - Twilight Princess

"Twilight Princess will not only be bigger - a horse ride from one side of Hyrule to the next is rumored to take 45 real minutes - but much more ambitious than ever before. Link turns into a wolf, crossed into a dark dimension, goes fishing, and rides his way into more dungeons than ever - and he's just getting started."

Ogglespogglemigursky! Wii will be worth buying just to play this game... I hope I can afford it, though I guess won't be able to.

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8-bit Super Mario World

"For those who don’t already know, a hacker managed to squeeze a pirated Super Mario World ROM onto an 8-bit NES cartridge, minus the color depth, smooth frame rate, and music quality. Videos after the jump."

Whew... this is insane.

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NASA's Orion Moonship Site

"Orion will succeed the space shuttle as NASA's primary vehicle for human space exploration. Orion's first flight with astronauts onboard is planned for no later than 2014 to the International Space Station. Its first flight to the moon is planned for no later than 2020."

The galaxy lies on Orion's belt. Well, not really, but Orion is looking pretty spiffy!

"The spacecraft will return humans to the moon to stay for long periods as a testing ground for the longer journey to Mars."

Ho ho ho! Mars!

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Pluto-bound Probe Snaps First Photo

"NASA's Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft has snapped its first high-resolution photo, an image of distant stars that shows the probe's high-resolution camera works."

Yay! It works! Just nine more years until the spacecraft reaches the small planet... er... thingy way out in the boonies of our solar system.

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NASA plans sun-watching sentinels

"The Solar Sentinels mission, only in an early discussion phase, would provide important data on heavy doses of solar radiation that can threaten astronauts and the electronic components of their spacecraft."

Better than SOHO?

"The SOHO spacecraft already watches radiation storms lifting off the sun, and the soon-to-launch STEREO mission will provided a better view in three dimensions. But some scientists say more is needed to learn about the radiation threats to future explorers, who would be in space for months and venture beyond the relative protection offered by Earth's magnetic field to crews aboard the international space station."

It would really stink to be killed by a solar flare...

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Is Titan Earth's Closest Cousin in the Solar System?

"Titan is an analog of the active Earth, without the biology and with methane replacing water."

Doesn't the lack of biology make Titan lose considerable interest points? Still, it's far more interesting the boring old rocky Mars.

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Saturday, September 02, 2006

Another fun game...

A simple, yet fun game. My high score: 247245

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Hubble Captures a Rare Eclipse on Uranus

"This image is a never-before-seen astronomical alignment of a moon traversing the face of Uranus, and its accompanying shadow. The white dot near the center of Uranus’ blue-green disk is the icy moon Ariel."

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Spying With a Fly's Eyes

"For more than 150 years, photographers have wrestled with the problem of exposure... Now researchers think they may have found a way to overcome this challenge and perhaps create a new generation of video cameras that can see clearly no matter what the light conditions. The team took its inspiration from the humble housefly."

Awesome! This has science fiction short story idea written all over it. That's a metaphor. I better get to it. It will be called "Flies" or maybe "Fly Spy"

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CERN's Massive Physics Experiment

"Protons, electrons, positrons, quarks, gluons, muons, shmuons! I should have paid better attention to my high school physics teacher."

Well, high school physics teachers tend to be too stupid to know much about quarks and gluons (hence the reason they're teaching high school). Still, this huge atom smasher looks pretty darn nice. Perhaps scientists will finally spot the graviton. The article mentions Dan Brown's book, Angels and Bad Things (or whatever). Dan Brown is really annoying, isn't he? Too bad I haven't read any of his books. Nonetheless, I look forward to CERN's atom smashing.

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How Geniuses Work

Finally you can understand how I work...

Acually, the article is trite... except for when it says "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Genius"

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Discord over guitar sites

"With the fight against illegal downloading of songs starting to pay off, the music business has set its sights on a new enemy on the internet - websites which transcribe pop songs into musical notation."

Well, that is pretty stupid... I think...

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Algorithms to Calculate Unusual Behavior

"National ICT Australia (NICTA) scientists are developing advanced surveillance technologies including software algorithms to track "inappropriate behavior" in public places."

Yeah... good luck with that!

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Friday, September 01, 2006

A TESTABLE Alternative to String Theory

"Alain Connes's noncommutative geometry offers an alternative to string theory. In fact, being directly testable, it may be better than string theory"

Quite interesting!

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