Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Nano Radio!

A working radio, built from a single nanotube! Even cooler, the first song transmitted was the Star Wars theme.

Small world tidbit: Alex Zettl taught me third semester intro physics at Berkeley, which covered quantum mechanics and particle theory. I'll always remember his practical demonstration of quantum tunnelling. He was complaining about how all these educational catalogs had these expensive mockups to demonstrate an energy wave state propagating across material that it should not be able to, and he said, all of them were wrong anyway. So, he brought in an amp meter and a AA battery. He said, "You want to see quantum tunnelling? There!" He touched the probe to the battery node, and the amp meter beeped. He told us that quantum tunnelling happens all the time, because of the small layer of oxidized metal on top of every common conductor. There was no need to bring in some heavy aquarium to show a wave hit a wall and then continue on the other side of a separator with air in it. The wave went around the air pocket by being transfered by the aquarium glass anyway, so that sucked. But whenever you plug your earphones into your walkman (this was 1995, okay?), quantum tunnelling allows the current to carry across a non-conducting material. Zettl was known as a top dog in solid state physics at the time, so I guess he still is. I wonder if he still has the best mustache in Birge Hall.

Someone Likes The Tour de France's Course

Remember when I said that next year's Tour route was suited to time-trial specialists and climbers? Well, a noted time-trial specialist and climber is licking his lips in anticipation: Levi Leipheimer. The only stage he won in this year's Tour was the time trial on the second to the last stage. He finished second or third on most of the mountain-top finishes, but kept losing time to Rassmussen and Contador because of the time bonuses. So what is Levi all excited about in the tour route?

Leipheimer says the interesting mix of shorter time trials and four summit finishes represents a perfect recipe for what he expects will be victory for his new home at Astana.

Levi also complained about the elimination of the time bonuses, saying they will hurt the climbers, but that's only because there will be attacks in the middle of the course to make a gap, as opposed to attacking on the last climb to make up time or pad a cushion. Cadel Evans, who finished 23 seconds behind Contador, and 8 seconds ahead of Leipheimer, probably isn't missing those time bonuses at all. Expect Contador to do a lot of wind tunnel training during the winter.

Sex With Bikes...

No. Not "Sexy Bikes." Sex with a bike. I'm trying very hard not to picture the required logistics, mainly because, as someone who is accustomed to having his crotch attached to a bike seat for hours on end, different tactile sense receptors are activated than one usually associates with pleasurable adventures. All I know is, the man convicted of "sexual breach of the peace" better be using a bio-degreaser in the aftermath...

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Communist Lesions?

Communist theory the product of weeping pustules? Sounds about right.

In addition to reducing his ability to work, which contributed to his depressing poverty, hidradenitis greatly reduced his self-esteem," said Shuster, who published his findings in the British Journal of Dermatology.

"This explains his self-loathing and alienation, a response reflected by the alienation Marx developed in his writing."

Of course, what do dermatologists know about depression being the genesis of a wholly depressing economic utopia? Their purview is body image issues and dating. Plus, the whole British thing...

Monday, October 29, 2007

Confessions of a Casual Gamer

As someone who has Bejeweled on his cellphone, I also have to admit that I play casual games. The conventional thinking, that casual games are mainly for women, has been blown apart by this latest study:

The reason men have not been reflected in the data so far is because most males are fans of realistic "hardcore" games and many do not admit they like to play simpler games involving shiny gems or lines of colored balls.

People have to remember, most guys grew up playing "casual games" on their portable gaming devices. Tetris and Breakout totally wore out the screen on my Gameboy. Also, most arcade games of 1980's could be classified as casual games today. Single screen games, like Space Invaders, as opposed to side-scrollers or platform jumpers, like Super Mario Brothers or Defender, didn't need you to pay that much attention to the game, at least until things started going super-crazy like in Galaga. But if men want to spend three hours playing a game, instead of watching lame network television, then bring on the flesh-rotting zombies!

Flawed Study Bolsters Stereotype

A mind-popping headline purports that one-third of former American football players have had gay experiences. But you have to read through the story to find out that the sample was small (47), and that they were picked out of a larger sample of male college cheerleaders. The study does not say what the proportion of those who experienced homosexual encounters were for the larger population, in which there does exist a stereotype that they draw a larger proportion of gay men compared to the general American population. The authors try to draw some feel-good conclusions about prejudices disappearing, but one could draw the opposite conclusion: that gay male athletes congregate toward "safer" disciplines, and that there is no decline at all in biases in the football locker room. Now, allow me to display my own bias here: I immediately distrust any sociological or epidemiological paper published in Britain, and my prejudice here has been borne out again.

Friday, October 26, 2007

Helmety Cinematic Culture

The Red vs. Blue crew from Blood Gulch have always been pretty savvy with applying cross-cultural cinematic styles in their story telling. From community theater to nihilistic absurdism, even to the Scooby Doo reveal, they've been very good with capturing the pacing and elements of those styles. But now, they're taking on Europe, that vague general area somewhere over there, so it's the right time to present French boredom, German techno-pop, and good ol' American car chases with explosions! Also, somehow, a Japanese Power Ranger commercial got in there...



"I sure do love - HAVING WHEAT - and - NIKOLAI PETROVSKY."

Some good news for Red vs. Blue fans: There will be more episodes coming! They're going to do a "serious" miniseries, their last on the Halo 2 platform, to transition the story to Halo 3. So my worst fears did not come true. Whew!

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Next Year's Tour de France Will Be Boring

The course for the 2008 Tour de France was revealed today, and there were two major differences that will make the first two weeks of the race the most boring ever.

First, there is no prologue, which means that the first person to wear the yellow jersey will not be a time trial specialist, or even one of the "big boys," those favored to win overall, because they usually spend a lot of time training on the ITT to maximize time separations. What we'll have is a sprinter, either a lucky unknown, or one of the twitch-fiber specialists, who will give up the jersey after the first time trial. The overall contenders will then stack the leaderboard the rest of the way. A climber may grab the jersey right before the first rest day, but his team will give it up during the long stretch of flat stages the following week. Which leads to my problems with the second change.

No more time bonuses at intermediate sprints and finish lines. The whole point of the time bonus was to make the leaders in the General Classification actually win races, or send team mates into breakaway groups to gobble up the intermediate time bonuses. Now, you may have a winner of the next year's Tour who did not win a single race, because he had no incentive. There'll be no motivation to attack the finish line on mountain stages if there's a bunch of billy goats in a group at the end. The Tour directors think that without the time bonuses, there will be more attacks, but that won't be the case. This is a three week race of attrition. If you don't have to attack the guy next to you to save your 3 second advantage, you won't. What this decision has done has made this a race only for a Lance Armstrong type: time-trial specialist and climber. The only exciting stages for the overall lead will be the last two mountain stages, and the time-trial right before the last stage. And the winner may not have to win any of them, just finish second or third.

Fans want their winners of le Tour to actually win something, not just be good enough to finish near the front.

"Just Wants to Complain"

If you ever want to see the difference in how a Republican governor handles a major disaster compared to a Democrat, look at the response from Mississippi and Florida to hurricanes Katrina and Rita. And if you want to see how a Republican handles "nonsense" about lack of resources, just watch our Governator in action.



"Trust me when I tell you, you're looking for a mistake, and you won't find it, because it's all good news. As much as you maybe hate it, but it's good news. Trust me, okay?"

Of course, the fire danger is not over yet, especially for those places still burning. The good news is that containment numbers are no longer going to be "0 %" since the winds have died down. However, look for the media to descend like vultures on anyone complaining about how slow their FEMA check is coming, or evil insurance companies not honoring policies. Anything that might be "bad news."

Global Warming Had No Role in SoCal Fires

Note to Harry Reid, CNN, and NBC Nightly News: Global warming not a factor in wildfires. When even an LA Times staff writer gets to say that a study shows no link between recent warming and freqency of wildfires in Southern California, those sharing similar biases should pay attention.

The study, however, found Southern California was different from the rest of the West, with no increase in the frequency of fire as temperatures rose.

"In Southern California, it's hot and dry much of the year," said Anthony Westerling, a climate scientist at UC Merced and the study's lead author. In other words, Southern California was already perfect for fire.

I know that making cheap political points, or trying to hype future programming about theoretical human contributions to global warming are important endeavors, but sometimes the facts do have to get in the way of the narrative.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Saturday Night Live: Prescient on Concept Cars


REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao

While making fun of the Yugo back in the 1980's, SNL made a parody ad selling a car for only 179 dollars made out of adobe clay. Who could have guessed that only 20 years later that the Japanese would improve on this concept of "repairable" fenders by working with silicone instead? Incidently, "puyo" (pyuyong) is the sound effect word for something popping into view. Like sproing!

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Panda Smash

I really don't know why people in China think pandas are cute, fuzzy, roly-poly furballs. Teachers and parents should hang this story in classrooms and bedrooms of children everywhere: if you jump into a panda cage, expect your legs to get gnawed to the bone. Seriously, Japanese kids know what's up, thanks to their delightfully educational cartoons.



Wildfire Maps

Your tax dollars put to good use at the Forest Service.



The image above is a cropped version of the active fire map of California from the link above.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Preoccupied

I'm a little preoccupied by firestorm affecting Southern California, being spread by the Santa Ana wind conditions. Already, there are mass evacuations in San Diego County, and the smoke clouds are large enough to be seen by satellite imagery.



Friday, October 19, 2007

Helmety Commercials

If you've been a fan of Helmety Goodness Fridays for a while now, you know that the Red vs. Blue creators have supposedly ended the most successful run of machinima webisodes produced so far. I speculated that the production team might be taking a more commercial direction for a little bit. You know, bills and all. And judging by the videos that came with Microsoft's portable media player, the Zune, I was right! Watch as the Blood Gulch crew make fun of the wifi sharing features of the Zune.



"You're not Master Chief, and that's okay."

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Define "Short"

So, short people have more health problems, at least those subject to the British healthcare system. But, obviously showing a "tall" bias, the report on the study doesn't mention what qualifies as "short." Hey! Those inches matter to "short" people's "psycho-social well-being." Or did the "tall" reporter just "overlook" that info, since it happened to be "down there, somewhere?" Not only that, the researchers are based in Denmark, among the tallest people in the world. Just more data to justify how great tall people are, I guess.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

British Mental Health's Bleak Future Tied To Teeth

Provocative headline, no? Well, news reports have come out of Britain that people are beginning to do their own dental work, including supergluing old crowns back into place, because the wait for a dentist appointment takes too long due to the shortage of dentists. Dentists can opt out of the socialized program to make more money, but Brits don't want to pay out of pocket for dental care to private practices when they've been so used to the nanny state caring for them. Now there's a new study that predicts a higher incidence of dementia when correlated with tooth loss. See? Socialized healthcare is driving the Brits crazy!

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

More iSchadenfreude

Original reviewers of the iPhone are amending their original reviews, after the firmware update that iBricked hacked iPhones, and iCrapped downloaded third-party applications. But most unforgiveable, you can't use the NES emulator to play Super Mario Brothers anymore!


Mario will miss his mushrooms.
Mario and Luigi have to give up on rescuing the princess!

iUpdate: Apple also bolstered its reputation as the least environmentally conscious tech company by including many toxic chemicals in the manufacture of the iPhone, even after promising not to. Of particular focus: the soldered battery makes parts recycling difficult and costly. Of course, that just fits in with Apple's philosophy of disposable electronics.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Stupid Cat Tricks

As someone who has helped train a cat to come when someone whistles, it's not news to me that you can train a housecat to do certain things. However, a cat truly is a different beast than a dog:

“Dogs will work for free. They’re happy to please you,” [Steve] Dale says. “Cats aren’t going to volunteer their time forever for nothing. They want to be paid, and they’re a bit less forgiving ... It has to be training where you’re being upbeat and the cat’s having a good time and being paid for it in the form of bite-size treats that are easy to swallow.”

Keep kitty training sessions short and sweet. Your cat’s attention span probably has a range of two to 10 minutes. Always end training when the cat has done something right.

In our case, my brother and I trained our old housecat, Little Morris, to respond to the whistle when she was still a kitten. We associated our whistling with her purring and milk-feeding behavior. Kittens will purr and knead the mother's teats so that the milk flows easier. Until the day she died, she would still jump in our laps when we whistled, rubbing her paws on our chests as she purred. Oh, and what's the story behind the name? She looked like Morris the Cat, our last name was Morris, and she was indeed the smallest family member. Hence, Little Morris.

Metal Theft Tied To Asia

The New York Times has finally noticed the massive increase in metal theft around the world, which has usually been linked to the high market prices for industrial metals, so they asked an economist about it. Ted Siegler, a recyclables analyst, said that it's not just metal prices that have gone up, but recycled material in general, which comes from a huge demand from Asian developing countries.

Bundled paper or cardboard, the most commonly stolen of New York’s recyclables, can bring in $90 to $120 a ton, more than double what the city receives under long-term contracts with its own brokers and processors.

That means someone can quickly fill a van in Manhattan, drive to Brooklyn, Queens or the Bronx, and sell the loot to one of several brokers. After that, most of the paper and metal ends up in China, Vietnam, India and other developing nations where demand for recyclables has soared.

“There has always been a fair amount of scavenging in the U.S., but the increase in demand from abroad has been dramatic,” said Ted Siegler, an economist and consultant based in Vermont who has analyzed recycling around the world.

He said a piece of scrap metal taken from a Manhattan curb might end up in a steel mill furnace in Asia.

Mr. Siegler said the theft of recyclables had been increasing across the country, with thieves even plucking steel manhole covers from streets.

According to the article, even cardboard is fetching twice the price from overseas than what a large city like New York City pays out for its recycling program. As with most municipalities across the nation, New York is going after the recyclers and brokers, treating them as fences who receive stolen goods. But even with the crackdown on theft, the metal and cardboard has to come from somewhere to keep with Asian development. There has to be a way a smart company, or even smart trade policy, can take advantage of that, without resorting to "plucking manhole covers from the streets."

Friday, October 12, 2007

Unsanitary Hospitals Kill 90 in Britain

Not the "Dirty Nurses" story I was hoping for:

The nurses are accused of not washing their hands and of leaving patients lying in soiled beds. They were cited in an official report blaming mismanagement for the deaths of 90 people who contracted a bacterial infection in hospitals in southern England.

How's that socialized medicine working out for you? Lots of oversight from the centralized nanny, right?

Al Gore Awarded Nobel Peace Prize

Well, they've even give peace prizes to lying terrorists like Yasser Arafat, and look how well that turned out 15 years later for the Palestinian people. So, color me not impressed.

Helmety Gotcha

Usually, when a guest stays on the couch during a talkshow, he or she may end up being used in the next sketch, whether that's petting a baby tiger, or holding the fire extinguisher for the "extreme" cooking demonstration. In the Halo Universe, guests on talkshows are expected to participate in the next free-for-all Slaughter game!



"I'm still feeling kind of slightly resentful that Fyb3r0ptik blew me up when the interview started."

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Meh News Day

Nothing really striking me as interesting out there today, so it's time to kick it like back in the day, Ninja Style!



"Man, I keep it real like a banana peel! Ninja, pleez!"

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Landis Appeals to CAS

Looks like they'll have to postpone that little ceremony for Oscar Peirero. The Court of Arbitration for Sport will be a closed door proceeding, so there won't be any back-stabbing testimony from bitter paranoiacs.

Cookie Monster Space Dust?

New evidence suggests that quasars may be a source of star formation in the earlier universe, spitting out grains of glass, gems, sand, and marble with the particle wind from the supermassive black holes in their centers. Interestingly enough, the particle wind blows out more matter than the black hole takes in, forcing an analogy I would have come up with:

"Quasars are like the Cookie Monster," said study team member Sarah Gallagher of the University of California, Los Angeles. "They can consume less matter than they can spit out in the form of winds."

Q is for Quasar, and that's good enough for me!

GPS Aids Atmospheric Science

Using an old astronomer's trick called radio occultation, today's atmospheric researchers are using GPS satellites to apply the technique, used in studying other planets' atomospheres, to our own. The way radio waves bend through a gaseous space can tell us the temperature of the gas, which molecules make it up, and it's pressure. Moreover, the data are all time stamped and linked to ground-based atomic clocks for continuous calibration, unlike instruments in weather balloons or older satellites, which may drift over time. Robert Kurinski, at the University of Arizona, is most interested in the troposphere, which, according to most GCM's focused on carbon dioxide increase, should be heating up the faster than any other part of the atmosphere, but the data currently do not show this trend.

"That's the problem with a lot of the climate change data to date," he said. "You don't know if it's because the atmosphere is warmer or the instrument measurements are drifting."

It will be several years before there is enough data to resolve a warming signal, if there is one, and I still believe making any economic policy around unproven model predictions is unwise.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Mexican Ex-Presidential Candidate Caught Cheating

As if corruption in Mexican politics and government weren't bad enough, last year's presidential loser has to export his country's cheating ways to the Berlin marathon. They caught Roberto Madrazo because of the little RFID chip that each runner had to wear, and found that he had covered a 15 km distance between checkpoints twice as fast as the world record holder for that distance. Not bad at 55 years of age, right? I guess after losing so big in Mexico last year, he felt he had to win something.

Monday, October 08, 2007

When Environmental Causes Collide

Bucky Katt solves two green issues in one shot.


Get Fuzzy by Darby Conley

Apple Schadenfreude

This story warms the cockles of my evil, black, PC-loving heart. My favorite line in the story:

"We were there when Apple was hurting, we stuck with it, we nursed her back to health," Shipley, the Apple fan, wrote on his Call Me Fishmeal blog. "It's our money she has now, and she's turning on us now that she's rich."

Such sentiments might puzzle new Apple customers, who didn't think they were signing up for a cause when they bought an iPod or iPhone.

And that captures a lot of why I loathe Apple. They make electronic devices and sell them. Owning such devices should not create a movement or a cult. And now Dear Leader is revealing this truth? No wonder "the faithful" feel betrayed. And no wonder I got a cramp smiling while reading the whole thing.

Friday, October 05, 2007

Solid Gold Elite Dancers!

If you've been a fan of Helmety Goodness Fridays for a while, you've seen the Solid Gold Elite Dancers incorporate a jeep into their choreography before. Of course, they just happened to blow it to pieces, and then each of those pieces to kingdom come, but my point is that they are not unfamiliar with "dancing" with cars. But how about making that car "dance" too?



"Here to drop it like it's hot!"

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Pachinko at LAX?

I never won. Not once!
The rubber balls could have been more active, because some of the wooden ramps need a little maintenance.

When Bucky Has Your Number...

...he's not afraid to call it. On the other hand, I do not resemble Rob Wilco in any way, shape, or form.


Get Fuzzy by Darby Conley

At least, that's what I keep telling myself... the Harry Potter reference hurt... a lot.

Brit Kids Scoff At Nanny State Food

Since the British nanny state changed the school menu two years ago to only include "nutritious" food, more than 400,000 students have stopped eating school provided lunches. The kids have resorted to buying their own lunches on their way to school, usually buying worse junk food than was served previously in the cafeteria. The opposition party seeks to make some political hay:

"We've seen a huge decline, particularly in the secondary schools. It is in those schools where people can vote with their feet," said David Laws, the party's education spokesman. "I think it's a classic case of a government trying to intervene for all the best reasons, and ending up actually making the situation worse."

Nanny state officials vow to work harder, citing poor marketing among the reasons for the bland food exodus. "It's just about perseverance. You have to totally reeducate the children's palate," said one school chef. I don't know about you, but I feel a bit uncomfortable with terming school cafeterias as "reeducation" centers.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Web 2.0 Makes Malware Sneakier

According to Robert McMillan of IDG News Service, malware is finding it easier to get on legitimate websites due to web 2.0 practices. Hackers no longer have to hack the big dot com hosting a page. These days, they can hack the advertisers, the widget makers, or anyone else that hosts content that only gets displayed on the major player's site. This gives an economic incentive for the little guys to invest in cyber security, because they will get black-balled by the sites displaying their ads, widgets, or other content, and will lose market share and consumer trust. Perhaps it's time to consider cyber consumer safety ratings for online products, like consumer safety groups do testing for toys and cars, except the ratings apply to the business' security measures and response to malware discovery.

New iPhone Competitors

Verizon introduced several cell phones today that incorporate an iPhone-like touch screen. I've written some not so great reviews of the latest Apple gadgets, mainly colored by my irrational hatred of Apple consumer electronic philosophy, but I did admit that the touch screen will be new standard for electronic appliance interfaces. Sharp is developing a touch screen that does not rely on pressure sensitivity, which will make a much more versatile interface, especially for scanning and security applications, but that technology is a couple years out for commercial products.

A few things that Apple haters will like with the new LG phones: real keyboard under the screen with buttons; 8 GB memory slot capacity which are easily swappable, actually giving infinite memory; no problems using the instant messenger of your choice; and you can change the damn battery yourself.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

New Show Lacks Compelling Narrative

If you ask me, this flash-cutting editing is getting out of hand.

TV broadcasters and manufacturers edited together a mix of different genres spanning soap operas, nature programs and sports, and assessed the proportion of broadcasting for each type of genre in the world, it said.

This is because the power needed by a television for the images varies according to the type of program broadcast.

But the 10-minute program is an incoherent compilation and lacks drama. It can be compared with the test patterns or test cards that used to be broadcast to allow viewers to tune their sets, IEC spokesman Dennis Brougham said.

"The images are supposed to be a representation of what we watch, but when you stick it together it doesn't make much sense," he told Reuters.

Well, it can't be any worse than the shows the networks put on last season, which were all cancelled after two or three episodes.

Speak When Spoken To? ;-)

Heh.


Brewster Rockit: Space Guy by Tim Rickard

Although, Brewster might be wrong about us still speaking to each other in about 10 years, when we'll all just be tapping out our responses on our kick-ass "internet communication devices."

Monday, October 01, 2007

Helluva Hangover

I've had hangovers before, usually lasting a day or so, after a night of too much drinking, but remind me never to binge drink for 4 days straight. Because a 4 week hangover is just too long of a wake-up call that you might have a drinking problem. It was severe dehydration that caused cerebral venous sinus thrombosis in the Scotsman, and six months of treatments with blood thinners to cure. Really, barman, "nae maer fer him!"