Four short links: 19 August 2010

Four short links: 19 August 2010:

1. New Big Brother: Market-Moving Satellite Images -- using satellite images of Wal-Mart and Target parking lots to predict quarterly returns. (via Hacker News)


2. Form and Code -- beautiful book on the intersection of code, design, architecture, form, and function. One of the authors is Casey Reas who was also one of the people behind Processing. (via RandomEtc on Twitter)


3. Cable Map -- major underwater communications cables around the world. (via berkun on Twitter)


4. Ray Kurzweil Does Not Understand The Brain (Pharyngula) -- To simplify it so a computer science guy can get it, Kurzweil has everything completely wrong. The genome is not the program; it's the data. The program is the ontogeny of the organism, which is an emergent property of interactions between the regulatory components of the genome and the environment, which uses that data to build species-specific properties of the organism. He doesn't even comprehend the nature of the problem, and here he is pontificating on magic solutions completely free of facts and reason.

O'Reilly Radar - http://radar.oreilly.com/

The software behind the VA health care transformation

The software behind the VA health care transformation: Phillip Longman's book "Best Care Anywhere," just released in its second edition, had a strong effect on me that cascaded off of several other experiences and encounters I've had recently. The material should have been more familiar to me. The Veterans Administration's quality efforts have become health care industry buzz, and its illustrious VistA software has also often made the news, a couple times for its near-death experiences. But VistA is still not the subject of daily discussion in American public life.

O'Reilly Radar - http://radar.oreilly.com/

Intel to buy McAfee for $7.68 billion

Intel to buy McAfee for $7.68 billion: Chip giant makes the biggest acquisition in its 42-year history, explaining that security has become an essential element "of what people demand from all computing experiences."

CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/

Mitt Romney's wet noodle economics - Mitt Romney - Salon.com

Mitt Romney's wet noodle economics - Mitt Romney - Salon.com: So instead of a giving corporations a tax break on their incomes, and giving investors tax breaks on dividends and capital-gains, cut the payroll tax for ordinary Americans. 80 percent of Americans pay more in payroll taxes than in income taxes, and it’s a regressive tax. Eliminate payroll taxes on the first $20K of income and make up the difference by raising the cap on income subject to payroll taxes (now about $106,000).

-

Beyond City Limits - By Parag Khanna | Foreign Policy

Beyond City Limits - By Parag Khanna | Foreign Policy: The 21st century will not be dominated by America or China, Brazil or India, but by the city. In an age that appears increasingly unmanageable, cities rather than states are becoming the islands of governance on which the future world order will be built. This new world is not -- and will not be -- one global village, so much as a network of different ones.

-

World Affairs Journal - Smile and Smile: Turkey's Feel-Good Foreign Policy

World Affairs Journal - Smile and Smile: Turkey's Feel-Good Foreign Policy: The utter irrationality of Turks—and the utter uselessness, for them, of our Western notions of truth and logic—are points Americans won’t grasp unless they’ve lived here quite some time—and even then they won’t grasp them, because they make no sense. But they’d best begin to try, because the prime minister is quite busy sending flotillas of unusually fractious Turkish humanitarians into war zones, transforming himself into the improbable hero of Hamas, and practicing nuclear diplomacy à la Turca. American negotiators were no doubt scratching their heads upon learning that Turkey had not merely abstained from voting on the Iranian sanctions package, but voted against it. An abstention, after all, would have registered Turkish misgivings more than adequately; the “no” vote manifestly obviates everything Turkey has long been saying about the role it seeks to play as a bridge between the East and the West, particularly in the wake of the Gaza flotilla fiasco. The bridge is now burnt. Turkey has taken sides, and the winner is the East.

-

China's hot new commodity: "Fake virgins" - Broadsheet - Salon.com

China's hot new commodity: "Fake virgins" - Broadsheet - Salon.com: hymens can tear for all sorts of reasons, including riding a bike or using tampons -- or just being alive and mobile. As proof of virginity, it is useless. (One might also argue that the concept of virginity is pretty useless -- but that's another post.)

it is largely a means of appeasing men who want "proof" that they have purchased their own holy virgin. "If you go to buy a cellphone, of course you'd want to buy a new cellphone," one man told the Post. "Who would spend the same amount of money to buy an old cellphone that's been used for two years?" (That's almost as priceless as, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?")

I don't agree with this value [placed on virginity]," said Zhou Hong, a physician at a Beijing women's hospital. "It's unfair to the women. The men are not virgins. But we can't change this male-privileged society." Well, you certainly won't by perpetuating the lie of the hymen as proof of purity -- not to mention the value of virginity in the first place.

-

If you were as serious as me ...

If you were as serious as me ...:

Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss

TeamViewer 4.1.8780 - Remote control another computer with TeamViewer. (Free)

TeamViewer 4.1.8780 - Remote control another computer with TeamViewer. (Free): TeamViewer establishes connections to any PC all around the world within just a few seconds. You can remote control your partner\'s PC as if you were sitting right in front of it. Find out why more than 6,000,000 users trust TeamViewer.

MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php

Elements, a Dropbox-powered text editor, released

Elements, a Dropbox-powered text editor, released: This straightforward text editor for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch can create and editor text files that are automatically saved to your Dropbox account.

Macworld - http://www.macworld.com

Lou Gehrig killed by baseball not Lou Gehrig's disease, study finds | Science | The Guardian

Lou Gehrig killed by baseball not Lou Gehrig's disease, study finds | Science | The Guardian: Lou Gehrig, a heroic slugger for the Yankees baseball team, was famed for brushing aside repeated fractures and batting after nearly being knocked unconscious, before giving his name to the disease that was said to have killed him.

But a new study suggests that the player may not have died of Lou Gehrig's disease, formerly known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a type of motor neurone disease. Instead, it may have been the baseballs bouncing off his head that claimed his life in 1941.

-

Apple (AAPL) Stock - iPad Competitor | InvestorPlace

Apple (AAPL) Stock - iPad Competitor | InvestorPlace: Axon Logic Reveals Flash Mac OS X-Compatible Tablet, the Haptic: Axon Logic joins Augen in launching new tablet computers to compete with Apple’s juggernaut iPad. While Augen’s GenTouch78 is a super cheap alternative that runs the Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android mobile operating system, Axon Logic’s machine is a high-priced tech head’s dream.

The $750, 10-inch touch screen device weighs two pounds and uses a 1.6GHz Atom processor. It has 2GB of RAM, a 320 GB hard drive, Ethernet, USB, and VGA ports, as well as a resistive, 1024 X 600 pixel touchscreen that supports both stylus use and finger navigation.

Most appealing though is the fact that the Axon Haptic is capable of running Linux and Windows operating systems in addition to any OS based on Apple’s Darwin, including Mac OS X. While the capability to run Apple’s commercial operating systems is obviously a huge selling point for Axon’s device, the company is quick to note on the product’s homepage that installation of Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware is a violation of the end user license agreement for the OS, voiding any warranty.

Given the device’s high cost, it’s doubtful that Axon will draw a significant number of tablet computer shoppers away from Apple, but the tech market hungry for a malleable machine that can still run Apple’s operating systems will naturally flock to it.

-

When should a director stop messing with a movie? - Film Salon - Salon.com

When should a director stop messing with a movie? - Film Salon - Salon.com: Category No. 3: Resuscitations

Definition: Cuts undertaken by parties other than the director, often with the purpose of reassembling a film that was cut down, reworked and in some cases butchered without the director's consent.

Examples: I'll fixate on just one example here, because it exemplifies pretty much every factor involved in this sort of cut. Orson Welles' 1958 thriller "Touch of Evil" was recut, remixed and partially reshot during postproduction by Universal without the director's supervision or consent. Or so Welles claimed: The studio countered that it had asked Welles to return from Europe, where he was working on his next movie, to supervise and revise "Evil," but Welles declined.

Thirty years later, film editor and sound designer Walter Murch (who worked on many Coppola films, including both versions of "Apocalypse Now") supervised a "restored" version, working from a wish list memo that Welles sent to Universal in 1957. You could almost call the 1998 cut an alternate universe version of "Touch of Evil" for its good-natured attempts to visualize the film described by Welles. The biggest change is in the legendary opening tracking shot, which removes the studio-mandated Henry Mancini score. As the bomb-rigged car rolls through the town, you still hear the film's main theme issuing piecemeal from barrooms and apartment windows, arranged in different musical genres.

-

Financially dependent men cheat more

Financially dependent men cheat more: Today, researchers have issued an alert to women: Beware of the man who makes much less than you. Also: Beware of the man who makes much more than you. These are signs that he'll cheat, according to a study that finds a link between income disparity and infidelity.

Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss

The problem with fellatio

The problem with fellatio: When President Bill Clinton told a White House press conference with a straight face that "I did not have sex with that woman," he may really have believed it. Since those days, the word has gotten around to nearly everyone that oral sex isn't really sex. Should it surprise us that young women and girls think so too?

Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss

‘Apple Peel 520’ turns Apple iPod touch into phone

‘Apple Peel 520’ turns Apple iPod touch into phone: Have you ever wished that your iPod touch was an iPhone? Now it can be...

MacDailyNews - http://www.macdailynews.com/

Can this 'robot' help save publishing?

Can this 'robot' help save publishing?: The $150,000 Espresso Book Machine can print a professional-looking paperback in about four minutes. More small presses are looking at it as an option to cut down on printing costs and better manage inventory.

CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/

Dual-core smartphones on the horizon

Dual-core smartphones on the horizon: Smartphones with dual-core chips could allow for faster application performance and 1080p video playback.

Macworld - http://www.macworld.com

Apple forums to become 'Apple Support Communities'

Apple forums to become 'Apple Support Communities': Apple quietly announced that its discussion forums will soon get a major makeover, with a new emphasis on asking questions, creating a more personal experience, and a customizable home page.

Macworld - http://www.macworld.com

Arts & Letters Daily (16 Aug 2010)

Arts & Letters Daily (16 Aug 2010):

Human beings are squeamish critters, repelled by unfamiliar grooming habits, physical contact with strangers, exotic meats, bodily fluids... more

Village by village, Churchill bragged, "we destroyed houses, filled up wells, blew down towers, burned crops." He himself shot three "savages"... more

"Today's environmentalism? Consolation prize for a gaggle of washed-up Trots, adjunct to hyper-capitalism; catalytic converter on the SUV of the global economy," says Paul Kingsnorth... "Environmentalism, which in its raw, early form had no time for the encrusted, seized-up politics of left and right, has been sucked into the yawning, bottomless chasm of the 'progressive' left." A personal, twenty-year journey through the world’s wild places and the movements to protect them is also, for Paul Kingsnorth, an education in the limits of a project that has forgotten nature and lost its soul.
more

Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/

Working moms: Forget time off

Working moms: Forget time off: Put another way, courtesy of the ever-delicate Daily Mail, women "should return to work as quickly as possible or give up on having children altogether."

Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss

"True Blood" recap: Dirty dealings

"True Blood" recap: Dirty dealings: Does anyone remember a couple of episodes back when I jokingly guessed The Authority got its authority from somewhere in Maine? Turns out I have special recapping powers that I'm only now becoming aware of. Like Jessica, the baby vampire, however, and Sookie, the emerging whatever-she-is, my control over these skills is obviously a little wonky. Seems I  confused my Portlands, and The Authority isn't seeking absolute power so much as entrenched constitutional rights in Oregon, a state that might be the first to ratify the VRA (Vampire Rights Amendment).

Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss

Hugo Gernsback will spend his life parlaying his talents as an editor...

Hugo Gernsback will spend his life parlaying his talents as an editor...: Hugo Gernsback will spend his life parlaying his talents as an editor and publisher to produce a body of work so formidable that the World Science Fiction Society will name its revered Hugo Awards after him.

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

My sister says I'm going to hell

My sister says I'm going to hell:

Dear Cary,

Which, according to Gordon, means he's going to Medford.

Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss

"In Utopia": Modern-day adventures in utopian living

"In Utopia": Modern-day adventures in utopian living:

Off the coast of Korea, a utopian new city is rising. New Songdo City, which is slated to be finished in 2015, is the most expensive private real estate venture in the world. The city is being built on reclaimed land in Incheon Bay (site of the famous Korean War landing), and, when it is complete, will include the "world's largest twin tower," a 100-acre "central park," full city-wide integration into wireless technology (which one of its architects describes as "a municipal concierge service"), and groundbreaking levels of environmental sustainability (with wind turbine power and rainwater collection, it aims to be the world's first LEED-certified city). If all goes well, New Songdo will be the first of 20 privately built, fully wired and ecologically friendly utopian cities built on six different continents by the same group of architects.

Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss

The Iraq withdrawal: An Orwellian success - Iraq war - Salon.com

The Iraq withdrawal: An Orwellian success - Iraq war - Salon.com: As with the hawk’s version of Vietnam’s ignominious conclusion, the tale of America’s withdrawal from Iraq is characterized by contradictions, half-truths and huge blind spots. It is a story told by officials with jobs and reputations to protect. It is a myth bought and sold by Americans who want to believe in a benevolent image of their country in the world. And most important of all, it is a fairy tale that systematically elevates the good news about Iraq and avoids any talk of the long-term devastation this war has wreaked on the people there.

-

Small town museum hopes violin is Stradivarius | KPIC CBS 4 - News, Weather and Sports - Roseburg, OR - Roseburg, Oregon | Local & Regional News

Small town museum hopes violin is Stradivarius | KPIC CBS 4 - News, Weather and Sports - Roseburg, OR - Roseburg, Oregon | Local & Regional News: CANYONVILLE, Ore. (AP) - For decades, a worn violin lay forgotten inside a worn case in an attic at the Pioneer-Indian Museum.
The latches on the black case were stuck. Museum volunteers were unable to free them, so the case, which had been in the museum's hands since shortly after its founding in 1969, remained shut.
Recently, Carl Metzler, a video producer for Creative Images in Roseburg, came across the case while working on a project and wanted to peer inside.
He freed the latches and slowly opened the soft cover while joking with museum volunteer Bob Matthews that the case might contain a Stradivarius.

-

The Wilson Quarterly: America: Land of Loners? by Daniel Akst

The Wilson Quarterly: America: Land of Loners? by Daniel Akst: But in restricting ourselves to the thin gruel of modern friendships, we miss out on the more nourishing fare that deeper ones have to offer. Aristotle, who saw friendship as essential to human flourishing, shrewdly observed that it comes in three distinct flavors: those based on usefulness (contacts), on pleasure (drinking buddies), and on a shared pursuit of virtue—the highest form of all. True friends, he contended, are simply drawn to the goodness in one another, goodness that today we might define in terms of common passions and sensibilities.

-

Arts & Letters Daily (14 Aug 2010)

Arts & Letters Daily (14 Aug 2010):

Americans, plugged in and on the move, are confiding in their pets, their laptops, and their spouses. But more and more, they are loners... more

Institutions progress but human beings don't, says Roger Scruton, and the human capacity for cruelty and violence is, alas, infinite... more

Molière, the shape-shifter extraordinaire of the 17th century, became in time a playwright of huge political value - rather like Albert Camus in our own day... more

Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/

Reagan insider: GOP destroyed economy Paul B. Farrell - MarketWatch

Reagan insider: GOP destroyed economy Paul B. Farrell - MarketWatch: Yes, Stockman is equally damning of the Democrats' Keynesian policies. But what this indictment by a party insider -- someone so close to the development of the Reaganomics ideology -- says about America, helps all of us better understand how America's toxic partisan-politics "holy war" is destroying not just the economy and capitalism, but the America dream. And unless this war stops soon, both parties will succeed in their collective death wish.

-

Alt Text: 6 Ways Procrastinators Can Accomplish Nothing More Effectively

Alt Text: 6 Ways Procrastinators Can Accomplish Nothing More Effectively: These amazing insights will help you truly banish productivity.

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Hulu Desktop 0.9.9 - Stream TV shows to your desktop. (Free)

Hulu Desktop 0.9.9 - Stream TV shows to your desktop. (Free): Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz.
At least 2.0 GB of RAM.
Mac OS X 10.4 or later.
2 Mbps Internet connection.
Flash 9.0.124.

MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php

Damn! GHz and RAM just out of reach of my system.

Which doesn't stop it working on my system - Yay!!

Inexplicable Superconductor Fractals Hint at Higher Universal Laws

Inexplicable Superconductor Fractals Hint at Higher Universal Laws: What seemed to be flaws in the structure of a mystery metal may have given physicists a glimpse into as-yet-undiscovered laws of the universe.

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Perseid meteor shower dazzles stargazers

Perseid meteor shower dazzles stargazers: If you're able to escape the pervasiveness of city lights in the next few days (or if you live somewhere with actual sky above it) you'll have the chance to check out the most startling example of "shooting stars" visible to the naked eye -- the Perseid meteor shower. Every August the leftover bits of the Swift-Tuttle comet zoom through our atmosphere, producing up to 60 streaks of light an hour, and the peak of the astro-activity is expected after midnight Wednesday night through pre-dawn on Friday.

Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss

"Randy" Paul denies drug-fueled cult kidnap

"Randy" Paul denies drug-fueled cult kidnap:

Rand Paul categorically denies kidnapping and blindfolding a woman and forcing her to smoke from a bong and worship "Aqua Buddha."

Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss

Zeus Trojan secretly transferred $1 million from UK bank accounts

Zeus Trojan secretly transferred $1 million from UK bank accounts: New, dangerous combo of banking trojan and exploit toolkit lets criminals transfer money out of your account while you are logged into the bank site, without you knowing it.

CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/

Google Helps Find Simplest Solution to Rubik's Cube

Google Helps Find Simplest Solution to Rubik's Cube: Detailed analysis using computing power donated by Google shows that every position of the Rubiks' Cube can be solved in a maximum of 20 moves or less.

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Russian Fires Approach Nuclear Plants

Russian Fires Approach Nuclear Plants: The area of the fires in Russia has been brought under control, but there are much bigger problems looming. The fires have approached the Red Forest, an area that suffered the worst of Chernobyl's fallout in 1986, with the soil still heavily contaminated by cesium-137 and strontium-90.

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

How ‘Star Trek’ artists imagined Apple’s revolutionary iPad - 23 years ago

How ‘Star Trek’ artists imagined Apple’s revolutionary iPad - 23 years ago: The touch interface was numerous portable devices known as PADDs, or Personal Access Display Devices...

MacDailyNews - http://www.macdailynews.com/

SRS iWOW Premium 3.1.1 - iTunes plug-in improves audio playback quality. (Demo)

Well worth it. I use it. Can't life without it.

SRS iWOW Premium 3.1.1 - iTunes plug-in improves audio playback quality. (Demo):

SRS iWOW Premium 3.1.1

SRS iWOW Premium... Patented solutions in iWOW Premium greatly improve the playback of audio by creating an expansive sound stage, putting you, the listener, in the center of the performance. iWOW Premium also restores audio cues that are buried in the original source material so your music and video files sound more natural and detailed.

The highly intuitive and aesthetically designed iWOW Premium user interface provides you with easy-to-use presets and a stylish graphical representation of your music.

WHAT'S NEW

Version 3.1.1:

• Fixed problem on some 64-bit systems with iWOW not running correctly

REQUIREMENTS

iTunes 6 or later, Mac OS X 10.4 or later (or Windows XP SP2 or later)

PRICE

$24.99

DEVELOPER

SRS Labs, Inc.

DOWNLOADS

86673

DOWNLOAD NOW (878 K)

More information

MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php

Review: Flipboard for iPad

Review: Flipboard for iPad: This fantastic iPad-optimized feed reader creates a Web media experience that is far greater than the sum of its parts.

Macworld - http://www.macworld.com

Get 25 great Safari extensions

Get 25 great Safari extensions: We've scoured the Web and tested innumerable Safari extensions. Here are some of the most useful.

Macworld - http://www.macworld.com

Hands on with Safari extensions

Hands on with Safari extensions: Now that Safari 5 has been out for a while, we take a closer look at Safari's new extensions feature: how to install and use extensions, how to update extensions, and how to troubleshoot issues with misbehaving extensions.

Macworld - http://www.macworld.com

Mac Gems: Witch makes it easy to switch between windows

Mac Gems: Witch makes it easy to switch between windows: This handy utility provides an alternative to Mac OS X’s built-in Command+Tab application switcher.

Macworld - http://www.macworld.com

Everything you need to know about 3D TVs

Everything you need to know about 3D TVs: If you're a hardcore home-theater enthusiasts, you probably remember the sting of having nothing to watch on your cutting-edge HDTV—and you may have had the sinking realization that your $300 HD-DVD player was on the verge of becoming obsolete. Don't make those mistakes with 3D TV.

Macworld - http://www.macworld.com

Drug-crazed Rand Paul kidnapped woman in reefer frenzy - Rand Paul | Kentucky Senate Republican, Ron Paul's Son - Salon.com

Drug-crazed Rand Paul kidnapped woman in reefer frenzy - Rand Paul | Kentucky Senate Republican, Ron Paul's Son - Salon.com: Rand Paul's campaign did not actually deny any of this. Though his spokesman did say this to Ben Smith: "We'll leave National Enquirer type stories about his teenage years to the tabloids where they belong."

So, don't listen to New Republic senior editor Jason Zengerle's Enquirer-style reporting for noted tabloid GQ, about Rand Paul's "teenage years," when he was a 19- or 20-year-old college student who kidnapped a woman and forced her to smoke a bong and worship a false idol.

-

Aug. 9, 1854: Thoreau Warns, 'The Railroad Rides on Us'

Aug. 9, 1854: Thoreau Warns, 'The Railroad Rides on Us': Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden, or, Life in the Woods. His distillation of a year living in relative seclusion offers deep insights not just into the natural world and humanity's place in it, but how that relationship was being impacted — and degraded — by the Industrial Revolution. It remains to this day a trenchant criticism of the excesses of technology.

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

LiteSwitch X 2.7 - Keyboard application switcher. (Shareware)

LiteSwitch X 2.7 - Keyboard application switcher. (Shareware):

LiteSwitch X 2.7

LiteSwitch X follows the tradition of LiteSwitch as a simple solution
for managing open applications using the keyboard. Like its predecessor
which will continue to be available, LiteSwitch X has a clean, simple
and functional style that has become Proteron\'s hallmark. It features
an aquified transparent, resizeable window which is invoked by a
configurable key-combination (default is Apple-Tab). From the pop-up
window the user can switch to any application, hide, quit, or force quit
any application or drag-and-drop files onto any application. Windows
users migrating to the Macintosh can feel more at home having the
Alt-tab functionality returned to them, yet enjoy it in its full Mac OS
X splendor.

WHAT'S NEW

Version 2.7 (b2):

• added Exposé for app windows. In the app switcher, press the up or down arrow keys to activate Exposé for that app. Once inside Exposé you can choose to select a window or press the tab key to view the next app\'s windows. The up and down arrows used to bring up the app\'s contextual menu. The key \"m\" still does so.
  
• now pressing the number \"1\" in the switcher window selects the Finder (or Path Finder if running)
  
• enabled the ability to mark the Finder to quit via pressing \'q\'. The Finder can then be relaunched from the Dock if desired.
  
• when the switching key is held down, LiteSwitch will now stop at the last app on the list until the key is pressed again. This should make it easier to jump to either end.
  
• misc fixes

REQUIREMENTS

Mac OS X 10.5 or later.

PRICE

$14.95

DEVELOPER

Proteron LLC

DOWNLOADS

21596

DOWNLOAD NOW (550 K)

More information

MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php

Plant Enzyme Can Convert Carbon Monoxide Into Propane, Paving the Way for Exhaust-Powered Cars | Popular Science

Plant Enzyme Can Convert Carbon Monoxide Into Propane, Paving the Way for Exhaust-Powered Cars | Popular Science: An enzyme found in soybeans could turn an ingredient in vehicle exhaust into new usable fuel, according to a new study. It's a major step on the path toward making fuel out of thin air.

Scientists were working with a microbe called Azotobacter vinelandii, which is found around the roots of various food plants. It creates an enzyme called vanadium nitrogenase, which produces ammonia from nitrogen.

In a study published in the journal Science, researchers took away the nitrogen and fed it carbon monoxide instead. The enzyme started making short carbon chains, two or three atoms long -- in other words, propane, which fuels the blue flames of camping grills across America.

-

Scorpions set fair record, Billy Idol up next | The News-Review - NRtoday.com

Scorpions set fair record, Billy Idol up next | The News-Review - NRtoday.com: The Scorpions set an all-time attendance record during a 100-minute performance Friday evening at the Douglas County Fair.

The heavy metal band from Germany attracted more than 12,500 people to the Premier West Bank Amphitheater. Fans packed the bleachers set up on the amphitheater berm and filled the grassy areas leading away from the stage.

There were so many people that the crowd spilled over into areas on the sides of the amphitheater where they could not see the stage. Yet they stayed and listened to the music.

“It was phenomenal,” Fairgrounds Director Harold Phillips said. “What a production. What a sound. What a performance.”

-

The ridiculous "$#*! My Dad Says" controversy

The ridiculous "$#*! My Dad Says" controversy:

CBS officially refers to it in print as "$#*! My Dad Says." In promos, it's "Bleep My Dad Says" -- not "[bleep sound] My Dad Says," but "Bleep My Dad Says." And its identifying image, of William Shatner with tape over his mouth, makes it clear this sitcom is well aware of that which cannot be said. It's shit. As in, the Twitter phenomenon Shit My Dad Says, the thing that turned into the best-selling book "Sh*t My Dad Says," now watered down even further into a series of nonsensical characters to become a prime-time sitcom on the Tiffany network.

Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss

An inheritance of cake

An inheritance of cake:

When my godfather, Herb, learned that he was finally dying for real this time, he threw a party. "Like in 'The Cherry Orchard,'" I said wryly. In college, I had once played Lyubov Ranevskaya, the matriarch of Chekhov's obsolescent Russian aristocrats.

Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss

Google pulls plug on Google Wave

Google pulls plug on Google Wave: The search giant said the real-time collaboration tool saw less use than the company had hoped. The company will aim to use technology in other products

CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/

Sad, but not surprising, I suppose. I got into it when they opened it up to the public in late May. Great, I thought. But then I found I had no one to collaborate with, and nothing to collaborate on. In other words, it was much like my personal life: nothing to do, and no one to do it with.

Sun eruptions spit plasma at Earth

Sun eruptions spit plasma at Earth: Those living toward the northern areas of the planet are in for a visual treat over the next couple days, thanks to the sun spitting plasma directly at the planet.

CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/

Google Lets You Sign In to Multiple Accounts at Once

Google Lets You Sign In to Multiple Accounts at Once: Google now lets people with two or three user accounts log in to all of them at once and switch between accounts easily. And yes, it works in Gmail.

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Post-quake Haiti: A sex trafficking hot spot

Post-quake Haiti: A sex trafficking hot spot:

In the wake of a catastrophe that leaves people fighting for food and shelter, you wouldn't expect there to be a market for prostitution. But the influx of foreign aid (or at least the promise of it) has served as a beacon of hope, drawing a growing number of Dominican women to the quake-ravaged country in search of sex work, Time magazine reports today. There is the lure not only of the pledged $5 billion in donations -- some 2 percent of which has actually made it to the country -- but also the flood of cash-strapped foreign aid workers. It seems desperation feeds on desperation.

Salon - http://www.salon.com/rss/all_salon.rss

Young, overeducated and selling pot - Pinched: Tales from an Economic Downturn - Salon.com

Young, overeducated and selling pot - Pinched: Tales from an Economic Downturn - Salon.com: "There's no doubt that an operation like this benefits from the black market," he said. "I mean, it's still worth more than its weight in gold right now. But if anybody can suddenly grow it, it'll probably wind up worth about as much as tomatoes."

-

Deepak Chopra's God 2.0 | Big Questions Online

Deepak Chopra's God 2.0 | Big Questions Online: I have debated many theologians who make the traditional arguments for God’s existence: the cosmological argument (prime mover, first cause), the teleological argument (the order and design of the universe), the ontological argument (if it is logically possible for God to exist, then God exists), the anthropic argument (the fine-tuned characteristics of nature, making human life possible), the moral argument (awareness of right and wrong), and others. These are all reasons to believe in God only if you already believe. If you do not already believe, these arguments ring hollow, having been refuted over the ages by philosophers from David Hume to Daniel Dennett.

In reality, the gap between quantum effects and the world of ordinary events is too large to bridge. In his 1995 book The Unconscious Quantum, the University of Colorado particle physicist Victor Stenger demonstrates that for a system to be described in terms of quantum mechanics, its typical mass m, speed v, and distance d must be on the order of Planck’s constant h. “If mvd is much greater than h, then the system probably can be treated classically,” that is, according to the physical laws discovered by Newton. Stenger computed the mass of neural transmitter molecules and their speed across the distance of a synapse, and he concluded that both are about three orders of magnitude too large for quantum effects to be influential.

Chopra’s use and abuse of quantum physics is what the Caltech quantum physicist and Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann calls “quantum flapdoodle,” which consists of stringing together a series of terms and phrases from quantum physics and asserting that they explain something in our daily experience. But the world of subatomic particles has no correspondence with the world of Newtonian mechanics. They are two different physical systems at two different scales, and they are described by two different types of mathematics.

Conrad Black: My prison education | Full Comment | National Post

Conrad Black: My prison education | Full Comment | National Post: It had been an interesting experience, from which I developed a much greater practical knowledge than I had ever had before of those who had drawn a short straw from the system; of the realities of street level American race relations; of the pathology of incorrigible criminals; and of the wasted opportunities for the reintegration of many of these people into society.

-

And I had heard the vehement allegations of many fellow residents of the fraudulence of the public defender system, where court-appointed lawyers, it is universally and plausibly alleged, are more often than not stooges of the prosecutors. They are paid for the number of clients they represent rather than for their level of success, and they do usually plead their clients to prison. They provide a thin veneer for the fable of the poor citizen’s day in court to receive impartial justice through due process.

And I had the opportunity to see why the United States has six to twelve times as many incarcerated people as other prosperous democracies, (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom), how the prison industry grew, and successfully sought more prisoners, longer sentences, and maximal possibilities of probation violations and a swift return to custody.

Six background window tricks

Six background window tricks: Drop files from a background window into a document, move a background window so you can see it better, scroll through a window's contents, and more—all without losing your focus in the window or document you're working in. Here's how.

Macworld - http://www.macworld.com

Report: In IE8, Web ads won out over privacy

Report: In IE8, Web ads won out over privacy: Some within Microsoft wanted to design IE8 with greater privacy controls, but that effort lost out to the interests of online advertisers, the Journal reports.

CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/