FEB 05
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Why horses are vegan
Preamble: Dear Readers, please bear with us. We are not making this up. Farfetched as it may seem. Check the links to confirm.
We’d like to remind English, Welsh and Northern Irish owners of all types* of Equidae that the animals need passports.
The 'passports for horses' law has been on the table for a few years now, but only came into effect today. Why horses?
Government spokespersons would have us believe that the main reason is in order to build up the National Equine Database ( NED - yep, that's NED ) , which, amongst other things, will be able to categorise horses according to their ability to jump fences, and whether they get flu or not.
Given, however, our penchant for ‘thinking out of the box’, we would like to consider another theory.
Some
people like to eat horsemeat, and, to avoid England falling foul of EU regulations
on veterinary drug residues in food, it was decided to carefully regulate
the movements of horses to make sure that they don’t end up in the
human food chain.
Here’s what the UK gov. website , the Veterinary Medicines Directorate has to say : ” If the UK does not comply, we run the risk of losing 70% of horse medicines including bute “
( Bute, full name Phenylbutazone , is commonly used to treat inflammations and fevers in horses, in much the same way as Aspirin™ )
Strange perhaps that the VMD chose to highlight bute instead of the vastly more lethal cinchocaine hydrochloride, a chemical which should definitely be kept out of all food chains. Even petfood chains. It’s commonly in use to ‘euthanize’ horses.
Here’s a partial list of current horse remedies which are not allowed for use in ‘food animals’.
As regular readers will know, we like to point out the obvious : so here’s the glaring question . . .
Instead of insisting that horses have passports, wouldn’t it have been easier, safer and cheaper to simply make them subject to the same veterinary regs as other food animals such as cattle, sheep and pigs etc ?
What’s so special about horses that they can only be treated with drugs which are banned for use in food animals ?
Notes:
There are reckoned to be at least 1 million horses, ponies and donkeys in Britain ( actual figures are as yet unknown ), and the new passports cost around £20 each ( plus any vet fees ) – so a minimum of £20M will be changing hands.
The government is also ‘encouraging’ horse owners to ‘microchip’ their animals ( at additional expense ) – but this in not currently a legal requirement . A photographic silhouette of the animal is, however, compulsory. ( photography fees may apply ).
F.A.Q. about horse passports . . .
http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/tracing
* Zebras are excluded.
comments ?28 FEB 05
Time for a virtual reality check ?
Alfred Hitchcock famously expounded the concept of the MacGuffin - which he considered to be the crucial ingredient of any good thriller. The focus of emotional tension - the meat in the sandwich - the business.
But the concept needs updating – according to The University of Buffalo. To fulfill the more sophisticated requirements of a 21st century drama-watchers - what we need nowadays is the ‘Virtual MacGuffin’.
In a reseach paper entitled “Psycho Drama in VR“ they describe their new ideas – which are designed for use in CAVE® VR systems ( Computer Application Virtual reality Environment ? )
Aimed at “transforming the movie-going experience” they focus on the important role emotion plays in the interactive narrative - by linking to computational software agents which take control of plot evolution.
The UB team explain that "The [software] agent has some perception of itself and some level of self-awareness." . . .
. . . pause . . . and this is where we have to halt examination of the idea. We can’t go on. ‘Self aware’ software ? . . . Really ?
We think what they mean is that the software is programmed to react in real-time to human input. To that extent, it could be said perhaps that it's ‘aware’ of commands coming from the user.
So is a lightswitch.
If you’d like to judge for yourself how well the concept pans out in the real world, you can view this almost interminably slow-loading .mov file from the UB site. Showcasing their interactive immersion entitled “The Trial The Trail”.
Call us old fashioned, but, on a first viewing, it has to be said that the “The Trial The Trail” doesn’t quite seem to have the same potent dramatic kick as, say, Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’
Maybe it could be re-hashed to include an interactive shower scene ? . .
.
See: http://www.buffalo.edu/news
here’s the full paper (.pdf)
http://www.buffalo.edu/news/pdf
comments ?26
FEB 05
“ Please take a seat in the waiting room – ahhhh, I see, ok then . . . "
Today we’re covering a decidedly sensitive topic. We won’t beat around the bush - it’s body piercings – specifically, of an intimate nature.
Not altogether surprisingly, the piercings have a habit of causing uncomfortable and unwelcome collateral damage. And, as has just been reported by the Journal of Advanced Nursing, the side effects are compounded by another syndrome – the sufferers don’t like telling their doctors about it. In fact, only around 3% do so.
146 people ( both m + f ) did respond though to questionnaires from Carlow University, Pittsburg – and outlined several troublesome areas.
We urge anyone who is considering decorative perforation to read the report, which goes into some detail about the various drawbacks, and provides plenty of statistics associated with them.
Stretching things a little perhaps, the researchers even went so far as to examine possible psychological and social impacts - for example, 21 per cent of respondents were ‘concerned that their piercings could prevent them from achieving a goal or promotion’.
Admirably, the report suggests that the medical establishment should not preoccupy themselves with trying to understand why the ‘customers’ had the piercings in the first place - but should focus instead in curing the problems.
As they conclude -
“Understanding client rationale is not a necessary prerequisite for providing quality patient care”
see: www.journalofadvancednursing.com
Of course we’d normally go into more detail here about the exact nature of the . . . but for search engine related reasons it might be unwise . . .
NEXT !
comments ?25
FEB 05
Is that a phone in your pocket ? , or . . .
New Scientist has a story today about the upcoming influx of haptic enabled cellphones. In other words, phones which deliver sensations which you can feel as well as hear.
Of
course, haptic phones are nothing new, the ‘vibrate’ ring-option
has been in use for years now – but future mobiles are expected to
deliver a little more sophistication than a common jiggle. They will, claims
the article, be able to deliver a sensation which can -
“make the person on the other end of the phone feel as if their handset has slapped them across the face”. . . ( see note*)
For a bit more detail on haptic phones, why not visit the site of www.immersion.com a company who are developing the vibro-tech for various manufactures.
Their site tells us “Touch is not just one of the three major senses, it's significantly quality enhancing.” And their new tech will, apparently, by able to deliver sensations other than slaps – such as “smiling” and “winking” . . .
We’re not quite sure of the exact details of the haptic cue for smiling – it’s an enigmatic concept to us – like the famous Zen Buddhist sound of ‘one hand clapping’.
Anyway, tech-types who are keen to develop feely effects for phones can download a software development kit from the site – which enables tactile effects to be created from .wav and midi files. ( cost ? $5K )
It will only work with mobiles which are built to conform with the company’s Vibetonz ™ standards of course – we tried to find a list of currently enabled phones on the site – but failed – maybe you’ll have more luck.
Before you start though, it might be worth bearing in mind this sagely piece of advice from the makers -
“It’s bad to annoy the user “ . . .
Really ?
Note* ( An unfortunate choice of phrase perhaps, given the current London craze for ‘happy slapping’ )
comments ?24
FEB 05
4lways look on the br1ght s!de . . .
We would like to postulate a conjecture – that the younger you are ( within reason ) the more likely you will be able to tolerate crap computer systems.
We propose that it may be a newly evolving psychological protection mechanism which prevents health-damaging frustration associated with computer / tech systems in general. The older you are, the more likely you will be to expect everything to work flawlessly – clearly a misguided old fool’s Arcadia.
There’s a glaring difference though, between the quarterbaked mal-designed baloney of most software packages – and the crisp no-nonsense quasi-perfection of the hardware. ( chips, not spinning discs of course ).
Things could be about to change though. A ( new ? ) idea being floated by the University of Southern California’s School of Engineering is suggesting that chip makers are being over zealous in their quality-control practices. Currently, more than half of the computer chips which are manufactured are scrapped after failing test procedures which demand nothing less than 100%.
The researchers point out that some of the faulty chips could be sold for use in applications which are not 100% critical. Does it really matter, they argue, if the 457893rd pixel in a graphics array always turns up at half brightness ?
The team reckon that the (new ?) market in less-than-perfect chips could generate revenues into billions of dollars. They’re clearly on to something – they’ve recently been given a $1.1 million government grant to carry on the research.
It’s an interesting idea, but, if it becomes industry practice, it does beg the question - how will demanding consumers ( like the ones who use PC’s to control the electricity grid ) know that they aren’t being fobbed-off with faulty chips ?
Perhaps the CPUs will come with a holographic stamp from the makers guaranteeing perfection ? Maybe colour coded ? Sold in the following flavours ? perfect ~ not mission-critical ~ consumer graphics only ~ suitable for controlling the music in novelty xmas cards ~ and don’t complain to us, it was dirt cheap wasn’t it ?
To cut to the chase – if your're post-teenage and you think reliability
is a problem now – you ain’t seen nothing yet . . .
See:
comments ?23
FEB 05
One stop(s) short of Barking.
Heartfelt thanks go out to the BBC for publishing a story today about some new research from the psychology dept. of the University of Texas.
Saves us having to write it up.
Entitled ‘Test for canine personalities’ . . .
"We used approaches used to assess human personality and applied them to dogs," says the author, Dr. Sam Gosling.
We have done some work though. Rooting out some previous research papers (.pdfs) featuring the same author. Such as :
‘A
Room with a cue: Judgments of personality based on offices and bedrooms’. Which
asked : Can you judge an individual’s personality by the state
of their office or bedroom ?
Followed up by:‘Personality
impressions based on personal websites’ Testing the hypothesis,
can you judge an individual’s personality by the state of their
website ?
And, last but not least : 'Personality dimensions in spotted hyenas' ( Self explanatory )
comments ?22
FEB 05
Transgenic enigma - still an enigma.
It’s been a few months since we drew attention to the famous hairy cactus. Hairy cactii are nothing new of course – except this one 'has been G Modified' - and ‘grows human hair’.
The plant has been causing a fair bit of controversy. Firstly from the people who say it should never have been created – and secondly from people who say it’s a fake - such doubters have even included correspondents to the prestigious New Scientist magazine. (March 2004)
We haven’t seen the beast, and as, we pointed out in our last item on the subject, it’s impossible to get a good look at it via the website – as there were no reasonably large photos to look at – and, as far as we can see, there still aren’t.
It seems clear that a good close-up inspection of the creature is needed, and, according to this article in The Scotsman, you’ll be able to soon – at the upcoming Edinburgh International Science Festival - which starts on April the 1st, 2005
Unfortunately you won’t . . .
Intrigued at the possibility of getting an in-depth view of the creature, we telephoned the organisers about the Scotsman piece and were told “No, it won’t be on show – don’t know where they got that from ! “
So the mystery continues. You can, however, get to meet the artist and listen to a discussion on ‘transgenic art’ in general on Sunday 10th April ( details on festival website )
http://www.sciencefestival.co.uk/
comments ?21
FEB 05
Campaign for organic petrol.
The UK's latest food scare centres around a dye called Sudan 1 ™. It’s plain that its presence in any groceries is unacceptable – it was banned from foodstuffs in the US in 1918.
It took the EU 77 years to catch up, but it’s now illegal as a food additive in Europe too. Unfortunately, it’s still in use in some parts of the world, especially in India where it is commonly found in chilli powder. Chilli powder that gets exported it seems.
So, if you come across any food items which list Sudan1 ™ in the ingredients - don’t buy it.
Of course, Sudan1 ™ is just a trade name - it’s true chemical name is C16H12N2O. Confusingly, it's also sold under a variety of other trade names. Such as Fat Orange I ™, Orange a l'huile ™, or even Zlut rozpoustedlova 14 ™. . .
In fact the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health ( NIOSH ) cites no less than 86 alternative names for the product.
That’s going to make it a bit tricky keeping tabs on all of them as you check the ingredients listed in your curry powder.
Here’s the full list, along with disturbing toxicological data. http://www.cdc.gov/niosh
Oh look! we found yet more names for it:
http://physchem.ox.ac.uk
Oh dear, even more names:
http://pubchem.com
Seems like there really is quite a lot of it about then. Even more disturbing perhaps, as it "May cause long-term harm in the environment" ( source Oxford University Physical & Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory )
By the way, one of the dye’s most common uses is to tint petrol (gas) . errrrrr . Why ? Is the consumer really bothered about the colour of the petrol they put into their tank ? Does it increase sales ? Does it give the motorist a warm, comforting, quality feel as they fill their tank with satisfyingly artificial golden liquid ?
The oil companies evidently thinks so . . . but we don't. Next time you fill up, be sure to ask your filling station for 'organic' petrol.
Update 27 Feb : If you’d like to check the Food Standards Agency website, they are publishing regular updates to the lists of foodstuffs which have been found to be contaminated. The full list ( for which you’ll have to download all the files ) now runs into the high hundreds.
The FSA are now also checking for Sudan 4™ (
like Sudan 1™ but redder ).
comments ?19
FEB 05
Light bikes – heavy prices
A team from Brigham Young University Utah, have recently released details of a new lightweight bike frame. It tips the scales at only 3¼ pounds ( approx 1.5Kg )
It
certainly has a different ‘look and feel’ to the traditional
frames we’ve all seen on high-end racing bikes. It’s based on
a carbon-fibre and Kevlar® lattice.
We can’t help wondering about the aerodynamic performance though. We would have thought that the lattice might cause quite a bit of air turbulence ? – perhaps that’s why it seems to have been encased in shrink-wrap plastic ?
It’s certainly an interesting development, but there’s a way to go yet. Canadian firm Cervélo, for instance, have their R2.5 frame ( also carbon-fibre/Kevlar®) which has already been proved by use in the Tour de France – and weighs only two thirds as much.
The Holy Grail, as far as bike design is concerned, is a four way balancing act - the tradeoffs being: Air-resistance / Lightness / Price / Strength. The Cervélo R2.5 currently costs $4000. The new BYU one ? – no price as yet – but it’s expected to be below $5000.
So, now we know three of the important factors – air-resistance, lightness and price. What about the strength ? No info unfortunately. The obvious next step then would be to ‘battle test’ the frame in a real world – perhaps we could suggest some cycling groups who could put it through the mill ? How about RMBB – based in the neigbouring state of Colorado ? If they can't bust it, nobody can. . . ( note* The RMBB is no longer known as ‘The Bicycle Boys From Hell' )
Correction: A previous version of this post had
an HTML markup glitch which mistakenly swapped the links between ‘The
Bicycle Boys From Hell’ and this
page, a BYU 'Honor Code' document covering the university's policy towards
gay students. The mistake has now been rectified.
comments ?18 FEB 05
Funnier than a ____ with ____ !
One of the advantages of being an on-line mag is that we can offer the reader a chance to interact with the content. Today we present an interactive audio experience !
Apologies to those who haven’t got speakers attached to their browsing device – you'll miss the jokes – sorry
Also, due to the vagaries of reliably reproducing audio in various browsers, it's just possible that you may experience difficulty in playing the clips. What can we do ? Will they ever get it right ? ( Don’t hold your breath . . .)
The University of Southern California have an ongoing research project called SAIL ( Speech Analysis and Interpretation Laboratory ). They are, of course, involved with speech synthesis research, and have heavyweight backing from the US army, DARPA, Lockheed Martin, HRL labs and many others.
One of their projects is currently investigating the ability “ to include expressive and emotional content in machine synthesized speech “. And part of this challenge is to try and synthesise authentic sounding computer-generated laughter.
It’s a notoriously tricky area. Even non-spontaneous laughter from a real human can sound horribly fake. To add to the complexity, the laughter has to be just the right kind – at the right time – or it can sound sarcastic – insulting even.
To ease their evaluation task, the lab are asking members of the public to help them, by evaluating various computer-laugh samples : on a scale of ‘very poor’ to ‘excellent’.
We don’t want to give the game away, but it just might be that some of the recordings on the site have been made by real humans – dropped in as control samples – can you spot which is which ? Hmmmmmm ?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Not to be outdone by the SAIL lab, we’ve studiously computer-generated our very own laugh-samples, which we present below - with accompanying ’jokes’ to act as a springboard.
1) Do you think we'd qualify for a grant from the US army?
2) Headline: "University Dropouts Cut in Half"
3) Last night I dreamed I was eating a giant marshmallow, and when I woke
up the pillow was gone ! (credit: T.Cooper Esq
)
4) A wise man chooses a partner who is attractive not only to himself, but
to mosquitoes.
5) 83.6% of all statistics are worthless.
6) A University is a collection of disparate departments brought together
by a common interest in car-park spaces.
Lastly, as a ‘control’ joke, we present a quip from someone who spent several years analysing jokes with the utmost scientific rigour – Sigmund Freud. It comes from his seminal work “Jokes and their relation to the Subconscious” (1905). In our opinion, it’s by far the funniest one in the entire volume. Here it is, loosely translated from the original German.
“Isn’t it strange the way that the skin of a cat has two holes
cut in it – just where the eyes should be ! “
comments ?17 FEB 05
Or should I call you professor ?
Excuse us, sorry to bother you, but, is there ever an awkward silence because you don’t quite know how to address your boss ? First name / last name - or just ‘guvna’ ?*
If so, then according to new research from Penn State University, you may be trapped by a ‘Black Hole in Social Space’.
Their professor of management, Dr. David A. Morand, interviewed 74 students ( errrr . . . shouldn’t they have been employees ? ) and has determined that :
“Subordinates are at times reluctant to use the first name toward more powerful others due to this form's presumption of familiarity."
If we’d understood correctly, that means ‘ Sometimes it’s difficult to know what to call the boss’.
Prof. Morand should know what he’s talking about. His first paper on the subject, entitled “What's in a name? An exploration of the social dynamics of forms of address in organizations” was published nearly ten years ago.
Thank goodness though, the author shines a ray of hopeful light in our direction, because, unlike a real black hole, there is apparently an escape mechanism – awkward silences, he tells us “can be corrected once both parties realize what is happening”. Phew !
Here’s an overview of the study. Read it. I want a report on my desk first thing tomorrow morning. What did you say your name was ?
Note* The first para is carefully constructed to
showcase a grammatical form called ‘negative
politeness’ – another of the professor’s study areas.
comments ?16
FEB 05
Carbon fudge anyone ?
George Monbiot draws attention in today’s Guardian to the UK government’s attempts at massaging the levels of CO2 emissions which it’s allowed to produce under the Kyoto Protocol. A bit late in the day perhaps, for Britain to be arguing about the figures - as the protocol becomes law tomorrow.
The
UK is insistent on allocating another 20M tons of CO2 allowances
to industry ( worth, we estimate somewhere around €120Million per year
), after confusion arose at the actual level of current emissions.
‘Confusion’ is probably not a strong enough word, - we did our best to plot a graph to show how much this 20M tons affects the big picture. We failed. We sucked figures from two sources – the UK government's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction , and the US’s Union of Concerned Scientists.
The tonnage figures differ so wildly ( by a factor of ten or so ) there’s no point in reproducing them here. However, the relative figures, i.e. the global share of CO2 production for each country, remains fairly consistent.
The graph shows a comparison of the top ten ‘culprits’. ( The UK’s 20M extra tons is so small in comparison that it was too tiny to plot at this scale . . .)
Why all the confusion ? Why are the ‘latest’ figures 9 years out of date ? Why does the Guardian say that the 20M tons is ‘extra’ whereas the Telegraph says it’s the total ?
Here’s our attempt at an explanation. With the assistance of some blisteringly expensive blue-chip PR agencies, it’s possible that confusion, obfuscation, and disagreement could be laced through the media and academia – if successful, the parties who would stand to gain financially by polluting the planet would be more than compensated.
It seems they have the upper hand at the moment.
*note. The Kyoto Protocol is only binding for 7 years, after that it’s ‘off the board – throw again’
Also see : ‘Mocking Our Dreams’ at Monbiot.com
comments ?15
FEB 05
Walk don't walk.
Would
anyone like to sponsor an ‘Really Magazine’ visit to the upcoming Expo
2005 in Aichi, Japan ?
No ?
We’re particularly interested to see Toyota’s ‘i-foot ’. For those not familiar with i-foot, it comes into the category of powered ‘exoskeletons’ – in other words, wearable robotics.
( We'd like to suggest the word ‘wearable’, rather than ‘mountable’ which Toyota seem to prefer. )
The robot, can apparently, negotiate stairs, and is :
“meant to express the dream of future three-dimensional mobility and the feelings of safety and reliability upon which that dream is built.”
The new device will make its official debut at the show, which will run from March 25th to Sept 25th.
more details see:
http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/news/
comments ?14
FEB 05
"We’d like to draw your attention to the ‘no blogging’ clause."
So what’s new ? Employees have always chatted about what goes on behind the scenes at their place of work. It’s a ‘human given’. Times are changing though, and 'sensitive' details, which used to be aired to friends and colleagues over after-work drinks – can now be posted to the internet to be read by millions.
There’s a fair chance that if unwelcome contents of a worker’s blog comes to the attention of their employer – they may well be ‘let go’ - p.d.q.
The latest in a series of news items about fired bloggers comes from 99zeros. The author is claiming that he was fired – from Google – for his webposting activities. Previous high profile stories on a similar tack have featured Delta Airlines, Microsoft, Freindster etc etc.
As a blogger, the obvious way of avoiding dismissal would be to set up an anonymous blog. There are a number of ways of doing it – unfortunately, they probably won’t help.
Many US states have so called ‘At-Will’ employment laws ( some dating back to the 19th century ). The essence of the legislation being that employees can be fired at any time – without a reason being given. Furthermore, the state will assist, if necessary, in providing legal levers which can demand that service providers reveal the author’s identity.
In the UK, there are no 'At-Will' laws, but, in practice, the legal system may be expected to come down heavily on the side of the employer - citing almost the almost religious importance of ‘commercial confidentiality’.
It’s a nonsense of course. All any company has to do to find out what the competition is up to, is to get a ‘headhunting’ firm to procure a key worker from the competitor in question. It's costly, but it happens every day.
Could it be then, that the real driving-force behind corporations’ enthusiasm for confidentiality is not to prevent sensitive or embarrassing details leaking to the competition – but to the public at large ?
Bloggers, and bloggees, beware.
comments ?13
FEB 05
A game of tag.
As far as we know, Brittan Elementary School, in California has become the first in the US to require students to wear RFID tags at all times whilst on school premises. The electronic chips carry a unique code which can be used to monitor the whereabouts of the children.
Unfortunately, the tagging scheme was introduced without any parental consultation, and is ‘compulsory’ – it’s not surprising perhaps to hear that its implementation has been causing some negative reactions.
It’s not a large school – only 600+ students, so you might think that keeping track of them wouldn’t be a major problem using traditional methods. But the idea seems to be part of the school’s impressive ‘Technology Plan’ – aimed at generally electronic-ifying the place, and also, of course, in the process prompting all the students to become as techno-savvy as possible. Equipping them for the future if you like.
Complaints have already been officially filed though, by concerned parents who are none too happy about the possible Orwellian implications.
So we’d like to float an idea that could both placate the annoyed parents and help to educate the children about electronics - in depth. Namely, why not let them see if they can find some technological ways round it ? Like, for instance wrapping the tags in aluminium cooking foil to defeat the data transmission.
( microwaving them is strictly not allowed, as it could be dangerous, and may cause the tags' delicate electronics permanent, though invisible, damage )
Editors comment: Presumably, the staff will
have set an example to the students by also tagging themselves ?
Here’s a report from infowars.com
Here's the school's voluminous 'Tech Plan'.
Here's our latest bumpersticker.
Update 15 MAR 05
Students and parents might also like to check the following two websites :
http://consumerworld.blogspot.com
comments ?12
FEB 05
Aaaaaargh ! ( spontaneous expression of thrill )
London’s Royal College of Art can always be relied on as a source
of ‘challenging’ ideas. Today they’ve released details of
the results of a study headed by research fellow, former BAE systems military
aircraft engineer, Brendan Walker.
The £46,380 study, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board, asked “What do you find thrilling ?” – which is, of course a very expansive question. With such a huge field of thrill-options, it must have been difficult to know where to begin. In the end, the researchers decided to start outdoors rather than indoors, at a place where thrills abound – the fairground.
The study focused on “exploring the relationship between the rider and ride” , and carefully tracked facial expressions using a specially developed device, an ‘ auto-portrait machine ‘, which was developed in association with the UK government’s Health and Safety Laboratory in Sheffield.
The machine was designed to capture facial expressions ‘exactly the moment of optimum thrill’.
Careful
analysis of the results, in conjunction with MIT’s Media Lab Europe*,
yielded a previously unknown relationship between Arousal (A), Pleasure (V),
the Thrill Factor (Tf), and, of course Time (t) – as expressed by this
formula.
The formula has since been taken out of the fairground into the wider world, and has been battle-tested by many in-depth interviews about various thrilling experiences – such as :
“A crochet wedding”
“Duck egg attack”
“Cross country dresser”
all of which ( and more ) you can explore at the researcher’s website
The machine and resulting photographic portraits will be on display at an exhibition
entitled :
“Punters: auto-portraits of fairground thrill ” M+R gallery, London E2, from 19 to 27 February 2005.
*Note: Media Lab Europe has since filed for insolvency.
comments ?10 FEB 05
“It’s OK, it’s not loa
About one in three households in the US owns firearms. The number of guns however, is now almost one per person – so some families must have an awful lot of guns about the house.
Tragically, more than a thousand children and adolescents die each year after they get their hands on the family’s shooters. Surely there must be a way to reduce the numbers of deaths ?
Aside from the obvious ( vote losing ) strategy of making it illegal, how about a second line of prevention ? Locking the guns and ammo away safely, and separately, so that the kids can’t get to them ? A PC idea too far ?
The Journal of the American Medical Association has just finished an extensive study across 37 counties, trying to ascertain whether ( the most basic of ) safety measures might reduce the risk of injury and death.( Astonishingly, according to JAMA, no such study has been carried out before.)
Their conclusions ?
“The four practices of keeping a gun locked, unloaded, storing ammunition locked, and in a separate location are each associated with a protective effect, and suggest a feasible strategy to reduce these types of injuries in homes with children and teenagers where guns are stored.”
Radical stuff.
JAMA believes that “educational interventions” may be the key to persuading the guns’ owners ( the parents ) to do the right thing and keep their substantial private arsenals under lock and key.
We wish the adult educators the very best of luck. Especially in Fairfax and Springfield , Virginia.
see:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/
comments ?09
FEB 05
Galactic beachcombing.
Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Ross and the Sultan of Brunei’s ladyfriends now have something to argue about. A diamond as big as a planet.
That is if Princeton University astronomer Marc Kuchner is to be believed. And we think he probably is. He's just announced at a conference on extrasolar planets in Aspen, Colorado, that some planets in our galaxy might be made of diamond – or at least have a thick layer beneath the surface.
Well, yes, that sounds perfectly plausible . . . So? And ?
Given the ‘size’ of the Universe, and that natural filtering algorithms of astronomical complexity ( think Stephen Wolfram ) will have been at work for 20 Billion years or so, it’s more or less certain that ‘exotic’ materials will have tended to get washed up here and there in odd corners of space . . .
If you were to pick almost any other relatively simple compound, and have enough time and resources to explore the entire Milky Way ( and every other of the zillions of galaxies ) you’d almost certainly be able to find it.
Every single atom of every element of matter which is found here on Earth came, at some stage, from deep space ( with the possible exception of some man made exotic radioactive ones ), so we can confidently predict that eventually, planets will be found which are made entirely of polythene, high grade stainless steel, Vaseline™, or, of course, diamond.
Bearing in mind though the difficulty of ‘mining’ such a planet, the streets of Antwerp and Hatton Garden will not be littered with dealers who have jumped from high windows just yet.
A hundred and fifty years ago, ships were towing icebergs from the Arctic to London – so that they could be broken up and stored underground for use in ice-cream etc .
comments ?08
FEB 05
Yeeeeharrrr ! ( Ooops . . . )
File under ‘damage limitation’ . . .
comments ?07
FEB 08
DVD v HVD
The
'format wars' regarding the systems in use for DVD data storage still haven’t
been resolved yet. Don’t worry about it. You should be fretting instead
about the date when DVD will become obsolete.
A six company Japanese consortium, ( one of which is the optical tech media giant Fuji ) has released details of the theory behind the HVD ( Holographic Versatile Disc ) which they’re developing. With the same size / look / feel / convenience of a DVD, it will ( they say ) be able to store 1TByte of data, some 200 times the capacity of a single layer DVD, and with a data transfer rate about 40 times faster . . .
It’s only a matter of time, it seems, before there will be an awful lot of secondhand DVD writers available on e-bay . . . Anyone care to place bets on how long the demise will take ?
http://www.optware.co.jp/english/tech.htm
comments ?05 FEB 05
Conscious in Berkshire ?
Reading university have today issued a press release about ‘Perspex ’ ( nothing whatever to do with the ICI’s registered trademark for transparent acrylic ). It’s a new computer programming regime which has been under development for eight years or so.
The devisor of the new paradigm, Dr. James Anderson, says that Perspex is a way of writing a computer program as a 'geometrical structure', rather than as a series of instructions. Errrr . . . we’re slightly confused already . . . every standard microprocessor – the dumb brain of the vast majority of computers - runs its programme as a series of instructions. Even if the high level prog looks like it’s not sequential, the processor will still have to execute its machine-code one command after another . . .
He goes on to say “Perspex allows global reasoning to be attained with just one initial instruction” – now we’re really lost – errrr . . . ‘global reasoning’ ? Sorry, what’s that exactly ?
In an effort to try to get to the bottom of precisely what the new idea is, we delved into archives at Reading’s on-line database. where we found this from 1997. It seems that the programming idea has its roots in visual processing for robots, and, as Dr. Anderson extrapolated at the time, "One is visually conscious of one's thoughts if one can see one's thoughts" - errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr . . . No , sorry Doctor, we can’t ‘see our thoughts’ – we can imagine images or scenes – but we can’t see thoughts – if we could, would that make us more like humans and less like dumb robots ?
In common with many a university press release, the description of Perspex a very long way from transparent. Which is a shame, because it might just be the most important new programming method of the decade – or it might not. If anyone can figure out the what on earth it’s about, and why it’s a useful new tool ( more handy, say, than the self-repairing neural networks which already exist ) and how it could ever endow computers with consciousness, can you please cont4ct us and let us know.
http://www.extra.rdg.ac.uk/news/
comments ?04
FEB 05
One Euro an hour ? ? ? errrrr . . . yeah, alright I’ll take it . . .
This week the German government released the current unemployment figures – back up to 5 million again . . .
The frighteningly high numbers are being blamed in part on the new Hartz IV laws, which, amongst other measures, have forced new ways of counting the jobless.
The ‘vision’ behind the new laws comes from consultant Peter Hartz , who “ has been known internationally for his innovative human resources and labor market policies as a member of Volkswagen's executive board since the early 1990s.” ( source DW-TV ). This is presumably the same VW who last year threatened to sack any workers who joined a peaceful protest against job cuts at their production plant in Brazil(1)– there’s innovative for you.
One of the arms of the Hartz IV implementation is aimed at ‘persuading’ the long term unemployed back to work. This persuasion takes the form of the threat of benefit-withdrawal from the long term unemployed – should they choose not to take up the offer of government sanctioned work - work which is paid at the insultingly low rate of €1 per hour – some ten times less than the going rate for the job.
To give an idea of the scale of the problem, long term unemployed who happen to be over 40 years old are quietly considered ‘over the hill’ by the new ‘job centres’, and won’t even be offered the €1 jobs their junior colleagues are commanding. Even at that derisory rate there still aren't enough jobs to go round . . .
We don't have to tell you things are bad, everybody knows things are bad, it's a depression(2), but the last time the jobless figures were so high was in the 1930’s. While not solely responsible for the rise of German fascism which led directly to WW2, the high figures certainly poured petrol on the flames.
There’s no doubt whatever that the current German government had better pull a rabbit out of the hat p.d.q. , or resign and let someone else have a go at sorting out the explosive mess that the country’s labour market is in. Perhaps an international effort is needed, maybe some of the visionary board members at Fiat or Mitsubishi or even Kia could have a go ?
(1) The workers had already agreed to a 15% wage cut. But a few months later were threatened with redundancy again. Not surprisingly they protested. After international media attention, VW eventually withdrew the threat of sacking protesters.
(2).mp3 clip featuring Peter Finch's perfromance in the 1976 film Network, courtesy Americanrhetoric.com. Not quite appropriate, but it's so good we can't resist it . . .
comments ?04
FEB 05
What’s the half-life of a mega-scandal ?
One of Australia’s most prominent scientists, Graeme Pearman, the former CSIRO chief scientist for atmospheric research and now a government consultant, says that "It is a great pity that because of the way environmental issues have evolved, [nuclear energy] cannot be logically put into the debate," ( see yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald )
He’s referring of course to the possibility of expanded use of nuclear power stations ( which produce relatively small amounts of CO2 ) as a way to decelerate global warming.
A global conference on climate change opened in the UK yesterday.
Could it be that the fortunately-timed statement might perhaps be obtusely referring to the UK’s penchant during the 1950’s to use Australia as a conveniently remote testing ground for nuclear weapons ?
21 nuclear devices were exploded at sites such as the Monte Bello islands, the Emu field, and Woomera Maralinga.
Apart from the legacy of irradiated land contaminated to this day, there was also a human cost. According to Dundee University, research into Australian archive documents indicates that “ 24 Australian servicemen tested different types of clothing - to find out what protection they offered against radiation.”
+ Local residents were allowed to ‘hold picnics’ to watch the tests at Woomera ( after they’d signed the official secrets act )
+ Local hospital records for the period have ‘disappeared’.
+ The Australian government now lists 8116 service personnel who were involved in the tests, plus 8907 civilian staff - but, scandalously, no accurate list has to this day been published on the numbers of aborigine residents damaged by the tests.
Small wonder then that popular opinion in Australia is squarely suspicious of further nuke developments of any kind . . .
Whether that’s a ‘great pity’ or not is still very much open to debate.
For in depth archives see :
http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au
comments ?03 FEB 05
What’s invisible, highly dangerous, and wears a rubber skirt ?
The Greek government has just taken delivery of it’s third "Zubr" ("Bison") as part of a €154Million military contract with Russia.
In full-on Russian OTT heavy-techno-style, the “Zubr” is a colossal hovercraft which was designed for the Soviet military more than 20 years back .
The Greek authorities have been told that –
“It is invisible for enemy's radar stations. The effect is achieved with the help of special coating on the body of the ship.”
– which is seriously astounding given that it’s 57 meters long, 20 meters wide and weighs 235 tons . . . We can’t confirm the efficacy of the mysterious coating, but perhaps the craft is invisible because, according to this Pravda report, “ it’s capable of about about 130 thousand kilometers per hour” ( we think they probably might mean 130 Kph )
We’d like to show you a photo of the craft, but we wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of the Greek military, which famously imprisoned members of a UK planespotter’s club who were caught outside an airport photographing ‘secret’ aircraft. ( oh, and some birdspotters with binoculars got nicked as well ) So here’s an artist’s impression. . .
Note: The sole inventor of the original hovercraft, Sir Christopher Cockerell, spent a decade or so perfecting the design. He struggled to receive the financial rewards he deserved, but finally got hold of a knighthood and royalties which amounted to about £2,800 per year of work
.Hovercraft pros and cons :
Olympian attributes - They are very useful in marshy terrain where normal boats would have difficulty ( does Greece have any marshes ? )
Achilles’ heel(s) - Not so good on
the open sea, as they are relentlessly bumpy even on quite moderate waves.
On land, the rubber skirts tend to wear out very quickly, and require constant
maintenance. They are appallingly noisy.
comments ?02 FEB 05
Fat Cats
We'd like to draw attention to the UK’s first official weight-loss clinic – for pets . . .
The clinic will be using a ' Dual Energy X-Ray Absorptionmetry ' scanner, (DEXA) to accurately calculate the degree of obesity in cats and dogs, and it will then go on to monitor the success of their diet regimes.
Liverpool University's Royal Canin Weight Management Clinic opens for business today. ( no, that’s not a misprint for ‘canine’ – it’s the trade name of a manufacturer of ‘specialist veterinary diets’ – which is giving ‘financial support’ to the university – and is also generously supplying the scanner.)
We can’t begin to guess what foods the clinic will be recommending
for the critter’s new slimming diets . . .
http://www.liv.ac.uk/newsroom/
comments ?02 FEB 05
A not-so-pretty oily penny . . .
The UK’s secretary for the environment, Margaret Beckett, opened a group hand-ringing conference in Exeter today. The idea of the gathering is to draw attention to the ugly face of climate change – the consensus being that it’s being caused, in the main, by the continued overuse of fossil fuels.
How poignant then, that this week, two of the biggest oil producers on the planet, Shell and Exxon are revealing their stupendous profits for last year.
In fact Shell is ‘expected to announce’ this week the biggest corporate profit of any UK company – ever – at around $17.5bn.
The figure, it should be noted is after tax. In other words, the UK government will shortly be receiving the largest single corporate tax windfall it’s ever had . . .
Summed up then, the UK’s message to the oil giants would appear to be “ Now look, you really must try to cut back a little – oh, by the way thanks for the wedge – keep up the good work”.
comments ?01
FEB 05
SENS conference.
For those interested in the possibilities for extending the 'normal' human lifespan, there's still time to register ( or send an abstract submission ) for the upcoming SENS conference, to be held at Queens' College, Cambridge, England on September 7-11 2005.
The early registration and abstract submission deadlines are both June 15th. All details, including forms for abstract submission and online registration, are at the conference website:
http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/sens2/
If you haven't seen SENS before, check our interview pages for far-reaching ideas from the organiser Dr. Aubrey de Grey.
comments ?01
FEB 05
Cor !
Researchers at the Duke University Medical Center have unearthed the “tantalising possibility” that monkey’s brains might be similar, in some ways, to human brains.
In a story which has predictably featured in many a scientific and not-so-scientific website, comes the headline “Monkeys pay to view pawn” ( sic. – for search-engine related reasons ).
The research demonstrated that rhesus monkeys ( who were on a low fluid-intake regime and therefore permanently thirsty ) would happily ‘pay’ their ration of fruit juice in order to view photos of female colleague’s, ahem, ‘perinea’ . . . They’d also pay ( slightly less ) to see pictures of other powerful and famous monkeys in their group. Predictably, they wouldn’t pay a drop to see shots of inferior nobody monkeys . . .
Who could have foreseen the outcome ? Well, Rupert ( The Sun ) Murdoch and Richard ( Daily Express ) Desmond for a start.
Without wanting to get into a debate about whether animal experiments can ever be justified or not, it might be worth pointing out that crucial medical research can sometimes be advanced more rapidly by experiments which could never be carried out on live humans – but this experiment doesn’t fall into that category.
Instead, it turns the concept on its head by proving results in an animal study when the human reactions are already so well known that entire publishing industries rely on them . . .
Lets hope the National Institute of Mental Health and the Cure Autism Now Foundation are delighted with the results from the cash which they invested in the research. If they’d like to cont4ct us and let us know we’d be happy to post up their views here on the site . . .
Overview :
http://www.dukemednews.org/news
Here’s the full report :
http://download.current-biology.com/
P.S.
Readers interested in how to create and maintain a niche business, or, alternatively, in the scale of the animal research industry, might want to take a look at the website of the company which makes the ‘Primate Chairs’ which the monkeys were strapped into for the experiments :
Tip: it might be best not to give your imagination free rein on this one . . .
http://www.cristinstrument.com/
01 FEB 05
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