You are currently browsing the Wetshadows weblog archives for the day 21. May 2008.
21. May 2008 by admin.
This article appeared in the Telegraph Newspaper at Telegraph.co.uk
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/05/20/scibacteria120.xml
Last Updated: 1:01am BST 20/05/2008
Posted in "wow", electronics | Print | 1 Comment »
21. May 2008 by admin.
From the Telegraph Newspaper in the UK:
Home Office plans to create ‘Big brother’ database for phones calls, emails and web use
Last updated: 7:07 AM BST 20/05/2008
The Government wants to create the system to fight terrorism and crime. The police and security services believe it will make it easier to access important data as communications become more complex.
Telecoms firms and internet service providers (ISPs) have already been approached by the Home Office, which would be given customer records if the plans were realised.
The security services and police would then be able to access records for any individual over the previous 12 months by gaining permission through the courts.
The plans will raise concern from data protection and civil liberty campaigners and fuel objections to the perceived rise of a “Big Brother” state. There will be worries about the Home Office’s ability to safeguard the data from loss or theft, after recent incidents such as when the child benefit information of every family in Britain with a child under 16 were mislaid.
There will also be doubts about its capacity to manage such a large volume of information. About 57 billion text messages were sent in Britain last year, while an estimated three billion emails are sent every day.
Since last October, telecoms companies have been required to keep records of phone calls and text messages for 12 months.
The plans are being considered for inclusion in the draft Communications Bill to be published later this year. They are at an early stage and have yet to be passed to ministers.
A Home Office spokesman said the move was needed to reflect changes in communication that would “increasingly undermine our current capabilities to obtain communications data and use it to protect the public”.
Story from Telegraph News:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1990999/Home-Office-plans-to-create-%27Big-brother%27-database-for-phones-calls%2C-emails-and-web-use.html
Posted in Politics & Current Events | Print | 2 Comments »
21. May 2008 by admin.
Welcome to the world of Robocup NanoSoccer. Nanotechnology will change the world, but
first it will result in nano-scopic soccer games…perhaps, eventually, nano-sports leagues?
Posted in "wow", technology, electronics | Print | 1 Comment »
21. May 2008 by admin.
There’s an interesting article in the June issue of Portfolio Magazine which discusses the emerging ‘brain sciences’ industry. The most interesting question that arises for me from this article is: at what point in altering our brain functions and chemistry, do we stop being human and start being post-human? Or, put another way, what mix of chemicals defines our humanity and what mix of chemicals defines our mutation into something else/less/more?
The other thing that was really interesting to me was the breakdown the article provided on the amounts of money currently spent worldwide on drugs to treat depression, anxiety and psychoses–approx. $65 Billion dollars. When you couple this with the separate statistic I heard in an interview that 14% of Americans (10% are women 4% are men) are prescribed at least one anti-depressant medication, you get the idea that keeping people happy and psychosis-free is big business.
Chart showing expenditures:
http://www.portfolio.com/graphics/2008/05/Where-the-Money-Is
Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 1 Comment »
21. May 2008 by admin.
I just returned from 2 weeks in France–1 week in Paris and 1 week in Provence. I decided prior to the trip to buy a portable navigation device (commonly known in the biz as a “PND”), a TomTom Go 920 GPS device.
When I had read about these in the past, I thought ‘here’s another device I will have to carry around and worry about–I’ll just get a phone that has assisted-GPS instead’. However, after talking to someone who had bought one for a trip to Europe, and finding out that this particular TomTom has both North American and European maps pre-loaded, I decided to get one.
Let me tell you, it was worth it. Here’s what makes this device worthwhile: 1) voice recognition that really works pretty well–you can tell it the address you want directions to and it will tell you how to get there; 2) bluetooth–if you have a bluetooth-capable phone, you can make calls through it by synching it with your phone’s address book; 3) it always can tell you the nearest hospital/doctor/gas station/auto repair shop to where you are or at least one of them (if not every one); 4) it has a more accurate speedometer than your car does, since it relies upon actual distance/rate calculations based on the satellite fix it has; 5) you can download map modifications that other customers have input to the maps, so you get updates not only from TomTom but also from other people.
In France, the TomTom made our lives much easier. We never had to worry about getting lost and it knew exactly how to get us where we wanted to go.
The device cost me $368, but you can get it even cheaper now, since it’s being replaced by a newer model. I’m not sure that the newer model is worth the extra money, but the model replacing mine is the TomTom Go 930.
If your car already has navigation built-in, then you probably don’t need this. If you don’t have it built in, skip getting one in your next car (probably at least a $1000 option) and get this instead.
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21. May 2008 by admin.
Here are some more movie recommendations:
1. “My kid could paint that”: A real-life whodunnit involving a very young child prodigy abstract painter. The central question of the documentary is this: did the young girl actually paint the paintings she is getting acclaim for, or did her father paint them?
2. “Remember that Night Live at the Royal Albert Hall” (David Gilmour live): One of my favorite all-time musicians, David Gilmour, gives an amazing performance in this DVD chronicling his 2006 world tour. He is accompanied by Ray Manzarek from Roxy Music, Richard Wright (keyboardist from Pink Floyd), and joined for some songs by Crosby & Nash and by David Bowie.
His solo work is pretty good, but the highlights are his versions of classic Pink Floyd tunes. He performs my favorite song, “Echoes”, live for the first time in 20 years and it is stunning. When you see/hear him perform it, you’ll understand what an amazing accomplishment it is.
The camera work is great as is the audio mastering. If you can see it in Blu-ray, you should.
3. “Angel-A”: This film really worked for me. It’s a love story between an angel, played by former Supermodel Rie Rasmussen, and a man who is about to kill himself. It is directed by Luc Besson, the man behind “La Femme Nikita”, “Fifth Element” and “Leon the Professional”. You wouldn’t think that the guy who did those films could also pull off an interesting love story, but there you have it.
It is shot beautifully by Thierry Arbogast (the same cinematographer who did “Fifth Element”) in black and white. Not only is it a romantic fantasy but also an ode to Paris.
I was very pleasantly surprised by Rie Rasmussen’s performance. When I first saw her onscreen, I had no expectation that she would do as good a job acting as she did. Compare her performance here to any romantic comedy performance by Scarlett Johanssen, and see who you think comes out on top.
4. “The Hoax”: A very entertaining film with Richard Gere, based on a true story, about a reporter who faked a series of interviews with Howard Hughes. Well worth seeing.
5. “The Future We Will Create: The World inside of TED”: This is a documentary about the TED conference which takes place every year in Monterey. Aside from making me sick with envy of the people who get invited to attend this conference, the film was a very compelling insight into a diverse set of thinkers/artists/scientists. So much so, that I went to the TED site to download the full lectures that the film draws upon, so that I could watch them in their entirety. Very interesting and entertaining film because of the subject matter and not because of the talent of the film-makers per se.
You can access all of the TED lectures, many more than are covered in the DVD documentary, at www.TED.com. It’s worth checking out in its own right.
Posted in Recommended DVDs | Print | 1 Comment »
21. May 2008 by admin.
Posted in Recommended Music | Print | 1 Comment »