Only the true king can wield the awesome power of Excalibur. Whether it's calculating, measuring, stapling or cutting—you have the right tool for the job in one ridiculous package. [Taylor Gifts via RGS via DVICE]
how the active directory replication process goes on, and how to configure.
Posted by David McRee at BlogTheBeach.com
Art Lebedev is known for designing products that serve as elegant solutions for complex problems. If your problem is, "I can't figure out how to use this damn camera," his Fleximus concept is the solution for you.
The Fleximus, designed to take photos and video, features a bendable body that can be used with a built-in viewfinder or with an attachable 3" display. The camera's simplified controls and flexible body let you shoot at "angles never imaginable before": snaked under a door, curved around a corner, or, as the man below is attempting, sighted directly up your anus.
Sadly, like many of Lebedev's designs, the Fleximus will likely be a bit too cool for any company to put into production. [artlebedev.com]
Does anyone know what is the standard or rule of thumb when it comes to street lights? How far should street lights (Under ground or Over Head) from the curb?
10-ft, 15-ft, 25-ft ect...? I looked every and cannot find a definite answer, does it exist?
Thanks.
Seasons Greetings 2009
Being one of only two laydees on Gizmodo, I feel justified in saying this dress is hot. Though not as hot as we'll be if global warming gets its way, unless more people pay attention to eco-friendly inventions like this.
Dozens of LEDs sprinkled across this dress concept light up, and actually blink faster when the microprocessor and carbon dioxide detection unit (hidden in the dress bustle, I presume) recognizes pollution in the air. No, they don't make underwear versions, though I'm sure some of the men reading this could do with their "air pollution" being monitored. [Diffus via The Coolist]
ANCHORAGE, – A portion of Alaska’s North Slope coastline is eroding at a rate of up to 45 feet a year, posing a threat to oil operations and wildlife in the area, according to a new report issued by scientists at the University of Colorado.
Warmer ocean water has thawed the base of frozen bluffs and destroyed natural ice barriers protecting the coast, causing large earth chunks to fall each summer, the scientists said.
“What we are seeing now is a triple whammy effect,” study co-author Robert Anderson, an associate professor at the University of Colorado’s Department of Geological Sciences, said. “Since the summer Arctic sea ice cover continues to decline and Arctic air and sea temperatures continue to rise, we really don’t see any prospect for this process ending.”
The scientists studied coastline midway between Point Barrow, the nation’s northernmost spot, and Prudhoe Bay, site of the nation’s biggest oil fields. The erosion, if it continues, could ultimately be a problem for energy companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp and BP Plc.
“The northern coastline of Alaska midway between Point Barrow and Prudhoe Bay is eroding by up to one-third the length of a football field annually because of a “triple whammy” of declining sea ice, warming seawater and increased wave activity, according to new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder.”
See more on the story here from the University of Colorado.
Findings were presented last week at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. They backed up other studies of erosion along Alaska’s Beaufort Sea coastline.
A study by U.S. Geological Survey scientists published in February found that erosion along a stretch of Alaska coastline during 2002 to 2007 was twice as fast as in the period from 1955 to 1979. That USGS study also found erosion occurring at a rate of 13.6 meters (44.6 feet) annually from 2002 to 2007.
The three-year University of Colorado study aimed to examine how erosion is occurring, said co-author Irina Overeem, a scientist at the University’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research.
The scientists employed time-lapse photography, global positioning systems, meteorological monitoring, and analysis of sediment and sea-ice distribution.
Photographic images snapped every six hours during the around-the-clock sunlight of summer were particularly dramatic, Overeem told Reuters.
“There’s a notching effect that just notches, notches, notches and then topples over,” she said. “The cliffs are more than half ice — they’re basically dirty icebergs — so warm water, stronger waves and higher wave action quickly carves them away,” she said.
Read more here.
(Editing by Bill Rigby, Gary Hill)
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved
Many people are disappointed that we did not get a firm climate treaty from Copenhagen. However, we have to think about climate change responsibility differently. Countries should not wait for a treaty to come out of the UN. If something needs to be done, people should pressure their governments to do it with or without a global agreement. In addition, the Kyoto Protocol is in effect until 2012, so countries should still be operating under that, at least. The U.S. can operate under that at any time it chooses, but it has not chosen to do so. A new binding treaty might be treated the same way. Also, many countries, including the United States, break treaties and act in their own interests instead, with no punishment from anyone. So a “binding” treaty is not necessarily binding, or needed. If mitigating climate change and cutting emissions is the right thing to do, there is no need to wait until a binding agreement is signed through the UN. Countries need to get active cutting emissions right away and we have to pressure our governments to do that.
Why wait for federal governments to do the right thing? States can get started now.
A report from the New Rules Project says that 31 states have the renewable resources to be “energy self-reliant”
A new report from the New Rules Project finds that over 60% of all U.S. states have the renewable energy resources to be “energy self-reliant.” (“Energy self-reliance,” as defined in the report, is a measure of how self-sufficient in energy generation a state could be if it relied entirely on its own renewable resources). The New Rules Project, a program of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, released its findings last week.
The report, “Energy Self-Reliant States: Second and Expanded Edition” describes how 31 states have the capacity to independently meet their states’ electricity demands by using wholly renewable energy sources, already at their disposal. Several states, the report notes, could use their renewable energy resources to produce electricity that meets over ten times their statewide demands. An additional ten states could generate enough electricity to meet well over half of their annual demands—again, solely from renewable sources.
Read more at Climate Progress
Hi can you help me? what is the standard limits & the reference Number of the ff:
1. Insulation resistance Test
2. Polarization Index
3. Winding Resistance Test
4. Insulation Power Factor Test
5.Excitation Current Test
6. Bushing Hot Collar Test
7. Oil Dielectr
I'm surprised nobody did this before: Here is the Nexus One compared to the iPhone, side by side. And if that wasn't enough, check it compared to the HTC Hero:
The bodies' physical size is pretty much the same, but the screen in the Nexus One seems longer and thinner than the iPhone. More pics at [HTC Nexus One]
Headline from Public Policy Polling PPP:
Bachmann on solid ground
Raleigh, N.C. – Michele Bachmann may constantly be generating controversy in the national news, but back at home she finds herself in a solid position politically. 53% of her constituents approve of the job Bachmann is doing to 41% who disapprove.
Even more encouraging, PPP poll tested the Congresswoman against two likely Democrat opponents:
Bachmann leads Maureen Reed 53-37 and Tarryl Clark 55-37.
Bachman is a heroine of the Tea Party movement, and recently organized a Code Red rally at the Capitol in DC to help Stop the Democrats' Health Care legislation.
Her Congressional District is located in Southeastern Minnesota and includes St. Cloud.
(H/t Hedgehog)
Here's something beautiful: a mechanical garden that responds to your step. It makes me feel like I'm in Wonderland.
Dynamic Ground is a kinetic floor developed by Adam Lassy and Adi Marom for NYU's ITP Winter Show. Each interconnected hexagon is operated by a central motor connected to a light censor. When someone walks on the platform and covers the sensor, the design underneath either expands or contracts, depending on its resting state. It's not walking on sunshine so much as stepping on snowflakes. [ITP Winter Show]
Headline from PPP:
Paul takes big lead in GOP primary
In the contest to be the Republican Senate nominee from Kentucky antiestablishment
candidate Rand Paul holds a large lead over Secretary of State Trey
Grayson in Public Policy Polling’s first look at the race.
US SENATE – KENTUCKY – GOP PRIMARY (PPP)
Rand Paul 44%
Trey Grayson 255
Paul is running for the Senate seat of retiring Republican Sen. Jim Bunning. Kentucky has been moving to solid Republican in recent years.
Paul is the former State Chairman of the KY Taxpayers Association, and is an activist in the State's Tea Party movement.
There comes a time in every science writer’s career when one must write about glass duck vaginas and explosive duck penises.
That time is now.
To err on the side of caution, I am stuffing the rest of this post below the fold. My tale is rich with deep scientific significance, resplendent with surprising insights into how evolution works, far beyond the banalities of “survival of the fittest,” off in a realm of life where sexual selection and sexual conflict work like a pair sculptors drunk on absinthe, transforming biology into forms unimaginable. But this story is also accompanied with video. High-definition, slow-motion duck sex video. And I would imagine that the sight of spiral-shaped penises inflating in less than a third of second might be considered in some quarters to be not exactly safe for work. It’s certainly not appropriate for ducklings.
So, if you’re ready, join me below the fold.
This story is actually a sequel. Back in 2007, I wrote in the New York Times about the work of Patricia Brennan, a post-doctoral researcher at Yale, and her colleagues on the weirdness of duck genitals. The full story is here. (Brennan also appeared in a Nature documentary, starting at about minute 38:35.)
In brief, Brennan wanted to understand why some ducks have such extravagant penises. Why are they cork-screw shaped? Why do they get so ridiculously long–some cases as long as the duck’s entire body? As Brennan dissected duck penises, she began to wonder what the female sexual anatomy looked like. If you have a car like this, she said, what kind of garage do you park it in?
Brennan discovered that female ducks have equally weird reproductive tracts (called oviducts). In many species, they are ornamented with lots of outpockets. And like duck penises, duck oviducts are corkscrew-shaped. But while male duck penises twist clockwise, the female oviduct twists counterclockwise.
Brennan speculated that all this bizarre anatomy is the result of a peculiar form of evolution known as sexual conflict. A strategy that allows females to reproduce the most offspring may not be so good for males, and vice versa. For example, male fruit flies inject their mates with lots of chemicals during sex, and those chemicals make her less receptive to other males, thereby boosting his chances of fathering her eggs. But those chemicals are harsh and will make female flies sick. Females, in turn, have evolved defenses against those chemicals, blunting their effects.
With many examples of sexual conflict in nature, Brennan wondered if sexual conflict between male and female ducks was giving rise to their weird genitals. Female ducks pair off with male partners for the breeding season, but they also get harrassed by other males, sometimes being forced to have sex (and sometimes dying from the attacks). A third of all duck matings are forced.
And yet only 3 percent of the ducklings that female ducks produce come from such forced matings. Brennan speculated that the female ducks can block forced copulations with their mismatched spirals. And they might also be controlling which drake got to fertilize their eggs by socking away the sperm of different mates in different pockets. And the extravagant penises of males might be the result of an evolution around those defenses.
As I reported in 2007, Brennan discovered a pattern that supported this hypothesis. Among 16 species of water fowl, species in which the males grew long phalluses also had females with more turns in their oviduct and more side pockets. The ducks were escalating an arms race, genital for genital.
But Brennan didn’t actually know how duck penises actually moved through the labirynthine oviduct, and how the oviduct’s shape might affect the drake’s delivery of sperm. So she traded calipers and rulers for high-speed video.
Brennan and her colleagues traveled to a California duck farm, where workers are expert at collecting sperm from drakes. The first step in the collection is to get a drake excited by putting a female duck in his cage. The drake climbs on top, and then the penis emerges. Before its emergence, a drake’s penis is usually completely hidden from view, tucked inside his body like an inside-out sock. Drakes unfurl their pensises differently than male mammals. In mammals, the penis becomes erect as blood flows into the spongy tissue. Ducks pump lymph fluid instead. And as the fluid enters the penis, it does not simply become engorged. It flips rightside-out.
Here’s how it happens, in slow motion. A Muscovy drake everts his penis in about a third of a second, at speeds of 1.6 meters per second.
Of course, drakes don’t mate with the air. Having made this video, Brennan still needed a way to see how a duck penis actually performs its appointed task. Unable to film duck penises in a real female oviduct, she built a fake oviduct out of silcone. She then managed to get a drake to mate with it. But the overwhelming force of the explosive penus broke the fake oviduct.
So Brennan turned to glass. Her new fake oviducts were strong enough to handle the drakes, and she started filming. Here’s what she saw.
As Brennan had predicted, the counterclockwise turns of an oviduct slow down the expansion of the duck penis, compared to a straight tube or a clockwise one. Brennan suspects that female ducks slow down males trying to force a mating, but they can also let their partner’s penis move faster through the oviduct. They have been observed to relax and contract their muscles arond the oviduct.
Female ducks can’t stop an unwanted male from delivering his sperm, but the obstacles in their oviducts may give them control over what happens to that sperm. The female ducks may use their oviducts to slow down the expanation of the penis, so that by the time the drake ejaculates, the sperm are delivered in the lower reaches of the oviduct. A female ducks’s partner, with her cooperation, can deliver sperm further up the oviduct. With the wanted and unwanted sperm delivered to different places in the oviduct, a female duck may be able to store the sperm in different pockets. And then she can choose which drake will father her duckling. For all the explosiveness male ducks may display, it’s the female ducks that get the final say.
[Postscript: I tell Brennan's story in more detail in my new book, The Tangled Bank: An Introduction to Evolution. It opens the chapter on sex--where I show how the same processes that explain these strange genitalia explain many other things in the natural world.]
Reference: Patricia L. R. Brennan et al, “Explosive eversion and functional morphology of the duck penis supports sexual conflict in waterfowl genitalia,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, doi: 10.1098/rspb.2009.2139
[Update: 12/23--a couple misspellings fixed]
Great science fiction films are few and far between, so it was with great anticipation that I went to see Avatar on opening night.
I had been looking forward to this film since 2006 when James Cameron began working on the script. My expectations were significantly heightened after learning that Cameron, the director of Aliens, the first two Terminator movies and Titantic, was drawing inspiration from Japan -- namely through such directors as Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell) and Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away).
I was particularly interested to see if Cameron could pull of the Miyazaki. As fans of his films know, there's nothing quite like a Miyazaki picture; they are as delightful, provocative and as imaginative as they come. Not since the early days of Disney have animated films been so good. Miyazaki weaves a magical touch that has eluded Hollywood since their Golden Age (think Pinocchio and Snow White).
After watching Avatar, I can honestly say that Cameron gave it a good shot. The Pandoran jungle was as atmospheric and alive as anything that Miyazaki has ever produced. The 3D element added an immersive and visceral component that was particularly powerful; there were times when I truly felt lost in the jungle alongside Jake and Neytiri. The bioluminescent forest was truly jaw dropping.
Further, the tastefulness and care with which Cameron added the CG elements is unparalleled (with a tip of the hat to Lord of the Rings). This is the kind of film that George Lucas could watch but not have the slightest clue as to why Cameron's CG works and his does not. Cameron, unlike Lucas, has learned to weave the fabric of all on-screen elements into context such that nothing is superfluous and everything adds to the entire composition and story. Where Lucas works to bash viewers over the head with a 'look what I can do!' approach to movie making, Cameron has taken a more thoughtful and artistic course.
Take, for example, the floating seeds that land on Jake when he first meets Neytiri. I was genuinely moved by the delicacy and beauty of each tiny seedling as it floated through the air. Moreover, my feelings were heightened after learning about the sacred status of the seeds and the implication to the story. This is exactly the kind of aesthetic moment I imagined when I thought about the potential for CGI back when it was first introduced so many years ago.
Spoilers follow.
In addition to the visual elements borrowed from Japan, Cameron also dipped heavily into one of Miyazaki's most famous films, Princess Mononoke. Indeed, one could say that he borrowed perhaps a bit too greedily. Rarely does imitation of this sort lead to anything deeper or superior than what was provided by the original.
Specifically, both films feature a majestic and beautiful forest teeming with a life that's intimately interconnected with itself and an ethereal spiritual realm. And both feature a nature that is under threat. The balance of the natural worlds are in jeopardy from greedy miners who are consuming its resources at an alarming rate. The miners are in turn threatened by an outsider who, after learning the ways of the forest, has come to protect and preserve it at all costs. Ultimately, the creatures of the natural world are forced to band together and deal directly with the parasitic elements. Even the character of Neytiri is a close parallel to San; both are deeply connected to the natural world, borderline feral and ride on the backs of wolves.
Interestingly, Princess Mononoke was Japan's top grossing movie until Cameron's Titanic usurped it from that position in 1999. This certainly looks like a case where if you can beat them, you should still join them.
Princess Mononoke wasn't the only story co-opted by Cameron; aside from the Miyazaki touches (both graphically and narratively), Avatar closely resembles another classic story, Frank Herbert's Dune. In fact, Avatar is essentially Dune -- Cameron simply replaced the desert planet with a jungle and removed all the depth, complexity and profundity that made Dune the classic science fiction story that it is.
Again, the comparisons: A young man arrives on a strange and inhospitable planet occupied by hostile natives -- natives who are perfectly adapted to the planet and live in harmony with it. The young man's civilization is there to exploit the planet for a precious resource and at the expense of the planet's ecological balance. Our hero, awkward at first, learns the ways of the locals and eventually 'goes native.' He finds a girlfriend among his new clan and is accepted and revered by the natives on account of signs that point to his unique purpose and status. The hero-messiah then starts to exceed the abilities of his new comrades -- there's even a test of manhood involving the taming and riding of a dangerous animal. In the end, the hero leads a charge against the outsiders by banding together natural resources and the local population. They eventually win and drive the outsiders out.
Now, while this certainly describes the general plot of both stories, Herbert's universe is filled with intelligent and provocative commentary that touches upon such themes as ecology, evolution, commerce, politics, religion, technological advancement and even social Darwinism. The best that can be said of Cameron's adaptation is that he got the environmental message across. But where Herbert's discourse on the environment was treated with subtly and complexity (including the issue of terraforming), Cameron chose to bang his audience over the head with a blatantly overt, simplistic and ridiculously biased sledge hammer.
In Avatar, Cameron rekindled the tired and cliched "noble savage" myth and set it in space. It was an effort that seemingly attempted to romanticize Stone Age culture and promote a Gainist agenda. The film was anti-technology, anti-corporatist, anti-progress, and dare I say anti-human.
Gainism in space? Really, Cameron? That was the best story you could come up with on a $237,000,000 budget?
Okay, some credit where credit is due. Given that the story is, whether I liked it or not, a Gainist treatise, I did appreciate how Cameron achieved the sense of interconnectedness between the characters and Pandora. The ability of the Na'vi to link with other animals in a symbiotic fusion was very cool, as was the ability to upload conscious thought through the very fabric of the planet (a nice interplay on the high-tech/lo-tech theme knowing that the humans were also dabbling in mind transfer). I also liked how the humans could not breath the air of the planet, a strong hint that they truly had no business being on Pandora. The natives, on the other hand, were at complete peace with their environment.
So, overall some very mixed feelings about Avatar. The graphical and aesthetic achievements were certainly impressive, and for that it's a must-see film. And for those with a pronounced environmentalist bent, you will likely swoon over this movie. But if you're looking for a story with depth, complex characters and some challenging commentary, you're going to have to look elsewhere. And in this sense, the movie is a significant let down. One that I'll gladly watch over and over again.
Less than a day under his new Party registration, and REPUBLICAN Congressman Parker Griffith of Alabama has already received a hearty welcome from America's top libertarian-conservative - Sarah Palin.
From Sarah Palin's Twitter:
Congratulations Alabama! And all Americans concerned about Capitol Hill's current agenda;Rep Parker Griffith just did the right thing. Welcome
The WSJ already said most of this stuff yesterday, but the Financial Times has a few more tidbits on the situation that seems interesting—namely, Apple's relationship with network giants, and a plan to launch the fabled tablet soon.
The relevant passage from the FT:
Apple has contacted other broadcast and cable networks, including Time Warner's Turner Broadcasting System and Viacom, which have so far been unconvinced by Apple's proposal. The computer maker has also courted the book publishing industry, sector executives say.
Cooperation with Time Warner and Viacom would be essential if Apple wants to get this cable replacement off the ground—they own a plurality of basic cable channels between them. As far as the tablet is concerned:
Apple is preparing an announcement next month that many anticipate will be the official unveiling of its tablet, but the company has so far declined to confirm the existence of the device. Wall Street analysts expect mass production of an Apple tablet to begin as early as February.
That's some serious confidence right there, but it lines up with what we heard yesterday. This is all speculation at this juncture, but the WSJ and FT are big dogs who can (for the most part) be trusted; we'll have to see whether 2010 really is the year of the tablet. [Financial Times]
From Kristofer Lorreli, Race42008.com:
December 2009
Linda McMahon 37%
Rob Simmons 35%
Peter Schiff 4%
Undecided 25%
Poll conducted by Moore Information Opinion Research.
Also from Quinnipiac:
• Linda McMahon 43%
• Chris Dodd 41%
And Rasmussen:
• Linda McMahon (R) 44%
• Chris Dodd (D) 38%
Though, Simmons polls slightly better against Dodd in the general in both polls.
We knew that not even Clark Kent in his blue and red underpants could save them, but it still impresses me how fast newspapers' circulation has declined in this decade. Sad, unless you're a tree. [
