Monthly Archives: March 2010

Lip-Reading Cell Phones Will Be Great For Phone Six [Science]

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German researchers are working on mobile phone technology that would convert silent mouth movements into speech. It's an ingenious way to have a noiseless conversation, but if they don't get it right there could be some unfortunate mix-ups.

The tech—developed at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology—involved uses electromyography, and measures the electrical potentials generated by muscle activity in the face to translate mouth movements into speech. You'd be able to speak silently, but the person on the other end of the line would hear what you were saying loud and clear.

Of course, lip-reading is an inexact science—even more so, I would imagine, when implemented by a machine. So while you'll be able to share PIN numbers without sharing it with the whole room, you'll want to proceed with caution on more intimate conversations. [Cellular News via Dvice]


Assorted friends of Pentagon shooter John Patrick Bedell: PETA, GreenPeace, NPR, Michael Moore, Al Franken and Middle Easterners

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From Eric Dondero:

Friend and Contributor to Libertarian Republican blog, Tim Daniel of California, has been doing the yeoman's work of investigating Pentagon shooter John Patrick Bedell, who is also from California.

What Tim has come up with clashes greatly with the major media spin emerging on Bedell. Perhaps the very worst media spin today came from the Christian Science Monitor that headlined: "Bedell a Rightwing extremist." Others even called him an "anti-government libertarian."

Bedell, it's now being learned, seems to be much more of a leftwinger, and though he had some views that could be described as libertarian such as pot legalization, the overwhelming majority of his views leaned decidedly to the far leftside of the political spectrum such as 9/11 Trutherism. He defintely was not a rightwing libertarian, pro-military, or conservative. In fact, he went out of his way to bash former President Bush.

Some excerpts from Tim's investigations:

* I do have though is a list of the friends that his profile is linked to. Right off the bat I see several middle eastern sounding names many students.

* Here's something juicy. John Patrick Bedell is (was) friends with a certain individual linked to TrineDay Publishing (conspiracy), First World, Michael Moore, the Coalition on Political Assassinations (why?) and CLG (check out the Facebook group that resists corporaterrorism, and the New World Order).

* John Patrick Bedell was also Facebook friends with noted libertarian/anti war guy Lew Rockwell (as are 5,000 other people), which doesn't surprise me being that Lew Rockwell is one of the most noted antiwar spokesmen in the country. From what I have gleaned I can see that Bedell clearly had an anti-government bent. I don't see it as a left/right anti government bent, I see it as a fringe blend of tortured ideas.

Finally, this bit of breaking news as noted by Tim in another updated blog post:

Per Michelle Malkin I have a doozy of a detail about John Patrick Bedell the deceased Pentagon shooter that the main stream media is trying to pin on the Tea Party movemnent or conservatives in general.John Patrick Bedell, aka the Right Wing Extremist, Tea Party John Patrick Bedell was registered to vote and actively registered up to 2008. Tea Party guy John Patrick Bedell who decided to drive across the country (from Hollister, CA) and engage in a shootout with the Pentagon (not exactly a bright idea) was registered to vote --- as a Democrat.

You can see all the documentation, including Bedell's voter id information at Left Coast Rebel.

Methane is Increasing Global Warming

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CO2 is not the only greenhouse gas to worry about.  According to Lisa Jackson of the EPA, the  ‘methane expo’  (that ended today) will help us mitigate climate change by finding ways to capture and use it.  A ‘methane partnership’ between  several countries has been in existence since 2004 and has already been capturing methane (according to the EPA) for years.

Methane comes from a lot of sources.  It’s coming up from the melting ocean beds, it’s emitted right now from the melting permafrost, mostly in Siberia and Canada, and global warming is going to make this situation worse. This excerpt is from the Atlantic, today:

“Unexpectedly huge quantities of Siberian methane are being released into the atmosphere, according to a new study. The resulting feedback loop could dramatically outpace the climate models that scientists and policy makers have been using as they attempt to roll back emissions.

When it comes to climate change, methane is bad news: It is 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide in causing increased atmospheric temperatures.  A National Science Foundation study in today’s issue of Science found that melting permafrost in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is causing an annual release of nearly 8 million tons of methane.   Eight million tons is a relative a pittance compared to the 80 million metric tons produced by livestock around the world each year.”

That’s a lot of methane! It’s true that cows produce a lot of CO2 and methane (they emit both) and there is a fear that some day cows will become illegal to raise for food.  I doubt that will ever happen completely, but it’s true that if people stopped eating beef and other mammals the CO2 and methane levels would decrease a lot. There is no need at all for humans to eat other mammals, and mammals bred for meat are responsible for a surprising amount of greenhouse emissions.  Many of these emissions could be eliminated by eliminating these animals as a food source, which would decrease their populations, and decrease the pollution commercial animal farms produce too.

In 2006, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) reported that livestock accounted for 18% of greenhouse gases, making livestock emissions “one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems.” However recently, Worldwatch Institute, a Washington D.C. environmental think-tank, reported that livestock emissions actually account for 51% of greenhouse gases.  Source.

It’s very clear that we need less cattle in the world raised for food.   Also see this from today: Huge methane leak in Arctic Ocean. More on the methane expo after the break . . .

From the EPA:  Why is there so much concern about methane emissions?

Methane is [30-50] times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere and contributing to global warming. Over the last two centuries, methane concentrations in the atmosphere have more than doubled, largely due to human-related activities. Methane now accounts for 16% of [...]

Show Us The Money

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Garver: Battle Over Obama Plan Imperils NASABudget Growth, Space News

"Think of it this way: If you are focused on getting the Constellation budget continued in the future -- and I harbor no ill will against those of you who do ... but if Constellation is put back in the budget without that $5 billion-a-year increase, where will we cut the budget?" she asked."

Maintaining America's lead role in space (Rep. Bill Posey), The Hill

"Providing sufficient funding for Constellation will ensure that we do not abandon the investments already made. To that end, we should work to see that America's lead role in human space exploration is maintained, not surrendered to Russia and China."

Sen. Hutchison pitches sizable expansion to proposed NASA budget, The Hill

"The space program's proposed 2011 budget would see a $1.3-billion boost under a new bill proposed by Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R). Her legislation, unveiled Thursday, would also postpone indefinitely the retirement of NASA's manned-spaceflight program, and establish an independent commission to assess the agency's shuttle system."

The Apple Lawsuit Rampage We’d Love to See [Humor]

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Apple's lawsuit against HTC made one thing clear: Steve. Jobs. Will. Cut You. And with all the patents they've got? Nobody's safe. Here's who's next on the subpoena warpath:

Patent #8,567,301: A Process to Cryogenically Microbead Pasteurized Dairy
Defendant: Dippin' Dots

Patent #5,475,939: Inexpensive Self-Assembled Home Furnishings With Names That Sound Like Lesser Norse Gods
Defendant: Ikea

Patent #6,374,752: Constructing an Opulent Hyper-Futuristic City Without Having the Resources to Maintain It
Defendant: Dubai

Patent #3,405,356: Music Composition Utilizing Three Chords In Sequence and Repetitive Anti-Establishment Lyrics
Defendants: Joey Ramone; Iggy Pop; Johnny Rotten; et al

Patent #2,366,291: How a Bill Becomes a Law
Defendants: Congressional and Executive Branches of US Government; "School House Rock"

Patent #4,769,002: Placing "I" Before "E" (Excepting Those Occasions In Which Preceded By "C" Or When Phonetically Comparable to "A")
Defendants: Strunk and White; My Third Grade Homeroom Teacher; the English Language

Patent #9,753,482: Achieving Fame Despite Lack of Discernable Talent or Drive
Defendants: Paris Hilton, Spencer Pratt, the Cast of "Tool Academy," et al

Patent #1,749,682: Dogs
Defendants: Dogs


high altitude oven oriface

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is there a way that a range/oven can be installed and tested properly at 8'000 ft without voiding the factory warrentee. My oven was putting out 450 ppm of CO and my frend (an old plumber) was able to de-rate it so it was putting out 7 ppm. But it was not by the book (tighten down the hood oriface)

Citizen Scientists Find Interstellar Dust Retrieved From Space | 80beats

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IDustStardust just can’t seem to stay out of the news. NASA’s comet chaser, named Stardust, returned a sample of celestial material to Earth in 2006 that has produced numerous fascinating findings. Those include the study we covered last week, in which scientists showed that materials that formed near our sun made it out to the far reaches of the solar system to collect on comets. This week, it’s not NASA astronomers making the headlines, but rather citizen scientists who appear to have found the first evidence of interstellar dust in the Stardust samples.

Stardust’s main mission was to gather material from the comet called Wild 2. But on the way, the team deployed a secondary panel of aerogel to try to catch interstellar dust. The researchers hoped to catch 100 or so interstellar grains from the weak but continuous flux in open space. The elements in these grains were forged in stars, but coalesced into grains in the empty space between stars [Nature News]. However, there’s much less dust in interstellar space than there is in a comet tail, and it moves faster, making it harder to catch. When scientists started looking at the sample dropped down to the Utah desert in 2006, it wasn’t clear if Stardust had nabbed any interstellar dust at all.

So NASA called in reinforcements, starting the Stardust@Home project in 2006. Over the last four years, “dusters” scanned millions of tracks in the sample looking for these grains. The first winner was Canadian Bruce Hudson, who named his grain “Orion.” Hudson suffered a stroke in 2003, and he turned to the Stardust@Home project in 2006 as a productive way of passing the time. For a year or so, he spent as much as 15 hours a day scanning thousands of pictures, five seconds per slide [Nature News]. Two probable dust particles have been found thus far.

Orion, say the Stardust researchers who checked it out, is glassy and rich in aluminum. Andrew Westphal of the University of California, Berkeley who announced the find, said the project leaders would use the discovery to try to fine-tune the search for more. “The interstellar dust is fundamentally the stuff we’re made of” [Nature News], he says.

Related Content:
80beats: Spacecraft-Collected Comet Dust Reveals Surprises from the Solar System’s Boondocks
80beats: Dust Collected From Comet Contains a Key Ingredient For Life
80beats: Meteorite, Maybe Older Than The Sun, Shows Chemistry of Ancient Solar System
DISCOVER: NASA Takes a Wild Comet Ride
DISCOVER: 14 Ways to Use Your Computer’s Spare Time
Bad Astronomy: Stardust@home Starts NOW

Image: NASA


The Prettiest Way To Learn About Satellites [Satellites]

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This Is Real Art, a company that aims to "bridge the gap between design and advertising," recently completed a series of animated videos on the subject of satellites. They're the perfect combination: the subject matter is geeky, the animation gorgeous.

The series, which was produced for European satellite maker Astra, covers every aspect of the machines over the course of seven videos: History, Physics, Control, Launch, Why We Need Satellites, Business, and The Future.

Here's the second video of the set on the physics of satellites:

You can watch the entire series over at This Is Real Art. The company says they'll be used for education as well as marketing, and I must say, I'd be a lot more receptive to advertising if it always looked this good. [This Is Real Art via Creative Review]


The little black bikini

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During a recent conversation, my friend (who wears black exclusively) expressed that it is surprisingly difficult to find a black bikini. Most are embellished with metal, plastic, stone, beading, or jewel accents to add oomph to the simplicity of the design and color. Always up for a challenge, I set out to find black bikinis that rely on fabric and construction to make their designs unique and interesting.

All the two-pieces below are shown in, or available in, black fabric.

Retro Black

The cut, draping, and fabric appliques up the ante on the little black bikini.

Retro-chic Black. Images courtesy of Eres, Seafolly, and Betsey Johnson

Left: Belem-Santiago by Eres (available in black on black)
Center: Goddess by Seafolly
Right: Ladies & Gentlemen by Betsey Johnson

Affordable and Chic
Victoria’s Secret offers chic selection for under $40. Look for details such as stitching and side ties to make your black bikini more interesting.

Affordable and Chic. Images courtesy of Victoria's Secret.

Left: Adjustable triangle top with Brazilian bottom

Right: Triangle top with double-string bottom

Look to the bottom for details

Two-piece suits tend to emphasize the top but these suits add interesting details to the bikini bottom, such as delicate tassles and sassy ruching.

Look to the bottom for details. Images courtesy of Eres and Vix

Left: Severa-Fado by Eres (available in black)
Right: Ripple Rio by Vix

Construction

The construction of the top makes this my favorite by far.

Construction details are subtle and super chic. Image courtesy of Eres

Wanda-Mescalito by Eres (available in black)

Just for Fun

The design is too clean and the fabric too luxurious to let a teeny, tiny metallic detail (that can easily be taken off with a stitch remover) get in the way of Ondademar’s hot black two-piece.

Beach Solids by Ondademar. Image courtesy of Ondademar

The tie knot and the draping detail on the bottoms make Jubilation by L*Space all-around adorable.

Jubilation by L*Space. Image courtesy of L*Space

Fringe Benefits Dolly Bandeau by L*Space is au courant and balanced with a simple design on the bottom.

Fringe Benefits by L*Space. Image courtesy of L*Space

Voltage and Amperage reduction

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I need to charge a battery (12 Volts DC, 10 Amps MAX) but the closest source of electric power is an Electric Motor (250 Volts DC, 90 Amps). Is there any battery charge controller that I could use for this? If not, is there any other alternative?

Bolden Seeks To Set The Record Straight

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NASA Internal memo: Message from the Administrator - March 5, 2010

"During a Strategic Management Council meeting on Tuesday, I asked JSC Director Mike Coats and MSFC Director Robert Lightfoot to put together a very small team to help me develop an accelerated plan for research and development on a heavy lift launch vehicle for future exploration, in support of that element of the President's FY11 NASA budget. Regrettably, this was subsequently reported by the news media as a request for a "Plan B" alternative to the President's budget."

Review: Alice In Wonderland 3D Doesn’t Need the 3D [Review]

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Having read the original many times, watched multiple films and TV series, and collected every object imaginable, I must confess that I'm an Alice whore. Here's my review of Tim Burton's sequel: I love it. But not on 3D.

Spoilers ahead

In fact, I like everything about the movie except the 3D. I don't hate it, but it's obnoxious and distracting through most of the film. It just doesn't add anything to the experience beyond the post-movie dizziness. It's the antithesis of Avatar.

The movie itself—a simple, delightfully wacky, adventures movie set in Lewis Caroll's crazy world—is good. The story, the dialogs, the photography, the direction, and the acting are all spot on. The digital effects are perfect for the story, from the delicate details of the White Rabbit's embroidered vest to the intricate scenarios. The design—like all Tim Burton's movies—couldn't be better: The characters, the costumes, the settings... everything exudes the spirit of the original John Tenniel's book illustrations. And then there is the adult Alice—who returns after her first adventures in Wonderland. By the end of it, you will fall in love with Mia Wasikowska, especially when she gets into her shiny armor.

Focus!

The only problem with Alice in 3D is that the film doesn't seem to be directed with 3D in mind. And that's fucking great (if you watch the movie in a normal theater and avoid the 3D). Burton plays with camera moves, angle changes, depth of field, and different scene planes like he usually does, framing shots perfectly.

One example of this is the first action sequence in the movie, when the Knave of Hearts—eerily played by Crispin Glover—and his card soldiers chase Alice through the woods. As the camera frantically races with the action, Burton plays with the foreground—twisted plants and branches—to increase the anxiety levels of the audience. In 2D, this frames the action, making everything more exciting visually. In 3D, it becomes distracting. The same goes for every time the camera moves, and every time the depth of field changes: The illusion of 3D is broken by the distraction, because that's not how your brain processes the real world.

In the real world, nobody forces you to change the depth of field. When you are focusing on something, you just focus, it comes naturally to you. But when you shift this around in a 3D movie, your brain just gets confused, as if it's saying "hey, I want to keep looking at that thing."

In a normal film, a shift in focus is a device that is part of the story telling and the aesthetics of the film. In 3D, it just gets annoying.

Thinking Inside the Box

And that's precisely my problem with 3D: Whenever you move the camera, whenever you play with the traditional cinematic language, 3D can often get in the middle.

I realized it while watching the credits, which roll inside a box in which fantastic mushrooms and vegetation grow. I was truly amazed by it, as if a new world had opened in front of my eyes. I had a hard time distinguishing the weird plants from reality. And it wasn't only me: My wife was next to me and I could hear her exclaiming "Wow. Oh, wow."

So how can I love that 3D but hate the 3D during the movie? Because during the credits, the camera point of view is fixed. The illusion is complete. Nothing bothers you. Your brain completely buys the experience. It's like being in the theater watching a play: Everything is there.

What is the solution to this? Since the invention of cinema, humans have developed a language that has evolved into different paths. All of them revolve around the idea that everything is projected in a bidimensional plane. Directors frame their movies in their minds, then with their cameras, and it's all related to that single flat silver screen.

Perhaps directors need to invent a new language for 3D altogether, where everything is in focus, nothing overlaps the action, and the depth of field never changes. Maybe they should look into the rules of theater and fixed cameras. Or maybe they should watch Up! if they really want to film a movie in 3D.

But while we all wait for that to happen, you should go and see Alice in 2D. You will enjoy it a lot more.


Changes at USA

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Keith's note: Sources report that Dick Covey announced his retirement as the head of United Space Alliance this morning.

Remainders – The Things We Didn’t Post: Headaches Edition [Remainders]

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In today's Remainders: headaches. Microsoft's browser ballot is a headache for the little guys; CereProc talks about the painstaking process of rebuilding Ebert's voice; WiMax taxis in Taiwan get me a little steamed; a magical migraine-diminishing wand, and more.

Talk To Me
Since we first read about the Scottish company CereProc and their effort to give Roger Ebert his voice back, we've been eager to get the scoop on the tech behind the scenes. Ebert's computerized voice was debuted on Oprah earlier this week, and while it was far from a perfect recreation, no one could deny that at some points the voice was distinctly his own. Now, CNET has an in-depth talk with CereProc which sheds some light on the process behind their incredible product. It has some interesting bits, like how they usually require 15 hours of recordings to recreate a voice, though they rebuilt Ebert's from only four hours of clips. If you have even a passing interest in Ebert's incredible story, the interview's worth a read. [CNET]

Analysis
Analysts! You can't live with 'em, you can't live without 'em. Actually, you could almost certainly live without them, but then you wouldn't have little nuggets like this to consider before you toss them into your mental recycling bin: Apple, who already commands 1/3 of the entire supply of NAND flash memory, might eat up even more of that supply with all these iPads of theirs, delaying the greater PC migration to SSD in the process. The thinking is that with iPad grabbing all the NAND memory, their prices could be driven up and those of SSDs would go up along with them. Maybe, maybe not, but for now there are too many unknowns in this equation—iPad demand being a big one—to worry just yet.[DigiTimes]

Glass Windows
Secunia, a security firm, released the results of a new study that might give pause to Windows users. It suggests that if you use Windows and have software from more than 22 different vendors, you need to install a security patch every five days to keep your computer safe from all those nasty viruses. That's pretty often. Here's what gives me pause, though: Secunia, the company issuing this warning, conveniently has a program called Personal Software Inspector that presumably protects you from just these threats. Hmmm. OK, sure, their software is free (for now), but you can't imagine that it'd hurt their business to drive a whole herd of panicked users to their inspector software. In either case, I guess there's something to raise an eyebrow at here. [BoingBoing]

Stuffing the Ballot Box
We recently got our first look at Microsoft's browser ballot, a new system that gives European Windows users the chance to choose their own browser as opposed to being force-fed Internet Explorer from the get go. The system, which arose from an antitrust investigation by the European Commission, was the source of much confusion and consternation throughout the whole process, but we figured that everyone would be happy with the final screen we saw the other day. We were wrong. The ballot offers new installers with 12 choices, but only the five most popular—IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera—are visible on the screen from the start. To take a look at the other seven—AvantBrowser, Flock, K-Meleon, GreenBrowser, Maxthon, Sleipnir, and SlimBrowser—you have to scroll your way to the right. As Ars Technica explains, "The unpopularity of horizontal scrolling is well-known," and "the importance of this ballot to minority browsers is hard to overstate," (I think they just did). The ballot screen will be rolling out in the next 90 days, and in the mean time you can bet that the little guys will be fighting against the clock to save themselves from sideways scrolling obscurity. [Ars Technica]

Hello Geeks
Here we have an Apple-centric parody of Old Spice's wildly popular The Man Your Man Could Smell Like ad. Often times, parodies grow to eclipse the original item they riff on. That will not be the case here. 1. the spoof uses CGI where the original did not. 2. It is less sort of funny where the original was not. The original was extremely funny. So just watch the original. But watch this one too, because it will make you love the original all the more. [The Awesomer]

A Headache
"Neuralieve Headache Management System," Redferret's headline reads for this particular gadget, "is this the beginning of the end for migraines?" No, no it isn't, because even if the Neuralieve does rid people of their headaches, there's no way anyone's going to use this ridiculous, gigantic piece of machinery to alleviate them. The Neuralieve beams a "single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation" into your brain, supposedly halting the headache in its tracks. While it may provide some relief in the short term, I'm not sure that letting some sketchy handheld gizmo pump magnetic pulses directly into your head is necessarily going to pan out so well in the long run. [Red Ferret]

WiMaxi
Starting March 9, 1000 taxis in Taiwan will be equipped with free WiMax. Great. Whatever. Taxi WiMax I can live without. But is it took much to ask to just get it somewhere in my city? Somewhere in the state of New York? [UberGizmo]

Four Point Oooooh
Bluetooth 3.0 is old and busted; Bluetooth 4.0 is the new hotness. The improvements will supposedly let the technology work with devices that consume less power, and today's news is that it could make its way into those types of devices by the end of this year. Well, a Bluetooth-enabled pedometer doesn't seem too cool to me to begin with, so having one by the end of the year doesn't get me all that excited either.