Smart Phones: Technology Replacing Contact?

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So much of our life has been moved to digital devices these days. Smart phones are one of many devices that have made an impression on our lives. Smart phones these days have become a must for most, whether it is for business or personal use, almost everyone has one.

On the plus side, smart phones enable users to conduct business from just about anywhere in the world. Access to email accounts, VPNs and other tools that make business move on a daily basis have become accessible from the palm of your hand. You can even administer your web server from your smart phone with the right application setup.

You’re carrying a small computer around in your pocket. It’ll be interesting to see what new devices will emerge in the market in the next few years. Tablets are becoming wildly popular, and mainstream consumers are starting to keep an eye on the newest innovations, joining the “tech geeks” in the “early adopter” line.

There are several players in this market with Google, RIM and Apple leading the pack, and dedicated fans rally behind each. With smart phones becoming so increasingly common, I’ve started wondering if it’s really for the best. Do we really need to check our e-mail every 10 minutes? If we’re not on Twitter, Facebook or one of our other social networks, will they be there when we get to our computer?

Being digitally connected all the time give us a false sense of “socializing” in the old school face-to-face sense, and that pull us away from those IRL (in real life) encounters. Numerous crashes have been caused by people texting or updating their statuses while driving, and there have been cases of people walking into a busy street while being distracted by their phones.

When it comes to technology like smart phones, how do you keep those devices from becoming a dependency? How do you keep yourself from letting them take the place of direct human contact rather? It’s something to think about as technology continues to evolve and permeate our lives.

-James

Upsurge in Islamist Violence against Gays in the Netherlands: Cars keyed, Verbal abuse and "Shit in letter-boxes"

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From Eric Dondero:

Radio Netherlands, not necessarily known for being a right-friendly media outlet, is reporting on an upsurge of anti-Gay violence throughout the country. "Immigrants" from an un-specified ethnic origin are identified as the culprits.

The situation has become so bad that a new Helpline has been set up for gays who are victims of hate crimes.

From RN"Dutch anti-gay crimes up" Sept. 28:

The recent case of a homosexual couple who were forced to move from their house in The Hague after being harassed for years by immigrant-community children, received wide publicity.

Mr Krol tells De Telegraaf that there are similar examples of gay couples being forced out of homes in Utrecht and Amsterdam. He gives examples of harassment, such as “shit through the letterbox, pornographic pictures in the front garden or ‘homo’ scratched on car paintwork”.

Judging from the reports made on the first day of the helpline’s operation, it appears that homosexuals throughout the Netherlands are being verbally abused and having their lives made a misery, according to De Telegraaf. There are also reports of physical abuse.

Of course, left un-explained by the report, the un-named "immigrant" group just might be Muslims who now comprise 1/3rd of the population of Den Haag.

Editor's note - Curiously, a quick check of top gay-oriented news websites, such as Queerty, TheAdvocate, and Gawker, shows no coverage of this story. And for some reason gay-friendly libertarian sites, like Reason, Radley Balko's The Agitator, and Cato.org are also ignoring it. Photo h/t Gates of Vienna, 2010

Dogs being poisoned in Muslim sectors of Spanish cities

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Pet owners spit at and cursed while walking their dogs on Euro streets

Islam versus Europe reports "Muslims Poisoning Dogs in Spain" (Source: AlertaDigital) Sept. 26:

Spanish police announced last week that they were investigating the poisoning of more than 15 dogs in the Catalan city of Lérida...

The dogs were found poisoned in an area of the city dominated by Muslim colonists. Another spate of dog poisonings occurred in the same district two years ago (18 dogs dead), and in recent years local dog-owners have spoken of being harassed by Muslims complaining about their "impure animals".

There are also reports of dog owners being threatened and harassed by Muslims while taking their pets for a walk.

See related story "Muslim genocide of Dogs in Turkey" at Bare Naked Islam, 2010

Riddle’s Up

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UPDATE:  Solved by Rob at 12:01 CDT

How has your week been?  Are you up, alert, and bright-eyed?  If not, go grab a cup of caffeine real quick… we’ll wait for you.

Got your caffeine ready to go?  I think you’ll enjoy today’s riddle; I enjoyed constructing it, and usually if a riddle leaves me somewhat *blah*, you don’t get too worked up about it, either.

Today’s riddle answer is an event:

pretty little rock

.
This event occurred in the 20th Century.

It was big, but not the biggest we’ve ever seen.

In fact, it could have gone completely unnoticed at the time.

Oh, come now. You know what this is.

There was little scientific curiosity about this event when it occurred.

In fact, it wasn’t even investigated until over a decade had passed.

That’s amazing because events of this nature have caused major problems in the past, and will cause major problems in the future.

And you know this image, also.

You’ll often see mention of this, in pseudo-science, popular media, and scientific inquiry.

This event destroys, but that’s only one half of the coin.

Life as we know it probably wouldn’t be possible without events just like this one.

The goddess of beauty. Standing on the surface of another planet.

Events like this were more common in the past.

It happens everywhere.

You see something like it in miniature all the time.

Castle Bravo

And there you have it.  This riddle requires a specific answer, not one in general.  For instance, if the answer was the Sun, I wouldn’t accept “a star” for an answer.  Good luck!

Tremble in fear, Human! I have you in my clutches. RAWR!

Islamist Road Rage spreads across the Atlantic from U.K. to U.S.

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Wisconsin Man busted in the head with a tire-iron by Muslim fanatic

From WSAU - Milwaukee, "Wausau Man Attacked With Tire Iron" Oct. 8:

A man was attacked on Wausau's east side on Friday afternoon during a reported argument over religion. Witnesses to the attack in the 600 block of Jefferson Street say a man got out of his vehicle, accosted the victim and claimed he had criticized his Muslim religion. The victim denied it but was struck in the head with a tire iron. The attacker then escaped in his vehicle.

Wausau police say the victim knew the attacker but no arrest has been made as of yet. The attack remains under investigation.

Muslim in the UK knocks British Man's teeth out

From the BBC Oct. 7 "Tariq Jahan charge: Father of riot death victim accused of attack":

Tariq Jahan, 47, is accused of breaking a man's jaw and knocking out two of his teeth in an alleged road rage incident.

A Crown Prosecution Service spokesman confirmed Mr Jahan had been charged with assaulting a man on 6 July.

Muslim men batter pedestrian using Broken Bottles, Hammer and Crowbar

UK Daily Mail, (via Tundra Tabloids), Dec. 2010 - "Gang who battered pedestrian with crowbar in brutal road rage...":

A gang of thugs who stabbed a pedestrian in a road rage attack, torturing him with a crowbar, hammer and broken bottle...

A 30-year-old man was subjected to a brutal attack after almost being run over by a car as he left a popular Indian restaurant in Whitechapel, east London.

Rashel Hussain, 20, and his friends, twin brothers Jubhare and Taharak Hussain, both aged 21, battered the victim with a crowbar, causing serious injury to his left hand.

Photo credit - Daily Mail

I’ve got your missing links right here (8 October 2011) | Not Exactly Rocket Science

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Top picks

The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to three scientists for understanding immunology. Because, let’s face it, no one else does. Meanwhile, it transpired that one of the laureates had died three days before. Cue hijinks.

“The US is experiencing ant invasions that are like those “endless [movie] franchises that never dies” Great post on invasive ants by Alex Wild.

A scan reveals a lemon-size mass in boy’s chest. Fearing cancer, surgeons operate & see something odd

Can you use brain scanners to detect paedophiles, by measuring their response to images of children? Would you even want to? Top Neuroskeptic post.

A great explainer on dark energy, by Sean Carroll. Where one I was completely lost, now I am merely very confused.

Awesome artist turns the dingy tunnels near Waterloo Station into musical instruments… with SCIENCE

How the Tate Britain used eye-tracking tech to restore a flood-damaged masterpiece.

AWESOME! ‘Invisibility Cloak’ Uses Mirages To Make Objects Vanish

It’s 1940. Niels Bohr needs to melt his two Nobel Prize medals before the Nazis find him. What does he do?

Carl Zimmer on the amazing slime moulds

The New York Times published a truly awful op/ed piece on iPhone addiction. There’s no shortage of takedowns of this neuro-fluff, but my favourite one was by Vaughan Bell: “The New York Times has just pissed its neuroscientific pants in public.”  Here’s another good one and one more from the Neurocritic. Meanwhile this old list of “Brain Scans Show That…” media stories from Dorothy Bishop is still relevant.

An awesome tribute to the science teachers who change our lives, collected by Steve SIlberman and featuring me, Rebecca Skloot, David Dobbs and more.

Astonishing down-the-microscope photos. This is one of the best of such series. My favourite are the spider eyes at the very end. Like domes on Mars.

Breast cancer’s false narrative, by Christie Aschwenden. What the media rarely tells you.

Top 5 volcanic lairs for the aspiring evil genius from the Geological Society of London

“[The Nobel in Medicine] was given to a scientist that many feel is undeserving of the honour,” says Kevin Bonham. But Carl Zimmer argues that Nobel Prize disputes are tedious and inevitable. “The people behind the Nobel Prize have done a lot of good. But the vehicle that delivers this good is absurd”

Awesome: watching an episode of Lie to Me makes people worse at detecting lies. Lie to Me lied to me!

Large Hadron Collider putting family-run particle colliders out of business

How the evolution of armadillos made them good carriers for leprosy, and surprisingly well-endowed.

“A bonfire is basically a tree running in reverse.” A lovely list of 20 things you didn’t know about fire, from Discover.

Oh bloody hell. A computer virus has hit the U.S. drone fleet. “We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back… We think it’s benign. But we just don’t know.” Great.

Science/news/writing

Science is Vital continues: Vital signs of an unhealthy future for UK science

What 300 sea otters can tell us about the ocean. Other than that it is insanely cute

The first clinical uses of whole-genome sequencing show just how challenging it can be. A great feature by Brendan Maher. And not all whole genome sequencing ends happily: an important story by Erika Check Hayden.

Russian tigers threatened by dog disease. These cats do not LOL.

Steve Jobs died. Here’s a well designed tribute. Meanwhile, Dr Len from the American Cancer Society calls Jobs a cancer survivor and SFGate describes the rare pancreatic cancer that Jobs had. But the last laugh goes to the Onion: Last American Who Knew What The F**k He Was Doing Dies

Judy Stone explains how clinical trials work and why they’re expensive.

“Science, besides having crackerjack storylines… and superb metaphors, is a cure for neurotic uncertainty.” Ann Finkbeiner on her conversion to science writing.

The Galapagos Islands are largely inhabited by creationists. From -5:01 onwards.

Eric Kandel on that unpopular and obscure branch of biology known as neuroscience. What a dude.

Cloned human embryo makes working stem cells. Er, yes, but they’re triploid! That’s not actually very good! All the fuss over abnormaliites in iPSCs seems trivial when the best the alternative technique can do is make triploid cells.

A gene that affects moral choices?

Screw you mind. Eight counter-productive effects of thought-suppression

How epigenetics works – a video by Neil deGrasse Tyson

How papers are withdrawn from scientific literature

“Shechtman said to himself in Hebrew, “Eyn chaya kazo,” which means “There can be no such creature.” 29 years later, he wins the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

Fossils Help Revitalise Hard-Hit Newfoundland Fishing Area

How do you build a prosthetic foot that can support the weight of an elephant?

NESTA are developing a UK Alliance for Evidence, to look at the evidence base for social policy decisions. Interesting.

Prehistoric Dog Found with Mammoth Bone in Mouth

Solyndra and our solar future: the real story is $30 billion dollars being invested in renewables

100 year old time capsule could tell us more about the evolution of bacteria.

The United States Preventive Services Task Force says that PSA testing has no benefit for healthy men. About time. It really is a truly rubbish screening test.

Memory errors are all in the groove. Mo Costandi covers a new paper on a fold in our brains that affects our ability to discern what actually happened from what we imagined. Meanwhile, Time gets it completely wrong.

Empty space is empty except for all the “frothing, turbulent gas”

Judy Mikovits, the controversial researcher behind the XMRV-chronic fatigue syndrome link, has been fired. And there are some mighty dodgy dealings with some of her images.

The Guaraní believe that people with recurrent seizures are a gateway between the worlds of life & death.

“The surgeon fumbled and panicked, cursing the patient loudly for having “a very deep perineum” – more horror stories from the pre-anaesthetic era.

The origins of the midlife crisis

Drawing the line between science and pseudo-science.

Alzheimer’s might be contagious like prions. Er, only if its transmitted by a scientist injecting you in the brain with a needle. And if you’re a mouse.

What does success look like in big science?

“It went from ‘Oh, this is a terrible mistake’ to ‘Oh my God, this might be the right answer!” – Adam Reiss on his Nobel win.

Would-be geoengineers must listen to the public

A creationist’s claims that atoms are “irreducibly complex” have been thoroughly dismantled.

Whales – one of evolution’s greatest punchlines

There are little mites in your eyelash and they can pop out and crawl over your face. Thye’re largely harmless, until they’re not.

The hairs in your nose continue to beat after death

Paleolithic finger painting? Finger flutings in Rouffignac cave suggest young kids contributed to cave art

World’s largest river restoration project is now underway on Washington’s Elwha River, with the tallest dam ever to come down.

A fascinating account of a woman with multiple personality disorder

18% of statistical results reported in psychology papers are incorrectly reported.

Future of Chernobyl health studies in doubt

800,000 Manmade Plant Fossils (and counting)

Yeah when I’m 85, I probably won’t be jetting off to Antarctica. All hail David Attenborough

 

Heh/wow/huh

The Bloggess declines a pointless pitch & the Vice-President of a PR company calls her “a f**king bitch”

Forget Siri, get GLaDOS on your iPhone

When there is writing on the blackboards in porn, is it correct? NSFW-ish.

Sea snake versus moray eel.

A giant herd of thousands of walruses hauled out on the Alaskan coast

“Deliveries anywhere? ALRIGHT! Bring me llamas now!

Phil Plait with the week’s best/worst headline.

A surprisingly funny abstract if you happen to know someone called Tim, or six.

Passive Aggressive Birds

The Star Wars/Seven crossover ended badly

An intelligent design children’s book with a fire-breathing Parasaurolophus.

“First and last authorship determined by coin flip”

Six ways to never get lost in a city again

Dan Macarthur asked for a consensus phylogeny of mammal species. I drew one

Abandoned Lego Victorian houses.

I really want a satirical 21st-century reimagining of Captain Planet

Beautiful pic of a meteor’s lingering glowing streak, with and equally beautiful explanation by Phil Plait.

Heh. Cat learns harsh reality of internet viral videos

Gnarly. Surfers make bioluminescent waves off San Diego coast by disturbing bloom of phytoplankton

Solving all your problems…with tanks

 

Internet/journalism/society

Italian Wikipedia replaces every page with free speech protest

For Ada Lovelace Day, Alice Bell compiled a list of 50 lovely women tweeters in sci, tech, environment and/or health

“Blood must be spilled but the cat will be anesthetized.” On vampires, magic duels and headless bodies in Highgate Cemetery.

Before Hitler, who was the rhetorical Hitler? The Pharaoh.

The Daily Mail produces little good content of its own, so it lifts what other people do.

John Rennie complains about Andy Revkin’s false equivalence on climate message machines.

“It’s not that journalists are biased, lazy or stupid… the problem is that they’re slaves to formula.”

On Naïveté Among Scientists Who Wish to Communicate – Kevin Zelnio takes issue with Christie Wilcox’s post on scientists and social media. And Christie comes back: “I wasn’t saying build it & they will come. I was saying don’t build it & they can’t come.”

Remember that game where you stopped your digital wristwatch on every second? There’s an app for that.

Please welcome Robert Stewart-Rogers & his new science blog Handsome Science. Photos, insects, lovely writing

The biggest mall in the world is in China, and it’s empty. 2% occupancy

Alice Bell is collecting memories of kids’ environmental media.

“Sendak is still enraged by almost everything that crosses his landscape.”

Why are so few popular science books written by women?

Facebook is okay with pro-rape pages, and likens them to rude jokes in a pub.

And ambitious project: Hypothes.is: The Internet, Peer Reviewed.

Dan Harmon of Community treats every story arc as an eight-part circle

Tuvalu, a small island nation, is down to its last few days of water.

After 25 years, The Scientist, a magazine that made the careers of many science journalists, has folded.

 

Dream Anatomy Video

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The interior of our bodies is hidden to us. What happens beneath the skin is mysterious, fearful, amazing. In antiquity, the body's internal structure was the subject of speculation, fantasy, and some study, but there were few efforts to represent it in pictures. The invention of the printing press in the 15th century-and the cascade of print technologies that followed-helped to inspire a new spectacular science of anatomy, and new spectacular visions of the body. Anatomical imagery proliferated, detailed and informative but also whimsical, surreal, beautiful, and grotesque — a dream anatomy that reveals as much about the outer world as it does the inner self. --Introduction to Michael Sappol's Dream Anatomy exhibition

I have just stumbled upon a really nice video based on the now-legendary Dream Anatomy exhibition at the National Library of Medicine, curated by friend and friend-of-the-blog Michael Sappol. To check out--and purchase a copy of!--the beautifully illustrated and provocatively insightful catalog for the exhibition, click here.

Found on Street Anatomy.

Source:
http://morbidanatomy.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Controllers

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I just want to know the type of controllers that is used for different probs..For ex in the below prob

TransferFn that has a s factor in the denominator that is typically the integrator,with no overshoot,no offset, we are using p controller..Like that i just wanted to know the typical factors that