- Old Soviet Christmas card collection
Does anyone else see the irony of Soviet Christmas cards?
- ‘Active glacier found’ on Mars
“If it was an image of Earth, I would say ‘glacier’ right away,” Dr Gerhard Neukum, chief scientist on the spacecraft’s High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) told BBC News. “We have not yet been able to see the spectral signature of water. But we will fly over it in the coming months and take measurements. On the glacial ridges we can see white tips, which can only be freshly exposed ice.”
- Final Fantasy: twenty years and a massive universe later
To commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the original Final Fantasy, racketboy.com contributer, Fastbilly1 has spent a great deal of time putting together a look back at this landmark RPG series. This look back at both the original game and the extensive and diverse series that followed is filled with both an historical look at the games and personal experiences with each. I hope you enjoy it!
- China passes US as world’s biggest CO2 emitter
China has overtaken the US as the biggest producer of carbon dioxide, a development that will increase anxiety about its role in driving man-made global warming and will add to pressure on the world’s politicians to reach an agreement on climate change that includes the Chinese economy.
- Rhesus macaques perform quick addition almost as well as college kids
The task was to perform mental addition on two sets of dots that were briefly flashed on a computer screen. The teams were asked to pick the correct answer from two choices on a different screen. The humans were not allowed to count or verbalize as they worked, and they were told to answer as quickly as possible. The monkeys and the humans all typically answered within 1 second.
- HTML V5 and XHTML V2
While the intention of both HTML V5 and XHTML V2 is to improve on the existing versions, the approaches the developers chose to make those improvements is very different. And with differing philosophies come distinct results. For the first time in many years, the direction of upcoming browser versions is uncertain. Uncover the bigger picture behind the details of these two standards.
For what it’s worth, I think XHTML 2 is a better solution.
- Colorado decertifies e-voting machines
On December 17, Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman decertified election equipment used by 64 Colorado counties, including machines made by Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as Diebold Election Systems. A report issued by the Secretary of State’s office details a myriad of problems such as lack of password protection on the systems, controls that could give voters unauthorized access, and the absence of any way to track or detect security violations. Manufacturers have 30 days to appeal the decertification.
I think this is a good move. An open source voting machine is really the only way to have a fair e-voting system, and they definitely should not be implemented until security and reliability have been given enough time to harden.
- FCC ignores public and congress, relaxes media ownership rules
Ignoring Congressional and public comments, the FCC voted to relax ownership rules that have prevented broadcasters from owning newspapers in the nation’s 20 largest media markets. After holding several public hearings that overwhelmingly opposed the relaxation of the rules, and Congressional hearing where Democrats and Republicans (even Ted ‘Tubes’ Stevens) voiced opposition to the move, the FCC voted 3 to 2 to relax ownership. On the same day the FCC voted 3 to 2 (by a different split) to cap the size of any cable company at 30% of the nationwide market, a limit Comcast is up against.
- Obama’s foreign policy “problem” isn’t really a problem
“Living abroad does give you a wider view of the world,” says Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Adviser under Jimmy Carter, and a Polish-American who spent four years as a child living in Germany with his diplomat father. Obama is “a person with genuine sensitivity of world affairs,” says Brzenzinski, who is supporting Obama. “It’s not the conventional mouthing of culture sensitivities.” Brzezinski points to Obama’s greater willingness to meet leaders of hostile nations and his early resistance to the war in Iraq as examples of his superior intuition on foreign policy.
One of Obama’s other skills, I would argue, is that he’s good at team-building. Just because he may be personally lacking in experience in a particular field doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have the know-how to pick members of his cabinet who can shore up those deficiencies. However I would say that I agree with Brzezinski; he’s got a good intuition about foreign policy, and that can easily trump years of experience.
- Who strikes?
Who’s “labor” and who’s “management” in this strike? How can Ellen DeGeneres be a scab when it’s her show? All week, Craig Mazin and Matt Edelman discuss the Hollywood writers strike.
- RCMP to limit Taser use after critical report
I hope this trend continues with other law enforcement agencies around the world.
- Former ‘no nukes’ protester: stop worrying and love nuclear power
The only way to rescue our plug-hungry planet from catastrophic global warming is to embrace nuclear power, and fast.
That’s the argument of Gwyneth Cravens, a novelist, journalist and former nuke protester. Her new book, Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy, is a passionate plea to understand, instead of fear, atomic power. In her book, Cravens is guided Dante-like through the entire life cycle of nuclear power — from mining to production to waste disposal — by one of the world’s foremost experts on risk assessment and nuclear waste.
Her conclusion? Every day spent burning coal for power translates into damaged lungs and ecosystem destruction. If the world wants to keep plugging in big-screen TVs and iPods, it needs a steady source of power. Wind and solar can’t produce the “base-load” (or everyday) steady supply needed, and the only realistic — and safe — alternative is nuclear.
A very good interview. She makes some compelling points arguing in favour of nuclear power.
- Retrospective: Ultima IV
So you’re going about your daily business, maybe milking your cows or sharpening your swords or plowing your fields or whatnot. Suddenly, a group of fierce-looking wanderers in badly mismatched armor walks up, and the leader starts grilling you about local politics. Your attempts to exchange polite pleasantries are completely ignored. When they get the information they’re looking for, the group stomps off without a word of thanks.
Or maybe you’re sitting at home, enjoying a book by the fire or a fine home-cooked meal, when the door flies open and an effeminate youth with spiky purple hair barges in and starts rooting through your china cabinet. Grabbing your grandma’s favorite teapot, he dashes out the door before you can even think to call the authorities.
Such is the life of a non-player character in a role-playing game. RPGs have always been fairly lawless places; the player wanders around a strange world, slaughtering monsters, grabbing loot, and buying–or stealing–ever more powerful gear. Little or no thought is given to the ethics of any particular action, the assumption, perhaps, being that the end justifies the means, and trying to save the world (or the universe, or the princess) exempts one from such niceties as honesty, justice, or honor.
Then Ultima IV came along.
Ultima IV does definitely have a special place in my heart. The entire ethics system was at the time such a drastic change from every other game I’d ever played.
- The Hypersonic Age is near
To put things in context, the world’s fastest jet, the Air Force’s SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, set a speed record of Mach 3.3 in 1990 when it flew from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., in just over an hour. That’s about the limit for jet engines; the fastest fighter planes barely crack Mach 1.6. Scramjets, on the other hand, can theoretically fly as fast as Mach 15—nearly 10,000 mph.
This could mean two-hour flights from New York to Sydney. It could also mean missiles capable of hitting targets on another continent at a moment’s notice, and when you put it that way, it’s not surprising that militaries around the world—the U.S., Australia, China and perhaps others—are trying to build them. After decades on the drawing board, it seems scramjet technology is finally about to arrive.
- Study finds film enjoyment is contagious
A report from Science Daily says that scientists have proven that the presence of other people may enhance our movie-watching experiences by influencing and gradually synchronizing viewer emotional responses. This mutual mimicry also affects each participant’s evaluation of the overall experience — the more in sync we are with the people around us, the more we like the movie. In a series of experiments, researchers found that people watching a film together appeared to evaluate the film within the same broad mood and another study found that synchrony of evaluations can be traced to glances at the other person during the film and adoption of the observed expressions. ‘By mimicking expressions, people catch each other’s moods leading to a shared emotional experience. That feels good to people and they attribute that good feeling to the quality of the movie,’ said one researcher.
- Canadian copyright reform bill critics eye victory
A controversial bill that seeks to reform Canadian copyright laws, expected to be introduced early this week, may be quashed after a groundswell of opposition erupted over the past week.
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“Something exceptional happened this past week. Fair copyright in Canada found its voice,” Geist wrote. “It will be silent no more.”
Go Canada! The DMCA has been a disaster in the United States, which in the words of Cory Doctorow has resulted in “20,000 lawsuits against music fans, technology companies being sued out of existence for making new multi-purpose tools, and has not put one penny into the pocket of an artist or reduced downloading one bit.” Canada would be very wise to not go down that same path.
- If we had no moon
The Earth has a large moon, making it unique in the inner solar system. Mercury and Venus have no moons, and Mars has only two small asteroid-sized objects orbiting it. In this essay, the father of the SMART-1 lunar mission, Bernard Foing of the European Space Agency, looks at the effect the Moon has had on the Earth, and explores how different our world would be if we had no planetary companion. Would life have evolved differently, or even appeared on Earth without the Moon?
- Research material: Polybius
Polybius is supposedly an arcade game, thought to be similar in genre to Atari’s Tempest, and the subject of an online urban legend. According to the story, the game was released to the public in 1981, and caused its players to go insane, causing them to suffer from intense stress and horrific nightmares. A short time after its release, it supposedly disappeared without a trace.
- Radiohead to bypass record labels, letting its publisher handle rights
Radiohead’s album In Rainbows was revolutionary for its “pay what you like” availability. Now the band’s plan for licensing that album continues the trend, further eroding the bond between bands and the record industry.
- Some bunch of fuckheads have invented street ads that beam their vocal pitch right into your goddamn head
New Yorker Alison Wilson was walking down Prince Street in SoHo last week when she heard a woman’s voice right in her ear asking, “Who’s there? Who’s there?” She looked around to find no one in her immediate surroundings. Then the voice said, “It’s not your imagination.”
The billboard uses technology manufactured by Holosonic that transmits an “audio spotlight” from a rooftop speaker so that the sound is contained within your cranium.
Fucking christ. Do we really need this? Really? Wasn’t spam clogging up my inbox bad enough? This must be opposed!
So was it a ghost or just an annoyed resident who stole the speaker from the SoHo billboard twice in one day last week? Horizon Media, which helped place the billboard, had to find a new device that would prevent theft from its rooftop location. Mr. Pompei only takes it as a compliment that someone would go to the trouble of stealing his technology, but hopes consumer acceptance comes with time.
The solution to anti-theft measures is obvious: just cover up the speaker entirely. Preferably with something difficult to remove. Like glue and pieces of wood or metal. Maybe some soundproofing foam, for good measure.
- An Interview with David Lynch
I couldn’t and wouldn’t work in a studio if I didn’t have final cut. It would be the theater of the absurd. How could anyone do that? Absolutely pure suicide. Sadness. Ridiculousness. Absurdity upon absurdity. Never in a million years. A person’s voice is what’s critical, and staying true to the ideas. No one should interrupt that, it should be supported, there should be enthusiasm and inspiration for that. The other is totally wrong, a horror. I came from painting where it’s just the painter and the painting. In film, you go down the road with many people but you try to get them to tune into those ideas, as a family. But nobody fiddles with the thing. Every decision’s got to pass through the director or the thing won’t hold together until the end, it doesn’t have a prayer. So you need a lot of help, but you go to them to be true to those ideas.
- Top business leaders demand countries take drastic action on global warming
Some of the world’s top business leaders are demanding that international diplomats meeting next week come up with drastic and urgent measures to cut greenhouse gas pollution at least in half by 2050.
Officials from more than 150 global companies - worth nearly $4 trillion in market capitalization - have signed a petition urging “strong, early action on climate change” when political leaders meet in Indonesia.
- Fleeing rising seas, Pacific villagers seek help at Bali climate conference
As scientists warn of rising seas from global warming, more and more reports are coming in from villages like this one on Papua New Guinea’s New Britain island of flooding from unprecedented high tides. It’s happening not only to low-lying atolls, but to shorelines from Alaska to India.
- 10 reasons I’d rather marry a robot
The only emotional drama I’ll get into with my robot partner is what I’ve programmed into it. No jealousy, no hormones, no overtired crankiness, no insecurity, no ‘tude. This might bore folks who thrive on crisis, so I imagine robots will come with a Drama setting that ranges from 0 (yogic bliss) to 10 (living hell). My machine will be set to, hmmm, let’s see … 0. I’ll get my drama from novels and holovids, thankyouverymuch.
- Genetic cosmetic makes old skin like new
Recent advances in understanding the cellular and molecular basis of aging have raised hopes that treatments to significantly slow or reverse aging will soon be available for humans. For example, the widely publicized age-extending effects in mice of the compound resveratol, found in red wine, led to a surge in the supplement’s use, despite no clinical proof of its efficacy in humans. And skincare companies like Proctor & Gamble have launched genome studies in hopes of developing a more powerful youth serum.
- Pre-human dating scene revealed
Humans basically court each other one-on-one today, but 2 million-year-old skulls tucked away in South African caves suggest that our ancient male relatives dated troops of females.
- EMI wants to cut funding to trade groups
According to a Reuters report, EMI may be planning to significantly reduce its payments to industry trade groups such as the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and others that represent the music companies and help fight piracy. EMI was recently acquired by private equity group Terra Firma, and is currently undergoing a strategic review. EMI was also the first of the four major labels to make its music available without DRM.
I think this is a good move on EMI’s part. They seem to be the only one of the big labels who is looking forward at all. These trade groups don’t deserve to even be part of the equation of the distribution of revenue from music, as they don’t actually do anything to contribute to the creation of music. Musicians made music before them, and musicians will continue to make music after they’ve gone the way of the dinosaur.
- The way it was supposed to be
This is not a hack, this Dock was taken from one of the Leopard beta installations that was seeded to developers and beta testers before the official release. Up until the final release of Leopard, this part of the feature was not only present in the beta versions, but was also included in the description of the new Dock features on Apple’s website.
Okay, if they already had that implemented, why didn’t they use it? It exactly addresses the deficiencies with Stacks that a lot of people complain about.
- America has told Britain that it can kidnap British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.
No, really:
A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.
Until now it was commonly assumed that US law permitted kidnapping only in the “extraordinary rendition” of terrorist suspects. The American government has for the first time made it clear in a British court that the law applies to anyone, British or otherwise, suspected of a crime by Washington.
(Hat tip: Warren Ellis)
- Rare mummified dinosaur unearthed: contains skin, and maybe organs, muscle
Scientists on Monday announced the discovery of what appears to be the world’s most intact dinosaur mummy: a 67-million-year-old plant-eater that contains fossilized bones and skin tissue, and possibly muscle and organs.
- No heat at $5,000/month
Libertarians blame rent stabilization for the problems of tenants in cities like New York, but there are few rent stabilized apartments left in this town or in this building. Most people in this building pay $4000 to $5000 a month for a “luxury rental” the size of a working-class Hoosier’s garage.
Certainly the fee the landlord collects is luxurious. Nothing else about the place is. Particularly not luxurious is the lack of heat, now in its second day. Snow falls, arctic winds blow, but the $5000/month luxury building is as cold as a dead seal.