Time is what prevents everything from happening at once.

—  John Archibald Wheeler

Tempus Edax Rerum

Dec. 7, 2011

 

The title means “Time Devours Things”.


Under Scrutiny

Bought at the Wiretappers Ball?

Bought at the Wiretappers Ball?

Assad Forces Know Where You Are

Assad Forces Know Where You Are

Gone with the New iOS 5 Mobile

Gone with the New iOS 5 Mobile

  • When Virginia technology entrepreneur Jerry Lucas hosted his first trade show for makers of surveillance gear at the McLean Hilton in 2002, only 35 people attended.  A mere 9 years later, Lucas holds 5 events annually across the world, drawing hundreds of vendors and 1,000s of potential buyers for an industry that he estimates sells $5 billion of the latest tracking, monitoring and eavesdropping technology each year.  Along the way these events have earned an evocative nickname: The Wiretappers’ Ball (whose list of attendees for this year at the North Bethesda Marriott Hotel and Conference Center include more than 35 federal agencies).  The products of what Lucas calls the “lawful intercept” industry are developed mainly in Western nations such as the US, but are sold throughout the world with few restrictions.  This burgeoning trade has alarmed human rights activists and privacy advocates, who call for greater regulation.  The technology ends up in the hands of repressive governments such as those of Syria, Iran and China.  “You need two things for a dictatorship to survive — propaganda and secret police,” said NJ Congressman Christopher Smith.  On offer were products that allow users to track 100s of cellphones at once, read emails by the 10s of 1,000s, even get a computer to snap pictures of its owner and send the images to police — or anyone else who buys the software.  One product uses phony updates for iTunes and other popular programmes to infiltrate personal computers.
  • WikiLeaks’new project is the publication of 100s of files detailing a global industry that gives governments tools to spy on their citizens.  About 160 companies in 25 countries have developed technologies to allow tracking and monitoring individuals by their mobile phones, email accounts and internet browsing histories.  “The reality is that the international mass surveillance industry now sells equipment to dictators and democracies alike in order to intercept entire populations,” Assange told reporters in London.  He said that in the past 10 years it grew from a covert industry that primarily supplied government intelligence agencies such as the NSA in the US and GCHQ in Britain to a huge transnational business.  “These systems have been sold by Western companies to places like Syria, Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt.  They are used to hunt people down.”
  • A hidden application found on millions of smartphones can log almost everything a user does, claims a US security researcher.  Trevor Eckhart unearthed the Carrier IQ application that runs largely unseen on many smartphone handsets.  Mr Eckhart said the software could log locations, websites visited, key presses and many other parameters.  Carrier IQ denied its code was spying and threatened Mr Eckhart with legal action (but quietly backed down later).  Mr Eckhart said he found Carrier IQ via work he had done on a security programme called Logging Test, which spotted which apps were running on an Android phone.  His analysis revealed that Carrier IQ could be set up to record almost anything and everything done on a smartphone.  He found the code on Android smartphones and a cut-down version has also been seen running on some Apple phones.  Carrier IQ defended its software, saying it was not spying on users — its code was for mobile operators to use as a diagnostic tool to spot what was causing calls to drop, texts to go astray and battery power to be drained.  But Senator Al Franken said, “It appears that Carrier IQ’s software captures a broad swath of extremely sensitive user information that would appear to have nothing to do with diagnostics — including who they call, the contents of texts they receive, the contents of their searches and the websites they visit.”


A notebook computer is a great convenience — unless you lose it.  Prey is a free programme that works to track your computer should anyone try to steal it.  As soon as the thief turns it on, Prey will try to broadcast the computer’s location.  Even if it isn’t connected to the Internet, it will attempt to find the nearest open hotspot.  To activate it, you simply send your computer a message from your phone or another computer.  And Prey offers a wide range of other features.  You can take screenshots.  You can hide personal information such as stored passwords remotely.  You can even activate the Webcam to get mug shots of the person using your computer.  Another programme, Find My Phone, allows you to track your iPhone using its GPS.  With Where’s My Droid, you can send your lost or stolen phone a text and it’ll respond with its location.  Then there’s Plan B — the only app that allows you to remotely install it on your phone even after you’ve lost it.  It sends you its coordinates via email.  Am I the only one that suspects these types of programmes will ultimately be used to work against you as well as for you?

Near Field Communication, or NFC, allows simplified transactions, data exchange, and wireless connections between two devices in proximity to each other, usually no more than a few centimetres apart.  NFC is expected to become a widely-used system for making payments by smartphone in the United States.  Many smartphones currently on the market already contain embedded NFC chips that can send encrypted data a short distance (“near field”) to a reader located, for instance, next to a retail cash register.  Shoppers who have their credit card information stored in their NFC smartphones can pay for purchases by waving their smartphones near or tapping them on the reader, rather than using the actual credit card.  Co-invented by NXP Semiconductors and Sony in 2002, NFC technology is being added to a growing number of mobile handsets to enable mobile payments, as well as many other applications.  A smartphone or tablet with an NFC chip could make a credit card payment or serve as a keycard or ID card.  NFC devices can also read unpowered NFC tags, for example on a museum or retail display.  NFC can share a contact, photo, song, application, or video, or pair Bluetooth devices.  Tap one NFC device to another to instantly share electronic business cards or resumes.  Touch NFC devices together to Facebook friend each other or to “check-in” at some venue.


Who Is My Enemy?

His Death Is Mourned

His Death Is Mourned

Being Detained

Being Detained

US Citizen Jose Padilla

US Citizen Jose Padilla

  • US citizens are legitimate military targets when they take up arms with al-Qaida say top national security lawyers in the Obama administration.  The lawyers were asked at a national security conference about the CIA killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen and leading al-Qaida figure.  He died in a 30 September US drone strike in the mountains of Yemen.  Government lawyers, CIA counsel Stephen Preston, and Pentagon counsel Jeh Johnson, did not directly address the al-Awlaki case.  But they said US citizens do not have immunity when “at war with the US”.  Johnson said only the executive branch, not the courts, is equipped to make military battlefield targeting decisions about who qualifies as an enemy.  (No one gets to hear the other side?  To see any evidence?  The executive branch is now infallible?)  The courts in habeas cases, such as those involving whether a detainee should be released from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, make the determination of who can be considered an enemy combatant.
  • Stalin passed a law that ordered anyone accused of terrorism and plots against the government to be arrested, "convicted", then immediately executed.  This law gave Stalin the chance to carry out his Great Purges properly, without resistance.  He used this 1934 law to launch a massive purge, including Communist Party members and top government officials who were potential rivals or threats, those who criticised his policies, and even a few innocents he just didn’t like.  Stalin held show trials for party members who opposed him.  These were meant for people to see to serve as a warning to anyone thinking of opposing him in some way.  Held in Moscow, they were often filmed so the precautionary warning would be widespread.  By 1937, purging had spread to the armed forces: generals were being arrested and killed.  By 1939, 3 of 5 marshals and half the military officials had been purged.  Russians lived in constant fear that they’d be arrested, jailed, tortured, shot.  Ordinary citizens accused neighbours or family of criticising Stalin to project a patriotic image of themselves in hopes they wouldn’t be killed.  Over 10 million people were sent to labour camps and over a million were executed.
  • “What’s wrong with indefinite detention is not a matter of the logistics of national security or military resources.  It is that it is an eradication of a fundamental right upon which American democracy has stood from its founding days — namely, the right not to be incarcerated without evidence, the right not to be summarily 'disappeared’ on the say-so of one person or agency, the right not to be denied justice.  If the President himself is not willing to embrace as sacred the right to due process for Americans, if he is not willing to risk everything to protect that fundamental constitutional guarantee, if he really believes you can compromise on this basic value, then why should we be surprised that the nation itself is floundering?” – Karen Greenberg, New York Daily News.  The president has agreed to veto the bill that would allow the US military to seize and detain without any due process anyone, including American citizens, who are suspected of terrorism, even in the US itself.  But the US Senate has thrown its weight behind gutting habeas corpus.  It has endorsed the notion that the government can do whatever it likes to any citizen it suspects of being involved of terrorism — a hole through which the constitution can one day disappear.  One more terror attack, and the US may authorise soldiers to break into citizens’ homes at will, rounding those up the government deems as suspicious, denying them recourse.


If we believe an American citizen is guilty or will be guilty of acts of terrorism, can we detain them indefinitely?  Can we ignore their constitutional rights and hold them indefinitely, without warning them of their right to remain silent, without advising them of their right to counsel, without giving them the basic protections of our Constitution?  I don’t believe that should be the standard.

— Senator Dick Durbin (Democrat-Illinois)

The Constitution says clearly: 'In the trial of all crimes — no exception — there shall be a jury, and the trial shall be held in the State where said crimes have been committed.’  Clearly, the Founding Fathers were talking about civilian court, of which the US person is brought before in its jurisdiction.  They talk about treason against the US, including war here.  The Constitution says it 'shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort…  No person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.’  I would say that 'open court’ is likely to be civilian court.  Further, when a person is charged with treason, a felony, or other crime, that person shall be 'removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime’ — once again civilian, state court, not the US military.  The Fourth Amendment is instructive here: 'The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures’ — includes PERSON — 'shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, except upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.’  Now, in section 1031(b)(2), I do not see a requirement for a civilian judge to issue a warrant.  It appears this directly violates the Fourth Amendment with regard to those rights which are inalienable, according to the Declaration of Independence, and should be inviolate as your birthright as an American citizen.  Recall the Fifth Amendment, which says: 'No person’ (no exception here!) 'shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment,’ hear the words, 'of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War’ — meaning there is a separate jurisdiction for US citizens who are in the uniformed service.  But unless you are in the service of the United States, you are one of those 'no persons’ who shall be answerable for a 'capital’ or 'infamous crime,’ except on 'indictment of a Grand Jury.’  The Sixth Amendment says: 'In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed’.  I go on to these because I regard all of these rights as inherent to US citizens, granted to them by their birth in the United States.

Senator Mark Kirk (Republican-Illinois)


SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) generally refers to Industrial Control Systems (ICS), computer systems that monitor and control industrial (like power generation and mining), infrastructure (like water treatment, pipelines, communications), or facilities-based processes (like airports, ships, and space stations).  “I was contracted to test the systems on a Boeing 747.  They had added a new video system that ran over IP.  They segregated this from the control systems using layer 2 VLANs.  We managed to break the VLANs and access other systems and with source routing could access the Engine Management Systems.  For those who do not know, 747’s are big flying Unix hosts.  At the time, the engine management system on this particular airline was Solaris-based.  The patching was well behind and they used telnet as SSH broke the menus and the budget did not extend to fixing this.  The engineers can actually access the engine management system of a 747 en route.  If issues are noted, they can re-tune the engine in the air.  The issue here is that all that separates the engine control systems and the open network are NAT-based filters.  The addition of a simple NAT device is NOT a control.  Most of these systems are horribly patched and some run DOS, Win 95, Win 98 and even old Unix.  Windows XP and unpatched networks are a concern, but they are less of a concern than systems that are connected to the world and which control physical systems.” What can go wrong?  Think Stuxnet

Contact lenses, normally used to bring the outside world into focus, are making it possible to peer back in through these windows.  The idea of “smart” contact lenses that can superimpose information on the wearer’s field of view has been around for a while, but contact lenses are also being developed that use embedded sensors and electronics to monitor disease and dispense drugs.  Such devices may eventually be able to measure the level of cholesterol or alcohol in your blood and flash up an appropriate warning.  By adding tiny light-emitting elements to contact lenses, it is becoming possible to map digital images directly onto the wearer’s field of vision to create a heads-up display or augmented-reality overlay that requires no glasses, screen or headset.  An induction loop is used to power the device and to relay data from the lens to a receiver worn by the patient.  (Induction loops are also used to power hearing-aid implants without the need for troublesome wires.)  Since the end of 2010, this technology has been available in 8 European countries, and approval in America is expected by the end of 2011.


Comparing Household Debt

Household Debt as a % of Disposable Income NZ

Household Debt as a % of Disposable Income NZ

Household Debt as a % of Disposable Income US Versus Canada

Household Debt as a % of Disposable Income US Versus Canada

We have been living in a society where debts, rather than rights, have been the major means for accessing basic social goods like housing, education, and health care.  That social model was built around the assumption that while real incomes stagnated and the state did not directly provide many basic goods through universal entitlements, cheap credit would do the trick instead.  High finance was inextricably intertwined with the privileges of citizenship.  This was not a very good social model.  The total value of student loans has surpassed total credit card debt, and is projected to top $1 trillion later this year.  If there is a reasonable expectation that debtors can meet their interest payments then in theory debt is not a particularly bad way to finance access to certain goods.  It is on the individual borrower to make a judgement about what constitutes a “reasonable” debt burden.


Chuck O’Rear was driving (in January when the grass is its most brilliant green in northern California) to visit his girlfriend when he was struck by the beauty of the rolling vineyards.  Many people would have carried on without bothering to stop and take a photograph.  But the former National Geographic magazine photographer was so entranced by the green of the grass and the white clouds in the perfectly blue California sky (Sonoma County, southeast of Sonoma Valley near the site of the old Clover Stornetta Dairy) that he pulled over and got out his camera.  Never for a moment did he think the shot would become the most viewed image on the planet, for it was chosen by Microsoft engineers as the desktop image for their Windows XP background.  O’Rear said he received one of the largest amounts ever paid to a living, working photographer.  A nondisclosure agreement prevents him from naming the actual figure.  He says only that it was “extraordinary” and second only to that paid to another living, working photographer for the photo of then-President Bill Clinton hugging Monica Lewinsky.

One of the great puzzles of the industrial revolution is why it began in England.  Britain had plentiful supplies of coal, a good patent system in place, relatively high labour costs (which encourage the search for labour-saving innovations).  However, economists Ralf Meisenzahl and Joel Mokyr have a different explanation: a group they call “tweakers.” Britain dominated the industrial revolution because it had more skilled engineers and artisans than its competitors: men who took the inventions of the industrial age and perfected them, making them work.  In 1779, Samuel Crompton invented the spinning mule, which made possible the mechanisation of cotton manufacture.  Then Henry Stones added metal rollers to the mule; James Hargreaves figured out how to smooth the acceleration and deceleration of the spinning wheel; William Kelly worked out how to add water power to the draw stroke; John Kennedy adapted the wheel to turn out fine counts; finally, Richard Roberts, a master of precision machine tooling — and the tweaker’s tweaker, created the “automatic” spinning mule: an exacting, high-speed, reliable rethinking of Crompton’s original creation.  Before long, the number of spindles on a typical mule jumped from 400 to 1,000.  Such men, economists argue, provided the “micro inventions necessary to make macro inventions highly productive and remunerative.”  (Sort of like what Steve Jobs — a perfector rather than a visionary — seems to have done best: in his case, equal parts insightful, vicious, and delusional.)


Meritocracy

Rat Race

Rat Race

Alternate Earth

Alternate Earth

Life Can Be Unfair

Life Can Be Unfair

  • According to one recent study, just 40% of Americans attribute higher incomes primarily to luck rather than hard work — compared with 54% of Germans, 66% of Danes, and 75% of Brazilians.  But perception cannot survive for long when it is distant from reality; is America is drifting away from its meritocratic ideals?  If so, will the result be a breakdown of popular support for free markets?  Will this kill America’s unique version of capitalism?  In animal packs, the responsibility of leadership and the reward of mating opportunities is generally assigned to the strongest.  In human societies, certain employment, where money and prestige are the rewards, accrues to the “leaders”.  Most modern societies try to reward according to merit.  Indeed, surveys show that most people in developed countries agree that merit should be rewarded.  Systems measuring merit should be efficient, hard to manipulate, and deemed fair — or at least not too unfair — by participants.  Support for meritocracy translates neatly into support for the market system because markets are harder to manipulate than, say, a list of tenure requirements an academic committee creates, or the decisions of statist regimes determining which lucky citizens get which consumer products.  The market system has the reputation of producing efficient results.  Some intellectuals may devalue it because it doesn’t reward what they think is meritorious, but most people believe in greater reward for greater outcomes; that helps protect meritocratic capitalism from any forces that might threaten to undermine it.  (Unfortunately, this particular article seems to confuse “hardworking” and “productive.”)
  • Does a meritocratic society have high social mobility?  The short form of the argument goes like this: 1) Education is largely heritable — the children of highly educated parents are highly educated themselves.  2) In a modern, globalised society, education is highly correlated with success.  3) Success is highly correlated with wealth.  In short, educated people succeed, become rich, and have children who follow in their footsteps.  In this model, the lack of social mobility is not IN SPITE OF the meritocratic nature of society, but precisely BECAUSE of it.  Of course, as a practical matter, meritocratic systems are likely to reward the few over the many, but this brings us to the second problem: every other system does as well.  From communism to feudalism to theocracies to aristocracies and every other kind of -ism and -cracy — the few end up getting rewarded over the many.  Even in a system where everyone is nominally equal, some are (as Orwell famously said) more equal than others.  Pointing out a feature common to all systems is really not a very effective criticism of a single system.  A meritocratic system doesn’t care that you worked hard; there are no A’s for effort.  If a person can’t figure out that effort is not the same thing as results, he MAY not be suited for writing an article on meritocracy that highlight the differences between “equality of outcome” and “equality of opportunity”.
  • By elevating the children of farmers and janitors as well as the children of lawyers and stockbrokers, we’ve created what seems like the most capable, hardworking, high-IQ elite in all of human history.  And for the last 10 years, we’ve watched this same elite lead us off a cliff — mostly by being too smart for its own good.  In hereditary aristocracies, debacles tend to flow from stupidity and pigheadedness: think of the Charge of the Light Brigade or the Battle of the Somme.  In one-party states, they tend to flow from ideological mania: think of China’s Great Leap Forward, or Stalin’s experiment with “Lysenkoist” agriculture.  In meritocracies, though, it’s the very intelligence of our leaders that creates the worst disasters.  Convinced that their own skills are equal to any task or challenge, meritocrats take risks that lower-wattage elites would never even contemplate, embark on more hubristic projects, and become infatuated with statistical models that hold out the promise of a perfectly rational and frictionless world.  What you see in today’s Republican primary campaign is a reaction — a revolt against the ruling class that our meritocracy has forged, and a search for outsiders with thinner résumés but better instincts.  But realise: it will do America no good to replace the arrogant with the ignorant, the overconfident with the incompetent.


The debate over Medicare is very abstract when politicians and economists talk about it.  Nobody can quite figure out how the US spends twice as large a slice of GDP on health care as other countries.  Yet a single conversation with a doctor would add a lot to an understanding of the problem.  A friend of mine (“Joe”) is a pulmonary/critical care doctor.  An elderly patient comes in to the hospital.  Dr Joe tells his adult children, “Your father is going to die within two weeks.  To keep him alive beyond tonight will require a lot of machines and about $300,000 of Medicare expense.  What would you like to do?”  The response is “Everything.”  Dr Joe says, “It doesn’t make a lot of medical sense, but I get paid by Medicare either way — so we do everything.”  Reasoning and making decisions from anecdotes is obviously not very sound.  On the other hand, it seems that economists are led to a lot of unsound conclusions by ignoring anecdotes.

The number of men age 65 and older increased by 21% from 2000 to 2010, nearly double the 11.2% growth rate for women in that age group.  What are the implications of having more men around longer?  While most experts say it may be only a blip, some demographers say that a surprisingly rapid rise in the number of men could cost society even more in retirement costs, since they earned more than women and will collect more.  They will also add to the long-term care problem.  It is axiomatic that medical screening tests will always, without exception, cost the healthcare system far more money than they can ever save the healthcare system.  Therefore, medical screening tests need to be suppressed.  Screening tests often produce false positive results, so additional (often invasive and always costly) testing then needs to be done to confirm or deny the diagnosis.  If the patient’s life is saved by the screening test and subsequent therapy, that patient will persist for several more years, soaking younger Americans for Social Security and Medicare payments — and worse, will ultimately develop some other expensive medical problem everyone else will have to pay for.  (The writer is a male doctor who is not expressing his personal opinions.)  The ironic part is that screening is something that any true “insurance” should never cover in the first place.  Insurance, in its most literal sense, is simply a way for a collective to distribute risk.  A group of people pool their money together to pay for something that would be prohibitively expensive for any of them on their own but can easily be covered by group funds.  As a corollary, however, the actual risk for the incident in question must be low enough that total payouts are less than the aggregated premiums.


Students Are Not Graduating with Degrees That Pay

Digest of Education Statistics, 2010

Digest of Education Statistics, 2010

Consider computer technology.  In 2009, the US graduated 37,994 students with bachelor’s degrees in computer and information science.  Not bad, but more students graduated with computer science degrees 25 years ago.  The story is the same in other technology fields such as chemical engineering, math and statistics.  Few fields have changed as much in recent years as microbiology, but in 2009 just 2,480 students graduated with bachelor’s degrees in microbiology — about the same number as 25 years ago.  Who will solve the problem of antibiotic resistance?  If students aren’t studying science, technology, engineering and math, what are they studying?  In 2009 the US graduated 89,140 students in the visual and performing arts, more than in computer science, math and chemical engineering combined and more than double the number of visual and performing arts graduates in 1985.  Teenagers should look at the Wall Street Journal's list of the highest-paying majors: petroleum engineering, pharmaceutical sciences, mineral engineering, nuclear engineering, marine engineering, math, “military technologies,” chemical engineering, metallurgical engineering, electrical engineering, aerospace engineering, and materials science.  Notice a pattern?  Degrees fall into 3 categories: marketable skills (like engineering), marketable signals (business), or just pieces of paper.


NFC-based security chips can be attached by manufacturers to their products to be used for tracking sales, as well as letting customers verify that they are buying “the real thing”.  The chips work by responding to random challenge messages; they come in multiple antenna form factors that make it possible to hide this protection well enough that there is no visible trace.  Readers – for instance, your NFC-capable smartphone – emit radio-frequency energy which powers the chips.  With these chips, manufacturers can maintain their reputations amidst cheap knockoffs and clones that affect company revenues and employment.

More than 3/4 of the honey sold in US grocery stores isn’t exactly what the bees produced.  Pollen frequently has been ultra-filtered out of it — the honey is watered down, then forced at high pressure through extremely small holes.  The food safety divisions of the World Health Organization, the European Commission and dozens of others have ruled that without pollen there is no way to determine whether the honey comes from legitimate, safe sources.  In the US, the Food and Drug Administration says that a product that’s been ultra-filtered and no longer contains pollen is no longer honey.  However, they don’t routinely check honey for pollen.  Why would anyone want to ultra-filter honey, anyway?  Cheap and plentiful Chinese and Indian honeys often contain illegal antibiotics, heavy metals, or dilution with inexpensive high fructose corn syrup.  These honeys are banned.  Pollen allows identification of the country of origin.  A leading palynologist (honey expert) found that most honeys sold in US grocery stores lacks pollen while all honeys actually sourced from beekeepers (such as that sold at farmer’s markets) DOES have pollen.  The US imports about 12 million pounds of honey per month which is sold under more than 1,100 brands.  Would NFC chips be able to help beekeepers?  I can’t quite see how.  (Random factoid: North Carolina has more beekeepers than any other US state.)


You, Robot

The FuA-Men

The _FuA-Men_

's Baggers®

's Baggers®
Hajime

Hajime

The Dalu Robot Restaurant

The Dalu Robot Restaurant

  • The FuA-Men (Fully Automated raMen) restaurant in Nagoya, Japan features a chef and assistant — both fully autonomous robots.  The robots perform all cooking tasks needed to make 80 bowls per day, serving the customers who come to this small shop.  “The benefits of using robots as ramen chefs include the accuracy of timing in boiling noodles, precise movements in adding toppings, and consistency in the taste and temperature of the soup,” said Kenji Nagaya, president of local robot manufacturer Aisei.  The two chefs also work very well together; their movements are perfectly choreographed.  (Video.)  The FuA-men robotic chefs also entertain customers by engaging in manzai play, a stand-up comedy style popular in Japan.  One robot pretends to threaten with a knife — the other picks up a pot lid to defend itself.
  • In a nondescript industrial building on the outskirts of Nuremberg in Bavaria is the world’s first restaurant to feature fully automated ordering and table service.  At 's Baggers® , the waiter of old has been shown the door.  Instead, each table is connected by metal rails to the kitchen (installed directly beneath the roof of the multistory restaurant).  Customers order meals using a touchscreen system at each table, then swipe credit cards on built-in readers.  The restaurant is networked so that orders register upstairs in the kitchen while a computer in the cellar keeps track of supply stocks.  The system also calculates likely delivery times for drinks and meals at every table, keeping customers informed.  After dinner, diners can evaluate the meal, the service, and the ambience all at the tables’ touchscreens.
  • A Japanese restaurant in Thailand, Hajime, has robot samurais as waiters.  They slide to your table, bring your order, and even do a dance routine to entertain guests.  Afterward, they bus tables.  The waiters cost US$930,000 each — no mention of how many waiters they have, what their maintenance/upgrade costs are, nor how long they are expected to last.  ( Video .)
  • Located in Jiang, China’s Shandong Province, the Dalu Robot Restaurant can cater to about 100 customers.  It features two robot receptionists and a “staff” of 6 robot-waitresses.  Two of them serve drinks, two serve meals to the small tables and another two tend to the big table.  As all the waiting is done by robots, the tables are set in a circular pattern so that the robots can follow an exact route.  (The kitchen is still staffed by real people.) The concept belongs to The Shandong Dalu Science and Technology Company, who isn’t planning to stop here: they want to further develop their idea and ultimately to have a staff of 40 robots.  (Business is already quite brisk.)


Special relativity, which physicists thought they had tested almost to destruction and found not wanting, states that as objects speed up, time slows down.  Time stops altogether on reaching the 299,792,458 metres-per-second at which light zaps through a vacuum.  Go any faster and you’ll be moving backwards in time.  If CERN’s neutrinos really are travelling faster than light, it is a really big deal.  Modern physicists have never thought their subject closed, but they have found no chink in the armour of relativity that they could use to prise the whole thing open.  Neutrinos moving faster than light would be such a chink — that would change everything.  The likely explanation is neutrinos are taking a short-cut through one of the extra dimensions which string theory postulates are hidden among the familiar 4 of length, breadth, height and time.  Measured along a 5-dimensional route, Einstein might still be right.  (It wouldn’t so much be that he made a mistake as that he didn’t know the whole story.)  Indeed, moving beyond 4 dimensions would allow physicists to try integrating Einstein’s work with quantum theory, the other great breakthrough of 20th-century physics, but one which simply refuses to overlap with relativity.  A unified Theory of Everything, including perhaps as many as 11 dimensions, would then beckon.  That is a lot to hang on unconfirmed observations.  If a glitch is found in CERN’s result, the whole thing will rapidly be swept under the carpet and forgotten.  If there’s no glitch, an astonishing future of understanding beckons.

There was a neutrino named Bright
Who travelled faster than light.
It went away
In a relative way
And came back on the previous night.

George W S Trow, reflecting on his family’s news consumption habits in the 1950s, noted that in the New York City of the time, there were Times people and there were Herald Tribune people.  And the Trows were, for their part, “in our souls a Herald Tribune family.”  In our souls.  This is what we tend to forget when we talk about journalism’s evolution: the news brand, in the past — for all its exclusivity, for all its anonymity — was much more than a brand, with all the corporateness and cravenness that that term can imply.  It was also an identity.  It was a purchased proxy for a personal worldview.  A subscription to the Times — even a newsstand purchase of the Times — meant something both public and, even more importantly, intimate.  The news brand was, in its way, an externalised self, a reflection — often aspirational — of the way its consumers took part in the tumult of human events.  What The Economist newsmagazine has managed to capture — to recapture — is the sense of self and self-containment that defined media brands before those brands became social.  It’s not just clever content, cleverly packaged.  It’s also an outsourced worldview: The Economist sells a self-image that’s high-class, high-culture, high-end.  Depending on where you stand, it’s either congratulatory or aspirational.


Environmental Degradation in the USA in the 1970s

Counterpoints

Counterpoints

Vapourising Car Batteries

Vapourising Car Batteries

Breathe Deeply

Breathe Deeply
Not Much to See Outside Anyway

Not Much to See Outside Anyway

Just Close Your Eyes

Just Close Your Eyes

Waiting for Pickup

Waiting for Pickup

In November 1971, the newly created Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a massive photo documentary project called DOCUMERICA, to record the noticeable changes the rapid development of the American postwar decades were having on the environment.  By 1974, more than 80,000 photographs had been produced.  Here are 6.

  • Mount Rainer and Tacoma’s industrial waterfront, Washington State, April 1973.
  • Smoke and gas from the burning of discarded automobile batteries pours into the sky near Houston, Texas, July 1972.
  • Day becomes night when industrial smog is heavy in North Birmingham, Alabama, as it was on this day in July 1972.  Sitting adjacent to the US Pipe plant, this was the most heavily polluted area of the city.
  • Clark Avenue and Clark Avenue bridge, looking east from West 13th Street, obscured by industrial smoke, in Cleveland, Ohio, July 1973.
  • Signs crowd the roadway in this Las Vegas street scene, May 1972.
  • A train on the Southern Pacific Railroad passes a 5-acre pond used as a dumpsite by area commercial firms, near Ogden, Utah, April 1974.  The acid water, oil, acid clay sludge, dead animals, junked cars and other debris were later cleaned up by several governmental groups under the supervision of the EPA.  Some 1.2 million gallons of liquid were pumped from the site, neutralised and taken to a proper disposal site.


Officially, the anthropocene epoch does not exist.  Yet.  It may be added permanently to the geologic time scale in August 2012, though, at the 34th congress organised by the International Union of Geological Sciences to be held in Brisbane, Australia.  Technically, the Anthropocene is the most recent period of the Quaternary, succeding to the Holocene.  The Quaternary is a period of the earth’s history characterised by numerous and cyclical glaciations, starting about 2.5 million years ago.  The Quaternary is divided into 3 epochs: the Pleistocene, the Holocene, and now the Anthropocene.  During the Pleistocene, more than 11 major glaciations occurred, humans exited Africa, tools were invented, bipedalism evolved, arts, culture and linguistic refinement came into being.  The Holocene (a bit over a million years ago until about 1800AD) was comparatively smoother in terms of climate variability.  At the end of the last Ice Age 12,000 years ago, a more stable climate settled in.  Humans were present on all continents, agriculture took off in Africa, China, New Guinea and South America.  We are officially still in the Holocene — in fact, in the Phanerozoic Eon, Cenozoic era, Quaternary period, Holocene epoch.  But now, the earth’s system doesn’t behave the same way as it has been behaving.  Earth of the 21st century is warming, overcrowded, partly deforested, and more toxic and interconnected than ever.  The comforting envelope of the Holocene, which has fostered the birth of civilisations, is now punctured.  (Some lovely maps at this site.)

Details about how the nutrients we consume are detected and processed in the brain is elusive.  The nutritional composition of meals, such as the protein:carbohydrate (sugar) ratio has long been recognised to affect levels of arousal and attention.  Dr Denis Burdakov, University of Cambridge, and his colleagues have studied how physiological mixtures of nutrients influence “orexin/hypocretin” neurons, which are known to be critical regulators of wakefulness and energy balance in the body.  Previous research has demonstrated that orexin/hypocretin neurons are inhibited by glucose.  Surprisingly, the current study reveals that physiologically-relevant mixtures of amino acids, the nutrients derived from proteins (such as egg white), stimulate and activate the orexin/hypocretin neurons.  Researchers show that when orexin/hypocretin neurons are simultaneously exposed to amino acids and sugars, the amino acids serve to suppress the inhibitory influence of glucose.  Taken together, these results support a new and more complex nutrient-specific model for dietary regulation of orexin/hypocretin neurons.  “We find that activity in the orexin/hypocretin system is regulated by macronutrient balance rather than simply by the caloric content of the diet, suggesting that the brain contains not only energy-sensing cells, but also cells that can measure dietary balance,” concludes Dr Burdakov.  “Our data support the idea that the orexin/hypocretin neurons are under a 'push-pull’ control by sugars and proteins.  Interestingly, although behavioural effects are beyond the scope of our study, this cellular model is consistent with reports that when compared with sugar-rich meals, protein-rich meals are more effective at promoting wakefulness and arousal.”


Looking for Remains

Time to Fly

Time to Fly

Delivery of the Cargo

Delivery of the Cargo

Ready for Action

Ready for Action

On 26 November 2011, NASA launched a nuclear-powered rover tasked with searching for signs of life on the planet Mars by way of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket loaded with the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)'s Curiosity rover.  Since Mars is 354 million miles away, the journey will take 8.5 months.  The rover weighs 1,000 pounds and is the size of a small car; it is the world’s largest extra-terrestrial explorer.  Onboard is a nuclear-powered laboratory holding more than a dozen science instruments.  Only US$2.5 billion?  A bargain.


The word “cancer” is used for far too many conditions that are very different in their prognoses — from Stage 0 breast cancer, which may be harmless if left alone, to glioblastomas, which are brain tumours with a dismal prognosis no matter what treatment is tried.  It’s like saying a person has “mental illness” when he or she might have schizophrenia or mild depression or an eating disorder.  Now, some medical experts have recommended getting rid of the word “cancer” altogether for certain conditions that may or may not be potentially fatal.  Many medical investigators now speak in terms of the probability that a tumour is deadly.  And they talk of a newly-recognised risk of cancer screening — overdiagnosis.  Screening can find what are actually harmless, if abnormal looking, clusters of cells.  But since it is not known for sure whether they will develop into fatal cancers, doctors tend to treat them with the same methods that they use to treat clearly invasive cancers.  Screening is finding “cancers” that did not need to be found.  So maybe “cancer” is not always the right word — perhaps “high-grade dysplasia” would be better.

Though Olympics drug-testing is getting more efficient, there will surely be medal-winners who owe their triumph to some clever chemical intervention.  But having a prior drugs-cheat conviction will no longer be a bar to participation since the Court of Arbitration in Sport (the “supreme court” of sport) recently ruled on the anti-drugs stance of the International Olympic Committee: “The IOC Executive Board’s decision prohibiting athletes suspended for more than 6 months for anti-doping from participating in the next Olympic Games following their suspension expiration is invalid and unenforceable.” In other words, LaShawn Merritt, the reigning 400-metres champion, will be free to compete in London even though he failed 3 drugs tests two years ago and was banned for two years.  (His excuse was that he had innocently taken a banned substance contained in a supplement that he hoped would lengthen his penis.  And of course that’s what happened.)  Should doping be no more demonised than is allowing athletes to train at high altitudes or having the very best medical and coaching advice?  Drugs could be carefully administered under medical supervision, thus giving everyone an equal chance.  (It would, unfortunately, leave many younger Olympic-wannabe athletes taking the same drugs, but NOT under supervision.)  The Goldman Dilemma is named after a researcher who asked elite athletes if they would take a drug that guaranteed sporting success but would kill them in 5 years’ time.  The question was asked every 2 years for more than a decade and the results were always the same: HALF the athletes said, “Yes.”


If You Die Tomorrow…

What Will They Find on Your Computer?

What Will They Find on Your Computer?

Who cares?  I’ll be dead.


In the late 1950s, researchers from the University of Oregon and University of Washington tested drugs called bis(dichloroacetyl) diamines on inmates from the Oregon State Penitentiary.  They doled out one of 3 pills — dubbed Win 13,099, Win 17,416 and Win 18,446 — to 26 volunteers once or twice a day for up to 54 weeks, and measured the men’s sperm counts along the way.  The results were stunning: the compounds reduced the amount of sperm in the men’s semen, and sometimes completely wiped it out.  The pills didn’t affect libido, and the only reported side effect was bloating and gas.  What’s more, within a few weeks of stopping treatment, sperm counts went back up.  It was, perhaps, the horny grail: reversible birth control for men, no condom required.  The problem came when the pills were tested outside of prison.  When men taking the drugs drank alcohol, they had a violent reaction, including acute vomiting and shortness of breath.  The research was quickly abandoned.  The joke there, of course, is that if it weren’t for alcohol, you probably wouldn’t need a contraceptive.

Are you a high-functioning alcoholic?  The definition of alcoholic here appears to be “someone who depends on alcohol.”  Does this imply “can’t” stop?  Does “don’t want to” stop really mean “can’t”?  It would seem so.  (Most of the so-called characteristics could also be applied to people on a diet having difficulty losing weight — but one can’t permanently abstain from eating without eventually dying.)

  • They behave in ways that are not characteristic of themselves while drinking and continue to repeat these behaviours and patterns.
  • They set drinking limits (that is, only having 3 drinks, only drinking 3 days per week) but are not always able to adhere to them.
  • They use alcohol as a reward.
  • They take breaks from drinking and then increase alcohol consumption when they resume.
  • They are unable to imagine their lives without alcohol in it.
  • They have difficulty viewing themselves as alcoholics because they don’t fit the stereotypical image and because they feel their lives are manageable.
  • They are well-respected for job/academic performance and accomplishments.
  • They appear to the outside world to be managing life well.
  • They are skilled at living a compartmentalized life (that is, separating professional, personal, and drinking lives).
  • They experience few tangible losses and consequences from their drinking.

About 12% of American adults have had an alcohol dependence problem at some time in their lives.


Pretty Rocks and Fog

Torghatten, Norway

Torghatten, Norway

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Hulett, Wyoming, USA

Hulett, Wyoming, USA

  • Torghatten is a mountain on Torget island in Brønnøy municipality in Nordland County, Norway.  It is known for its characteristic hole, or natural tunnel, through its centre.  The tunnel is 160 metres (520 feet) long, 35 metres (115 feet) wide, and 20 metres (66 feet) high.  It’s possible to walk up to the tunnel on a well-prepared path, and through it on a natural path.  According to legend, the hole was made by a troll while chasing a beautiful girl.
  • Every year around the month of October, Dubai experiences heavy fog due to the still-high humidity and the falling temperatures.  With all the new high-rise buildings (including the tallest in the world, Burj Khalifa), this provides a great photographic opportunity.
  • Devil’s Tower is a 40.5-million-year-old igneous intrusion or laccolith located in the Black Hills near Hulett and Sundance in Crook County, northeastern Wyoming, above the Belle Fourche River.  It rises dramatically 1,267 feet (386 metres) above the surrounding terrain and the summit is 5,112 feet (1,558 metres) above sea level.  Devils Tower was the first declared United States National Monument, established on 24 September 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt.


Radiation therapy often is used to treat prostate, cervical, bladder, endometrial and other abdominal cancers.  But the therapy can kill both cancer cells and healthy ones, leading to severe bouts of diarrhoea if the lining of the intestine gets damaged.  For many patients, this means radiation therapy must be discontinued, or the radiation dose reduced, while the intestine heals.  But a new study shows that probiotics may provide a way to protect the lining of the small intestine from some of that damage (though thus far it has only been tested in mice).  The lining of the intestine is only one cell-layer thick.  This layer of epithelial cells separates the rest of the body from what’s inside the intestine.  If the epithelium breaks down as the result of radiation, the bacteria that normally reside in the intestine can be released, travel through the body and cause serious problems such as sepsis.  The probiotic was effective only if given to mice before radiation exposure.  If the mice received it after damage to the intestinal lining had occurred, the treatment did not repair it.

“Nicotine itself is not especially hazardous,” the British Medical Society concluded in 2007.  “If nicotine could be provided in a form that is acceptable and effective as a cigarette substitute, millions of lives could be saved.”  Enter e-cigarettes.  Electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, contain a small reservoir of liquid nicotine solution that is vapourised to form an aerosol mist.  The user “vapes,” or puffs on the vapour, to get a hit of the addictive nicotine (and the familiar sensation of bringing a cigarette to one’s mouth) without the noxious substances found in cigarette smoke.  The results have been very positive, with many smokers cutting regular cigarette consumption by half or more and a quarter stop altogether.  The number of Americans trying e-cigarettes quadrupled from 2009 to 2010, according to the Centers for Disease Control.  Its survey last year found that 1.2% of adults, or close to 3 million people, reported using them in the previous month.  Some 50 million Americans continue to smoke.  Nicotine reduces anxiety and stress, lowers weight, allows for faster reaction time and improved concentration.  It is hoped that e-cigarettes will replace much or most cigarette consumption in the next decade.


Lost, Then Found

Onboard the Rescue Ship San Nikunau

Onboard the Rescue Ship San Nikunau

The Marshall Islands Never Looked So Good

Marshall Is. — Location of the Second Rescue

In Mexico After Rescue

Recovery after Longest Time Lost at Sea

  • Samuel Pelesa (Peres) and Filo Filo, both age 15, along with Edward Nasau, age 14, were lost at sea in early October last year while attempting to row between two islands in the New Zealand region of Tokelau.  When the three boys failed to arrive at their destination, a massive search was conducted, but there was no sign of the missing teens.  In late November, the Sanford fishing boat San Nikunau was enroute to NZ to unload its tuna catch.  The boat had been fishing in Tuvalu waters and would normally unload in American Samoa – but they had decided to return directly to NZ instead.  While traversing Fiji waters, the crew identified an object directly in their path: a tiny dinghy – and there appeared to be 3 young boys aboard.  The boys were 800 miles from where they started and were found to be extremely dehydrated when taken aboard ship, so the San Nikunau detoured to Fiji for help.  Within days, the boys were recovering in Suva Hospital from their 50-day ordeal of being lost at sea.  They had survived by catching fish from the ocean and eating a seagull that landed on their boat.  They also caught rainwater to drink, although when discovered, they hadn’t had rain for several days and had resorted to drinking water from the sea, something that contributed to their dehydration.  The aunt of one of the boys happened to be a Sanford employee in NZ who had just returned to work after travelling to Tokelau to console her sister from the tragic loss of her son at sea.  She wasted no time phoning her to share the good news.
  • Two men from the Pacific island of Kiribati who were adrift for 33 days at sea turned up on the Namdrik Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands, some 300 miles away.  The two men, aged 53 and 26, were picked up by members of the US Coastguard.  Locals say these kinds of incidents happen more often than you’d think.  Giff Johnson, editor of the Marshall Islands Journal, said: “As odd as it may seem, the Marshall Islands hosts Kiribas drifters quite frequently.  It’s not that it happens all the time.  Let’s just say people from Kiribas are very hardy individuals.  They get lost on a little boat and manage to persevere.  It’s an amazing thing.”
  • In 2005-6, three men spent more than 9 months lost and drifting across the Pacific Ocean in a flimsy fishing boat.  The men’s 25-foot (8-metre) fiberglass boat ran into trouble off Mexico’s Pacific coast and drifted more than 5,000 miles before being picked up by a Taiwanese tuna trawler near the Marshall Islands.  The three survived by eating raw fish and sea birds and drinking rain water in an odyssey that was one of the longest recorded cases of survival at sea while adrift.  Asked in a tv interview if they ever drank their own urine, one of the men shied away from answering.  “My friend’s ashamed to say it, but we did,” said one of the other survivors.  On some days, the men lay still for hours to avoid drawing the attention of inquisitive sharks which circled and thumped their tails against the boat.  At night, birds came to rest on the bows of the boat and they would tuck their heads under their wings to sleep.  One of the men became expert at pouncing to catch them for food.  There were 5 men at the outset, but two died, one of starvation because he refused to eat raw meat and the other, who felt they would never be rescued, died quietly in his sleep.  I do find it odd that the man in the middle is wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words, “Ask Me if I Care”.


It seems that oncologists aren’t the only ones with an overdiagnosis problem.  With increasingly sophisticated detection technology, dentists are finding — and treating — tooth abnormalities that may or may not develop into cavities.  While some describe their efforts as a proactive strategy to protect patients from harm, critics say the procedures are unnecessary and painful, and are driving up the costs of care.  “A better approach is watchful waiting,” said Dr James Bader, a research professor at the University of North Carolina School of Dentistry.  “Examine it again in 6 months.”  But 63% of dentists surveyed said they would fill them – and, hey – if you have dental insurance it will be covered.  But every time a dentist drills into a tooth, you’re condemning that tooth-owner to a refilling years down the road.  And mineral-containing saliva can often repair those incipient lesions, especially when bolstered with fluoride.

Atavism is the tendency to revert to ancestral type.  In biology, an atavism is an evolutionary throwback — traits reappearing which had disappeared generations earlier.  Atavisms can occur when genes for previously existing phenotypical features are preserved in DNA, and these become expressed through a mutation that either knocks out the overriding genes for the new traits or makes the old traits override the new one.  In the social sciences, atavism is a cultural tendency — for example, people in the modern era reverting to the ways of thinking and acting of a former time.  The word atavism is derived from the Latin atavus — a great-great-great-grandfather or, more generally, an ancestor.  Four-year-old Chinese girl Jiaxue, who suffers from hairy black moles, sits on a bed at home in 2006 in Changchun, Jilin Province, China.  Jiaxue was born with the moles covering parts of her back, breast, neck and face.  Experts say the condition may be atavistic.


As Far As Art Is Concerned, Bigger Isn’t Always Better

The Real Art Is in Moving the Rock

The Real Art Is in Moving the Rock

Immovable: Who Has Enough Power?

Immovable: Who Has Enough Power?

Not Exactly the Direct Route

Not Exactly the Direct Route

Emmert Construction crewmembers built a steel transporter around a 340-ton, 21½-foot-high granite boulder to move it from Stone Valley Quarry to downtown Los Angeles for a Los Angeles County Museum of Art installation.  The installation, by artist Michael Heizer, is due to open to the public in early 2012.  (The video of the crew preparing the rock for transport is rather more interesting than the rock itself.)  Heizer conceived of the artwork in 1968, but it took him more than 40 years to find the “perfect” boulder.  In 40 years I would have thought he could have conceived of a better way to display his talents than moving a giant rock — butm no.  Did no one on the march toward a $10-million price tag to bring this giant rock from Riverside County to LACMA stop and wonder if this might be a bit too much to pay?  Why not build a fake rock from fiberglass?  Oh?  Now that wouldn’t be art, would it?


You’d like to start your work day with a cup of coffee, but see that your jerk co-worker has left the break room in shambles: grounds everywhere, dish soap oozing onto the counter, half-opened sugar packets on the floor by the trash.  So frustrating.  The first thing you want to do is blow off steam.  You don’t really want to get the person fired for sugar packet litter, or even have some kind of awkward conflict resolution meeting about it, but it’s inconsiderate.  You need to vent.  We think of venting as a transfer of heat, as “blowing off steam,” meaning anger, which would otherwise stay inside, creating pressure which could cause us to explode at an inopportune moment.  Venting is different than complaining (voicing a concern with the goal of changing something or addressing the cause of the problem).  You get a kind of satisfaction from talking about being angry without necessarily wanting to change the circumstances that triggered it.  But research suggests that venting anger doesn’t get rid of it.  Instead, it amplifies negative feelings.  Nevertheless, the average employee either vents or hears someone else vent about 4 times a day.  Agreeing with the person makes it worse.  Offering a different perspective or suggesting he or she calm down is better.  Or try bringing a puppy to work in case of emergency…

Things you can do to be happy in the next 30 minutes:

  • Take a walk outside.
  • Rid yourself of a nagging task.
  • Spend a few minutes putting your immediate surroundings in order.
  • Save someone’s life.
  • Learn something new.
  • Act happy.
  • Do a good deed.


The Real Lessons behind the Disney Royal Families

Princesses First

Princesses First

Princes Have Something to Learn, Too

Princes Have Something to Learn, Too

However, Disney didn’t make the rules but merely followed them.  Blame the Brothers Grimm.


A before and after shot of Joplin, Missouri after a massive tornado on 22 May 2011.  This was #8 on BuzzFeed’s 45 Most Powerful Images of 2011.

This is awesome (and I don’t intend that term to imply goodness in any way).  A monstrous dust storm (Haboob) roared through Phoenix, Arizona July 2011.  This was #10 on BuzzFeed’s 45 Most Powerful Images of 2011.


Colour in Somewhat Unexpected Places

The Fairly-Conservative Approach

The Fairly-Conservative Approach

Slightly More Daring

Slightly More Daring

Double Dip

Double Dip

Though I spent considerable time looking, I was unable to find the original source of any of the hair photos.  My apologies to the photographers and the hair owners.


I don’t know why these ear decorations (ear rings seems a bit of a misnomer) appeal to me.  I don’t have pierced ears and don’t quite understand the attraction for most females (except they keep losses down, being attached and all, I guess).  Partly, I don’t like the thought that any constant pull on ear lobes could cause them to get unattractively larger over time (age does that enough for most people).  I thought these ear decorations possibly distribute the weight better.  But do they really?  Is there a stud in the moon’s “cheek”?  And if there is one, is a piercing that high on the outer ear as safe from infection as is the lobe?  (That is, does it get enough blood flowing through there to provide sufficient white blood cells to fight germs?)  If so, then I really like these.  But I’d have the top limb of the moon follow the curve of the ear slightly more faithfully.  And I’d like them made of gold.

A candid photograph, published by The Telegraph, shows the true extent of the intimacy between the bridesmaid and best man at the Royal wedding reception, as she adoringly feeds him cake.  The newlywed couple, who also appear in the shot, seem oblivious to the risqué events unfolding in front of them.  Or do they?  Actually, it was posed by a selection of royal lookalikes.  Alison Jackson, famed for her satirical spoof photographs, has a great William (two, actually), a half-decent Kate, and a rather impressive Harry.  Finding a Pippa lookalike proved to be the most difficult.  Earlier this year Jackson was on the lookout for a Julian Assange.  She got one, and did some “great fun” pictures with a fake Hillary Clinton.  Where did she find the lookalike of the WikiLeaks founder?  “Oh, that wasn’t a Julian Assange lookalike,” smiles Jackson.  “It was Julian Assange.  He was very game to get involved.  I like to do that sometimes – throw in a real celebrity and see if anyone notices.”


Trees

Cherry Blossoms

Cherry Blossoms

Photosynthesis Has Been Banned

Photosynthesis Has Been Banned

Age Has Its Privileges

Age Has Its Privileges
In Summer

In Summer

In Autumn

In Autumn

In Winter

In Winter

Worldly

  • Taiwan: Sakura, Yuchr Township, Nantou County, Formosan Aboricinal Culture Uillace, 2010.
  • Poland: Infrared trees, grass, cow, 2007.
  • Spain: 1,000-year-old olive tree, 2009.  (I guess now it’s 1,002 years old?)

Lime Tree Avenue

  • Nottinghamshire, UK: Clumber Park’s Lime Tree Avenue is the longest of its kind in Europe.  Planted about 1840, it’s almost 2 miles long and consists of 1,296 common limes, Tilia x europaea, planted in a double row on each side of a drive.  Records from 1906 relate that the trees were suffering from insect attack.  To alleviate this, black grease bands were painted round the trunk of each tree to trap the insects, and these are still visible today.
  • Clumber Park is over 3,800 acres (15 square kilometres) in extent, including woods, open heath and rolling farmland.  It is an excellent place for long walks and has several miles of paths and cycle tracks surrounding the lake.  The park has a range of bicycles available for hire including tandems and adult tricycles from an estate building located by the main car park adjacent to the chapel and the Visitors center in the old stable block.
  • Clumber, mentioned in the Domesday Book, was monastic property in the Middle Ages, but later came into the hands of the Holles family.  In 1709, it was enclosed as a deer park by John Holles – 4th Earl of Clare, 3rd Earl of Newcastle upon Tyne and 1st Duke of Newcastle.  Though the main building is gone, the grounds still provide the majestic feel of entering a grand ducal estate.  Route 6 of the National Cycle Network passes through the park linking it to Sherwood Forest.


This poem is one of the winners of the The Yale UCL Medical Students Poetry Competition.  The aim of the competition was to stimulate creativity and expression amongst students in both medical schools, and to find, through the use of poetry, the commonality of experience amongst medical students.  There were 160 entries.

Aphasia
by Noah Capurso

We are taught that the brain
Is a set of highways;
Corpus callosum,
Spinothalamic,
Optic radiation.

But there are other roads, as well.
Scenic neural backroads
That are hidden from view;
Dusty and seldom used.

Sometimes we can see them
When the highways are down;
From cancer,
Surgery,
Or a stroke.

Our patient had a brain tumor.
We tested her highways
With a feather drawing;
“What is this?” we asked her.

And the answer she gave
Came by the scenic route;
“A leaf
That fell
From a bird.”

Sixty-three-year-old Carolyn Hopkins of northern Maine is the woman behind the voice at airports telling us to “Watch your bags”, or “The next uptown train will arrive in… one minute.”  She got the job because she worked at Innovative Electronic Designs, the company that sells paging and public address systems.  Her voice is now in over 200 airports around the world and also in subway and train stations.  She even does weather warnings.  But she says she still has trouble with two words: “similarly” and “regularly”.


What Does “Meaning” Mean?

Someone Will Be Offended

Someone Will Be Offended

Origins of Mankind: Canada Versus USA

Origins of Mankind: Canada Versus USA

Christianity is the belief that a cosmic Jewish zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree (a free-form interpretation).


A panoptikum is a collection of extraordinary or rare objects.  Design Panoptikum is a Berlin museum featuring unusual items collected by Russian-born artist Vlad Korneev — funky clocks, odd-looking medical equipment, and even a life-size Power Ranger brought in from Japan.  The exhibits (including a talking dispensing machine, an old birthing doll, and one of the earliest electric sun lamps) come from back-alley stores, e-Bay, and the junkyard.  Visitors can purchase most of the merchandise shown in the main rooms, but the back rooms hold some truly special exhibits that are not for sale, but can be rented for film or fashion shoots.

This is a video of precision walking (both forward and backward and even running) by a group of Japanese men.  I was in a marching band for 5 years when I was in secondary school and we often crossed each other in groups like this.  It is much easier than it looks – the secret is taking consistently-sized steps and staying with the beat.  But these men go at it rather fast and hard.  The crowd seems to like it.


Overbred

A) Uga I, 1956-66  B) Uga III, 1972-81  C) Uga V, 1990-99  D) Uga VIII, 2010-11

A) Uga I, 1956-66  B) Uga III, 1972-81  C) Uga V, 1990-99  D) Uga VIII, 2010-11

Bulldogs are significantly more likely than other dogs to suffer from a wide range of health issues, including ear and eye problems, skin infections, respiratory issues, immunological and neurological problems and locomotor challenges.  Most can’t have sex without help — they’re too short and stocky.  Most can’t give birth on their own — their heads are too big.  A breed that has trouble doing those two things is, by definition, in trouble.  The bulldog is the most extreme example of genetic manipulation in the dog-breeding world that results in congenital and hereditary problems.  Some of the breedings techniques that have led to bulldogs’ health problems have also made them hard to resist — modern breeding of the bulldog plays up the “cute” effect — flat face, big eyes, huge mouth, smile.


Lions, orcas, dolphins, hyenas, some hawks and several other species collaborate when they hunt, with each individual in the group performing different but complementary actions with the singular goal of bringing down prey.  Now we can add a species of fish to the list of collaborative hunters – the yellow saddle goatfish, Parupeneus cyclostomus, which lives in the shallow waters of the Red Sea.  The goatfish often congregate in groups.  When one fish starts accelerating towards a prey fish, other members of the group join in the hunt.  These “blockers” spread out over the reef to cut off the prey fish’s escape routes, giving their buddy, the “chaser,” a better chance at making a successful catch.

Its name means “honey bear,” but it’s not a bear — it’s a carnivore, though it mostly eats fruit.  It has a prehensile tail, but it’s not a primate.  The kinkajou is a procyonid, a member of a group of small animals with long tails that includes raccoons.  Kinkajous can be found in tropical forests from southern Mexico to Brazil.  Wild cats such as jaguars, ocelots and margays will prey on kinkajous, but kinkajous have a hidden talent that helps them escape: They can rotate their feet so that they can run backwards just as fast they run forwards.  They also have sharp hearing that lets them detect quiet predators like snakes.  In a zoo, one might live as long as 40 years.


Seasonal Madness

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This is my concession to the holiday season.  From here.


That awesome feeling when you finished all your work and can enjoy the rest of your day?
I’ve never experienced that.