Le Blogger

Written by Paul Dirac, Piotr Kapitza and Antonino Zichichi in August 1982, this statement is now supported by 10,000 scientists the world over. ***** It is unprecedented in human history that mankind has accumulated such a military power to destroy, at once, all centres of civilisation in the world and to affect some vital properties of the planet. The danger of a nuclear holocaust is not the unavoidable consequence of the great development of pure science. In fact, Science is the study of the fundamental laws of nature. Technology is the study of how the power of mankind can be increased. Technology can be for peace or for war. The choice between peace and war is not a scientific choice. It is a cultural one: the culture of love produces peaceful technology. The culture of hatred produces instruments of war. Love and hatred have existed forever. In the Bronze and Iron Ages, notoriously pre-scientific, mankind invented and built tools for peace and instruments of war. In the so-called

This is a really neat concept. Again I think this points to how online savvy Obama and his team are. Of course this could go to either end of the spectrum, but I feel that the Obama team will handle moderating questions in a good faith, no censorship kind of way. http://change.gov/page/content/openforquestions Also, the appointment of Steve Chu as Energy Sec. is a masterful stroke. Brings in someone with real scientific knowledge of the problem, and also appeals to the Asian American community. So far, I've been quite impressed with Obama's choices. Look at Hillary Clinton as Sec. of State. In one stroke, he acknowledges Hillary and also reins in Bill! I think that's one of his real strengths---identifying competent people who fit his political agenda and using them.

I saw this image somewhere, and I thought it was nice. I hope we can spread it around! I apologize for not giving full credit, but if it's yours, let me know!

Taiwan's Wild Strawberries Movement is gaining some global recognition. For more information, check out their website... [English] http://taiwanstudentmovement2008.blogspot.com/ [Mandarin] http://action1106.blogspot.com The main message is "Since 6th November 2008, students in Taiwan have launched a sit-in movement against the "Parade and Assembly Law" which contradicts the Constitution Law. The movement fights for the human rights and the democracy in Taiwan." I think it's wonderful and interesting to see how blogs and the Internet are now changing the way politics is done. You can see the effects clearly in the recent US presidential elections. Obama had huge grassroots and online support, but importantly, he listened and often responded to the voices from the net. For politicians to survive in the 21st century, they're going to have to learn to be able to respond as quickly and decisively as bloggers are in posting their thoughts. As with any change,

Dick Annegarn "Soleil du soir" (par Michel Gondry) by totoutard I found this to be very charming.

Ever have trouble understanding pointers in C? Maybe this will help.

I recently found a Flash based mahjong game called Japanese Mahjong on Jayisgames.com. It's quite fun. Here's my best hand yet! I have the Big Three.

Is this for real? http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/index.html Here's an excerpt from the page. ***** Invented at the famed Los Alamos National Laboratory, Hyperion small modular power reactors make all the benefits of safe, clean nuclear power available for remote locations. For both industrial and community applications, Hyperion offers reliable energy with no greenhouse gas emissions. Hyperion power is also cheaper than fossil fuels and, when you consider the cost of land and materials, watt to watt, Hyperion’s innovative energy technology is even more affordable than many developing “alternative” energy technologies. Small enough to be transported on a ship, truck or train, Hyperion power modules are about the size of a "hot tub" — approximately 1.5 meters wide. Out of sight and safe from nefarious threats, Hyperion power modules are buried far underground and guarded by a security detail. Like a power battery, Hyperion modules have no moving parts to wear down,

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/us/09deport.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin This is the horrid state of health care in the US. I understand there's monetary issues to resolve, which are important, but how about a bottom line when it comes to treating and respecting the dignity and life of a fellow human being? I'm really disgusted by this.

Acceptance speech that I copied off a news website. ***** PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA: If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer. Its the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference. Its the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America. Its the answer that led those

I saw this somewhere online, so unfortunately I don't have the full credits. Apparently they "grow" as the sun goes down. Hilarious.

Compromising Electromagnetic Emanations of Keyboards Experiment 1/2 from Martin Vuagnoux on Vimeo . Can they really do that? Or is this preset program that tricks us? How did they filter out signals from potential other users nearby? Despite my questions about the details, I think this is very fun and relevant research.

This story just came out. I am reminded of Spore, and it's really quite interesting to see how small tiny changes here and there are actually quite important. Here's the abstract and last paragraph from the Nature article concerning Tiktaalik. ***** Abstract: Among the morphological changes that occurred during the 'fish-to-tetrapod' transition was a marked reorganization of the cranial endoskeleton. Details of this transition, including the sequence of character acquisition, have not been evident from the fossil record. Here we describe the braincase, palatoquadrate and branchial skeleton of Tiktaalik roseae, the Late Devonian sarcopterygian fish most closely related to tetrapods. Although retaining a primitive configuration in many respects, the cranial endoskeleton of T. roseae shares derived features with tetrapods such as a large basal articulation and a flat, horizontally oriented entopterygoid. Other features in T. roseae, like the short, straight hyomandibula,

I recently bought a pc game called Spore. This is the first pc game I've bought in a long time, probably since college. The concept for the game is very interesting, and the scope is actually quite ambitious. The fundamental game play is what I would call "god mode," that is, you are lord over your creations. What is different from other god-mode games is that you actually get to shape, draw, and design everything. Then you play it out. There are several stages which correspond to the various stages in evolution. You begin with the cellular stage, and the goals are simple. Survive. Don't be eaten by other cells---grow bigger. After gaining enough points to evolve, you move onto land. Along the way, you can "mate" which takes you to a creature creator for editing and shaping of your creature, with more functional components, such as mouths, fingers, and fighting appendages, made available as you continually advance down the evolutionary path. In the next stag

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo . Although the works are grotesque and dark, strangely, I am fascinated by it. Perhaps it is knowing how much work goes into creating each video, and also the expectation to be further shocked, or what I call the emergence of strangeness, that keeps me interested.

Whoa!

This is a very interesting graphic that I saw on Natl. Geographics' website. The caption from their site is below. ***** The Bible's 1,189 chapters are plotted along the horizontal axis at the bottom of the image, with each bar's length determined by the number of verses. The arcs above the graph show the 63,779 cross-references between each chapter. *****

Eh? Here's the reference link . ***** Satellite images show that cattle tend to point north and south when grazing and resting. By Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer August 26, 2008 Birds do it, bees do it, and so, apparently, do . . . cows? No, it's not that. We're talking about sensing the Earth's magnetic field. German scientists using satellite images posted online by the Google Earth software program have observed something that has escaped the notice of farmers, herders and hunters for thousands of years: Cattle grazing or at rest tend to orient their bodies in a north-south direction just like a compass needle. Studying photographs of 8,510 cattle in 308 herds from around the world, zoologists Sabine Begall and Hynek Burda of the University of Duisburg-Essen and their colleagues found that two out of every three animals in the pictures were oriented in a direction roughly pointing to magnetic north. The resolution of the images was not sufficient

I read somewhere the following. I didn't know they subjected the balls to so much testing! ***** Build a Better Ball Clocked close to 70 mph, these little celluloid suckers can move. The seemingly simple ping pong ball is subject to quite a bit of poking and prodding before it’s sanctioned for tournament usage (more than 60 approved currently). The basic specs are that balls should be 40 mm in diameter and weigh 2.7 grams. The diameter was increased earlier this decade from 38 mm to 40 mm to slow the game down for audiences (complaints of neck spasms we assume). Only white and orange balls are allowed and construction must be completed with a single seam. Prior to testing, balls are kept in a room at 23 degrees Celsius and 50 percent relative humidity for at least three days. Bounce is tested by mechanically releasing a ball from 305 mm onto a steel plate and measuring the rebound using a digital camera (240 mm – 260 mm acceptable, figure the COR out yourself). Balls are rolled dow

Trying to translate the restaurant name using online translation service didn't work too well!!

These are all fake! But it takes a real good eye to tell the difference..sorry, some of these you gotta know Chinese characters. I got an email with this stuff, so sorry I don't know the source! Too Funny!! 去超市買洗衣粉本來想買雕牌,都放到購物籃裏了,結果發現是周住牌... 想想不用雕牌,用好一點的汰漬吧,拿起來一看....是什麼"汰潔"... 在家商店買了瓶新品雪碧,後來喝著覺得味道不對,才發現瓶子上寫的"雲碧" 買了一瓶"脈動"飲料,上車喝了才發現味道不對,仔細看了半天,竟然是"脈劫" 算了再換個店買吧，一看，暈，居然是詠動 還有泳動? ? ? 看來我還得認准"脈"字再買,又買成"脈勁"了,真抓狂了 哪位能告訴我哪種是正! 版OLIO餅乾? ? ? 肯德基音譯變啃他雞？KFC我是KFG 呵呵用過SONY電池嗎?——這可是SQNY電池喔! 注意看這不是可口可樂Coca Cola是卡卡卡拉 Caca cala ! 哇塞！好嚇人的Qoo 啊這是"Quu"！ 飄柔洗髮精變成漂柔了 白貓洗衣粉，日貓？寒.... IVIKE版NIKE，近視眼的同學千萬別買錯了 還有HIKE拖鞋 Koppa變成這樣 OLAY玉蘭油護髮系列，喔！不！是OKAY 在超市買了一碗康師傅速食麵,吃著吃著不對勁呀,仔細一看,原來是康帥博速食麵... 還有，吃過庚師傅速食麵嗎？ 這彪馬PUMA的髮型也真夠彪悍的 母豹版彪馬，還穿裙子 河馬版 小豬版，豬是pig喔 翻過來睡也可以

You know, I'm a Mac fan. I mean I like PCs too, but I'm typing this on my trusty powerbook and have bought a lot of ipods for the family, and other Mac computers. But sometimes, I feel that Apple is just too darn greedy, and too petty to see the long term benefits. Or perhaps they don't have the ability to strategize and play out the long term to their advantage. See this article . Honestly, what would happen if they allowed others to sell computers with their software on it? Two extreme possibilities: 1) they die because people realize they can buy the software on cheaper hardware that works as well 2) they survive and do well because people start using their software, on all sorts of hardware, at the prices of their own choosing. Two very different outcomes for Apple, but either end result benefits the consumer.

Here's an interesting new game, Pentago . The link goes to jayisgames.com, a site I've been frequenting for a long, long time. They have a nice review, but the gist of the game is to place marbles on the board to get five in a row in any way. The twist is that after placing a piece down, you have to rotate any one of the 3x3 tiles 1/4 turn. I thought it's pretty fun.

Could someone please translate this?

I haven't had much chance to blog lately. I've been cooped up in the lab doing experiments and taking measurements practically non-stop for the last two weeks. It's exciting but tiring. I hope to get some good results out of this binge. What else have I been doing in general? Since summer began, I've been playing in a semi-serious softball league. Our team consists of graduate students (and some non-students) from all walks of life and academia. Our team is aptly named "Melting Pot." We've played 7 games so far, typically one game per week, and up until last week, we were undefeated! Unfortunately, we went up against another undefeated team, there are only two left now, last week and lost in the very last inning by one run. ONE run! It was a tight game all the way through, and either side could have emerged victorious. I guess they just had the luckier day. That's of course a statement made from our point of view. Softball is really fun though. It'

This is awesome. Here 's where I found it. Great work.

This is an interesting and chilling story. Makes me want to read/write/think about the potential impact of cybercrime some more... Updated: 1108p 5.29.2008

Chicago 5/18/2008 Photos from a recent trip to Chicago. This was my first time there, and I like it!

I read this in the Taipei Times. ***** Could it be the economy, stupid? By Gerrit van der Wees Tuesday, May 13, 2008, Page 8 Back in 1992, then-US Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton hammered away at his opponent — incumbent president George H.W. Bush — by saying his administration was to blame for the downturn in the economy. “It’s the economy, stupid” became a catchphrase. Bush Sr, who had an approval rating of 90 percent the previous year because of his successes in handling the end of the Cold War and the Gulf War, lost the election. This year in Taiwan, presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) used very much the same tactic against the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government. However, in Taiwan there were some significant differences. First, President Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration was already in the doldrums for other than economic reasons and it was difficult for DPP candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) to distance himself from the sitting administration. Second,

Here's a riddle I found here , supposedly attributed to Albert Einstein. There is a solution, if you can't figure it out, ask me! There are 5 houses in a row, and in five different colors. In each house lives a person from a different country. Each person drinks a certain drink, plays a certain game, and keeps a certain pet. No two people drink the same drink, play the same game or have the same pet. The British lives in a red house. The Swedish keeps dogs. The Danish drinks tea. The green house is on the left of the white house. The green house owner drinks coffee. The person who plays tennis rears birds. The owner of the yellow house plays chess. The man living in the house right in the center drinks milk. The Norwegian lives in the first house. The man who plays poker lives next to the man who keeps cats. The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who plays chess. The man who plays billiards drinks lemonade. The German plays golf. The Norwegian lives next to the blue ho

I took a step towards a greener future by biking to lab today. Here's the route I took. It's four miles, which took roughly 25 minutes. I think I like it. View Larger Map On another note, tomorrow is the NC primaries. After much deliberation with myself, I've decided to vote Obama! I want to make clear that I am not now a "believer." Earlier in the year, I had leaned towards Clinton. This was for several reasons. 1) I reasoned that given the history of the US, the gender barrier seemed a much harder hurdle than the racial (in this case, black vs. white) barrier. Consider for example, that black men could vote before white women. This speaks a lot of the psychology of the "majority"; their guilt over slavery moved them to grant blacks some rights, but they never for once considered the rights of women until the suffrage movement. I also just think that a less testosterone fueled White House would do America some good. 2) I still think Clinton has a better

Last night I had the opportunity to listen to the NY Philharmonic Quintet. This consists of Mark Nuccio (clarinet), Sherry Sylar (oboe), Erik Ralske (horn), Judith Leclair (bassoon) and Robert Langevin (flute). The concert took place at the First Presbyterian Church of Durham. I have to say, the choice of venue is quite nice, as it's atypical. The program for the evening even mentions that the acoustics of the church are such that for an empty hall, the reverberations are 3.5 seconds with no audience, and 2.5 seconds with full seating. After the concert, the former principal oboist of the NY Philharmonic mentioned to me that he thought the reverbs were a little too much for the last piece, and perhaps they should have placed a carpet in front of the performers to "dampen it a bit!" The music of the night: Carl Nielsen: Quintet for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon and Horn -Allegro, ben moderato -Menuett -Praeludium: Adagio - Tema con variazoni Lalo Schifrin: "La Nouvel

Unfortunately, I don't have the finished product photo...I filled it up with strawberry jello.

Wow!

What?! http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/22/sunday/main3960219.shtml

I had a discussion with some friends tonight about Taiwan's economy that prompted me to look up some hard numbers. Here's what I found (sorry, couldn't do tables..): South Korea: GDP - Real Growth Rate Year GDP - real growth rate Rank Percent Change Date of Information 2003 6.20 % 19 2002 est. 2004 3.10 % 106 -50.00 % 2003 est. 2005 4.60 % 93 48.39 % 2004 est. 2006 4.00 % 123 -13.04 % 2005 est. 2007 4.80 % 108 20.00 % 2006 est. Taiwan: GDP - Real Growth Rate Year GDP - real growth rate Rank Percent Change Date of Information 2003 3.50 % 85 2002 est. 2004 3.20 % 101 -8.57 % 2003 est. 2005 6.00 % 51 87.50 % 2004 est. 2006 4.00 % 118 -33.33 % 2005 est. 2007 4.60 % 114 15.00 % 2006 est. We are definitely NOT far behind South Korea in terms of growth. We even beat South Korea in 2005. This is a promising indicator. South Korea does have, and has always had (at least since 2003), larger GDP purchasing power parity. So Taiwan has in some

From Scientific American: NANOTUBE YOGA MAT? The darlings of materials science, carbon nanotubes are superstrong and highly electrically conductive. But they are also finer and far shorter than the hair on a baby's head, which makes it hard to incorporate their full range of properties into everyday materials. Now a U.S. company has made sheets of the sooty stuff big enough to cover a grown-up. Nanocomp Technologies, Inc., based in Concord, N.H., wove its millimeter-length nanotubes into slim bundles and deposited them onto a rotating drum, yielding sheets up to three feet (one meter) wide and six feet long (such as the one shown here). The company says its paperlike nanotube sheets are as tough as stainless steel, 30 times less dense and might be useful in shielding electronics from interference or making ultrastrong composite materials.

http://www.wretch.cc/video/scientisttw These videos are well worth the watch. I think all those interviewed are heavyweights in Taiwan's scientific community. Some have also held influential positions in the DPP administration. They all believe that the last 8 years of DPP government has been good and beneficial to science and research in Taiwan. Let's hope that the DPP has another 4-8 years to push through some of the reforms they have started.

Nice little short. I thought the story was ok, nothing particularly exciting. However, I'm amazed at the visual detail, and even more impressed that it was the work of one individual.

I thought these were interesting statistics...from here . The argument in the original article is that Yahoo tends to draw a younger crowd. I don't really see that in the second graph, and in particular, the time span is way too short to draw any conclusions. You could argue the ~3% difference in the 25-34 age group goes for Yahoo, and similarly ~3% difference in the 45-54 age group goes to Google. Given this data, I think that's a sketchy conclusion. However, what is interesting is the first graph, showing that those who tend to spend more online go Google instead of Yahoo. This suggests that Google definitely has a way better business model and is able to effectively convert searches or clicks to $$.

Three very awesome videos:

http://www.divinecaroline.com/article/22343/43692

Use the package! Link click here .

...I want to see? Now that we're down to two, I want to see the winner of the Democratic nomination choose the loser as VP. If Clinton wins, pick Obama as VP, and Obama accept it! If Obama wins, choose Clinton as VP, and please, Ms. Clinton, say yes! Wouldn't that be a wonderful ticket? We get diversity all in one.

http://www.google.com/experimental/index.html

http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit

Link: http://www.energybulletin.net/37329.html ***** According to William Tamblyn who sent this in: The SIZE of each country on this map reflects the relative size of its OIL RESERVES. The COLORS reflect different levels of OIL CONSUMPTION (per country, not per capita -the key is on the left). The map's sources are identified as the BP Statistical Review Year-End 2004 and the Energy Information Administration. *****

Thanks to Master_Edo for blogging about this...I thought it was pseudo-funny...though I can see someone cringing!