Day 1026: Dorkasm, Vol. 8395
June 18, 2008 - Filed Under funny, gizmos & hacks, music, science & technology
Just read this headline as “Japanese robots join forces to compete with South Korea.”
On cue, enter visions of a cardboard Seoul in cartoon flames, anime ninjas whizzing past a steel-grey background and Yoshimi and her pink robots.
Day 1017: Scary Cool Futurism With Prosthetics
June 9, 2008 - Filed Under gizmos & hacks, science & technology
Damien Hirst + Honoré Fragonard + JF Sebastian = Christopher Conte
Wired: Prosthetist Makes Extraterrestrial Life from Limbs
Day 1009: Surfing The ‘Tubes
June 2, 2008 - Filed Under books, computing & internet, desi / india, gizmos & hacks, louisiana, movies/tv, new orleans, photographs, science & technology
Not at work, hacking like a tuberculosis-ridden dog, dutifully not passing germs along to co-workers, and bored out of my skull despite five books that are waiting to be read, I present you with the results of today’s internet scouring:
* Desi Fix: Proving that there are desis a lot less lame than me, Sameer Mishra won the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee on Friday, May 30th. In true spelling bee fashion, Sameer beat out another bhaiya, Sidharth Chand, to claim his first prize. As Jon Stewart said in 2006 after Anurag Kashyap’s 2005 spelling bee win, “Your names already have like 20 letters in them. That’s a huge advantage. That’s always going to win against the Bob Smiths.”
* New Orleans: Wonderful visual aid for those on the don’t-know-where-this-is-going-but-can’t-get-off New Orleans Recovery School District Express Train: Andrew Turner and Francine Stock have created a mashup of schools facility data. Much thanks to Cliff, G, Liprap, Sarah Elise and E for keeping us informed on the state of education in post-K New Orleans via their lengthy, personal posts.
* New Orleans: In Lies, Damned Lies & Statistics, Mominem points out that Mayor Nagin’s assertion in the last State Of The City address that “Downtown office occupancies are the highest they’ve been since the 70s oil and gas boom” is a damned lie. Incidentally, I hear that Chevron’s new Northshore offices already have a mouse problem.
* Louisiana: Louisiana drivers aren’t the worst in the nation, they’re only the eighth-worst. (Did they count Wet Clay PIleup Jerk?) According to the 2008 GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test, Top Lousy Driver award goes to New Jersey and the best drivers are from the Midwest. To paraphrase D, does this include the FIBs, I mean, Chicagoans?
After many rounds of Lost In New Jersey, we made it into the Lincoln Tunnel. Even on a weeknight, it was packed and scary, yet very cool.
* Movies: Best indirect review of Sex And The City: The Movie, which I refuse to watch, from Jezebel:
If you don’t get married, or if you botch your prenuptial agreement, or if he leaves you at the altar (a.k.a. Big) or sleeps with a random stranger (a.k.a. Miranda), you lose all dignity; all of it, gone. And without that dignity, what is left? Shoes. The end.
* Books/Science: To bring our collective IQ back up again after that last topic, Michael Shermer’s beautifully-penned review of Alan Sokal’s Beyond The Hoax.
“Beyond the Hoax” is an essential text for anyone interested in the history and philosophy of science, or for that matter science itself … Why did academics fall for [Sokal's 1996 hoax]? The hindsight bias and the confirmation bias. Once you believe that science holds no privileged position in the search for truth, and that it is just another way of knowing, it is easy to pull out of an article like Mr. Sokal’s additional evidence that supports your belief. It is a very human process, and since science is conducted by very real humans, shouldn’t it be subject to these same cognitive biases? Yes, except for one thing: the built-in defense known as the scientific method.
* Fashion/Photography: First Bo Diddley, now Yves Saint Laurent. Interesting retrospective from The Luxist on a Dior and Saint Laurent photo shoot in Paris, 1962.
* I Can Haz Internet?: Explosion at Texas data center may explain why our ‘tubes are often tied these days.
* Srsly, I Can Haz?: In other outage-related news, the Center Networks posts on Twitter are funny!
* Technology: Lastly, another reason I need an iPhone
Day 923: Google Calendar Sync
March 7, 2008 - Filed Under computing & internet, gizmos & hacks
Wheeeee, Google Calendar Sync is finally here! This means that when I am home, I can look up my work appointments on Google and do not have to install Outlook on my personal laptop. Although a 2-way sync is the default, 1-way syncs are also available, if, say, you don’t want your Google Calendar appointments showing up on Outlook.
Catch: I was all ready to run around throwing confetti in the air until Setup put out a message that Google Calendar Sync is only supported on MS Windows XP or Vista. Seeing as how we still run on Win2K here (don’t even ask), syncing calendars is now out of the question. Booooo.
Day 820: The Day The Routers Died
November 25, 2007 - Filed Under gizmos & hacks, music
Ultimate nerdery at the 2007 RIPE (European IP Networks) convention
“So, bye bye, folks at RIPE 55
Be persuaded to upgrade it or your network will die
IPv6 just makes me let out a sigh
But I s’pose we’d better give it a try
I suppose we’d better give it a try.”
N.B.: It’s a row-ter, not a roo-ter.
Day 801: Electronic Geophysical Year
November 6, 2007 - Filed Under digital rights, eGY, education, gizmos & hacks, science & technology
A just machine to make big decisions
Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision
We’ll be clean when their work is done
We’ll be eternally free, yes, and eternally young
– I.G.Y. by Steely Dan
Back in 1957, the International Geophysical Year (IGY) was launched along with Sputnik and the world reached for the stars. More importantly, the simultaneous public interest in science and technologies generated since form the very crux of our modern existence. We have come a long way, but where to go now and how? A fundamental fact to understand about science is Data Over Theory - theories come and go, the data remain unchanged. As we fly into the 2000s with the help of the tools of the last half-century, how do we treat the vast amounts of data created and share findings with other scientists and the public in an accessible and intuitive manner? Information archival and sharing is no trivial matter; in its absence, science loses its edge and relevance.
Fifty years since IGY, 120 countries now collaborate in a series of years, one of which is the Electronic Geophysical Year (eGY). The Society of Exploration Geophysicists heartily embraces the recognition and opportunities for data stewardship provided by the eGY in a special section of The Leading Edge’s October 2007 issue.
In the Earth and space sciences, as in other disciplines, ready and open access to the vast and growing collections of cross-disciplinary digital information is the key to understanding and responding to complex Earth and space system phenomena that influence human survival. We have a shared responsibility to create and implement strategies to realize the full potential of digital information and services for present and future generations.
Two developments have brought us to the threshold of a new revolution in our understanding of Earth and space science. First, our ability to collect data has increased dramatically, with pervasive networks of observational stations on the ground, in the oceans, in the atmosphere, and in space. This “wiring” of the planet is, in part, a legacy of the IGY, a time when a global network of observatories and the World Data Centers were established. As a result, today, petabytes of data about our planet are collected daily—data that are critical for our understanding of our planet and how it is changing. Second, modern digital communications and information management provide an unprecedented ability to access and share information and processing capability.
eGY could not have come at a better time when the public’s interest in science wanes and American students score poorly in mathematics and science and choose scientific careers less often. The ivory-towering of science as well as our government’s sheer disregard for the public’s educational wellbeing are equally to blame. In this vacuum, the burden then rests on the scientific community, whether in academia or industry, to come together and address our failings. It is then my hope that we render science more fun and more sophisticated, e.g. in “virtual observatories” mentioned in the aforementioned article.
Data for the nonscientist needs context and constraint. In order for data to be accessible to the general public, the virtual observatories need to provide supporting information that defines the data for the user, as well as a limited set of choices to keep the user from being overwhelmed … Virtual observatories can only do what they are designed to do, and most are designed to service the scientific community, not the general public. And yet, it is increasingly the case that the general public wants access to these data. Many virtual observatories have heard this message and have developed solutions that allow access to their data by a broader audience.
Open source and fair use are also very important philosophies in this discussion. Scientific data and methods ought to be readily shared with schools and colleges, along with pathways to careers in science. While technologies invented in high-powered labs and companies are immediately directed towards intellectual property lawyers, it may be more prudent for a timely release of these materials under fair use guidelines for the true benefit of humankind. Scientific societies steering away from big publishing houses, which exist merely to make money for themselves, and self-publishing is also a good start. One example of data/papers/software/methods sharing is the Stanford Exploration Project from which I have learned quite a bit of geophysics and wasn’t required to reinvent some code because it was only a quick Google search away.
My first foray into science was at the age of three, when I created fire and various noxious chemicals on my brother’s chemistry set (and my parents, in their infinite wisdom, didn’t stop me). While the government tries to put the lid on all such fun, other avenues for questioning and discovery are paved daily. So, this winter, give IRIS, the National Virtual Observatory, the Virtual Solar Observatory or the eGY demonstrations a whirl. Start breaking the scientific divide by asking questions of the scientists there and, when stumped, request them to consider tools that will help you and your children use the scientific Internet for what it was originally intended - reliable and relevant information at your fingertips. VatulBlog will help further this cause by showcasing methods of archival, sharing, data interpretation and visualization and related projects.
If anything, marking this year reminds us that the aims of science are very human: to learn, to grow, to teach and to help keep wonder alive. Happy eGY!
For all the hell we give technology-addled kids these days, this is why I still love them. It’s not just in how much they use it, but how and why. 0 comments #
Sick of pushing phone buttons until you get a human? The GetHuman 500 database offers the phone numbers of 500 popular services and companies along with updated number punches to get through to an operator. Me, I simply pretend to be on a rotary dial phone and press nothing until the system is exasperated and routes me through to a real live hoo-man. 0 comments #
