Category: Science

Geek Month in Review: October 2010

by Administrator, posted in Geek Stuff, Movies, Music, Science

By JB Sanders

Everything “geek” from October:

Ptolemy Code Broken
Historians have figured out some maps of ancient Germany that hadn’t made sense until recently. Penned in 150 AD by Ptolemy, the map of what is now Germany was always believed to have wild inaccuracies, owing partly to the fact that Ptolemy never left Alexandria, Egypt. Well, it appears that when Ptolemy was wrong, he was wrong in a consistent and accurate fashion. Scientists have figured out a mathematical match-up system to correct the errors, and now the origin date of quite a few German cities has been made older by about a thousand years.

Ten Years of Smart Phones
From mega-bricks you could commit murder with to tiny plaques that we’ve long seen in scifi books and movies, the smart phone has come a LONG way in just a decade. Ars Technica has a great gallery of pictures.

Ninjas and Cowboys
Really, what more could you ask for in your epic action movie? Just watch the trailer.

Periodic Table of Swearing
A graph of all the naughty words and their relative weights. Obviously, this is so NSFW. In fact, it’s probably NSFMP (Not Safe For Most People), as they really don’t spare any of the circus of vulgarity available. Extra bonus: it’s UK English swear-words, so some of them are extra funny (to American ears).

Zombie Head Cookie Jar
Has to be seen to really get the full effect. It’s VERY cool. I think some kind of salmon-pink cookies would be best.

Remote Control Wand
This is not your standard goofy remote control redo, it’s a wand. A not-quite-real, use-gestures-to-control-things wand. For your TV. Or whatever. Watch the video at the bottom of the blurb to see it in action. Buy it, then change the channel with a mere flick.

Not Quite Dead Languages
According to the website, every 14 days a language dies. The Enduring Voices Project, a National Geographic program, is documenting as many languages as they can as quickly as they can. It has a nice interactive graphic showing the “hotspots” around the world, with info on each. Interesting if you’re into languages. Or intensely useful if you need some esoteric background stuff for a novel or gaming adventure.

And here’s a nice trivia bit: “Di’nisbaas” means ‘I’m in the process of driving a vehicle into something and getting stuck’ in Navajo.

Map of Online Communities
What if there was a map, like you get at the front of your better fantasy books, that showed the online communities sized to their relative daily bandwidth? That would be one of xkcd’s wonderful virtual maps. I should have one of these things in every monthly article.

Quadrocopter!
Do you need more than that? You do? Ok, how about is has two built-in cameras, runs a Linux flavor on-board and you can control it via iPhone software? Ok, yes, it’s $300, but it comes with games you can play through the cameras — like first person shooters where the real world is your “level”. No real guns included though. (Article includes video of the quadrocopter in action.)

It’s All Tommy Westphall’s Fault
This isn’t new, and it isn’t terribly October-y, but BOY is it geeky. If you’re just about to watch St Elsewhere on DVD for the first time or something, look away now, because I’m going to ruin it all for you. Follow along with the crazy, will you? At the end of the TV series St Elsewhere, the last scene has an autistic boy (Tommy Westphall) shaking a snow globe with a miniature version of the hospital in it. The scene right before that had snow falling on the hospital. And the two other characters in the room with Tommy idly wonder what the boy sees in that snow globe. So the obvious interpretation from this is that the WHOLE series has just been inside Tommy’s head, kind of like a giant “and then she woke up” moment.

Weird, but that’s not the Crazy part. See, several characters from St Elsewhere made cross-over and/or cameo appearances on other TV shows (e.g. Homicide). So that means, by some Law of Contagion, that those series are ALSO all in Tommy’s head, or meta-fictional (fiction within fiction). Cross-eyed yet? Wait, there’s more. If you assume that:

A) St Elsewhere was all in Tommy’s head, and
B) any TV series where a St Elsewhere character also appeared is ALSO in Tommy’s head

Then it logically follows that

C) any characters on a B tv show who themselves appear on another tv show is … yes, you guessed it, in Tommy Westphall’s head.

Which makes like 90% of TV shows in the same damned virtual imagined autistic universe.

Don’t believe me? Take a look:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Westphall

http://home.vicnet.net.au/~kwgow/crossovers.html

The big picture, for those who need the visual:
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~kwgow/crossovers.html

And download the PDF for the full explanation of all the crazy connections.

It’s like a Unified Conspiracy Theory for TV.

Danny Elfman & Tim Burton Music Box
Do I need to say more? Ok, it’s the 25th anniversary music box, collecting CDs from all their wonderful collaborations over the years. It’s a limited series of 1000 and it sells for $500. Perfect gift except for that last part. But it looks cool.

Dresden Codak
It’s even fun to say! Wait, I should begin at the beginning. It’s the usual thing to do, I guess. This is a webcomic that not only has really great art, but robots, esoterica built into the narrative and funny bits. Enjoy!

Oh, and a related link that I just can’t help sharing. This is 42 Essential 3rd Act Twists (by category).

The Alternate World of Marty McFly
What if Eric Stoltz had played Marty instead of Michael J Fox? Wonder no more! Actual mind-bending Eric Stoltz / Marty McFly footage!

700 Hobos
That’s it, just 700 hobos. With names and quirky illustrations. Would I make this up? Look at the URL! http://www.e-hobo.com/

Number 4!
No, not a Prisoner remake or anything. Some kind of superhero movie, maybe? Who cares, it looks cool.

Got Coal?
This is a computer that requires a handy turn of the coal shovel to operate! Mr Babbage’s Analytical Engine, not to be confused with his Difference Engine (which was little more than a calculator by comparison), is the true first computer. It’s reprogrammable, has a printer, a CPU, expandable memory and a plotter. In Babbage’s time, the Analytical Engine was never built (partly because it would be the size of a friggin’ locomotive), but all that’s about to change. Now someone is raising money to really build one. Steam Power!

Now That’s Bling
How about a phone that costs millions of dollars? I’d love for this to be some kind of super-phone that works absolutely anywhere, but no, it’s just encrusted with gems. Still, how great a job is “phone jeweler”?

This Cable Isn’t Wireless!
And other priceless quotes this Retail Hell escapee jotted down in the course of over 3 years.

Water from Water
As in, de-salination. MIT has developed a prototype for a portable, solar-powered de-salination plant capable of converting 80 gallons of water in all sorts of weather conditions. Can you say “better disaster relief”?

From the Earth to Orbit
I know, infographics are all the rage now. Well, this one is especially cool. It shows the various layers the atmosphere in scale (which means it’s TALL) and all the various phenomena that happen at each level.

Fun With Gummi Bears
What happens when you put a gummi bear (red) into a solution of potassium chlorate (with a drop of sulfuric acid)? Fun! Fun is what happens.

Evolution of the Geek
How could I pass this up? It’s a biological evolution flowchart showing how the “geek” has evolved over time, from head-biting to Elite Geekdom.

(For those of you opposed to evolution, just assume that the first geek sprang forth from the forehead of the chicken-biting guy and leave it at that.)

And Speaking of Flow Charts
Here’s one for Every RPG Ever Made. It’s pretty accurate, and funny.

Spaceport Open for Business
Really. Virgin Galactic officially opened it’s spaceport. I believe this would be the very first commercial spaceport.

Drive Your Own Spaceship
Speaking of spaceports, behold Artemis, the multi-player (Windows-based) computer game, where each person (up to 6) takes one station of a simulated starship. Another person sits back, and as the game so amusingly puts it, “tells everyone else what to do”. It’s like Star Trek on your laptop! (No, not the movie, you buffoon, like YOU driving the ship around, or firing the weapons.)

Update: apparently the interface isn’t that fantastic (usability-wise), but I’m holding out hope that future versions will be better.

You are standing in an open field, west of a white house.
Ever wanted to write your own interactive fiction? You know what I’m talking about, right? Stuff like Zork, or Planetfall, or the Lurking Horror (with real screams!), or Leather Goddesses of Phobos [cough!]. Well, it’s the Modern Age, and you no longer have to know crazy complicated programming language stuff to pull it off. You just have to know mildly complicated, word-problem style stuff. No really, it’s cool.

Watch the screencast and you’ll see what I mean. If you can write fan-fiction or a blog post, you can write yourself a game.

From Dust
Did you know that “god games” is a category of simulation game now? I didn’t. This new one allows you to control terrain in a direct and interesting way, allowing you to change the course of rivers, pull up lava and form the rock like clay. It looks spectacular.

About John:
John’s a geek from way back. He’s been floating between various computer-related jobs for years, until he settled into doing tech support in higher ed. Now he rules the Macs on campus with an iron hand (really, it’s on his desk).

Geek Credentials:
RPG: Blue box D&D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.
Computer: TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w/reel-to-reel backup tape
Card games: bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993
Science: Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983
His Blog: http://glenandtyler.blogspot.com

Geek Month in Review: September 2010

by Administrator, posted in Geek Stuff, Movies, Science

By JB Sanders

Here it is, the September Geek-a-view:

All things geek-related in September 2010. Well, all the things I thought were cool enough to mention.

Self-replicating Solar Cells
The future of power generation or one of the signs of the Impending Robot Overthrow of Humanity? You decide.

How Good is Your Geek Movie-Fu?
No, not another mindless multiple choice quiz-of-the-week. Not a rabidly obnoxious FaceBook app. Not a quiz at all. Just a seriously great bunch of t-shirts with extraordinarily obscure references to some great movies. Man, wish I was getting a cut from these guys. Note: mouse-over the t-shirt to see where the reference comes from, then smack yourself in the head for not remembering it. Or go “Huh?” because the reference is just THAT obscure.

Duke Nukem’ Forever
The longest running joke in computer game history*, born from one of the best first-person shooters ever made. Ars Technica (a tech site largely without peer) has done a detailed story on the long, twisted tale of a computer game promised since 1997. Let that sink in a moment. 1997. Bill Clinton was just beginning his second term. Pathfinder landed on Mars. Steve Jobs returns to Apple (and Microsoft bought $150M share of Apple). Titanic was on the big screen. That 1997.

* Not as old, but more long-running than the “When is In Nomine coming?” in RPG circles. And In Nomine actually did come out. Eventually.

Hugo Awards
All the year’s best SciFi. Because this stuff is just that cool. Also, Dr Who nominated for an award.

Tractor Beams Coming Closer
To you! Really, scientists have cooked up the precursors in their lab.

A Game So Small….
This java-script game is so small, it fits in 1k. That’s SMALL. Like, play it on your watch small. Play it on the fancy controls for your refrigerator small.

Making Stop Motion Animation With Light
Take an iPad, add some custom software to generate animation frames for you, and then a custom app on the iPad to show the frames as you move around. Result? This.

Pokè-what?
For those of you who remember this particular card-game and cartoon-based craze, this video may amuse you. It may also cause you have seizures. It’s 50/50.

Monsters Close Up
A more detailed review of that giant monsters movie I mentioned last month, only this time with more technical production info. The movie was made for very little money (comparatively), and with mostly off-screen gore.

Las Vegas Death Ray
It’s even the title of the article! Apparently some badly-planned hotel in Vegas has mirror-style windows all curved and fancy. Which is great, only … certain times of the day (and during a specific seasons), the sun hits the building, focuses it and super-heats the pool area in a very Archimedean fashion. As in? “The surface of the building acts like a parabolic reflector, concentrating solar heat into a specific target area.” Yes, Archimedes would be proud.

Social engineering with fake mold
Quick blurb about a sandwich bag (ziploc-style) that makes your home-made sandwich look moldy. How cool is that?

WWI Ends October 3rd — 2010
No, really! Apparently Germany’s debt for starting the war, set by the Allied victors in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, gets it’s last payment October 3rd.

About John:
John’s a geek from way back. He’s been floating between various computer-related jobs for years, until he settled into doing tech support in higher ed. Now he rules the Macs on campus with an iron hand (really, it’s on his desk).

Geek Credentials:
RPG: Blue box D&D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.
Computer: TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w/reel-to-reel backup tape
Card games: bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993
Science: Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983
His Blog: http://glenandtyler.blogspot.com

Geek Month in Review: August 2010

by Administrator, posted in Geek Stuff, Guest Authors, Movies, Science, Television

By JB Sanders

And here’s the August edition of Geek Monthly.

Pictish symbols
Because few things are geekier than a language dead over a thousand years. Plus it’s got some code-decryption bits.

Pencil-tip Micro-sculptures
Geeky in that retro sort-of way. There’s a “how many angels” joke in here somewhere.

Nobody Does it Better
Where “it” is late-night talk show hosting. Thirty years of shows digitized and searchable. Pro-payment thing to get the full clips, but they’ll have a rotating selection of clips and full shows available. Wild!

When Computer Keyboards Were Made Like 1950’s Cars
You know, with steel. There are people who swear by their ancient, clunky keyboards and will get violent if someone tries to take them away. And when your keyboard is, in fact, made of steel (NOT plastic), that’s a problem.

But there are different brands of “my favorite keyboard”.

There’s Ancient Apple.
The Intentionally Retro

And the King of Keyboards, the IBM Model M Thunkmaster. So you KNOW when you’re typing.

LEGO Creationary
It’s like Pictionary; only instead of drawing you build things with LEGOS. Not sold yet? How about it has difficulty settings, from things like “cactus” to “Taj Mahal”. Seriously. Buy here.

Ancient Recordings!
Well, ok, old recordings. From the 20’s and 30’s and 40’s, music and speeches not heard since they were recorded. It’s mostly an article about lost Jazz recordings, but also about a tech genius (William Savory) who recorded live jam sessions onto aluminum and acetate 12-inch and 16-inch disks at 33 1/3 before that it was fully invented (he did help create the standard). Which leads to quotes like this: “You hear some of this stuff and you say, ‘This can’t be 70 years old.’ ”

Unfortunately, although they’re hard at work digitizing (and in some cases, cleaning the records so they can be played), it’s going to take a long time to get online. And then there’s the who owns it thing. Not the records, that’s clear – the music. Woo!

Screens Under the Microscope
Kindle and iPad screens under a USB microscope, compared with newspaper, book and magazine print. Nice comparison!

Big Monster Movies
Are they back? If so, cool!

Plug-in Solar & Wind
This is crazy smart, if they can make it happen. Imagine grabbing a few solar panels from the hardware store, putting them where you like and plugging them into a regular outlet. Then it just provides the house with power. The company is coming out with products in 2011 (which is a lot better than the ubiquitous “5 years”). I’ll be waiting.

Visualizing Data
David McCandless shows us how to visualize massive amounts of data. Or “knowledge compression”. Fascinating, funny, insightful. Pretty much as with all TED talks (the good ones, anyway).

And don’t miss out on his actual website, where he’s posted zillions more of these great diagrams.

Especially this one on how many times Dr Who has traveled through time.

Muh Ruh Ruhhh
All of Chewbacca’s dialogue from all his appearances in the Star Wars movies, on a large sticky note.

Lost 25 Minutes of Metropolis: Found!
When Fritz Lang’s epic silent-movie Sci-Fi masterpiece was released in theaters, the movie was cut from it’s original 2 and a half hours to a more palatable 90 minutes, slicing away scenes which “make so much more sense” when included. Take a look at a glimpse.

Cheeseburger Dissolved in Acid
Ever wonder what would happen if you dipped a burger in hydrochloric acid? Wonder no longer!

Self-lacing Sneakers on the Way
Marty McFly had them in 1985, so why don’t we? Nike is working on it.

About John:
John’s a geek from way back. He’s been floating between various computer-related jobs for years, until he settled into doing tech support in higher ed. Now he rules the Macs on campus with an iron hand (really, it’s on his desk).

Geek Credentials:
RPG: Blue box D&D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.
Computer: TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w/reel-to-reel backup tape
Card games: bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993
Science: Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983
His Blog: http://glenandtyler.blogspot.com

SNCC XDO: The Future

by Administrator, posted in Books, Geek Stuff, Science

Crucible Design’s game “Space Ninja Cyber Crisis XDO” showed designer Matt Johnson’s role-playing game vision of the future. In fairness, I don’t know how much he felt would actually be coming to pass, and how much was just awesome stuff he gleaned from Anime and Manga. However, what is fascinating is just how much “fantasy” from 1997, when the game was published, is crawling towards reality.

Everyone ponders about the future, not just role-playing game designers. For instance, Avery Brooks wanted to know where the flying cars were, “It’s the year 2000, but where are the flying cars? I was promised flying cars. I don’t see any flying cars. Why? Why? Why?”

For me, the future I always wanted featured state of the art cosmetics. Really! The secretary in “Total Recall” painting her nails by touching them with a pen, or Promise from Steven Barnes’ “Street Lethal” novel who has synthetic skin and hair that she can have light up in a variety of ways, for me these were the promises of the future. Screw flying cars I say, I want affordable high tech cosmetics! It’s doubtful it will be easy and affordable in my lifetime, but “Boffins in America are working on biodegradable, flexible electronic devices printed on silk, which could be implanted in the human body and would decay naturally over time. Applications could include LED displays inlaid beneath the skin.” Go future!

Many, including Avery Brooks up there, want flying cars. I’m not sure why, a car accident is scary enough without crashing and then falling out of the sky. But that must just be me. What a difference 10 years can make Avery, because flying cars are on their way. Of course these aren’t your running errands in the city flying cars, but if we end up with those, these will have been their great, great, grandfathers.

The futures that Avery Brooks and I were hoping for are hovering (literally in the case of potential flying cars) on the horizon. We’re also seeing some of Matt Johnson’s future too. Remember the description from the first part of this? “A game set in a world filled with beautiful cyborgs, cute robots, superfast cyberbikes, powered exoskeletons, giant mechanoids, speed lines, comical pets, strange aliens, maniacal villains and demons with amazing groinal powers…..” Click on those links my friends! Surprisingly, the setting for Space Ninja Cyber Crisis XDO, is slowly evolving into reality.

Regardless of our wishes, the future always arrives. Avery Brooks’ flying cars, my electronic tattoos, and Matt Johnson’s SNCC XDO, were once our fanciful musings and now we’re seeing them newly created, to one day become the primitive ancestors of tomorrow’s common place. This isn’t an endorsement or condemnation of what seems to be blossoming on the horizon, it’s just a realization made while flipping through a role-playing game book.

Magnetic Morality

by Administrator, posted in Science, Television

“Moral judgments can be altered….by magnets“, says the title of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology article by Anne Trafton. It sounds like science fiction, and rest assured, my friends have helpfully made all the Magneto jokes prior to this article, for your convenience. That said, when discussing the article with my husband, he pointed out that an episode of the television show “The Mentalist” had already talked about this kind of thing. I don’t watch “The Mentalist” because I already watch the original show about a fake psychic solving crimes called “Psych” on the USA Network. (And before you ask, yes, I may have decided to write this article just to get a dig in on “The Mentalist”.) However, in the name of research, I did watch “The Mentalist” episode in question “Red Brick and Ivy”. It was okay, but the reality is far more interesting than the fiction. Particularly since in the episode it was fake.

Images courtesy Rebecca Saxe laboratory, MIT

According to the article “Previous studies have shown that a brain region known as the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) is highly active when we think about other people’s intentions, thoughts and beliefs. In the new study, the researchers disrupted activity in the right TPJ by inducing a current in the brain using a magnetic field applied to the scalp. They found that the subjects’ ability to make moral judgments that require an understanding of other people’s intentions — for example, a failed murder attempt — was impaired.

‘The study offers ‘striking evidence’ that the right TPJ, located at the brain’s surface above and behind the right ear, is critical for making moral judgments,’ says Liane Young, lead author of the paper. ‘It’s also startling, since under normal circumstances people are very confident and consistent in these kinds of moral judgments’, says Young, a postdoctoral associate in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.”

The experiments that MIT conducted “used a noninvasive technique known as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to selectively interfere with brain activity in the right TPJ. A magnetic field applied to a small area of the skull creates weak electric currents that impede nearby brain cells’ ability to fire normally, but the effect is only temporary.”

Before you get concerned, it’s not as if MIT is creating alternate universe evil opposites of people. “The researchers found that when the right TPJ was disrupted, subjects were more likely to judge failed attempts to harm as morally permissible.”

For example, “subjects were asked to judge how permissible it is for a man to let his girlfriend walk across a bridge he knows to be unsafe, even if she ends up making it across safely. In such cases, a judgment based solely on the outcome would hold the perpetrator morally blameless, even though it appears he intended to do harm.”

I think, like most people, we assume a sense of morality is instilled in us at a young age. That it’s influenced by family, friends, faith, etc. The idea that a certain amount of our morality is an electrical process in the brain means taking a step back and examining the human animal again. As Liane Young, lead author of the paper says, “You think of morality as being a really high-level behaviour. To be able to apply (a magnetic field) to a specific brain region and change people’s moral judgments is really astonishing.” You can say that again! For starters, I thought “The Mentalist” thoroughly debunked the idea. If you can’t trust the second generation of fake psychics solving crime, who can you trust? (Yes, I am on team “Psych“, sue me.)

So, what’s the point in me bringing this to my readers attention? Honestly, I don’t have any grand message, or philosophical epiphany to share. It’s just a thing. A thing to reflect on. Our morality, our gauge of right and wrong, is a thing that I think most of us pride ourselves in, that we define ourselves partially from it. This forces us to rethink our own thoughts, and I feel like that is a good thing.

One of the people who commented on the article, wade s, says “I wonder how this compares to cell phone usage, and if prolonged exposure would cause any permanent change.” In a future where average citizens lose the common sense of morality and gradually become evil due to prolonged cell phone usage…..that would be great television! I bet the BBC is already working on it.