Love this breakdown of the typical incendiary blog post, and the comments are the icing on the cake. Worth a look if you’re in need of a few chuckles.
This is the title of a typical incendiary blog post - Coyote Crossing
Bookmarked via Diigo on Wednesday, February 3, 2010 @ 16:36 CST by Daniel Andrlik
Jilion - SublimeVideo
Bookmarked via Diigo on Tuesday, February 2, 2010 @ 15:33 CST by Daniel Andrlik
Outstanding example of what an HTML5 based video player can be. I look forward to the day when all web video is consumed like this: with no browser plugins, seamless buffering, and without hogging my computer’s resources.
Earth’s atmosphere came from outer space, scientists find
Bookmarked via Diigo on Sunday, December 13, 2009 @ 08:43 CST by Daniel Andrlik
Research conducted by scientists from the University of Manchester and the University of Houston suggests that contrary to the current view that our atmosphere and oceans came from the release of volcanic gases may be incorrect. Instead they suggest that the the source of our early atmosphere came from space itself.
From the article:
“We found a clear meteorite signature in volcanic gases,” said Dr Greg Holland the project’s lead scientist.
“From that we now know that the volcanic gases could not have contributed in any significant way to the Earth’s atmosphere.
“Therefore the atmosphere and oceans must have come from somewhere else, possibly from a late bombardment of gas and water rich materials similar to comets.
What I’m curious about is if this makes the particular life sustaining qualities of our atmosphere more or unless likely to be present on other planets.
Ancient Amazon civilisation laid bare by felled forest
Bookmarked via Diigo on Sunday, December 13, 2009 @ 08:37 CST by Daniel Andrlik
Research indicates the existence of a complex ancient civilization in the Amazon. It does not appear to be of Inca origin and predates the arrival of the Spanish and Portuguese. I’ll be curious to see how this develops.
From the article:
Signs of what could be a previously unknown ancient civilisation are emerging from beneath the felled trees of the Amazon. Some 260 giant avenues, ditches and enclosures have been spotted from the air in a region straddling Brazil’s border with Bolivia.
The traditional view is that before the arrival of the Spanish and Portuguese in the 15th century there were no complex societies in the Amazon basin – in contrast to the Andes further west where the Incas built their cities.
[…]
While some Inca sites lie just 200 kilometres west of the geoglyphs, no Inca objects have been found at the new sites. Neither do they seem to have anything in common with Peru’s Nasca geoglyphs.
Contact lenses to get built-in virtual graphics
Bookmarked via Diigo on Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 12:57 CST by Daniel Andrlik
This is the kind of breakthrough we need in order to make AR a practical technology for day to day use.
One of the limitations of current head-up displays is their limited field of view. A contact lens display can have a much wider field of view. “Our hope is to create images that effectively float in front of the user perhaps 50 cm to 1 m away,” says Parviz.
Just as exciting is proposed power source for the device:
Parviz says that future versions will be able to harvest power from a user’s cell phone, perhaps as it beams information to the lens. They will also have more pixels and an array of microlenses to focus the image so that it appears suspended in front of the wearer’s eyes.
WANT
The Go Programming Language
Bookmarked via Diigo on Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 10:55 CST by Daniel Andrlik
Google has released their own programming language, appropriately named Go.
I haven’t had time to dig deeply into this yet, but I’m seeing some interesting stuff that I like such as fast compilation, garbage collection, easy to read syntax, built in support for multicore machines and of course an open source BSD-style license. I’m looking forward to playing around with this when I can free up some time to do so.
Haystack - Search for Django
Bookmarked via Diigo on Wednesday, November 4, 2009 @ 08:02 CST by Daniel Andrlik
This is a sweet search application for Django.
When I first wrote my site, I had to patch the model code to have it utilize the native full text search available in PostgreSQL, and then some truly ugly search code for searching all the models in my applications. Haystack, combined with a true search backend like Solr or Xapian is a much better approach. Looks like a great way to implement robust search on your Django site.
Scientists find path to fountain of youth
Bookmarked via Diigo on Friday, October 2, 2009 @ 08:06 CDT by Daniel Andrlik
Scientists have found a way to prolong the youth of mice in a laboratory setting by genetically manipulating them to block production of the S6 Kinase protein, which mimics a reduction of calorie intake without actually having to limit the amount of food consumed.
From the article:
“The mice lived longer and were leaner, more active and generally healthier than the control group. We added ‘life to their years’ as well as ‘years to their lives.’”
The genetically altered female mice lived 20 percent longer — living a total of 950 days — or over 160 days more than their normal counterparts.
At age 600 days, the equivalent of middle age in humans, the altered female mice were leaner, had stronger bones, were protected from type 2 diabetes, performed better at motor tasks and demonstrated better senses and cognition, according to the study.
Their T-cells, a key component of the immune system also seemed more “youthful,” the researchers said, which points to a slowing of the declining immunity that usually accompanies aging.
Male mice showed little difference in lifespan although they also demonstrated some of the health benefits, including less resistance to insulin and healthier T-cells. Researchers said reasons for the differences between the two sexes were unclear.
Very interesting research, I’m curious if the ratios for extended youth would also hold true in humans. If so, extended youth: check. Now where’s that brain/internet hookup I’ve been waiting for?
Feds to Let Citizens Log In With Yahoo, Google, Paypal Accounts (via OpenID)
Bookmarked via Diigo on Wednesday, September 9, 2009 @ 12:11 CDT by Daniel Andrlik
This is an enormous win for OpenID, but it is also a huge risk if anything goes wrong with such a high-profile project. Obviously, it will all depend on the implementation, and if all goes well it will give OpenID the push it needs to increase the number of consumers as opposed to providers, which is a ratio that is sorely lopsided at the moment.
I’m a little sad to see that my preferred OpenID provider, myOpenID from JanRain, Inc., was not included in the approved list of providers for the pilot program. Hopefully, that will be rectified soon, although even if it does not, one of the great things about the OpenID protocol is that delegation means that I can change providers on a whim. 
Technology Review: Quantum Cryptography for the Masses
Bookmarked via Diigo on Friday, August 28, 2009 @ 14:32 CDT by Daniel Andrlik
By masses, of course, they mean companies that can afford the hardware, but this is still a pretty huge development in pushing quantum computing out of the lab and into the real world. The Dutch will get it first, but hopefully it will begin to become common in developed countries with high broadband penetration.
