Via Time Techland:
A spokesman for Zenith Electronics says Eugene Polley, the inventor of the first wireless TV remote control, has died.
John Taylor says the former Zenith engineer died of natural causes Sunday at a suburban Chicago hospital. He was 96.
Great invention.
Via William M. Briggs:
Regular readers will be long familiar with the parade of faulty papers which claim that Republicans, conservatives, and Christians are stupid, unthinking, easily led, uncompassionate, and set off on their sad road by delusional beliefs in God or because they once attended a Fourth of July parade (yes, really).
Apparently Mooney, who also wrote The Republican War on Science, has compiled these studies and come to the conclusion that the sheer number of them proves that he and his fellow leftists are just better creatures. As in wired better, genetically superior, purer souls by birth—made of the Right Stuff, worthy of what comes to them, more worthy, perhaps, of life.
Doubt me? From the blurb: “A significant chunk of the electorate, it seems, will never accept the facts as they are, no matter how strong the evidence.” Just you ponder what this sentence implies.
Here is the blurb W.M.B. references:
Being a good liberal, Mooney also has to explore the implications of these findings for Democrats as well. Are they really wishy-washy flip-floppers? Well, sometimes. Can’t they be just as dogmatic about issues close to their hearts, like autism and vaccines, or nuclear power? His research leads to some surprising conclusions.
While the evolutionary advantages of both liberal and conservative psychologies seem obvious, clashes between them in modern life have led to a crisis in our politics. A significant chunk of the electorate, it seems, will never accept the facts as they are, no matter how strong the evidence. Understanding the psychology of the left and the right, Mooney argues, should therefore fundamentally alter the way we approach the he-said-he-said of public debates.
Be sure to visit WMB’s post where he decimates Chris Mooney and his book.
This type of leftist propaganda thinly disguised as “research” reminds me of this great movie scene:
Ha!
Most existing head-up displays generate images using LCDs. Light-emitting diodes produce light and liquid crystal arrays act as shutters, controlling whether or not light reaches each pixel. This approach drains power, and the images often aren’t bright enough to be visible in daylight. Newer displays use either liquid crystal devices or hundreds of tiny mirrors to reflect light onto each pixel. While more energy efficient, these displays are still not very bright.
Microvision’s system uses a set of three lasers—red, green and blue—and a single, millimeter-wide silicon mirror that tilts on two axes. The lasers put out light at different intensities, and the three colors are mixed to produce the final pixel color. As the lasers shine light on the mirror, it rapidly scans horizontally and vertically, painting the image onto the windshield one pixel at a time. This happens so fast that the image looks static. Evans says that the lasers’ pure, saturated colors result in more vivid images with a higher contrast ratio, so they are visible in daylight. Illuminating one pixel at a time also saves energy. And the use of a single mirror rather than an array makes the device smaller, simpler, and cheaper.
Why is it I always think of this when someone mentions lasers?
Via Guardian.uk:
Through submarine volcanic vents along the mid-ocean ridge, it delivers fresh basalt to resurface the planet’s oceans every 200m years, and to drive the moving pavements on which the continents ride at a few centimetres a year, occasionally colliding to throw up features such as the Alps and the Tibetan plateau. These same forces built the Andes and the Rockies, and power the volcanoes that yearly discharge massive quantities of new water, gas and minerals to the biosphere. Earthquakes, too, are a reminder that the mantle is active, and determined to go on pushing us around. The great seams of concentrated mineral wealth – from the copper, tin, silver and gold that enriched the first civilisations to the rare earths and fissile elements that power new technologies – are ancient casual side-effects of the same process.
You would think oil is formed along with the minerals as well.
My favorite economics writer Tim Worstall asks this question regarding the renewal rate of minerals:
We’ve a certain rate of consumption of the metals in such minerals each year. “Sustainable” should mean that we’re not abstracing more virgin material (ie, after the effects of any recycling) from current stocks than are being added by this process.
So what is the number for the new copper, new aluminium, new whatever, being added as against current rates of abstraction? Are we in fact mining sustainably?
Sustainability. Its the eco-warrior word for ‘diminished standard of living.’
Via Space.com:
The clearest view yet of the famous Apollo 11 landing site on the moon was captured by a NASA spacecraft in orbit around our planet’s natural satellite.
The agency’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) zeroed in on Mare Tranquillitatis, or the Sea of Tranquility — the place where humans first touched down on the lunar surface on July 20, 1969. The new image from LRO captures amazing details of the historic site, even revealing the remnants of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s first steps on the moon.In the image, the astronauts’ tracks are the dark regions around the Lunar Module that lead to and from various scientific experiments that were set up on the surface of the moon.
LRO’s camera snapped the picture as the probe flew only 15 miles (24 kilometers) above the moon’s surface. The image, which was released on March 7, provides the best look yet at humanity’s first venture to another world, NASA officials said in a statement.
Of course, today, the United States is incapable of putting humans in low earth orbit, let alone send humans to the moon.
According to the chief Keynesian economist, increasing the supply of a commodity (oil) will not lower its price:
“We are not going to be able to just drill our way out of the problem of high gas prices,” Obama told workers at a Daimler Trucks North America factory that makes vehicles that run on natural gas.
“Anyone who tells you otherwise either doesn’t know what they are talking about or they are not telling you the truth.”
His visit to North Carolina, where Obama needs to win over blue-collar voters, reflects a White House effort to link energy innovation to job creation by highlighting steps to improve fuel efficiency and cut U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
“We may not get there in one (presidential) term,” Obama said. “It is going to take us a while to wean ourselves off of the old and grab the new. But we’re going to meet this challenge.”
Increasing the supply oil will not reduce its price… Classic. Liberal. Economics.
The most visible petrochemical is gasoline. It is frustrating to pull into a gas station and see gas prices flirting with $4.00 in most areas and even higher in others. However when Obama and is minions claim that we should ‘wean’ ourselves from oil, they are kidding themselves. We derive more than gasoline from oil. It is not a stretch to say our entire economy and modern lifestyles are possible due to petrochemicals (oil derivatives):
A huge variety of petrochemical products are found in many different industries. In fact, some industries such as electronics and computer sectors could have not developed without petrochemicals. Petrochemicals are also used to meet fundamental human needs, such as health, hygiene, housing and food. It is an inventive business sector that is constantly adapting to new environments and meeting new challenges.
The quantum leap in communications technology has been made possible by petrochemicals. For example, the computer could not function without microchips, made using petrochemicals, while the computer housings and keyboards are made from styrenic plastics. CDs and CD-ROMs start with a simple piece of plastic made from polycarbonate, a plastic derived from benzene and propylene. The transparent box in which CDs are stored is usually made from polystyrene.
In the transport sector, petrochemicals contribute to saving energy and improving safety. For example, synthetic rubber gives tyres better road-hugging ability while phenolic resins are used in binders for friction materials in brakes and clutches. Special coatings to give unusual colour effects have been developed for cars. Approximately 100kg of petrochemical-based plastics in a modern car can replace 200 to 300kg of traditional materials. So nylons are replacing metals and polycarbonate is replacing glass.
Petrochemicals make a contribution to the progress in health care and hygiene. For example, cumene and phenol are used as a starting material to make aspirin and penicillin. Some petrochemical resins are used in drug purification, making it easier to mass produce drugs. Plastics are essential for making disposable syringes, containers for storing blood and vaccines as well as medical devices such as inhalers.
In the construction sector, petrochemicals are used in the pipes, windows and paints found in buildings. A more unusual application is the use of polyurethane chemicals in the insulating panels for a luxury hotel in Dubai. The transparent roof the Olympic stadium in Athens is manufactured from polycarbonate.
In the home, products based on petrochemicals are found everywhere. Working surfaces, shelves and tables are easy to wash thanks to laminates manufactured from petrochemicals. The cooker, microwave oven and refrigerator are amongst the numerous fixtures moulded from polymers. Non-stick frying pans coated with petrochemicals are easy to use and do not need to be scrubbed while liquid detergents made from ethylene make dish washing quicker and more hygienic.
In the bathroom, we find petrochemical-derived products from floor tiles through shampoo bottles to the toothbrush. Easy-care clothing, carpets, curtains and furnishing fabrics are made from man-made fibres derived from petrochemicals.
Obama’s solution to high gas prices is to produce fuel from algae. However, can plastics or penicillin be derived from algae?
What will a $747 million tax payer backed loan guarantee buy these days? How about 2.5 square miles worth of mirrors. That, and a puny amount of electrical generation capacity:
SolarReserve of Santa Monica, Calif., can store heat from the sun in the form of molten salt. A field of mirrors that are aimed by a computer reflect the sun’s light on a black box on top of a central tower. In the box is the molten salt, which the sun heats to more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The salt can be run through a heat exchanger to make steam to power a conventional turbine and generator.
The advantage is that extra salt can be stored for a rainy day or plain old nighttime so that the plant can continue to make electricity at any hour. That ability is increasingly important as more and more conventional solar farms are set up; ordinary solar cells produce electricity only while the sun is shining, and a system that relies heavily on an intermittent source of power needs storage.
In May, the Energy Department gave the company a promise of a $747 million loan guaranteee for a 110-megawatt plant using that technology in Tonopah, Nev.
Of course, nowhere does the three NYT articles cheer-leading the project discuss, you know, the sheer size of the project discussed. However, if you click over to the project web site they give us the projected size of this project.
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Location:
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Northwest of Tonopah, NV |
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Technology:
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Concentrating Solar Thermal with Storage |
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Size:
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110 MW |
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Water Use:
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less than 600 Acre-feet/year |
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Site:
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~1,600 Acres, BLM-managed land |
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Transmission:
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9.5 miles |
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Fuel:
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Sunlight |
In case you were wondering, 1,600 acres is 2.5 SQUARE MILES.
The green zealots are willing to cover 2.5 square miles of land to generate a paltry (and more than likely overstated) 110MW of electricity.
To put this in perspective the Zeeland ‘Peaker’ power station covers 30 acres of land (including the parking lot) and generates 930MW of power using natural gas.
November 6, 2012 can’t get here fast enough.
it appears that concert violinists cannot tell from the sound alone whether they are playing a 300-year-old Stradivarius or an instrument made last week. And, for playing quality alone, the virtuoso will opt for the modern one when asked which fiddle they would like to take home.
These discordant findings emerge from experiments by Claudia Fritz, a researcher at the University of Paris, at an international violin competition in Indianapolis in 2010. She asked 21 musicians to play six different violins, three modern instruments and three by Italian maestros – one made by Guarneri del Gesu around 1740, and two made in Antonio Stradivari’s workshop around 1700.
The plot thickens further.
The researchers could find no link between the age and value of the violins and how they were rated by the violinists. The three old instruments had a combined value of $10m, a hundred times that of the modern violins. “They are beautiful instruments, but the prices are insane,” Fritz said. “The old versus new issue doesn’t make any sense.
“It doesn’t matter if the violin’s old or new, all that matters is whether it’s a good violin or a bad violin. Many modern violin makers are doing a great job.” One shortcoming of the study was that the violinists were asked to rate a particular instrument’s projection, how well its sound travels, themselves. Another was that only a few violins were tested.
But, as the researchers note, this latter was perhaps unavoidable. “Numbers of subjects and instruments were small because it is difficult to persuade the owners of fragile, enormously valuable old violins to release them for extended periods into the hands of blindfolded strangers.”
Kai-Thomas Roth, secretary of the British Violin Making Association, said that double blind tests, where neither experimenter nor musician knows which violin is played, had already shown people cannot distinguish a modern violin from a priceless work of art.
“There’s some myth-making that helps old instruments,” Thomas said. “If you give someone a Stradivari and it doesn’t work for them, they’ll blame themselves and work hard at it until it works.
So much for conventional wisdom.
Since this is a post about violins, a short violin solo by Anastasia Khitruck.
Sometimes I’m still amazed how the internet works. One web site I follow, but rarely (if ever) post / link to is Above Top Secret. Occasionally I’ll peruse the site. It is interesting, but I’m not really into conspiracies. That being said, I found these pictures and they really caught my eye.
The amazing thing about the internet is the ability to follow the links and find out more about the pictures. Gizmodo linked to the pictures with an accompanying write up.
And yet, she found nobody. No guards, no security. Nothing. Just a few CCTV cameras here and there in rooms packed with huge machinery.
While some of these zones look decrepit and abandoned, the factory is active. In fact, the government is really pissed off about Lana’s adventure. The authorities have sent her letters saying that her situation will get “much worse” if she keeps posting photos from the factory.
But Lana doesn’t seem to give a damn about it. She posted the letters on her site, which makes me want to go to Moscow, become her friend and party hard for a whole week. This girl is cooler and more badass than I will ever be.
The Gizmodo post also includes a link to the photographers own web page. Her page is in Russian, but most web browsers will now translate languages, but it includes a link to the company that owns the site.
And, to follow the trail, it all took about 10 mins. Now, on to the links:
Great minds think alike: Spellchek has more pics from the Russian rocket factory. He also has a post discussing the U.S. shifting undeclared wars to the Asia-Pacific region.
WWTFT: Addendum to Confronting Terror
Bunker: E.E.O.C warns business ‘be careful in requiring a H.S. Diploma’
GTBTBA: I Think I’m Excited…
SJ: No difference between Mitt Romney and President Obama
CH 2.0: An Interesting SOPA Video
The Eye: Palmetto State Primary Edition
LAS: 2011 Review & 2012 Preview (Part 3 of 4)
MTTM: Before you all get too excited
‘Bot: “just had to stop to take a picture of this wonderful juxtaposition.”
As if we needed any further proof: Proof Positive That Chris Matthews Is Insane.
Pundette: Culture of death update
TMGGB: Overview of the NH debate 1/7/12
theCL: Gloom, Doom, and Optimism
Gator: A Musical Tribute To Saturday’s NFL Wildcard Losers… And yes, Gator picks Detroit Rock City. I would’ve gone with Motor City Madhouse.
Wade: Treason in Desperation
WyBlog: Forget voting rights, Illinois makes you show photo ID to buy drain cleaner
FCBZ: Where is the #OWS outrage? Tiger Woods’ Ex-Wife Elin Nordegren Demolishes $12.3 Million Mansion in Florida (video)
Republican Mom: Wall Street and FDR (Chapter 5)
So, what has a guy got to do to get a Zilla award? You know, maybe a mention in the Best Weekly Round-up of Fellow Bloggers’ Blog Post category? Oh well, maybe next year…
This is amazing:
Via MIT:
We have built an imaging solution that allows us to visualize propagation of light. The effective exposure time of each frame is two trillionth of a second and the resultant visualization depicts the movement of light at roughly half a trillion frames per second. Direct recording of reflected or scattered light at such a frame rate with sufficient brightness is nearly impossible. We use an indirect ‘stroboscopic’ method that records millions of repeated measurements by careful scanning in time and viewpoints. Then we rearrange the data to create a ‘movie’ of a nano-second long event.
The device has been developed by the MIT Media Lab’s Camera Culture group in collaboration with Bawendi Lab in the Department of Chemistry at MIT. A laser pulse that lasts less than one trillionth of a second is used as a flash and the light returning from the scene is collected by a camera at a rate equivalent to roughly half a trillion frames per second. However, due to very short exposure times (roughly two trillionth of a second) and a narrow field of view of the camera, the video is captured over several minutes by repeated and periodic sampling.
The new technique, which we call Femto Photography, consists of femtosecond laser illumination, picosecond-accurate detectors and mathematical reconstruction techniques. Our light source is a Titanium Sapphire laser that emits pulses at regular intervals every ~13 nanoseconds. These pulses illuminate the scene, and also trigger our picosecond accurate streak tube which captures the light returned from the scene
Watching the light photons move slowly across the scene in the video is surreal.