Technology
grrlscientist | June 30, 2010tags: How Can You Filter Out The Vuvuzela?, World Cup 2010, physics, technology, football, soccer, sports, television, Sixty Symbols, University of Nottingham, streaming video
A University of Nottingham video explains the physics that underlies the technology being developed to filter out that annoying drone from 30,000 blasting vuvuzelas in the background of all World Cup football matches. It's interesting to note that this is the same sort of software technology that ornithologists use to record (and "clean up" background noise inadvertently captured by) birdsong recordings.
grrlscientist | June 30, 2010tags: David Kassan Paints a Live Model on his iPad, technology, computers, iPad, Apple, art, fingerpainting, portrait painting, documentary, time-lapse video, streaming video
This video is a time-lapse rendering of an Apple ipad fingerpainting demo that was streamed live from artist David Kassan's Brooklyn studio on Monday, 21 June 2010. The model sat for 3 hours as Mr Kassan painted and answered questions on how he uses the iPad and the Brushes applications.
Learn more about David Kassan.
illconsidered | June 28, 2010We tend to give crakar a hard time around here, but via email he has offered us something for which we should all be grateful, and that is new hope for controlling the unfolding BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
In the spirit of pictures being worth many words, I leave it at this:
[Update: BP has responded that according to their cost-benefit analysis, only one paper clip is indicated and it is their decision to go with that. "who cares, it's done, end of story, will probably be fine" said BP upper management.]
[Update 2: McGiver MacGyver has come out strongly against this new…
gregladen | June 26, 2010Linux in Exile has a new post on the approach an organization may take in moving to Linux. The post is here, and I recommend reading it.
I have a few comments on JH's commentary. I won't quote what he says (you should just go there and look at it), but my responses correspond to his numbering system.
1. I disagree, despite JH's experience, that video and wireless cards are a problem in migrating to Linux. If one is looking for pure FOSS approach, then yes, but otherwise, there really should not be much difficulty. But yes, an inventory of these issues is worthwhile, and when doing so,…
neurophilosophy | June 24, 2010BRAIN implants containing microelectrodes are used widely in the laboratory and clinic, both to stimulate nerve cells and to record their activity. Researchers routinely implant electrode arrays into the brains of rodents to investigate the neuronal activity associated with spatial navigation, or into monkeys' brains to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms of motor control. As a result, we now have brain-computer interfaces that can help paralysed patients to communicate or control a prosthetic limb. Electrode arrays can also be used to assess vegetative patients, and to treat…
illconsidered | June 24, 2010I am not an expert in oil field engineering. But I can smell bullshit. So I am sad to confess that at this moment I am putting more faith in an anonymous poster at the Oil Drum whom I have never heard of before than I am in any mainstream reporting I have come across.
His lengthy and compelling comment is here. What he says makes sense to my untrained ears and at the very least the "supplementary material" he links to is very informative.
The synopsis goes something like this (from memory):
the well is damaged below the sea floor
erosion from oil and gas flowing outside the well casing…
grrlscientist | June 24, 2010tags: Education Innovation in the Slums, education, technology, poverty, slums, curriculum, philosophy, learning as a productive activity, Charles Leadbeater, TEDTalks, TED Talks, streaming video
Charles Leadbeater went looking for radical new forms of education -- and found them in the slums of Rio and Kibera, where some of the world's poorest kids are finding transformative new ways to learn. And this informal, disruptive new kind of school, he says, is what all schools need to become.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the…
grrlscientist | June 23, 2010tags: Great Microbiologists, Lego, brickfilm, animation, technology, scientists, history, microbiology, animalcule, streaming video
This is yet another Lego animation. This time, instead of recreating highlights of the World Cup 2010 games, this one shows highlights for the history of the field of microbiology. It's actually good enough to show as an intro to a microbiology course.
More Lego films can be found at Brickfilms.
clock | June 21, 2010A couple of days ago, I had a very pleasant conversation with Brian Bedrick whose Charlotte NC based Interactive Data Partners turns massive amounts of data into visualizations, particularly in education. They take all sorts of metrics, e.g., on educational outcomes, and make them instantly obvious through visualizations. Those kinds of things are important to administrators, but there are other potential uses. For example, instead of giving a student a single grade, the work can be divided into several categories and visualization can immediately show in which areas does a student show…
grrlscientist | June 21, 2010tags: I'm a Scientist, Get me out of Here!, internet chatrooms, online program, technology, public outreach, scientists, employment, what do scientists do?, Science and the Importance of Cheese, streaming video
This video is a trailer for a movie proposal by protein crystallographer, Stephen Curry. If he is lucky, he will continue on to the June 2010 rounds of the online program, "I'm a scientist, get me out of here!" targeted at teens. He proposes to make this film if he is voted to win the â¤500 award.
"I'm a Scientist, Get me out of Here!" is a new online program targeted to UK…
grrlscientist | June 19, 2010tags: Foosball Fever, Foosball, table football, Nokia, film, filmmaking, innovation, technology, wow, television, streaming video
This video is amazing! It captures an amazing series of foosball matches, complete with all the wacky new tricks that were done. Plus, after the main video is over, you are presented with a clickable menu of embedded video links you can choose from, like slo-mo captures of how the tricks were done, behind the scenes footage, etc. All in all, this one video is a very cool innovation for foosball fans, video aficionados and technophiles!
drorzel | June 16, 2010Inside Higher Ed featured one of those every-so-often articles about the awesomeness of the demographic subgroup of the moment, this time Athur Levine's panegyric about "digital natives", who "grew up in a world of computers, Internet, cell phones, MP3 players, and social networking," and how they're too cool and tech-savvy for current universities:
They differ from their colleges on matters as fundamental as how they conceive of and utilize physical plant and time. For the most part, universities operate in fixed locales, campuses, and on fixed calendars, semesters and quarters with classes…
gregladen | June 15, 2010This is a chart showing a whole bunch of different computer hardware bits and pieces, for reference. Click to embiggen.
From here.
gregladen | June 15, 2010Apple® today unveiled a completely redesigned Mac® mini, featuring up to twice the graphics performance, a new HDMI port and a new SD card slot, all in an amazingly compact aluminum enclosure. Mac mini is the world's most energy efficient desktop and starting at $699, is the most affordable way to enjoy Mac OS® X, iLife® or Mac OS X Snow Leopard® Server.
Details here.
H/T: Ben
My birthday is this month.
Oh, did I say that out loud?
gregladen | June 15, 2010I like the idea of an edition of Ubuntu for scientists. I like the idea so much that I wrote a blog post about it a while back.
So I was very pleased to see that there is a project called Ubuntusci that is moving along nicely and that may fill in this niche.
But, when I went to look at the web site to find out more about it, I quickly discovered that there are two things wrong with the project that I'd like to suggest that they fix.
First, the distribution is committed to OpenSource Software (OSS). Well, so am I, as a person, but that does not mean that I use only OSS. Were that the case, I…
egardel | June 14, 2010[This post was originally published at webeasties.wordpress.com]
Although I studied physics and chemistry in college, I have always held an inherent appreciation for how life works. And now, researching microbes in action, I am continually amazed by their diverse habitats and metabolisms. It is remarkable to think how despite the diminutive size of microbes, they are dominant members of our biosphere and play a key role in every known biogeochemical cycle. This list includes carbon, sulfur, nitrogen, and oxygen as well as trace metals such as iron, cobalt and zinc. I have started thinking…
pontiff | June 10, 2010Over at Daily Speculations, Alan Corwin writes about database programming jobs that will never return. The gist of Alan's piece is that the tools for databases are basically so turn-key and so easy that those who were trained to build their own database code by hand will be unlikely to see those job returns. He ends his article by noting: "For my friends in the programming community, it means that there are hard times ahead."
Turn the page.
Here is a
report from UCSD on "Hot Degrees for College Graduates 2010." 3 of the top 5 are computer science related, and number 3 is "Data Mining…
gregladen | June 9, 2010Cyberwar is a fiction, but tech cults are not.
Sometimes these cults are inspired by elegant lines of code. Other times it's dedication to an ideal. Some are looking to transform the way software is made. Others hope to transform humanity itself. And some just want to argue about it all -- endlessly and at great length.
Who would ever do that?
You are certainly familiar with Dublin Wellington Boots - Size 9 Green (they've been mentioned here, as has their link to evolutionary biology). Well, now there are Wellies that can power your cell phone. Supposedly.
And there will be no more phone…
sciencepunk | June 7, 2010If you could press your ear to a ladybird's chest, what would you hear? Not the steady thump thump of a human heart, but something quite different. Discovery News reports on work carried out by Igor Sokolov and his team at Clarkson University, who used an atomic force microscope to listen to the faint sounds emanating from inside living insects.
Listen to a ladybird
The researchers used this atomic stethoscope to record the internal sounds of other insects including a fly and a mosquito, which you can listen to here.
The work is published in Applied Physics Letters.