DVD

Mantis shrimp eyes outclass DVD players, inspire new technology

edyong — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:00:39 +0000

Mantis shrimp eyes outclass DVD players, inspire new technology

The most incredible eyes in the animal world can be found under the sea, on the head of the mantis shrimps. Each eye can move independently and can focus on object with three different areas, giving the mantis shrimp "trinocular vision". While we see in three colours, they see in twelve, and they can tune individual light-sensitive cells depending on local light levels. They can even see a special type of light - 'circularly polarised light' - that no other animal can.

But Nicholas Roberts from the University of Bristol has found a new twist to the mantis shrimp's eye. It contains a technology that's very similar to that found in CD and DVD players, but it completely outclasses our man-made efforts. If this biological design can be synthesised, it could form the basis of tomorrow's multimedia players and hard drives.

Previous studies have found that mantis shrimps can detect polarised light - light that vibrates in a single plane as it travels. Think of attaching a piece of string to a wall and shaking it up and down, and you'll get the idea. Last year, scientists discovered that they can also see circularly polarised light, which travels in the shape of a helix. To date, they are still the only animal that can see these spiralling beams of light.

Its secret lies at a microscopic level. Each eye is packed with light-sensitive cells called rhabdoms that are arranged in groups of eight. Seven sit in a cylinder and each has a tiny slit that polarised light can pass through if it's vibrating in the right plane. The eighth cell sits on top and its slit is angled at 45 degrees to the seven below it. It's this cell that converts circularly polarised light into its linear version.

In technical terms, the eighth cell is a "quarter-wave plate", because it rotates the plane in which light vibrates. Similar devices are also found in camera filters, CD players and DVD players but these man-made versions are far inferior to the mantis shrimp's biological tech.

Synthetic wave plates only work well for one colour of light. If you change the wavelength slightly, they become ineffective, so designing a wave plate that works for many colours is exceptionally difficult. But the mantis shrimp has already done it. Its eyes work across the entire visible spectrum, from ultraviolet to infrared, achieving a level of performance that our technology can't compete with.

What's more, the same eighth cell not only manipulates circularly polarised light, but it can sense ultraviolet light too. It's a detector and a converter - a two-for-one deal that nothing man-made shares.

Why the mantis shrimp needs such a sophisticated eye is unclear. It could help them to see their prey more clearly in water, which is rife with circularly polarised reflections. It needs good eyesight to be able to hit its prey accurately. Like a crustacean Thor, mantis shrimps shatter their victims with devastating hammer blows inflicted by the fastest arms on the planet. Their forearms, which end in clubs or spears, can travel through water at 10,000 times the acceleration of gravity and hit with the force of a rifle bullet.

Another option is that their super-eyes allow them to send and receive secret messages. A mantis shrimp's shell reflects circularly polarised light, and males and females produce these reflections from different body parts. Their ability to see this type of light could give them a hidden channel of communication that only they can see, for use in courtship or combat.

Whatever the reason for it, Roberts thinks that the eye's structure is "beautifully simple". It's all in the shapes of the cells, their size, and the amount of fat in their membranes. For all its outstanding performance, the eye's abilities were probably easy to evolve, requiring only small tweaks to the basic blueprint of the light-detecting cells.

Now that we know about the microscopic structures behind the mantis shrimp's amazing eye, Roberts is hopeful that engineers can mimic it using liquid crystals. "The cool thing is I think it's actually something you could make and it would improve the workings of current technologies such as Blu-Ray, which uses multiple wavelengths of light, and of future data storage devices," he said. It wouldn't be the first time that crustaceans have inspired technology. A new type of X-ray telescope, for example, was based on the eye of the lobster.

Reference: Nature Photonics DOI: 10.1038/NPHOTON.2009.189

More on mantis shrimps:

edyong Sun, 10/25/2009 - 09:00

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As I understand it, we all can see circularly polarized light, just fine. We just can't distinguish it from vertically, horizontally, or randomly polarized light. It's all just photons, to us.

You can experiment with seeing polarized light as a different color by getting some round-lensed hipster polarizing sunglasses, and rotating one of the lenses 90 degrees in its frame. (For different results, rotate one left 45 degrees, the other right.) Experimenting with seeing circularly polarized light takes more specialized equipment. At least we know that you don't need new brain wiring to be able to use the extra information.

If Chuck Norris and the mantis shrimp ever entered a death match, the mantis shrimp would certainly be the one to leave the ring alive. That's how badass they are.

Hit it up JD I like it!

RT
www.anonymous.ua.tc

This article and the previous article on mantis shrimp give an explanation of circular polarization so poor and profoundly misleading that I would encourage Mr Yong to remove the articles from this site until articles with decent explanations can be written.

All animals can "see circularly polarized light", just as all animals can "see linearly polarized light"; due to decomposition of arbitrary unpolarized light, I don't see how saying otherwise could even make any sense. The important distinction here is that some species of mantis shrimp can distinguish between different circular polarizations which, to humans, would look the same without external factors.

It's important to note, too, that this is only the case with some species. There are around 400 species of mantis shrimp. I've only read papers on circular polarization detection involving Odontodactylus scyllarus; in fact, Chiou et al (Curr Biol 18, 429) go so far as to suggest that detection of circular polarization, and use of specific-circular-polarization reflective surfaces that also exist on the species, may have arisen to give advantages over competing species of mantis shrimp that can detect linear polarization and use it for complex social signalling, and also predators that can distinguish between linear polarizations.

By the way, Nature's doi-finding system doesn't seem to work well for new articles, so it would probably be best to actually link to the article online Roberts, Chiou et al, A biological quarter-wave retarder with excellent achromaticity in the visible wavelength region. I suspect this may be due to the fact that the article hasn't appeared in print yet.

How do you know it was easy to evolve?

What on earth does "can travel through water at 10,000 times the acceleration of gravity" mean?

In reply to Philosophus

Ed has done a great job of writing up our paper. Philosophus seems to forgot that we also commonly talk about seeing colour. Well of course, just like polarized light, we don't see a colour, it's a representation of comparative processing of several photoreceptor inputs. But no one is going to attack you for saying "I see a colour"

It's perfectly fine to talk about seeing polarized light, seeing the polarization of light or discriminating between different polarizations (linear or circular).

The important part of the above discovery, and that Philosophus seems to have missed entirely, is that this is a completely new optical structure to convert between linearly and circularly polarized light. Even in our world of remarkable technology, evolution has refined some fantastic optics that still continue to make us go Wow.

Nick Roberts

PS Why do people hide behind weird names?

The conflict between Nick and "Philosophus" is common between people deep in a field and outsiders. People deep in a field develop a shorthand, and don't even consider interpretations of their words that don't make sense in terms of what else they know. For outsiders the shorthand may be actively misleading. Some insiders are better at avoiding dependence on shorthand than others.

If Ed said "cats can't see red light", he would be speaking the same way as in the article, and would be equally misleading: they can see red light, they just can't distinguish it from green. By contrast, they, and we, can't see infrared light at all.

Why do people hide behind weird names?

Lots of www denizens tend to use screen names instead of real names, usually out of habit. They don't "hide" behind them (it's not like seeing a random comment by "Joe Blow" would help you much in identifying the person would it?). It's just that they identify differently.

That's pretty neat. It sort of reminds me of the "Dark Visor" in Metroid Prime 2, a visor that you wear to see matter hidden by dark energy. The rest of the world looks kind of greyed-out, but the dark matter looks bright red. I wonder if the mantis shrimp is doing something similar: since the circularly polarized light is invisible to everyone else, these shrimp may be seeing things that, to the rest of us, aren't even there!

Sometimes I wonder if there are organisms that might only be seen on the spectrums we cannot see. I doubt it, but that would be so cool!

See, Zach's confusion results from the misleading wording in the article. If the placement of circularly-polarizing markings on male and female shrimp are the only thing that visibly distinguishes them, then the shrimp are seeing something (sex dimorphism) that to us isn't there. But of course the shrimp are visibly there, and those markings are reflecting/refracting/iridescing light we see just fine; it just looks the same to us.

"Matter hidden by dark energy", by the way, also doesn't make sense, but probably for different reasons.

I guess Apple is Preparing a technology based on this - mantis shrimp

I'm not aware of anyone who uses "see polarization" as a shorthand for being able to distinguish polarization of light: "detect polarization" or "distinguish polarization" would be better, and are in fact used. Seeing is generally a poor term to use for many things. The meaning is far too ambiguous: I'd even be against using "see color".

There's a reason for jargon to exist, and unfortunately, when you try to remove it, you can easily make things unintentionally misleading.

masklinn: interestingly enough, this screen name was devised, years ago, to hide behind. I prefer that my discussions about science online not be connected with my actual research, and not be construed as official statements. When I constructed it, I was primarily working to combat outright crackpottery on Wikipedia, where my identity being known would have resulted in complaints to my institute and harassment of my colleagues; the name eventually became, however, what I use for almost all non-official discussions I have about science.

LightScribe Technology and Why Windows Sucks

gregladen — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 21:57:16 +0000

LightScribe Technology and Why Windows Sucks

I know every computer box needs a CD/DVD reader in order to boot the thing up under adverse conditions (and your system should always be set up so that you can do this, by the way!). But as a matter of actual functionality, maintaining a current and high-functioning version of this sort of device, or two or more of them especially, built into the box is usually a bad idea for me. My computer boxes are not ever conveniently located. For my main computer, I can reach the off on switch with my toe, which is how I start up the machine. (The button is not needed to turn it off, of course.) So I can't really easily reach the CD/DVD drives. And, over time, these drives get old, or slow, or just don't do everything you want, and if you have two or three computers in the household (don't forget to count everyone's laptop) an external DVD/CD burner/reader might be a better option than trying to keep each machine functioning in top form.

Anyway, that's what I thought, so I bought one.

It turned out that an HP with LightScribe technology was what I settled on, but not for the LightScribe technology. It just had the functionality I wanted and was not very expensive, and happend to hae LightScribe technology. LightScribe technology is the ability to burn a label right into the disk while it is in your drive. Supposedly.

I figured that might be nice, but I did not consider it essential to be able to burn a label in to the disk after putting something on there. Besides, I know the media that allow this technology to work is more expensive than regular media, and I doubted that the technology was well implemented. (I can now verify that both of these are true, BTW.)

But, once I had the external disk reader/writer home, I figured I'd try to see if I could get LightScribe to work. I realized that the best use of this technology would be CD's I'd burn using iTunes, which is on the Evil Windows Computer in the basement. So I skipped the part about whether or not Linux would have drivers and software to run LightScribe and went right to installing the software o the Windows computer.

That was a mistake, because it brought back all the horrid memories of when I actually used and operated and fixed and messed with Windows computers. I had to be sedated twice. I'm re-starting therapy on Tuesday. It was bad.

Do you know what it is like installing software on a Windows computer? Like this:

The machine (DVD/CD reader/writer) came with a disk with software. So I put the disk in the drive and picked "install."

I did not know it, but I ended up installing an entire suite of software, called Nero or Neato or some such thing, which is utterly and totally redundant with about half of the software on any normal desktop computer, attempts to take over the entire computer, much of it is only trial ware, and there is now an entirely new and unwanted toolbar thing on my Windows Taskbar that says "Nero Search" on it.

This installatoin required hitting "Install" and "Yes" and "I Agree" and "OK" about 12 times in total. Compare this to installing a complex Linux application, which is done with one or two clicks at the beginning and no further interaction. With this sort of Windows install, I am commanded to "shut down all applications, save your work, back everything up" and the "OK" and "Install" and "Yes" and so on and so forth buttons come up for no good reason at various intervals throughout the install process. So, if you are not watching the whole time (and the process is painfully slow) then every time you come back to your computer it is sitting there with some dumbass message asking for you to do the only possible thing you can do ... click "OK" ...

And, at the end, the final "OK" button results in a cryptic error message. A disturbing and cryptic error message. Then you reboot the computers.

Here's what I want. I want this: Every time Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates, from now on, get a medical procedure, I want them to reboot. Defib the heart to a stop, let the body rest a minutes, then defib the heard back on and let the whole system back up again.

Hangnail? Zap! Wart removal? Zap! Routine round of blood tests? Zap! Zap! Zap!

Now that the installation process is over, I am now subscribed to a newsletter or two, my hard drive is full of crap, screen real estate has been taken away from me, and guess what....

... the actual software I need was not installed. Somewhere among all the crap that was installed by the disk that came with this HP disk drive is a button I can press (when I finally find it) and this brings me to a web site from which I can install a "simple" version of a disk labeler. Or, if you happen to notice the fine print on the web site, you can install another piece of software that claims to be able to actually create labels for use with your LightScribe device.

So I made one disk that had some Indigo Girls on it, and labeled it Indigo Girls 1200 Curfew 2, selected, or words to that effect.

In order for this to work, I had to flip the disk upside down and reinsert it. The LightScribe technology does not work in such a way that you can burn music or data onto a drive then press a button and put a label on there. No. You have to design and muck around with the label quite a bit, then you have to flip over the disk so the laser in your drive has access to the label side.

For the simple case of the Indigo Girls selected songs, the software indicated that he process would take 3 minutes. It took 4.

My next effort was to use the "template" software, which needed to be installed, of course, and comes with a bunch of dumbass templates, to burn a disk with graphics and more detail (but fewer words). That burn time is listed 23 minutes. But it takes about 40.

About half way through that process you'll be thinking "crap, did I put the disk in upside down like I was supposed to? And if I did not will that ruin the damn disk drive????"

I chose a label for a brand new Ubuntu 8.10 CD, that I will burn and give to the next Windows user I encounter.

So if you want to have a real live disk label that actually looks like something on your cd, like to make your life a bit more efficient and stuff, this technology will ad about a half hour per disk, including dicking around and the actual burn process.

Or, you can get one of these and it's really freakin' fast:

gregladen Sat, 02/21/2009 - 16:57

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OpenSource

Technology

disk labeling software

DVD

how to

howto

LightScribe Technology

Sharpie

Technology

Well, if you wait a few months and replace the evil windows machine with a new one that has Windows 7, you'll see that adding new hardware is now painless, because it automatically downloads drivers and installs everything it needs without you having to do a thing.

I have the beta version, and my old Dell has been upgraded many times, but after installing 7 (on the slave drive), I didn't have to do a single thing to make anything work. It was breathtaking. I may have cried a little.

Also, what's a CD?

There are LightScribe compatible drives in both mine and my wife's Ubuntu machines. As in your situation, LightScribe was not one of my reasons for purchasing the drives, but happened to be an included feature. The "simple" LightScribe software for Linux isn't the greatest. It takes me about 20 to 30 minutes to label a disc (CD or DVD). I have a template that I created in Gimp which I use to make PNG files to import into the labeling software. It shows where the limits of the label are. I just add graphics and text inside Gimp. If anyone would like a copy of the XCF file that I use, please let me know.

As for the marker, I like the "Ultra Fine Point" Sharpie for labeling discs when I'm in a hurry. I hate to write out the titles of a dozen songs though.

I agree, Sharpies are the best option.

What a coincidence. Just yesterday I decided to finally get around to trying the LightScribe drive in my computer. I figured I wouldn't be able to, since the first thing I do when I buy a cheap HP computer is erase every trace of anything HP ever smeared onto the hard drive.

A search landed me at LightScribe.com where I quickly found the required software. Then I did another search to find labeling software and I discovered a company I've found interesting in the past for something else makes one. (I think I could have downloaded a free one, but I figured shareware would have a few nicer features.)

It works pretty well, was pretty easy and is well worth it for what I'm making - a nice demo CD of music for my sister who's trying to drum up a little work. Sharpies won't do for that. It does take a long time to make the CD (30 minutes or so) but IMO it's worth the wait.

Your experience was obviously quite different from my own.

I sort of like Lightscribe, you can put fancy designs and photos on them. But then I like fooling around with that stuff.
I think Sony has full color CDs but they're even more expensive.

I know every computer box needs a CD/DVD reader in order to boot the thing up under adverse conditions...

No. Make it boot from USB. Much handier, and with the price of a laser drive you can get quite a pile of memory sticks.

Another vote for Sharpie. And if you want a fancy label (we used to make large numbers of CD's for distribution in adult ed classes) you print in full color on a paper label and use a gizmo to stick it on - works great. And it's fast enough that you can put a couple student workers on it and do 25 of them in about fifteen minutes.

The best solution for good-looking CD/DVD labels is to buy printable discs and use an inkjet printer that supports printing the label directly on the CD/DVD.

Paper labels applied after the disc is burned are okay for audio CDs and video DVDs, because those get spun at 1X. For data discs, paper labels are a bad idea. If they're even slightly off-center, they can destroy the disc and drive when they spin up to full speed, which is about the speed of a jet turbine. I've seen two drives destroyed by discs that disintegrated, both with paper labels.

Jake = Works for Microsoft

No. Make it boot from USB. Much handier, and with the price of a laser drive you can get quite a pile of memory sticks.

A computer that does not have a system on it and that is not really no can't be enticed to boot from a USB, as far as I know. For some older computers, you've got to mess with the jumpers on the CD if you want it to boot that way!

RBT: You can print directly on the DVD/CD? Doesn't it break in the printer?!?!?

LOLOLOLOL!!

That was wonderful. See Greg, MS is soooo good they make u want to use primitive technology.

HP is the fucking worst with this shit. But I love this post. I love the way it is written. Fucking fabulous.

You can buy special disc printers that hold a stack of discs in the input tray, but they're pretty expensive. Some inkjet printers that have straight paper paths come with a disc carrier. You put the blank disc in the carrier and hand-feed it into the printer. It's a lot slower than a special disc printer, but a lot faster than Lightscribe. And, of course, you can use full-color images and whatever else you wish.

Nowadays, most people use electronic music files, but back when CDs were the primary way to trade music I knew a guy who'd scan the original CD (the actual disc) and just print that scan to the printable CD. It was hard to tell the difference between an original disc and one of his copies.

A computer that does not have a system on it and that is not really no can't be enticed to boot from a USB, as far as I know.

It is a BIOS feature - no system required. Only very old machines do not support it. You can create a "live" stick from any bootable ISO image with Unetbootin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNetbootin

I'm sitting in a room with four computers and two of them have bios that don't support USB booting up!!!

So yes, the USB is a good way to go, but a) it is more work, b) it often does not work, c) it uses up a USB unless you use an old one, and then it can't be a full implementation, and d) where did I put that USB stick?!?!?

But really, you should have a bootable USB and a bootable Knoppix CD and a current Ubuntu CD at all times. Maybe keep them all in a baggie taped to the doorknob so you can always find them.

PhysioProf

"HP is the fucking worst with this shit."

IMHO that is not even a strong enough statement. I avoid HP products for windoze unless there is absolutely no alternative. HP solution center my ass.

I avoid HP products for windoze unless there is absolutely no alternative.

The only HP part in my system is the printer, and there's only one good reason why: Linux support. HP printers are among the few that you can simply "plug & play" with Linux. We're lucky that LightScribe even has support of any kind from the manufacturer. The situation is beginning to change, with more manufacturers supplying Linux drivers, but it's still not quite there yet.

Concerning the emergency boot option that was at the beginning of your odyssey:

Why not boot from an usb stick?

heh, i notice someone asking why not boot from a USB stick after you have already explained why you can't with some of your computers. i wonder why people do not take the time to read comments in order to fully understand the conversation.

as for me, i ditched windoze for mac in 2004 and am never going back. my printer is HP, but i only installed the driver and naught else. i just don't understand the need for the bloatware HP wants to clutter up drives with.

Never going back to Windows again. I didn't know some machines don't let you boot from USB. I thought it was something you could tweak in BIOS. Makes me wonder how recently booting from USB became an option. As for LightScribe...I never understood the appeal, but glad you didn't pay extra for it.

There were bios's in use that predated the assumption of USB ports even though USB ports were everywhere. One can in some cases upgrade the bios, but it may not be worth it all the time. I was just handed down a computer with about 533mh processor, 500 megabytes of ram, and a bios that won't let me specify the USB. I'm not sure how old it is. The fact that the hard drive is also borked makes this more or less a recycle-job, but first I'll pull out the firewire add on card, all the DVD/CD drives (because I'm going to make a coffee table out of them when I get enough) and the funky wireless card thingie because it has a cool antenna that looks like an alien space craft.

I've faced serious linux hijinks over the weekend though it's more a problem with multiple vendors doing stupid things and me trying to convert a glorified Playskool Busy Box into an actual computer.

I broke down and bought an Asus Eee PC with the 40GB SSD drive. It ships with a rebadged version of Xandros, itself a port of Debian, and it has been crippled to the point of being ludicrous.

By juggling a few repositories and installing a few bits of untrusted code I've finally produced a usable familiar desktop, though still no C compiler. Seriously, as someone who's used MacOS, OS X, Win98, XP, Linux, and Solaris desktops over the past decade, XP would've been a better choice on this little laptop, but only because Xandros is such a piece of Suzy Homemaker crap - it's an insult to Suzies and Homemakers everywhere.

That said, I'm really happy now that I finally got it working like a real linux laptop.

I suspect I'll eventually pave it with some flavor of Ubuntu if only because there's a substantial maintainer base for their packages and they don't have a lowest-common-denominator business model. I fly to Sweden tomorrow (business!) so I don't have time to unmunge this box; I just want to offer a little contrarian perspective - there can be things worse than Windows.

But yeah, aside from their scientific calculators, I avoid HP stuff like the plague. I had very bad experiences with one of their printers, and even the recent model 35s calculator seems cheaply made, underdocumented, and worst of all, offers algebraic (infix) mode as an option. Heresy! They'll only get my RPN when they fingers my cold dead + + + + off + pry +. :)

(Why an HP35s? It's one of a very few allowed in to the FE/PE exam...)

I think the problem is "the bundle". When you buy anything computer related, the manufacturer feels the urge to bundle it with other software. However, they do not want to create one new installer for this software, so they create an uber-installer which just calls all the other installers. Hence, the myriad of "Ok's". Thus, ALWAYS do a custom install. In this way, you'll know what is being installed and you can prevent some trial version of some crappy software from being installed. Stop the bundling!!!

Just to play devil's advocate... I tried Red Hat Linux a few years ago and was pretty damned underwhelmed. I looked at MAC's and found that for equal computing power the price was way higher than Windows computers. I just don't have that much trouble installing software in windows (of course I use the custom install).
This post seemed pretty drama-queeny to me.

I have to agree on the HP software. I used to do desktop support for a place that had a lot of scanner/printer combos. It would take 45 minutes to install over 500 MB of software. the worst part was you couldn't leave. You had to be there to click ok, next, every 5 or 10 minutes.

Sounds like the horror stories I've heard from friends who use Windows machines. I have one buddy who was a longtime Windows user who switched to Macs after his machine crashed after he tried to upgrade his video editing software. And this is a guy who's an IT professional. I use a Mac with OS 10.5 (Leopard) and have never had a problem installing the drivers for anything. A couple of clicks and it's done. I don't have anything by HP so I can't comment on what the install is like, installing my Canon printer drivers and third party scanner software were a breeze.

Incidentally, Greg's rant about Windows pales in comparison to this one, written by a guy named Bill Gates.

< http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/141821.asp >

Iron, unless you're looking for the lowest-end hardware--the stuff that won't run Windows beyond one bloated upgrade--your experience is not in line with the pros'.

I just had my first Lightscribe experience as well. I bought the drive to replace another after I had accidentally destroyed its tray (long story), but didn't install the software suite since Windows recognized the drive and installed drivers automagically.

The other day I decided to eschew the Sharpie route and actually print a label, so I loaded the suite and then cranked up Nero Label Designer. But the controls for printing a Lightscribe label in NLD were grayed out, so I contacted the manufacturer, who told me I should also download the Lightscribe driver, although the software disc label said it was included in the suite.

Did that, still didn't work. The Sharpie, lying insolently on my desk, silently mocked me. With nothing to lose, I checked out the Lightscribe site, and lo and behold, there was a free label designer. I downloaded that, spun it up and was printing my first disc in a matter of minutes.

Yes, I have to turn the disc over to print the labels, and yes, they take a while. So I get one started and go do something else, and when I come back it's time to insert another. As long as you're not in a hurry, it's kind of Zen.

I'm with you on the permanent marker.

Anyway, I have discovered a really simple rule for deciding what software to install on my (Linux) PCs: If the vendor won't show me the Source Code, I won't install it. I'd rather miss out on a bit of functionality than be held to ransom by some proprietary vendor.

The machine (DVD/CD reader/writer) came with a disk with software. So I put the disk in the drive and picked "install."

Well, there's your problem. Never, ever, ever install the crappy software that comes with the device. It's worse than installing random crap off porn sites. No, I'm not exaggerating.

As for the whole "boot under adverse conditions" thing - am I the only person still armed with a trusty box of floppies for that purpose? You can have my DOS tools when you pry them from my cold, dead hands. (Or when the discs degrade to the point of unreadability, I suppose... Whichever comes sooner.)

HP/Compaq is to be avoided.
Help centre offered me only abuse
I bought a v6000 in HongKong, omitted to get the vendor to "install" the vista (its on the HD, not a CD, so its an unpack not an install) Sadly my hotel power went off during install, Vista permanently choked. So I installed a bootleg Vista, which lacked the HP specifics, DVD burner etc.
HP "help" detected my bootleg, refused to help. HP email suggested a $130 DVD burner, and signed off saying they were glad to "solve" my problem

re: first comment

I wonder how badly the next os from microsoft will fall on its face when trying to find the driver for some hardware that has no published driver.

I commiserate with you for your bad experience, both with an HP CD/DVD burner, and installing the official bundled software. I have a HP Lightscribe CD/DVD burner in a HP Media Center, and it conked out one day mysteriously. HP was no help on fixing it, besides several complaints in the HP forums about the same issue and how unfixable it was. I was not amused. Never even attempted the Lightscribe features with it: Sharpies are the way to go. I get them in multiple colors and get all budget creative.

I prefer the Linux way of installing new software. However, regarding the first comment, you don't have to wait until Windows 7 for auto-download and install of new hardware drivers for Windows. Windows XP has had that feature for awhile, and it works in most cases. It's a good way to bypass the bundled software on the official install CD in many cases.

Did you bother to use the Custom install option? For if you did you wouldn't have had the entire Nero Suite installed, you would have had the ability to pick and choose, therefore not installing the things that your PC already has.

Just thought you might want to know!

Hi,

I think, there is lots of software available for Labeling on CD & DVD but still I confused which too choose as I got HP PC with Light Scribe Technology in too. I had never chance to do the labeling of CD & DVD till now. So After reading this article I would like go for it once to see the result of the technology. Thanks for sharing knowledge & reviews of it.

I have Nero 9 installed, (came with diy bundle form newegg) I use Lightscribe all the time. the actual lightscribe software is so your dvd drive can burn but you need a third party software to actually burn a label. I get "oohs and awes" all the time for my labels and you can use any image from the web to burn onto label as well as pics from any media. If ya spend the time to learn how to use it tits really worth it. Actually "burned label" is a lot more professional then printed stick on's imo!

Ultimate Pandas

grrlscientist — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:01:36 +0000

Ultimate Pandas

tags: Gerry Ellis, WoLong Nature Preserve, Ultimate Pandas, Giant panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca, nature filming, endangered species, DVD review

Everyone loves pandas, right? In fact, these lovable bears are the most recognizable icons worldwide for endangered species, even while remaining endangered themselves. But recently, China has made an effort to protect the giant pandas' native habitat and to establish several in situ captive breeding programs to bolster the dwindling numbers of wild giant pandas, as revealed in a charming new video, Ultimate Pandas, by nature photographer, Gerry Ellis.

This color DVD is an interesting and up-close glimpse into the lives of several different age groups of panda cubs that are hand-reared at the WoLong Nature Reserve in the mountainous Shichuan region of China. The film follows a day in the lives of panda cub, Xiao Lei Lei, and her human keepers and panda friends. It especially focuses on the younger cubs as they eat, climb, and roll around with each other, and the camera itself often ends up as the target of panda curiosity. The close proximity of the pandas to the camera gives you the feeling that you can reach out and actually touch their fur or their noses and provides interesting close looks at their teeth, faces and their remarkable feet.

bundled>The footage in this lively 93-minute DVD was shot on location during a four-year time period. The DVD includes 65 minutes of panda cub footage, five panda music videos by Juri Panda Jones (yes, that's her real name!) in Dolby Surround with sing-along subtitles that you can turn on or off, and 19 original panda paintings by Laurie Smith that are title screens that precede each part. Additionally, the DVD comes bundled with a truly adorable 10-inch plush toy that will delight panda fans and kids of all ages (plush toy not available through Amazon).

This DVD provides the viewer with four soundtrack choices: unscripted conversations between the photographer and either a group of younger children, older children or adults, and a narration-free version. These different soundtracks were recorded while the film was being screened by small audiences, so they are charming, spontaneous and surprisingly informative. I really enjoyed hearing the comments and the laughter of the different audiences inspired by the panda cub antics. My companion parrots especially enjoyed the narration-free panda experience since the endemic birdsongs and other nature sounds were reproduced with such high fidelity. Even though I am not particularly interested in sing-alongs, I was fascinated by "Panda Bear Hug," which is a sort of lullaby that features a female panda cuddling her tiny newborn baby. One thing I learned from watching the footage that accompanies this lullaby is that baby pandas have really long tails, and these tails remain the same length as the panda grows, so it gives the illusion that the tail is becoming progressively smaller when instead, it is the panda who is growing larger.

A casual observer might accidentally dismiss this DVD as mere fluff or as "cute overload", but it is more educational and valuable than that. This entertaining DVD provides a fair amount of basic information about panda biology while giving the viewer an appreciation for panda behavior by allowing us to simply watch them .. being pandas. These panda cubs are so playful and curious and roly-poly, it's hard to resist their charms, and the fact that they are running around in a wildlife preserve in the beautiful mountains of southwestern China where they are endemic makes this footage even more compelling. But the best part is knowing that 50% of the cost of each DVD is being donated directly to the WoLong Nature Preserve that was recently flattened by the earthquake in China. I highly recommend this delightful and informative DVD to families, as gifts for kids of all ages, as a popular addition to local public libraries' DVD collections and for panda lovers everywhere.

Gerry Ellis is an award-winning nature and wildlife photographer, author of dozens of books, and founder of the nonprofit organization, GLOBIO, which focuses on engaging children in cross-cultural communication and understanding about international pressures on worldwide biodiversity.

grrlscientist Tue, 06/17/2008 - 08:01

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Attenborough in Paradise

grrlscientist — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:25:42 +0000

Attenborough in Paradise

tags: Sir David Attenborough, Attenborough in Paradise, DVD review, BBC programming, nature filming, filmography

I've always enjoyed David Attenborough's nature programs and films when I've managed to see them on TV and now, thanks to several of my readers, I've been able to view nearly everything that Attenborough has available on DVD. But after watching the wonderful collection of films included in Attenborough in Paradise and Other Personal Adventures (BBC Worldwide; 2007), I have been transformed from a pleased watcher into an unabashed and enthusiastic admirer.

Attenborough in Paradise consists of seven programs on two DVDs with a total combined run time of approximately 374 minutes.

Disc One:
Attenborough in Paradise (1996) tells the story of how Attenborough finally realized his childhood dream to travel deep into the tropical jungles of New Guinea to watch different species of Birds of Paradise as they courted females more than one hundred feet above his head in the treetops. Part of his goals was to understand just how these birds use their spectacular plumage to impress females of their kind, and some of the footage captures several species for the first time ever on film. If you are a professor of ornithology, a birder or a fan of the birds of New Guinea, this program alone is worth the price of the DVD.

A Blank on the Map (1971) follows a much younger Attenborough as he walks into the mountainous interior of central New Guinea, into an area that has never before been seen or mapped by white men, to find a "lost tribe" of native peoples. He accompanies Australian cartographer and explorer, Laurie Bragg, and approximately 100 porters, and amazingly, they finally find the mysterious Biami, a tribe of headhunters who had never before seen white explorers from the modern world. Even though the film not "modern" (it was filmed in 1969 and 1970, after all), if you are a fan of "lost tribes" or of New Guineaen peoples, this is worth the price of the DVD alone.

The Lost Gods of Easter Island (2000) is a very compelling story that starts out innocently enough: ten years earlier, Attenborough had purchased at auction a peculiar elongated human figurine carved out of wood and he wanted to discover its origins. His quest takes us behind-the-scenes at museums in several countries and to Easter Island as we learn about the exploration and colonization of Easter Island. Attenborough's search provides his audience (you and me) with an understanding of ancient Polynesian beliefs as revealed by the identity, purpose, and symbolic significance of the carved artifact that prompted his quest. If you love history, art history or art, especially native peoples' carvings, then you will want this program in your collection. Not only that, but it is a superb example of storytelling.

Disc Two:
Bowerbirds: The Act of Seduction (2000) is another must-have for birders because of the peculiar and unique reproductive behavior of Bowerbirds: this entire family of birds creates beautiful works of art to attract females. This program, which has captured all species of Bowerbirds on film, was filmed in the Australian outback (and sometimes on military training grounds and in schoolyards) and in the jungles of New Guinea. Attenborough also captures the birds' behaviors after rearranging some of their objects d' art or by adding objects where they are not wanted. This program would make an especially valuable addition to an ornithology teaching library.

The Song of The Earth (2000) asks is music a phenomenon that had its origins in our ancient ancestors before they evolved into humans? In this program, not only do we learn that Attenborough plays the piano, but we also learn about the evolutionary history and purpose of music in the natural world. In this film, Attenborough examines birdsong and humpback whale song (and shows us some especially wonderful footage of singing whales) and reveals that human music is probably due to our own evolutionary background where it increased survival and was used for territorial defense and mate attraction. This program will especially appeal to musicians.

Life on Air (2002) If you've never known much about Attenborough before, then this is definitely worth watching. This program is an interesting and humorous tribute to Attenborough's 50-year career in broadcasting, hosted by Michael Palin, of Monty Python fame. In this program, you will learn about Attenborough's unexpected rise from his beginnings as a college graduate in Zoology in 1952 to the BBC programming director responsible for much of the BBC's finest TV productions. This program includes fascinating interviews and archival film clips, and pokes good-natured fun at Attenborough's low key presentation style. I was especially charmed by Attenborough's quizzing of Palin as to the identity of personal artifacts as they wandered through Attenborough's house.

The Amber Time Machine (1994) focuses on a piece of amber that was given to Attenborough as a child by another child who was housed by Attenborough's family during World War II. This program features an in-depth study of amber's unique ability to preserve prehistoric insects, tree leaves, and even lizards from tens of millions of years ago. He also interviews scientists who debunk the premise of Jurassic Park (which his older brother, actor Richard Attenborough, starred in as the scientist and the park's inventor) because ancient DNA from amber is too fragmented to allow recreation of extinct species via genetic engineering. Despite this, animals and plants are so perfectly preserved in amber that scientists can still learn a great deal about morphology and behavior through careful observation.

This is wonderful collection of films will appeal to all Attenborough fans (and if you aren't an Attenborough fan, this collection will make you into one), it will be greatly loved by all kids (and by kids who look like adults), as well as making a wonderful addition to all birders' and naturalists' DVD libraries. Further, this collection must also be included in teaching collections for universities and colleges. Highly recommended.

Sir David Attenborough's long and distinguished career in broadcasting began in 1952 and spans more than 50 years. In 1965, he became Controller of BBC2 and was responsible for the introduction of color television into Britain. Then in 1969, he was appointed Director of Programs with editorial responsibility for both of the BBC's television networks. But, in 1973, he resigned to return to making more programs, adding to his already extensive filmography, claiming "I haven't even seen the Galapagos Islands". In 1985, Sir David was knighted, and was given the Order of Merit in 2005. Over the years he has received honorary degrees and a number of prestigious awards including Fellowship of The Royal Society. He is a Trustee of the British Museum, and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and President of the Royal Society for Nature Conservation.

grrlscientist Mon, 01/14/2008 - 10:25

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