World's Fastest Camera: Six Million+ Frames Per Second

World’s fastest camera - Nature

The camera technique, known as serial time-encoded amplified microscopy (STEAM), can take an image every 163 nanoseconds — a rate roughly six times as fast as the best digital video cameras on the market. Although its current resolution is only about 2,500 pixels, that can probably be improved, says Keisuke Goda, a researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, and one of the authors on the paper, which appears today in Nature.

A nanosecond is one billionth of a second, so one frame every 163 nanoseconds equals about 6,134,969 frames per second.  Fast.  Amazingly, the camera was built with off-the-shelf parts from the fiber optics industry, according to the article.


The referenced article claims such a camera could be helpful in the study of combustion, laser cutting and “any system that changes quickly and unpredictably.”  I read “combustion” as explosions, which sounds more exciting.

I am reminded of some very high-speed exposures shot by multiple Rapatronic cameras during atomic bomb testing in the 1950s.  Groups of these cameras were pointed at the detonation site and each took a single photo with exposure times as short as 10 nanoseconds.  The pictures are awesome and spooky.

House Hunting Zen: Zillow iPhone 3G App

Zillow iPhone App: Using GPS to Compare Home Prices - Mashable

Zillow for the iPhone is a free application that ports a surprising amount of the functionality and information from Zillow.com. When GPS location is used, the app will pull up a map view of the area showing nearby homes with housing prices and icons to indicate the status of the house; just as it works on the Zillow website, red means the home is for sale, yellow is recently sold, and blue is “make me move,” or the price at which someone would consider moving.

Zillow has become my standard, go-to website for home information, delivering price estimates, “last sale” amounts, property tax costs, school information and further links to deeper data if the respective home is for sale.  The Zillow iPhone app (direct link to iTunes App Store) delivers most of this in a simple and easy-to-use program.

Zillow’s home price estimate, the Zestimate, has received some criticism, but Zillow provides the following disclaimer:

The Zestimate (pronounced ZEST-ti-met, rhymes with estimate) home valuation is Zillow’s estimated market value, computed using a proprietary formula. It is not an appraisal. It is a starting point in determining a home’s value. The Zestimate is pulled from data; your real estate agent or appraiser physically inspects the home and takes special features, location, and market conditions into account. Variations in price also occur because of negotiating factors, closing costs, and timing of closing.

Zillow does allow for a home owner to provide more information, which may affect the Zestimate, and such adjustments can be made public on the respective home’s Zillow page.

I’ve spent some time with this app and I highly recommend it, especially considering its price — free.

Optical Invisibility Cloak A Reality

Carpet Cloaks Bring Invisibility to the Optical World - Technology Review

Images from the Berkeley Group’s Paper: arXiv:0904.3602v1

Now Michal Lipson and pals at Cornell University, and Xiang Zhang and buddies at UC Berkeley, say that they have both built cloaks that are essentially mirrors with a tiny bump in which an object can hide. The cloaking occurs because the mirrors look entirely flat. The bump is hidden by a pattern of tiny silicon nanopillars on the mirror surface that steers reflected light in a way that makes any bump look flat. So anything can be hidden beneath the bump without an observer realizing that it is there, like hiding a small object under a thick carpet.

One method of making something optically invisible is to bend light around the subject to be cloaked so that an observer sees only what is behind the subject, but not the subject itself.  That’s basically what the Cornell and Berkeley folks did — let’s call this method natural cloaking.

According to the article, the Cornell and Berkeley groups both came up with the same cloaking solution because their respective research was based on a concept elucidated by John Pendry and his colleague at Imperial College in London.  Pendry’s idea relies on a sheet of material or carpet that would look flat even if something was placed under it, just as the Cornell (paper) and Berkeley (paper) groups have demonstrated.

Instead of trying to bend light around a subject, what if light was simply captured on one side of a subject and displayed on the surface of the other side of the subject — no bending required?  Consider this method synthetic cloaking.

Synthetic cloaking best describes adaptive camouflage.  Some folks at Tokyo University have been working on this (see below image), as well as the rocket scientists at NASA, but with NASA’s concepts focused on space and military applications.

The synthetic invisibility cloak in the above photo relies on a camera to capture the background and requires the projection of the imagery onto a white raincoat-like wearable screen.  The rapid development of flexible displays and E Ink will soon likely allow for a comfortable full display suit (PDF link).  The micro-cams needed to capture the background imagery are already plentiful and relatively inexpensive.  All of the elements of a self-contained maker synthetic optical invisibility cloak are either available off-the-shelf or soon will be, and these technologies will continue to improve.

Will the natural cloaking concept demonstrated by the folks at Cornell and Berkeley soon be practically applied or will the already existing, and tried, synthetic methods of optical cloaking advance to a state which delivers convincing, high resolution invisibility?

Will the oft heard phrase “Can you hear me now?” soon be replaced by “Can you see me now?”  I bet it will.

Quick Takes 04.29.2009

• Dietary fats trigger long-term memory formation - U. C. Irvine via EurekAlert!

“OEA is part of the molecular glue that makes memories stick,” Piomelli said. “By helping mammals remember where and when they have eaten a fatty meal, OEA’s memory-enhancing activity seems to have been an important evolutionary tool for early humans and other mammals.”

Dietary fats are important for overall health, helping with the absorption of vitamins and the protection of vital organs. While the human diet is now rich in fats, this was not the case for early humans. In fact, fat-rich foods in nature are quite rare.

• Honda Insight - Let It Shine - Vimeo via Daring Fireball

The desert hosts an unexpected light show in the latest Insight Hybrid television commercial created by Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam for Honda Motor Europe.

• Singularity 101 with Vernor Vinge - h+ Magazine via Boing Boing

The contemporary notion of the Singularity got started with legendary SF writer Vernor Vinge, whose 1981 novella True Names pictured a society on the verge of this “event.” In a 1993 essay, “The Coming Technological Singularity,” Vinge made his vision clear, writing that “within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.”

• We owe it all to comets - Tel Aviv University via EurekAlert!

While investigating the chemical make-up of comets, Prof. Akiva Bar-Nun of the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences at Tel Aviv University found they were the source of missing ingredients needed for life in Earth’s ancient primordial soup. “When comets slammed into the Earth through the atmosphere about four billion years ago, they delivered a payload of organic materials to the young Earth, adding materials that combined with Earth’s own large reservoir of organics and led to the emergence of life,” says Prof. Bar-Nun.

• Does DNA Have Telepathic Properties? - The Daily Galaxy

Scientists are reporting evidence that contrary to our current beliefs about what is possible, intact double-stranded DNA has the “amazing” ability to recognize similarities in other DNA strands from a distance. Somehow they are able to identify one another, and the tiny bits of genetic material tend to congregate with similar DNA. The recognition of similar sequences in DNA’s chemical subunits, occurs in a way unrecognized by science. There is no known reason why the DNA is able to combine the way it does, and from a current theoretical standpoint this feat should be chemically impossible.

My emphasis in bold added to the above entries.

Animal Adjectives That End In "-ine"

Some Animal Adjectives ending in “-ine” - Wordquests

The suffix Greek > Latin: -ine is used to form hundreds of words that mean “similar to”, “resembling”, “like”, “characterized by”, or “of the nature of”.

With swine flu making headlines, I began to think about the other potential animal-based flus; equine, bovine and perhaps phocine, among others. This line of thought serendipitously led to one of my favorite word classes; animal adjectives with the suffix “-ine.”

Proboscine is obvious enough and sylvine is simply poetic. At first glance herpestine and castorine seem to betray their respective subjects and rhombomine begs a new look at a common critter.

In addition to the “-ine” names I’ve noted above, here’s a partial list of some of my favorites, taken from the referenced page:

Asinine: Donkey
Bubaline: Buffalo
Cricetine: Hamster
Cyprine: Carp
Delphinine: Dolphin
Garruline: Magpies
Hippocampine: Seahorse
Hirudine: Leech
Lampyrine: Fire-fly
Lumbricine: Earthworm
Mephitine: Skunk
Mimine: Mockingbird
Rucerine: Indian Swamp Deer
Tolypeutine: Armadillo
Turdine: Bluebirds and Robins

Animal collectives is another — do you know what animals compose a drove, battery or business?

FYI, a collective of swine is known as a drift, drove or sounder.

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In addition to the cited reference, some words were also referenced from here.

GRB 090423: Most Distant Object Ever Observed

Tng caught the farthest GRB observed ever - TNG

A team of international astronomers led by Swift Italian Team and CIBO, using the AMICI prism with the Italian Telescopio Nazionale Galileo, was able to compute its (GRB 090423’s) redshift at about 8.1, corresponding to a distance of more than 80 Gpc, when the universe was only slightly more than 600 million years old.

GRB stands for “Gamma-Ray Burst,” and according to the article the GRB shown above was first detected by NASA’s Swift satellite, which is designed to see such bursts.  NASA has the specific data on GRB 090423 here.

The referenced article states that GRB 090432 represents an object that existed just 600 million years after the Big Bang, making it the most distant object ever observed.  NASA pegs the age of the universe at “13.7 ± 0.13 billon years.”

According to New Scientist, GRB 090423 is (was!) approximately 13.1 billion light years from Earth.

Photocartography Via Geotagged Flickr Images

Flickr users make accidental maps - New Scientist

Image by David Crandall

Billions of photos have now been uploaded to the internet, and many are tagged with text descriptions. Some are even geotagged – stamped with the latitude and longitude coordinates at which the image was taken. David Crandall and colleagues at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, analysed the data attached to 35 million photographs uploaded to the Flickr website to create accurate global and city maps and identify popular snapping sites.

What’s remarkable is that the maps themselves were created by the locations from which the pictures were taken - each point represents a geotagged photo-spot and the collective points indicate and define popular landmarks, the coastlines and even well traveled roadways.

A similar map based on the locations of personal videos and video cams could also probably be created which would allow for a master composite “film” showing large swaths of the populated world in moving pictures.

Finally, the grand human archive will not be complete until at least one person’s entire life, every second, is documented in sound and video.

David Crandall’s project is a great start towards meaningfully weaving together the vast numbers of location-specific photographic content created everyday.

Southern Stonehenge: The Georgia Guidestones

American Stonehenge: Monumental Instructions for the Post-Apocalypse - Wired

Photo released under the GNU Free Documentation License.

The strangest monument in America looms over a barren knoll in northeastern Georgia. Five massive slabs of polished granite rise out of the earth in a star pattern. The rocks are each 16 feet tall, with four of them weighing more than 20 tons apiece. Together they support a 25,000-pound capstone. Approaching the edifice, it’s hard not to think immediately of England’s Stonehenge or possibly the ominous monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Built in 1980, these pale gray rocks are quietly awaiting the end of the world as we know it.

Fascinating story about a group of celestially aligned monolithic stones with a message etched in granite for future apocalypse survivors.  The message, presented in eight languages, suggests that 500 million people is the optimum population for a sustainable new world, among other presumably helpful tips.

Library of Congress Photostream at Flickr

Library of Congress Photostream at Flickr - Flickr

Abraham Lincoln as presidential candidate, August 13, 1860.
Photo by Preston Butler.

Thought to be the last beardless portrait of Lincoln, this photo was “made for the portrait painter, John Henry Brown, noted for his miniatures in ivory. … ‘There are so many hard lines in his face,’ wrote Brown in his diary, ‘that it becomes a mask to the inner man. His true character only shines out when in an animated conversation, or when telling an amusing tale. … He is said to be a homely man; I do not think so.’” (Source: Ostendorf, p. 62)

The above photo is but one from an extensive collection of 6,053 images currently viewable in the Library of Congress photostream at Flickr.

Photochrom print, Tweed, Abbotsford, Scotland, ca. 1890-1900.

Be sure to also check out some of the beautiful color photochrom prints like the one above.  The images are stunning and the process itself is an art.

A litho stone was coated with a thin layer of purified bitumen dissolved in benzene. A reversed half-tone negative was then pressed against this light-sensitive coating and an exposure in daylight made (taking from 10-30 minutes in summer, to several hours in winter). The bitumen hardened and became resistant to normal solvents in proportion to the light. The coating was then washed in turpentine solutions, removing the unhardened bitumen. It was then retouched in the tonal scale of the chosen color to strengthen or soften the tones as required. Each tint needed a separate stone bearing the appropriate retouched image, and prints were usually produced by at least six, and more commonly from 10 to 15 tint stones.

This incredible collection is a must see for any history or photography buff.  Enjoy.

Hubble's Birthday Image

Hubble Celebrates Its 19th Anniversary with a “Fountain of Youth”- HubbleSite

Photo Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

To commemorate the Hubble Space Telescope’s 19 years of historic, trailblazing science, the orbiting telescope has photographed a peculiar system of galaxies known as Arp 194. This interacting group contains several galaxies, along with a “cosmic fountain” of stars, gas, and dust that stretches over 100,000 light-years.

The above image is also available in high resolution from HubbleSite.

It’s hard to pin down a proper birthday for the Hubble Space Telescope (“HST”).  The HST was originally funded in the 70s, built in the 70s and 80s and launched aboard Space Shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990 and was actually deployed into space on April 25.

Initially the HST was portrayed as a failure by the popular media because its main mirror was flawed, but the mirror was corrected in December of 1990 and redemption came in the form of  fresh, sharp images.  It should be noted that the HST is the first space telescope designed to be serviced by astronauts.

“Before and After” images of Galaxy M100.  Source: NASA

My two favorite Hubble images have always been the famous Deep Field shot from 1996 and the breathtaking “Pillars of Creation” pictures of Eagle Nebula captured in November of 2004.

Happy Birthday Hubble and thanks for the unforgettable memories.

Quick Takes 04.25.2009

• Hoping Mezcal Can Turn the Worm - New York Times

Most tequila is made by big companies with marketing budgets that have helped send its sales soaring. Fine mezcals, with a sliver of the market, are still made by Oaxacan villagers in virtual backyard operations.

• Satellite watching with GoSatWatch for iPhone - TUAW

If you’re going to try to watch a satellite pass, it helps to know when the shiniest spacecraft are going to be zooming overhead. Amateur radio enthusiasts who want to make AMSAT or ARISS contacts need the same information. There’s a cool new iPhone app called GoSatWatch (US$9.99, click opens iTunes) that makes looking for earth-orbiting spacecraft a piece of cake.

• Good relationship with parents may prevent teen drinking problems - EurekAlert!

But a closer look at the data revealed the importance of parents’ influence. In fact, only teenagers who reported both a later drinking age and a high-quality relationship with their parents had a lower risk of drinking problems compared with their peers.

• Ah, Texas: Get Arrested, Have Your Mugshot and Indiscretions Blasted All Over Twitter - Gizmodo

If you get arrested in Denton, Texas, your surely precious mugshot will be splayed all over Twitter, along with your age and crime.

• Self-healing Concrete For Safer, More Durable Infrastructure - Science Daily

A concrete material developed at the University of Michigan can heal itself when it cracks. No human intervention is necessary—just water and carbon dioxide.

Ruppy The Fluorescent Transgenic Puppy

Fluorescent puppy is world’s first transgenic dog - New Scientist

Ruppy under ultraviolet light - photo by Byeong Chun Lee.

A cloned beagle named Ruppy – short for Ruby Puppy – is the world’s first transgenic dog. She and four other beagles all produce a fluorescent protein that glows red under ultraviolet light.

A team led by Byeong-Chun Lee of Seoul National University in South Korea created the dogs by cloning fibroblast cells that express a red fluorescent gene produced by sea anemones.

Ruppy, a clone, carries the fluorescent gene from a sea anemone and comes from the same team who brought us the world’s first cloned dog, Snuppy, in 2005.

Transgenic simply means that an organism is carrying and expressing some genetic material from another species.  Ruppy is a proof of concept experiment showing that a transgenic dog is possible.  It is thought that dogs can be created with added human genetic material so that they can be used as a model for the understanding and possible treatment of human disease, i.e. experiments can be performed on dogs with some human genes instead of experimenting on humans.

Glowing fish, originally created to fluoresce in the presence of polluted water, are available for purchase under the brand GloFish®.  But don’t expect to buy a GloDog® anytime soon; according to the article, the process of creating pups like Ruppy is tedious and expensive.

Twitter Mainstreaming

Numbers Can’t Begin to Describe Twitter’s Impact - Wired

You had to see this coming, what with @Oprah (Winfrey) discovering it and Ashton “@aplusk” Kutscher [sic] challenging CNN to a duel over who’d reach a million followers first, but Twitter had explosive growth in March. It more than doubled U.S. visitors alone to 9.3 million (19 million worldwide, Techcrunch says), making Twitter the fastest-growing site last month, according to Comscore.

…

Cooks are publishing recipes 140 characters at a time, and ferries telegraph their comings and goings, and scientists use it to send telepathic messages, and guilt-ridden souls confess anonymously, and audiophiles turn it into a music discovery engine, and politicians are announcing their candidacies and even tweeting from the House floor.

If you haven’t joined Twitter yet, you should consider joining.  It is much more than folks posting their most pedestrian activities, although such posts can be interesting from friends or family.  I previously wrote a brief primer “For Those About To Tweet” aimed at first time users, so check that out and sign-up today.

Shakespeare and Planck

Today is the generally accepted birthday of the prolific English bard William Shakespeare and the known birthday of the legendary German physicist Max Planck.

While Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest English language writer, Planck is revered as the father of quantum theory.

"To be and not to be," that is the mash-up quote of the day.

On This Day In History: Light Exposed

April 23, 1827: Shedding a Ray of Light on Rays of Light - Wired

1827: Mathematics student William Rowan Hamilton presents his “Theory of Systems of Rays” at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin. The paper lays the foundation of modern optics, and it’s only the first act in a distinguished career.

…

This “Hamilton principal function” used mathematics to apply a single system for optics and mechanics. It led to the development of the wave theory of light and the electromagnetic spectrum, and it underlies quantum mechanics.

Hamilton’s landmark “Theory of Systems of Rays” paper, and his other papers published in his lifetime, can be found at the following page in various formats.

Retweets: Rube Goldberg Machine

Posted 11:41 PM, 04.22.2009 • Skitch capture of Tweetie window.

Bruce Sterling retweet of Allen Varney’s tweet pointing to whole-house Rube Goldberg machine - see the video.

Yes, a good one.

Earth From Four Billion Miles Away

Earth from four billion miles away, taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft on July 6, 1990

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

…

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

…

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

The above paragraphs were selectively extracted from Carl Sagan’s book Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space.

Earth Day: Voluntary Extinction Or Pave The Earth?

• The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement - VHEMT

We don’t carry on about how the human race has shown itself to be a greedy, amoral parasite on the once-healthy face of this planet. That type of negativity offers no solution to the inexorable horrors which human activity is causing.

…

When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth’s biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory, and all remaining creatures will be free to live, die, evolve (if they believe in evolution), and will perhaps pass away, as so many of Nature’s “experiments” have done throughout the eons.

• Exploit the Earth or die - The Objective Standard

Exploit the Earth or die. It’s not a threat. It’s a fact. Either man takes the Earth’s raw materials—such as trees, petroleum, aluminum, and atoms—and transforms them into the requirements of his life, or he dies. To live, man must produce the goods on which his life depends; he must produce homes, automobiles, computers, electricity, and the like; he must seize nature and use it to his advantage. There is no escaping this fact. Even the allegedly “noble” savage must pick or perish. Indeed, even if a person produces nothing, insofar as he remains alive he indirectly exploits the Earth by parasitically surviving off the exploitative efforts of others.

May your Earth Day festivities be constructive and considerate whatever philosophy you may follow.

Pictures Of You: Internet Immortality

Facebook: A Virtual Bookmark In Time - Discover Magazine

David lives on in the hearts and memories of those he touched. He also still lives on the internet. Facebook continues to alert me about his birthday and his photo often appears on the left side of my screen. His profile remains static–aside from an occasional wall message–while I’ve aged three years and changed a great deal.

…

For centuries, people have pieced together the past through art, oral tradition, yellowing photographs, and fading print. In my own family, much of the story has been lost. Today, social networking sites allow us to leave deeper footprints behind.

While many of us on various social networks may not realize it, we are writing our own rich, multimedia diaries which will likely persist long after we perish.

Drunk Folks Good At Age Guessing, Not "Pretty" Guessing

Barely legal — new study into whether alcohol affects perceptions of age - EurekAlert!

The study found:

• Attractiveness ratings of minors (immature faces) were not affected by alcohol or make-up compared to more mature faces.

• Both men and women found minors (immature faces) more attractive than sexually mature faces

• Alcohol had a ‘significant’ impact on making older faces with lots of make-up appear more attractive

• Alcohol had no effect on how old men thought women were

• Make-up influenced attractiveness levels when viewers had consumed alcohol –especially if the faces were sexually mature

This study from University of Leicester is important because it may help diminish the defense that alcohol plays a role in sex with minors cases.  It is also interesting for anyone who has ever judged someone’s physical appearance after a drink or five.

Cold Fusion Warms Up

‘60 Minutes’ video: Cold fusion is hot again - CNET

“We can yield the power of nuclear physics on a tabletop. The potential is unlimited. That is the most powerful energy source known to man,” researcher Michael McKubre told “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley. (My emphasis added in bold.)

Twenty years ago, prominent scientists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons suffered ridicule and derision regarding their failed claim of cold fusion. New evidence suggests they may have been right.

The referenced article from CNET provides video of the 60 Minutes story of how researcher Michael McKubre, working at the respected SRI International laboratories, has apparently repeatedly demonstrated that a relatively simple experiment creates more energy than it consumes.

60 Minutes enlisted the help of Rob Duncan, vice chancellor of research at the University of Missouri, by way of a recommendation from the “the top physics organization in America,” the American Physical Society, to study and comment on McKubre’s claims.

He (Duncan) crunched the numbers himself and searched for an explanation other than a nuclear effect. “I found that the work done was carefully done, and that the excess heat, as I see it now, is quite real,” Duncan said. (My emphasis added in bold.)

And Duncan isn’t the only one who thinks McKubre’s findings appear legitimate.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as DARPA, did its own analysis and 60 Minutes obtained an internal memo that concludes there is “no doubt that anomalous excess heat is produced in these experiments.” (My emphasis added in bold.)

Additionally, at least twenty independent laboratories around the world have also reported energy output greater, some as much as twenty-five times greater, than the energy needed to power the process, according to the article.

But skeptics remain.

“I’m still waiting for the water heaters. I’m still waiting for the thing that will produce heat on demand,” Richard Garwin, one of the most respected physicists in the world, told Pelley.

Garwin believes all of the experiments are improperly measuring the energy input, thus creating the illusion that a net amount of energy is being produced.

I highly recommend that you click-through and watch the 60 Minutes video.  While this story is being sparsely reported across various media, it may not be receiving as much coverage as it deserves because of the aftermath of Fleischmann and Pon’s original press conference twenty years ago.

Fleischmann and Pon’s redemption may come at the hands of Michael McKubre and from all the scientists who claim to have verified their seminal works.  Such redemption would be sweet, indeed, but the implications of this redemption would certainly forever change the world.

Hawking Improving

Hawking Update: Condition Improved - Universe Today

Physicist/mathematician Stephen Hawking has improved after spending the night at a hospital near his home in Cambridge, England, and the 67-year-old’s condition was described as “comfortable.” Hawking’s first wife, Jane, was quoted that she believed his illness was no longer life-threatening.

Excellent news.

Physicist Stephen Hawking "Very Ill"

Physicist Stephen Hawking hospitalized, “very ill” - Scientific American

Stephen Hawking, the physicist who brought cosmology to the masses with the best-seller A Brief History of Time, is “very ill” and has been taken to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, England, according to the University of Cambridge. Hawking is a professor in the university’s department of applied mathematics and theoretical physics.

According to the referenced article, Hawking was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, 45 years ago.  SciAm also refers to the following page from the National Institute of Health regarding the survivability times of ALS.

Most people with ALS die from respiratory failure, usually within 3 to 5 years from the onset of symptoms. However, about 10 percent of those individuals with ALS survive for 10 or more years.

While Hawking’s intellect is widely celebrated, his determination and spirit is equally inspiring.

Due to overwhelming traffic, Hawking’s personal website has been simplified in order to keep the server up and running - here is part of the short message posted:

Professor Hawking is comfortable, but will be spending the night in hospital. The Cambridge University Press Office have a statement to this effect, and do not expect to have any further updates until mid-morning tomorrow.

Hawking’s page at the University of Cambridge offers a “brief history” of his many accolades and accomplishments.

Get well and keep fighting, Professor Hawking.

The Whole Internet Archive In A Box

Wayback Machine - Internet Archive

Browse through 85 billion web pages archived from 1996 to a few months ago. To start surfing the Wayback, type in the web address of a site or page where you would like to start, and press enter. Then select from the archived dates available. The resulting pages point to other archived pages at as close a date as possible.

The Wayback Machine allows one to take a look at the history of any website that’s been around for about a 100 days or more.

The Wayback Machine is a product of The Internet Archive organization (“IA”), which currently houses about two petabytes of compressed data and is growing at about one petabyte a year (see IA PDF from Sun).  The Wayback Machine contains a growing library of 150 billion web pages and is accessed about 500 times a second.  A “mirror” site, which stores an identical copy of the Wayback Machine’s archives, is kept at the New Library of Alexandria in Egypt.  Since history often repeats, it’s good to have more than one copy.

In addition to the Web, The IA keeps back-ups of 169,320 movies, 63,341 live concerts, 327,753 audio recordings and 1,327,481 texts - these collections continue to increase in size, of course.

The impressive man behind the IA, Brewster Kahle, spoke at TED in 2007 and expressed his vision of making all of the world’s knowledge reliably and widely available to all of the world’s citizens at no charge.  To that end, the IA has migrated from a large array of common desktop computers to the Sun Modular Datacenter platform.  The SunMD employed by the IA is an “Internet in a box” as the entire archiving apparatus fits in one standard-sized shipping container.

eWeek offers some great pictures of the unveiling ceremony and information on the IA’s SunMD.

The Internet Archive, one of the fastest-growing digital libraries in the world, has migrated its massive amount of content into a new Sun Microsystems-built portable data center loaded with 60 Sun X4500 Thumper arrays that each have 48TB of storage capacity. Sun staged a launch event at its Santa Clara, Calif., headquarters on March 25.

“It’s amazing to think that the whole Web collection, which is about 2PB compressed and from 4PB to 5PB uncompressed, can live in a 20-foot-by-8-foot-by-8-foot shipping container, which, from our standpoint, is a computer,” Brewster Kahle, digital librarian and founder of the Internet Archive, told eWEEK.

Because of the modular, self-contained nature of the SunMD, additional SunMDs can be added as the Internet grows.

The Internet Archive’s database is the ultimate zeitgeist.  The storage and free distribution of all network based content is, perhaps, one of the most important endeavors ever undertaken by humans.  But unlike the ancient Library of Alexandria, where only the relative handful of works and writings by the most learned intellectuals were housed, the IA captures and stores most everything on the Web and much of the Net, from highly sophisticated papers written by the most respected scientists to mundane 140 character Tweets spouted out by regular folks.

While somewhat embarrassing to admit, a 1996 version of a website I authored still lives. Let this be a warning that one’s offerings via the Web will most certainly survive one’s self.

Quick Takes 04.17.2009

• Are we organisms or living ecosystems? - SEED

As soon as we are born, bacteria move in. They stake claims in our digestive and respiratory tracts, our teeth, our skin. They establish increasingly complex communities, like a forest that gradually takes over a clearing. By the time we’re a few years old, these communities have matured, and we carry them with us, more or less, for our entire lives. Our bodies harbor 100 trillion bacterial cells, outnumbering our human cells 10 to one. It’s easy to ignore this astonishing fact. Bacteria are tiny in comparison to human cells; they contribute just a few pounds to our weight and remain invisible to us.

• Why snake oil cures sell - Ars Technica

Many alternative treatments, from homeopathy to a variety of herbal remedies, have been shown to be ineffective—yet they persist, and, in many cases, have become big business. To understand why failure can be successful, a group of researchers have put together a mathematical model that accounts for how treatment decisions spread. This has allowed them to show that ineffective treatments are often more successful in society than efficacious alternatives.

• String theory: A beginner’s guide - New Scientist

At its heart is the idea that the fundamental particles we observe are not point-like dots, but rather tiny strings that are so small that our best instruments cannot tell that they are not points.

It also predicts that there are extra dimensions to space beyond the obvious length, breadth and depth, but we do not experience them because they are bunched up in tiny spaces.

• Learn to Think Better: Tips from a Savant - Scientific American

Even if we cannot measure and assign precise values to it in any “scientific” way, I do very much think that intelligence exists and that it varies in the actions of each person. The concept is a useful and important one for scientists and educators alike. My objection is to thinking that any “test” of a person’s intelligence is up to the task. Rather we should focus on ensuring that the fundamentals (literacy, etcetera) are well taught and that each child’s diverse talents are encouraged and nourished.

• Leaf Trombone Is An Instant iPhone Classic - TechCrunch

When the iPhone App Store launched last year, a flood of ‘virtual’ music apps, ranging from pianos to drums hit the market. Most of these didn’t fare so well on the iPhone’s small screen, save for one fantastic standout: Smule’s Ocarina, which was perfectly suited for the iPhone and was fairly easy for beginners to pick up. The app became a massive success, and became one of the App Store’s most popular applications ever. Today, Smule has released Leaf Trombone: World Stage (iTunes Music Store link), a new virtual musical instrument that is better than Ocarina in nearly every way.

My emphasis in bold added to the above entries.

Google Maps Adds Live Cams

Google Maps Adds Live Cams - Google

Image from Google Maps captured with Skitch

Google has added a live camera layer to the already info-rich Google Maps site.  Cam aggregator Webcams.travel currently indexes over 9,000 live cameras each of which can be accessed from within Google Maps via the “More” menu - see above image.  Only a thumbnail image taken within the last fifteen minutes is shown on Google Maps, but clicking the image once brings up a larger image and a second click opens a live view at the Webcams.travel site.

Live webcam broadcasts are almost as old as the Web itself, with the first such cam serving a live stream of a coffee pot at the University of Cambridge computer lab.  This webcam was live from 1991 to 2001.

Large webcam aggregators, like EarthCam and the more focused TrafficLand, already exist, but Google’s ubiquity may transform this useful, existing application into a necessity.

It might also make everyone a “Big Brother.”

Kepler's First Image

Image from Kepler via NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech

First light for Kepler photometer - NASA

This image from NASA’s Kepler mission shows the telescope’s full field of view — an expansive star-rich patch of sky in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra stretching across 100 square degrees, or the equivalent of two side-by-side dips of the Big Dipper.

A cluster of stars, called NGC 6791, and a star with a known planet, called TrES-2, are outlined. The cluster is eight billion years old, and located 13,000 light-years from Earth.

I first wrote of the Kepler mission over a month ago, before her launch on March 6th, and now the first images are being received back on Earth.  Kepler’s 95 megapixel camera will be trained on the same patch of sky shown in the picture above for 3.5 years looking for slight changes in the brightness of stars.  These variations in brightness likely indicate the transit of a planetary body in front of the respective star.

According to NASA, around 4.5 million stars are in the region shown above.  Kepler will focus on only 100,000 candidate stars, selected based on their planet-bearing potential.  The next 3.5 years of Kepler’s observations should offer unprecedented context regarding our planetary home in the Universe.

Divert Asteroid, Save Earth

How to deflect asteroids and save the Earth - EurekAlert!

(David) French, a doctoral candidate in aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University, has determined a way to effectively divert asteroids and other threatening objects from impacting Earth by attaching a long tether and ballast to the incoming object. By attaching the ballast, French explains, “you change the object’s center of mass, effectively changing the object’s orbit and allowing it to pass by the Earth, rather than impacting it.”

If you doubt that the Earth is vulnerable to catastrophic asteroid impacts, you need look no further than the pitted surface of the Moon — if you believe the Moon exists.  There are over 500,000 impact craters greater than one kilometer in diameter and one crater which is over 340 kilometers in diameter on the Moon’s surface. Unlike the Moon, the Earth’s active atmosphere and the constant forces of erosion have smoothed over most historical impact sites.

It is thought that an asteroid of 200 meters in diameter strikes the Earth about once every 10,000 years and a giant rock of about 10 kilometers in diameter strikes every 100 million years.  Some scientists blame the extinction of dinosaurs on a significant impact about 65 million years ago.  So, it is a virtual certainty that Earth will be struck again.

To avert another such extinction event, French proposes attaching a very long, perhaps 1,000 to 100,000 kilometers in length, tether to the asteroid with something proportionately massive on the other end.  While this idea seems incredible, French thinks most of the others are too.

“They are all pretty far out. Other schemes include: a call for painting the asteroids in order to alter how light may influence their orbit; a plan that would guide a second asteroid into the threatening one; and of course, there are nukes. Nuclear weapons are an intriguing possibility, but have considerable political and technical obstacles. Would the rest of the world trust us to nuke an asteroid? Would we trust anyone else? And would the asteroid break into multiple asteroids, giving us more problems to solve?”

While this article doesn’t explain how a 1,000 to 100,000 kilometer tether would be constructed and what it would be made of, ribbons of super-strong carbon nanotubes, like those proposed in the construction of a space elevator, seem like the obvious candidates.  Because of the extraordinary properties of carbon nanotubes - very strong and excellent conductors — they are being developed for multiple applications, including power lines.  It is estimated that a space elevator may require a nanotube ribbon as long as 100,000 kilometers and power lines would be much shorter, of course.

Perhaps by the time a big rock heading for our Planet is detected, carbon nanotube cables can be pulled off the shelf, shuttled into space and attached to the subject asteroid.  But what ballast to attach to the other end of the tether?  There’s already a large man-made object in orbit which one day may serve its ultimate, unintended purpose.

Free Premium News From The WSJ Via iPhone

The Wall Street Journal: There’s a free app for that - CNET

Good news for news junkies and anyone who can still stomach reading about the stock market: The Wall Street Journal just took the wraps off an eponymous iPhone app, offering news, video, and even podcasts. Better still, there’s no charge for the app—or the content.

That’s right, premium paid content from the Wall Street Journal is available on iPhone for free via the WSJ app (link to iTunes App Store).  The referenced article also points out that both the New York Times and USA Today (both links to iTunes App Store) provide free access to their respective paid content via their own applications.

Perhaps this premium content access will help diminish what some claim is an Apple Tax on hardware from the Company.

The Long Now Foundation's 10,000 Year Clock

Photo of Prototype One by Rolfe Horn

About - Long Now

“When I was a child, people used to talk about what would happen by the year 2000. For the next thirty years they kept talking about what would happen by the year 2000, and now no one mentions a future date at all. The future has been shrinking by one year per year for my entire life. I think it is time for us to start a long-term project that gets people thinking past the mental barrier of an ever-shortening future. I would like to propose a large (think Stonehenge) mechanical clock, powered by seasonal temperature changes. It ticks once a year, bongs once a century, and the cuckoo comes out every millennium.” (My emphasis in bold.)

These words from Daniel Hillis, co-chairman of the board of the Long Now Foundation, best express the vision of the organization regardng its development of the 10,000 Year Clock.

“The idea of the Clock is to encourage long-term thinking, which is in short supply these days”, said Stewart Brand, president of the foundation. The monumental scale clock would be built inside spectacular white limestone cliffs at 10,000 feet elevation on the west side of the Snake mountain range. Most of the range is within the Great Basin National Park, which is America’s newest national park, established in 01986.

One should note the five digit convention for denoting years, which convention is required on any 10,000 year clock.

The Long Now Foundation uses five digit dates, the extra zero is to solve the deca-millennium bug which will come into effect in about 8,000 years.

I first read about the 10,000 Year Clock concept in a 1995 printed copy of Wired Magazine — I just found that original essay in Wired’s digital archives, with 90s-tech aesthetics that I prefer over the digital reprint on the Long Now website.  It is fascinating that Hillis, a pioneering architect of machines that now complete trillions of operations a second, is developing a monumental mechanical machine built with mostly bronze-age materials that will methodically tick once a year, in real-time, over 10,000 years.

From Hillis’ orginal Wired essay:

I think of the oak beams in the ceiling of College Hall at New College, Oxford. Last century, when the beams needed replacing, carpenters used oak trees that had been planted in 1386 when the dining hall was first built. The 14th-century builder had planted the trees in anticipation of the time, hundreds of years in the future, when the beams would need replacing. Did the carpenters plant new trees to replace the beams again a few hundred years from now?

The 10,000 Year Clock is one project of many that The Long Now Foundation’s board of luminaries, including Brand, Hillis, Brian Eno and Mitchell Kapor, among others, are doing to change the current perception of condensed time into an appreciation and awareness of vast, deep and long time.

It’s too early, and perhaps impolite, to point out that 10,000 years is but a brief, imperceptible blip on the 13,700,000,000 year great cosmic clock.

This story inspired by CNET’s article of 04.13.2009

Science Speak

Active optical clock - EurekAlert!

Up to date, all realize that optical clocks are based on the laser absorption spectroscopy. Thus the available laser with narrowest linewidth limits the linewidth of state-of-the-art optical clocks. However, experimental and theoretical results show that the thermal Johnson noise of cavity mirrors degrades the quantum limitation of Schawlow-Townes linewidth formula of good-cavity laser. (My emphasis added in bold.)

Admittedly, I read a lot of material above my knowledge level, but this particular snippet made me laugh.  Specifically the “all realize” introduction to a rather scientifically specialized paragraph.  The paper from Peking University is about using lasers instead of atoms in the construction of a very stable clock.

I mean no disrespect to the scientists at Peking University or the author of this writing, but it did remind me of one of my favorite plays on this science-speak.  Presenting Rockwell Automation’s Retro Encabulator:

266 Years Ago Today, Thomas Jefferson Was Born

Public Domain Portrait of Thomas Jefferson by Charles Willson Peale

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.

Concepts Over Procedures In Math Class

You do the math: Explaining basic concepts behind math problems improves children’s learning - EurekAlert!

“Teaching children the basic concept behind math problems was more useful than teaching children a procedure for solving the problems – these children gave better explanations and learned more,” Rittle-Johnson said. “This adds to a growing body of research illustrating the importance of teaching children concepts as well as having them practice solving problems.”

This is important research as it applies to encouraging schools to modify their math programs, but the findings are not surprising.  For years I’ve encouraged my young one to focus on the concepts.  Once the concept is understood, resolving the problem is mechanical and better suited for the wonderful machines humans have created.

Edit Your Memory, Install Bravery

The Messy Future of Memory-Editing Drugs - Wired

You can imagine someone modifying their memories of war to make them look less cowardly and more brave. Now they’ll think they’re a brave person. At that point, you end up with the interesting question of whether, in a crisis situation, they would now be brave. (My emphasis added in bold.)

The above quote comes from Oxford University neuroethicist Anders Sandberg and is excerpted from an interview at Wired.com regarding the messiness of a newly developed memory-editing drug.

If one simply believes one is brave, is one then actually brave? It is a profoundly interesting question.  An affirmative answer supports every self-actualization, self-help, positive mental attitude seminar and retreat conducted and every book ever written on the power of belief.  The Little Engine That Could moves from hypothesis to scientific theory.  The placebo effect is an existing proof that sometimes belief and perception are just as efficacious as strong medicine.

Music To The Eyes: Gorgeous Handmade Tube-Based Hi-Fi

Image from Electron Luv

Hi-Fi Vacuum Tube Atomic Age Audio, Amplifiers, Speakers, Horns - Electron Luv

Josh’s Design Philosophy to seek out the ultimate aesthetic/musical quality in audio In the pursuit of the best reproduction of recorded music, the audio world is populated with many outstanding products. ElectronLuv use the best sounding tubes, components, and circuits possible and builds the most creative looking chassis’ possible, as well as using vacuum tubes that look as good as they sound, and present them prominently and artfully.

A ‘no compromises’ and organized chaos approach to the circuit design and parts, together with a completely fresh and creative way to house them is the basic design goal. These amplifiers, preamplifiers, guitar amps, horns, (speakers) speaker drivers and turntables are designed and built from a standpoint of extensive listening… what does this sound like, what does that tube, choke or rectifier sound like. This results in an understanding of the sonic consequences of each and every part in the circuit, and the contribution that each component makes to the resulting tonal and musical reproduction.

I’m almost speechless.  After browsing Josh Stippich’s site, looking at the pictures and reading the text, I want to hear the sounds coming from this audio art. And yes, I did tag this article “sex.”

Via: Make

Mark Cuban's Open Source Venture Capital Plan

Dot-com billionaire Mark Cuban has come up with a concept to allow entrepreneurs to submit open source business plans to his site for his consideration, and for the taking of anyone else who sees a compelling idea. Cuban lays out a list of his requirements that must be met before he will consider any potential investment:

1. It can be an existing business or a start up.
2. It can not be a business that generates any revenue from advertising. Why ? Because I want this to be a business where you sell something and get paid for it. Thats the only way to get and stay profitable in such a short period of time.
3. It MUST BE CASH FLOW BREAK EVEN within 60 days
4. It must be profitable within 90 days.
5. Funding will be on a monthly basis. If you dont make your numbers, the funding stops
6. You must demonstrate as part of your plan that you sell your product or service for more than what it costs you to produce, fully encumbered
7. Everyone must work. The organization is completely flat. There are no employees reporting to managers. There is the founder/owners and everyone else
8.  You must post your business plan here, or you can post it on slideshare.com , scribd.com or google docs, all completely public for anyone to see and/or download
9. I make no promises that if your business is profitable, that I will invest more money. Once you get the initial funding you are on your own
10. I will make no promises that I will be available to offer help. If I want to , I will. If not, I wont.
11. If you do get money, it goes into a bank that I specify, and I have the ability to watch the funds flow and the opportunity to require that I cosign any outflows.
12. In your business plan , make sure to specify how much equity I will receive or how I will get a return on my money.
13. No mult-level marketing programs (added 2/10/09 1pm)

I like that Cuban writes his own blog, but I don’t always agree with what he says.  As an entrepreneur I know that Cuban’s requirements of breaking even within sixty days and being profitable within ninety days will be the greatest challenges for anyone who reveals their business plan to Cuban and the public.  Cuban states that the organization should be completely flat with no hierarchy, which seems irrelevant to me if all of Cuban’s other demands are met.  But, he has the money, so he can make the rules.  The most problematic issue is that Cuban says he will only fund on a month-to-month basis with no guarantee of additional funding after that first month, even if the new venture is profitable.  Perhaps for some folks a month’s worth of money is better than no money.  If the venture is profitable, it gets easier to raise money from more traditional and perhaps less capricious sources.

It seems that everything has been going open source these days; Software, virtual encyclopedias, furniture and now venture capital, but the concept is not new.  The Internet itself represents an excellent example of the open source philosophy; the software based frameworks and communication protocols of the Internet were built openly and collaboratively in the 1960s.

Whereas traditional methods of raising capital for business ventures and new ideas sometimes involve secrecy, Cuban’s approach is to let everyone see the idea. Cuban says that someone else may steal the idea and make it work, but this is ultimately good for everyone because a successful new business will make money, hire employees and bolster the economy.

You must post your business plan here on my blog where I expect other people can and will comment on it. I also expect that other people will steal the idea and use it elsewhere. That is the idea. Call this an open source funding environment.

If its a good idea and worth funding, we want it replicated elsewhere. The idea is not just to help you, but to figure out how to help the economy through hard work and ingenuity. If you come up with the idea and get funding, you have a head start. If you execute better than others, you could possibly make money at it.

Collectivism meets capitalism, in my opinion, and Cuban’s concept does not appear to be consistent with the the ideals of intellectual property ownership.  The foundation of any free market system is the ability of one to own an idea and have that ownership protected by law.  Without this protection, the market becomes a free-for-all and allows anyone to copy anything.  In this environment, the innovators quit innovating because their ideas have no value.  Imagine if the great inventors simply threw their ideas into the public domain for anyone to peruse; this might benefit the savvy, hard working folks who execute the ideas, but the inventor is left with nothing.  If the inventor gets nothing, then he is not motivated to invent and good ideas never find their way into the public domain — the concept defeats itself.  Free ideas are usually worth their cost and mundane ideas enjoy public exposure without much concern they will be stolen.

I would agree with Cuban that the great idea is just a start and that it is the hard work that separates the thinkers from the doers, but even the thinkers deserve some compensation for their ideas — if they are able to legally secure ownership of the ideas.

Despite my statements above, Cuban’s plan might work, but not as he may expect it to work.  Truly revolutionary ideas are so bizarre that the market itself will generally view them as absurd.  These kinds of ideas can be shared and publicized with no fear of them being stolen.  Howard Aiken’s quote says it best:

Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats.

The problem, in my opinion, is that these types of radical ideas do not break-even in sixty says and turn a profit the next month.  Patient money, persistent hard work and belief in the seemingly impossible are the elements of the most revered innovations.  If Cuban’s month-to-month seed capital can ignite even one such venture, then his idea will have been proven a success.  I wish him luck.

Remembering The Titanic

97 years ago today, the RMS Titanic set sail from Southampton, England on her fateful maiden voyage. Four days later she struck an iceberg and 1,517 perished.

Public Domain Image. Photo taken of RMS Titanic on April 5, 1912 at Southampton, England.

12 Second Video Tweets

Real Space Monkeys - OTDIH: May 28, 1959 on YouTube

12seconds is the best place online for video status updates. It’s a super easy way to share what you’re doing with your friends and family using short video clips. You can use your web cam or mobile phone. Show your friends where you are, share your thoughts, or tell them how you’re doing. We are building a video status platform that will help you keep up to date with your friends 12 seconds at a time.

12seconds.tv is not affiliated with Twitter, but calling the twelve second video clips tweets seems natural and generic, like Kleenex and Coke.  One can post one’s short 12second video clips to the Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and FriendFeed networks using this service, but the 12second folks have created their own Twitteresque social stream network around video clips, not short text messages.

I’ve noticed that most of my mature friends and elders are not interested in making videos of themselves and I wonder how they will react to the coming ubiquity of video phone services.  It will be the younger folks who quickly adopt and make services like 12seconds successful.  In the future this new generation will wax nostalgic about the old days when people just talked on phones and tweeted text.

I’ve set up my own channel at 12seconds.  While I enjoy communicating with my friends and family via text and voice, I think video is the next best thing to being there.

Update 07/19/2011: 12seconds closed its doors a while back, but they kindly provided all of us the videos we each respectively recorded there. I've placed all of mine on YouTube and here at Starnes Dot Com.