Technology – On The 8 Spot

January 8, 2010

rePost:: 50 Things we know now that we didn't know this time last year

This is a nice list of factoids. Read it at the linked site!!!!

If there was an award for best quote of the year, our money would be on Richard Fisher, the director of NASA‘s Heliophysics Division.
Fisher was interviewed in October by National Public Radio after NASA scientists discovered a mysterious ribbon of hydrogen around our solar system.
The layer, a sort of protective barrier called the heliosphere, shields us from harmful cosmic radiation. Its existence defies all expectations about what the edge of the solar system might look like.
Fisher’s response: “We thought we knew everything about everything, and it turned out that there were unknown unknowns.”
In other words: We don’t know what we don’t know until we know that we don’t know it.
Life is funny that way. You think you’ve got the world wrapped up in string, only to watch some bit of news come along to unravel your comprehension of how things work.
One thing we did expect: that 2009 would be full of strange and wonderful revelations.
via AT&T – 50 Things we know now that we didn’t know this time last year.

January 3, 2010

rePost::James Cameron Is The First Director To Have Two $1 Billion Films: Avatar Passes $1 Billion Worldwide in Just 17 Days | /Film

And what about yearly records? Transformers Revenge of the Fallen took 114 days to hit $402 million, becoming the highest grossing film of 2009 domestically. Avatar will surpass that figure in an estimated 20 days.
via James Cameron Is The First Director To Have Two $1 Billion Films: Avatar Passes $1 Billion Worldwide in Just 17 Days | /Film.

Is it wrong to feel comforted that Cameron beat Michael Bay’s Transformers Revenge of the Fallen?

August 13, 2009

Marginal Revolution: Timing

I thought this was a trick question and I first thought go backward because most people would think going forward means friday, but when I realized they are the same I was thinking whatever!

Timing
Let’s say a meeting, originally scheduled for Wednesday, has been moved forward two days. What is the new day of the meeting?
That’s a question from Mark Frauenfelder at Boing Boing. The answer says a lot about how you implicitly think about time.
If you think it’s Friday, you imagine time as something you move through. If you think it’s Monday, you think of time as something that passes by you.
According to this research, a bit sketchy it seems to me, Friday people tend to be angrier. FYI, I’m a Monday person (it took me some time to see the question could have another answer!).
via Marginal Revolution: Timing.

March 27, 2009

What's Playing: The Space Between by Dave Matthews Band

: Image via Wikipedia

You cannot quit me so quickly
There’s no hope in you for me
No corner you could squeeze me
But I got all the time for you, love

The Space Between
The tears we cry
Is the laughter keeps us coming back for more
The Space Between
The wicked lies we tell
And hope to keep safe from the pain

But will I hold you again?
These fickle, fuddled words confuse me
Like ‘Will it rain today?’
Waste the hours with talking, talking
These twisted games we’re playing

We’re strange allies
With warring hearts
What wild-eyed beast you be
The Space Between
The wicked lies we tell
And hope to keep safe from the pain

Will I hold you again?
Will I hold…

Look at us spinning out in
The madness of a roller coaster
You know you went off like a devil
In a church in the middle of a crowded room
All we can do, my love
Is hope we don’t take this ship down

The Space Between
Where you’re smiling high
Is where you’ll find me if I get to go
The Space Between
The bullets in our firefight
Is where I’ll be hiding, waiting for you
The rain that falls
Splash in your heart
Ran like sadness down the window into…
The Space Between
Our wicked lies
Is where we hope to keep safe from pain

Take my hand
‘Cause we’re walking out of here
Oh, right out of here
Love is all we need here

The Space Between
What’s wrong and right
Is where you’ll find me hiding, waiting for you
The Space Between
Your heart and mine
Is the space we’ll fill with time
The Space Between…

March 19, 2009

rePost: Best Teachers: Knowing and Doing: March 2009 Archives

I find myself sometimes pausing when I feel I am saying something that even I cannot do. I sometiomes think that staying quite is the most optimal course of action because I do not fancy being called a hypocrite , which I confess that I am often called. The thing is I have a simple heuristic when to shut-up and when to bring it. I state my case whenever I believe that the person can still change his/her mind or to be more exact if I believe the words from a hypocritical me can still change his/her mind, otherwise I shut-up.
Read the whole thing it’s short and at least for me a little poignant!

Through all my years in school, my best teachers jumped into the pool all the time and came up laughing and snorting with water up their noses. They wrote prose and code. They read about new ideas and wanted to try them out in the lab. Their excitement was palpable. Fun was part of the life, and that’s what I wanted.
I hope I can embody a little of that excitement and fun as a faculty member to our students, as a father to my daughters. But some days, that is more of a challenge than others.
via Knowing and Doing: March 2009 Archives.

March 12, 2009

Learned Today: Feel Not Own:Experiences Beat Possessions: Why Materialism Causes Unhappiness « PsyBlog

: Image by Tonio Vega via Flickr

I’d like to reframe this question, see I think one of the reasons that Experiences beat possessions is that most possessions are acquired as means to experience “buying/shopping” and because shopping is a low quality experience I believe that people who go for experiences are happier. I think a nice avenue to study this is to compare model builders versus shopper of less active/creative/input driven stuff and I think that the results would validate my reframing.
I am taking a vacation a few months from now and the truth is the only way I am affording this vacation is through belt tightening and delaying some of the things I would have already bought weeks ago, if not for this short vacation. When coming up with the decision to live frugally for approximately 4-5 months (I’ve got alot of credit card bills mostly grocery and books/comic books/cds and a few restaurant bills, If I knew earlier I probably wouldn’t have to be as frugal now.) The thing I was thinking about the most is that I have strong emotional memory (I don’t know If there is such a thing but that is the closest short set of words I can come up with).
My EM goes both ways I remember the ups and downs and the uniques. The way I see it is that If a choice has to be made then the choice would be experience over material things.

Why do experiences fare better than possessions?
It seems, then, that at some level we understand that our experiential purchases give us more pleasure than our material purchases. But why is that? Van Boven (2005) suggests three reasons:
1. Experiences improve with time (possessions don’t).
2. Experiences are resistant to unfavourable comparisons
3. Experiences have more social value
Experiences Beat Possessions: Why Materialism Causes Unhappiness « PsyBlog.

March 12, 2009

Had To Share: Great Post from leo of ZenHabits:Steps Towards a More Sustainable Life of Less | Zen Habits

This is great post from leo of zen habits, I agree with alot of his suggestions!, read the whole thing:

And while the last 70-80 years have advanced our lives in amazing ways, and there’s no doubt that the comfort and convenience of our lives have improved tremendously … we rarely stop to consider whether technology and consumerism have always changed our lives for the better.
I mean, I am as big a proponent of the miracles of the Internet as anyone, but have we given up too much of our lives that used to exist offline and outdoors? It’s great that we have such comfortable cars that can drive incredibly fast and take us anywhere we want to go in minutes … but have we thrown away the joy and the health benefits of walking places?
It’s great that we can communicate instantly from anywhere with our mobile devices, but have we given up personal face-to-face conversations and the pleasure of being outdoors, disconnected from the world?
It’s great that food is so convenient these days, but have we given up the pleasures of slow eating for fast food, the joys of cooking for microwaving, the wonders of real food for processed food?
It’s great that we can buy pretty much anything we want these days (and often do), but have we allowed the abundance of cash we’ve had (until recently, but even now we’re still pretty rich) to force us to have bigger houses just to store all our stuff?
Steps Towards a More Sustainable Life of Less | Zen Habits.

February 22, 2009

rePost: Big Brother Becomes Little Bug! :Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Secret agent moth

: Image via Wikipedia

scary.

Elsewhere on the robotics front, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) is making good progress towards its goal of turning insects into remote-controlled surveillance and monitoring instruments. Three years ago, Darpa launched its Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (HI-MEMS) project, with the intent, as described by IEEE Spectrum, of creating “moths or other insects that have electronic controls implanted inside them, allowing them to be controlled by a remote operator. The animal-machine hybrid will transmit data from mounted sensors, which might include low-grade video and microphones for surveillance or gas sensors for natural-disaster reconnaissance. To get to that end point, HI-MEMS is following three separate tracks: growing MEMS-insect hybrids, developing steering electronics for the insects, and finding ways to harvest energy from the them to power the cybernetics.”
Rough Type: Nicholas Carr’s Blog: Secret agent moth.