Whut ?
This is Pleistocene rewilding. Advocates want to set the clock back not hundreds, but thousands of years. Around 13,000 years in fact, to when the Pleistocene era was drawing to a close: an almost incomprehensible length of time for us mortals, but the mere blink of an eye for Earth's ecosystems.
During the Pleistocene every continent was populated with enormous mammals, from the giant wombats of Australia to the various species of elephant that roamed North America and Europe. The animals themselves are now gone. But the ecosystems that evolved with them remain, and their function is severely reduced in the absence of such keystone species.
But help could be at hand. Pleistocene rewilders suggest that some animals still found in Africa and Asia, many of which are on the verge of extinction themselves, are similar enough to their extinct counterparts to serve as effective proxies.
Bach and his colleagues want to stake their claim for the wildest rewilding experiment yet. Under their watch, they hope to see elephants roam the Danish landscape for the first time in millennia. The zoo has form when it comes to rewilding. Having successfully overseen the reintroduction of European bison in Randers, Bach and his colleagues see elephants as the natural progression.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160527-the-zoo-that-wants-to-release-wild-elephants-in-denmark
Tuesday, 31 May 2016
Sunday, 29 May 2016
The Hollow Crown part two
The second Hollow Crown trilogy turned out to be as awesome as the first. I might have to binge watch the complete six episodes. Benedict Cumberbatch plays his best monster since that great big dragon with the name no-one pronounced correctly, and would easily be a show stealer... except that there's also Judi Dench (no-one messes with Judi Dench) and whoever plays Margaret of Anjou is equally intimidating. And I'm pretty confident that the death rate exceeds even Game of Thrones. Well, GoT was based on the Wars of the Roses, after all.
I will admit to some trepidation over the choice of Margaret of Anjou because... well, the real Margaret wasn't black. Just as the extremely skinny Jonathan Rhys Meyers was an odd choice to play Henry VIII in The Tudors. But then I remembered that Shakespeare wasn't writing a historical documentary anyway, and if the actress wants to play the part I'd be hard pressed to say no. And a jolly good thing too, because she owns that role completely - a far more monstrous figure than Lady Macbeth.
That said, I will not countenance the choice of a northern English actress to play Joan of Arc with full northern accent. That's just wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGJf-bVNxpY
I will admit to some trepidation over the choice of Margaret of Anjou because... well, the real Margaret wasn't black. Just as the extremely skinny Jonathan Rhys Meyers was an odd choice to play Henry VIII in The Tudors. But then I remembered that Shakespeare wasn't writing a historical documentary anyway, and if the actress wants to play the part I'd be hard pressed to say no. And a jolly good thing too, because she owns that role completely - a far more monstrous figure than Lady Macbeth.
That said, I will not countenance the choice of a northern English actress to play Joan of Arc with full northern accent. That's just wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGJf-bVNxpY
Saturday, 28 May 2016
My God, It's Full Of Chickens !
Originally shared by Brian Koberlein
Chicken Universe
I have a theory. Maybe the Sun isn’t powered by the fusion of hydrogen in its core, maybe it’s powered by chickens. Now, I don’t have a fancy Ph.D. in chickenology, but I’ve raised chickens. I know chicken behavior when I see it. It seems pretty obvious that the Sun is powered by chickens. Don’t believe me? Just watch this YouTube video that proves it.
Now those of you who continue to cling to the idea of core fusion might argue something about the Sun’s surface having a thermal spectrum, which is not chicken-like at all, but experiments in the lab have shown that chicken when heated does emit a thermal spectrum. Yes, core fusion could also explain the Sun’s spectrum, but until a Sun is created in the lab, we can’t be sure. However, if scientists would just put a roasted chicken near the Sun, they would confirm the chicken universe model.
Unfortunately, in order to keep their cushy academic jobs, scientists continue to hinder chicken research. Chicken physics papers submitted to their “peer reviewed” journals are rejected out of hand. Their adherence to the standard model is almost religiously dogmatic. They claim that chicken cosmology has long been disproved, but they only consider frictionless spherical chickens in a vacuum. As anyone who has raised chickens knows, real chickens have physical properties dogmatic astronomy can’t explain.
For example, when large numbers of chickens are packed into small chicken coops, the temperature of the coop greatly increases. So much heat is produced that often cooling systems must be used to remove excess heat. This supports the idea of hen fusion, where hens in large numbers can generate significant heat. In the chicken Sun model, the surface of the Sun is covered with chickens. The density of the chickens is so great that they emit the heat and light we see as sunshine.
If you watch chickens in a large coop, you’ll notice that often the chickens will cluster in such a way that gaps form, revealing the ground below. This could explain the presence of sunspots, where gaps in solar surface chickens reveal the cooler, darker layer below. The excrement of chickens also contains the building blocks for life, and has been demonstrated to encourage plant growth in the lab. Clearly there are aspects of the model that need to be further developed, but chicken physics makes more sense that inventing things like dark matter, dark energy and the big bang to explain the cosmos.
Chicken cosmology could not only answer some of the biggest mysteries of astrophysics, it could provide us with limited free energy. Chicken propulsion technology could give us access to the stars. But that will only happen when scientists stop acting like religious zealots and look at the evidence with an open mind.
Paper: Doug Zongker. Chicken Chicken Chicken: Chicken Chicken. Chicken, 10(3):307–314, 2000.
https://briankoberlein.com/2016/05/28/chicken-universe/
Chicken Universe
I have a theory. Maybe the Sun isn’t powered by the fusion of hydrogen in its core, maybe it’s powered by chickens. Now, I don’t have a fancy Ph.D. in chickenology, but I’ve raised chickens. I know chicken behavior when I see it. It seems pretty obvious that the Sun is powered by chickens. Don’t believe me? Just watch this YouTube video that proves it.
Now those of you who continue to cling to the idea of core fusion might argue something about the Sun’s surface having a thermal spectrum, which is not chicken-like at all, but experiments in the lab have shown that chicken when heated does emit a thermal spectrum. Yes, core fusion could also explain the Sun’s spectrum, but until a Sun is created in the lab, we can’t be sure. However, if scientists would just put a roasted chicken near the Sun, they would confirm the chicken universe model.
Unfortunately, in order to keep their cushy academic jobs, scientists continue to hinder chicken research. Chicken physics papers submitted to their “peer reviewed” journals are rejected out of hand. Their adherence to the standard model is almost religiously dogmatic. They claim that chicken cosmology has long been disproved, but they only consider frictionless spherical chickens in a vacuum. As anyone who has raised chickens knows, real chickens have physical properties dogmatic astronomy can’t explain.
For example, when large numbers of chickens are packed into small chicken coops, the temperature of the coop greatly increases. So much heat is produced that often cooling systems must be used to remove excess heat. This supports the idea of hen fusion, where hens in large numbers can generate significant heat. In the chicken Sun model, the surface of the Sun is covered with chickens. The density of the chickens is so great that they emit the heat and light we see as sunshine.
If you watch chickens in a large coop, you’ll notice that often the chickens will cluster in such a way that gaps form, revealing the ground below. This could explain the presence of sunspots, where gaps in solar surface chickens reveal the cooler, darker layer below. The excrement of chickens also contains the building blocks for life, and has been demonstrated to encourage plant growth in the lab. Clearly there are aspects of the model that need to be further developed, but chicken physics makes more sense that inventing things like dark matter, dark energy and the big bang to explain the cosmos.
Chicken cosmology could not only answer some of the biggest mysteries of astrophysics, it could provide us with limited free energy. Chicken propulsion technology could give us access to the stars. But that will only happen when scientists stop acting like religious zealots and look at the evidence with an open mind.
Paper: Doug Zongker. Chicken Chicken Chicken: Chicken Chicken. Chicken, 10(3):307–314, 2000.
https://briankoberlein.com/2016/05/28/chicken-universe/
The original opening music to 2001 : A Space Odyssey
Oh god, its disgusting. It's actually disgusting. It makes me want to vomit and write an angry letter to the "composer", except that he is dead. I kept expecting Conan the Barbarian to show up, but he never did.
http://www.classicfm.com/composers/strauss/music/also-sprach-zarathustra-2001-space-odyssey/#BdDAOyo2UpmELYMt.97
http://www.classicfm.com/composers/strauss/music/also-sprach-zarathustra-2001-space-odyssey/#BdDAOyo2UpmELYMt.97
Monday, 23 May 2016
Exploring the Nirvana and slippery slope fallacies as a flagrant excuseto share Picard memes, Existential Comics,...
Exploring the Nirvana and slippery slope fallacies as a flagrant excuse to share Picard memes, Existential Comics, and this wonderful quote from Paul Kriwaczek's Babylon :
The next great shift of values and ideal was the one that ultimately led from village farming to our own city civilization. The urban revolution was not quite as destructive of the old ways as the change from hunting and gathering had been. But those who chose this path still had to give up a great deal, including their autonomy, their freedom and their very identity as self-reliant and independent actors. It must have been a very powerful belief that persuaded them to follow a dream whose full working-out was both unforeseeable and unforeseeably far ahead, a belief that could persuade men and women that the sacrifice was worth making : that city living offered the possibility of a better future, indeed that there was such a thing as the Future, which could be made different from what had gone before. This was, above all, an ideological choice.
...These people were, unlike the others of their time, never slaves to tradition, never satisfied with what had gone before, but aiming for constant improvement. In the course of some ten centuries, they tore down and rebuilt these constructions eleven times, an average of once every ninety years or so, displaying an impatience with the old and a welcome of the new on an almost American scale. The Eridu temple was the symbol of a community who believed in - perhaps one might even say invented - the ideology of progress : the idea that it was both possible and desirable continually to improve on what had gone before, that the future could and should be better - and bigger - than the past. The divine power celebrated and honoured here was the expression, embodiment and personification of that idea : no less than the God or Goddess of Civilization.
https://astrorhysy.blogspot.com/2016/05/nearly-nirvana.html
The next great shift of values and ideal was the one that ultimately led from village farming to our own city civilization. The urban revolution was not quite as destructive of the old ways as the change from hunting and gathering had been. But those who chose this path still had to give up a great deal, including their autonomy, their freedom and their very identity as self-reliant and independent actors. It must have been a very powerful belief that persuaded them to follow a dream whose full working-out was both unforeseeable and unforeseeably far ahead, a belief that could persuade men and women that the sacrifice was worth making : that city living offered the possibility of a better future, indeed that there was such a thing as the Future, which could be made different from what had gone before. This was, above all, an ideological choice.
...These people were, unlike the others of their time, never slaves to tradition, never satisfied with what had gone before, but aiming for constant improvement. In the course of some ten centuries, they tore down and rebuilt these constructions eleven times, an average of once every ninety years or so, displaying an impatience with the old and a welcome of the new on an almost American scale. The Eridu temple was the symbol of a community who believed in - perhaps one might even say invented - the ideology of progress : the idea that it was both possible and desirable continually to improve on what had gone before, that the future could and should be better - and bigger - than the past. The divine power celebrated and honoured here was the expression, embodiment and personification of that idea : no less than the God or Goddess of Civilization.
https://astrorhysy.blogspot.com/2016/05/nearly-nirvana.html
Thursday, 19 May 2016
Human memory is not comparable to computer memory, apparently
Very interesting read, but I'm not convinced.
In a classroom exercise I have conducted many times over the years, I begin by recruiting a student to draw a detailed picture of a dollar bill....When the student has finished, I cover the drawing with a sheet of paper, remove a dollar bill from my wallet, tape it to the board, and ask the student to repeat the task. When he or she is done, I remove the cover from the first drawing, and the class comments on the differences.
Don’t we have a ‘representation’ of the dollar bill ‘stored’ in a ‘memory register’ in our brains? Can’t we just ‘retrieve’ it and use it to make our drawing? Obviously not, and a thousand years of neuroscience will never locate a representation of a dollar bill stored inside the human brain for the simple reason that it is not there to be found....
Specifically, her brain was changed in a way that allowed her to visualise a dollar bill – that is, to re-experience seeing a dollar bill, at least to some extent. Even in this case, though, no image of the dollar bill has in any sense been ‘stored’ in Jinny’s brain. She has simply become better prepared to draw it accurately, just as, through practice, a pianist becomes more skilled in playing a concerto without somehow inhaling a copy of the sheet music.
No one really has the slightest idea how the brain changes after we have learned to sing a song or recite a poem. But neither the song nor the poem has been ‘stored’ in it. The brain has simply changed in an orderly way that now allows us to sing the song or recite the poem under certain conditions. When called on to perform, neither the song nor the poem is in any sense ‘retrieved’ from anywhere in the brain, any more than my finger movements are ‘retrieved’ when I tap my finger on my desk. We simply sing or recite – no retrieval necessary.
I just don't find it credible that we are in some way "recreating" rather than "retrieving" each time. Obviously we can form detailed mental images, so what's the big deal about being able to memorise things ? People obviously do recall specific details, and they can be aware of when their memory may be faulty and confident when it's correct. Memory isn't perfect, but that seems a long way from saying that we don't have any. In any case, it's not clear to me what the major difference is between being able to remember how to do a thing, and just remembering the thing itself.
This is inspirational, I suppose, because it means that each of us is truly unique, not just in our genetic makeup, but even in the way our brains change over time. It is also depressing, because it makes the task of the neuroscientist daunting almost beyond imagination. Worse still, even if we had the ability to take a snapshot of all of the brain’s 86 billion neurons and then to simulate the state of those neurons in a computer, that vast pattern would mean nothing outside the body of the brain that produced it.
OK, but why ? What is so special about a brain that if you re-created it in exact detail down to the atomic level, complete with velocity information for each particle, both copies (if given the exact same stimuli) would not end up doing the same thing ? Is there even a single other example of another known system where that is the case ?
https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer
In a classroom exercise I have conducted many times over the years, I begin by recruiting a student to draw a detailed picture of a dollar bill....When the student has finished, I cover the drawing with a sheet of paper, remove a dollar bill from my wallet, tape it to the board, and ask the student to repeat the task. When he or she is done, I remove the cover from the first drawing, and the class comments on the differences.
Don’t we have a ‘representation’ of the dollar bill ‘stored’ in a ‘memory register’ in our brains? Can’t we just ‘retrieve’ it and use it to make our drawing? Obviously not, and a thousand years of neuroscience will never locate a representation of a dollar bill stored inside the human brain for the simple reason that it is not there to be found....
Specifically, her brain was changed in a way that allowed her to visualise a dollar bill – that is, to re-experience seeing a dollar bill, at least to some extent. Even in this case, though, no image of the dollar bill has in any sense been ‘stored’ in Jinny’s brain. She has simply become better prepared to draw it accurately, just as, through practice, a pianist becomes more skilled in playing a concerto without somehow inhaling a copy of the sheet music.
No one really has the slightest idea how the brain changes after we have learned to sing a song or recite a poem. But neither the song nor the poem has been ‘stored’ in it. The brain has simply changed in an orderly way that now allows us to sing the song or recite the poem under certain conditions. When called on to perform, neither the song nor the poem is in any sense ‘retrieved’ from anywhere in the brain, any more than my finger movements are ‘retrieved’ when I tap my finger on my desk. We simply sing or recite – no retrieval necessary.
I just don't find it credible that we are in some way "recreating" rather than "retrieving" each time. Obviously we can form detailed mental images, so what's the big deal about being able to memorise things ? People obviously do recall specific details, and they can be aware of when their memory may be faulty and confident when it's correct. Memory isn't perfect, but that seems a long way from saying that we don't have any. In any case, it's not clear to me what the major difference is between being able to remember how to do a thing, and just remembering the thing itself.
This is inspirational, I suppose, because it means that each of us is truly unique, not just in our genetic makeup, but even in the way our brains change over time. It is also depressing, because it makes the task of the neuroscientist daunting almost beyond imagination. Worse still, even if we had the ability to take a snapshot of all of the brain’s 86 billion neurons and then to simulate the state of those neurons in a computer, that vast pattern would mean nothing outside the body of the brain that produced it.
OK, but why ? What is so special about a brain that if you re-created it in exact detail down to the atomic level, complete with velocity information for each particle, both copies (if given the exact same stimuli) would not end up doing the same thing ? Is there even a single other example of another known system where that is the case ?
https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer
Robots have always been about to take your job, apparently
Worth considering. Although I don't know where the headline figure of 200 years comes from, considering that the examples given start in the 1930s.
Originally shared by Luke Hutchison
In case you were worried that a robot might take your job...
https://timeline.com/robots-have-been-about-to-take-all-the-jobs-for-more-than-200-years-5c9c08a2f41d#.lsoq59yiz
Originally shared by Luke Hutchison
In case you were worried that a robot might take your job...
https://timeline.com/robots-have-been-about-to-take-all-the-jobs-for-more-than-200-years-5c9c08a2f41d#.lsoq59yiz
Sunday, 15 May 2016
Boris Johnson's embarrassing documentary
I remember watching the documentary when it was released some years ago. I didn't agree that Turkey should join, but I did think that Boris might (in defiance of all the other evidence) actually have been one of the saner members of the Tory party. But now apparently the EU is as bad as Hitler, or something, so I guess he's actually as nutty as he appears. He's a sort of erudite, vaguely-charming Drumpf with a classical education : no principles or beliefs beyond Boris himself. His sole purpose in campaigning for Brexit is his own aggrandisement; he has no actual principles at stake here whatsoever. He will pander to the basest fascist agendas to become King, sort of like an English Alex Salmond.
Just stick to presenting HIGNFY, Boris, you were good at that.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/boris-johnson-turkey?utm_term=.oqYbQaYKj#.bmkGV2RoO
Just stick to presenting HIGNFY, Boris, you were good at that.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/boris-johnson-turkey?utm_term=.oqYbQaYKj#.bmkGV2RoO
Thursday, 12 May 2016
Just some random thoughts on what the heck it is we actually meanby "political correctness".
Just some random thoughts on what the heck it is we actually mean by "political correctness".
It seems to be that there are two quite distinct meanings to the term, but both can be legitimate. The first is just basically being nice to people and not trying to insult them on the basis of whatever group it is they happen to belong to. The second is what crops up typically in right-wing newspapers, and means something like, "walking on eggshells", as though your own true feelings should always be kept back in the 1950's, you racist bastard : essentially, being nice to people and not insulting them even for legitimate reasons.
Take, for example, the annual silly story that Christmas lights are to be renamed "winter lights" out of fear of offending Muslims / Hindus / Buddhists / Russell Brand, whatever. If this did happen, the ethnic or religious minority would have been granted too much respect : Christmas lights are Christmas lights, and no-one in their right mind would be offended by calling a spade a spade. And guess what ? The vast majority of said ethno-religious minority are people in their right minds, and don't give a flying Queenly poop what Christmas lights are called. It's not politically "correct" at all, it's politically cuckoo.
https://astrorhysy.blogspot.com/2016/05/politically-correct-or-politically.html
It seems to be that there are two quite distinct meanings to the term, but both can be legitimate. The first is just basically being nice to people and not trying to insult them on the basis of whatever group it is they happen to belong to. The second is what crops up typically in right-wing newspapers, and means something like, "walking on eggshells", as though your own true feelings should always be kept back in the 1950's, you racist bastard : essentially, being nice to people and not insulting them even for legitimate reasons.
Take, for example, the annual silly story that Christmas lights are to be renamed "winter lights" out of fear of offending Muslims / Hindus / Buddhists / Russell Brand, whatever. If this did happen, the ethnic or religious minority would have been granted too much respect : Christmas lights are Christmas lights, and no-one in their right mind would be offended by calling a spade a spade. And guess what ? The vast majority of said ethno-religious minority are people in their right minds, and don't give a flying Queenly poop what Christmas lights are called. It's not politically "correct" at all, it's politically cuckoo.
https://astrorhysy.blogspot.com/2016/05/politically-correct-or-politically.html
Tuesday, 10 May 2016
Space Story : A Bad Day
Stick with it. At 1:50 it turns awesome.
http://laughingsquid.com/space-story-a-bad-day-a-mashup-of-25-sci-fi-movies-that-come-together-as-one-short-film/
http://laughingsquid.com/space-story-a-bad-day-a-mashup-of-25-sci-fi-movies-that-come-together-as-one-short-film/
Alien robots can't conquer the galaxy because they keep breaking down, says scientist
It has been argued that self-replicating robotic probes could spread to all stars of our galaxy within a timespan that is tiny on cosmological scales, even if they travel well below the speed of light. The apparent absence of such von Neumann probes in our own solar system then needs an explanation that holds for all possible extraterrestrial civilisations. Here I propose such a solution, which is based on a runaway error propagation that can occur in any self-replicating system with finite accuracy of its components. Under universally applicable assumptions (finite resources and finite lifespans) it follows that an optimal probe design always leads to an error catastrophe and breakdown of the probes. Thus, there might be many advanced civilizations in our galaxy, each surrounded by their own small sphere of self-replicating probes. But unless our own solar system has the extraordinary luck to be close enough to one of these civilizations, none of these probes will ever reach us.
Without having read the rest of the paper, that's silly. Runaway error propagation is not a problem for organic self-replicating systems so there's no reason to expect it will be a problem for artificial ones.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1605.02169
Without having read the rest of the paper, that's silly. Runaway error propagation is not a problem for organic self-replicating systems so there's no reason to expect it will be a problem for artificial ones.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1605.02169
Saturday, 7 May 2016
A shiny new mayor for London
GASP as a Muslim is elected mayor and doesn't do anything anyone else wouldn't do !
GROAN with exasperation as a news reporter pulls teeth from Michael Fallon to get him to answer a simple question !
BE AMAZED as British politics hasn't gone completely caca after all !
But Mr Corbyn was absent from Mr Khan's swearing-in ceremony earlier on Saturday. Mr Khan - who nominated but did not vote for Mr Corbyn in the Labour leadership contest - said he was "not sure" why, adding: "We'll have to find out what he was doing."
Speaking later, Mr Khan said he was disappointed by the "negative and divisive" nature of Mr Goldsmith's mayoral campaign, which focused on Mr Khan's alleged links to Islamic extremists. But his victory, he said, was a rejection of the politics of "fear".
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon - who called Mr Khan a "Labour lackey who speaks alongside extremists" during the race - defended the Conservatives' approach, saying it was legitimate to put a candidate under scrutiny. Repeatedly challenged over whether he believed Mr Khan was a security risk to London, Mr Fallon said: "London is safe with a Conservative government working with the new mayor of London."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2016-36236538
GROAN with exasperation as a news reporter pulls teeth from Michael Fallon to get him to answer a simple question !
BE AMAZED as British politics hasn't gone completely caca after all !
But Mr Corbyn was absent from Mr Khan's swearing-in ceremony earlier on Saturday. Mr Khan - who nominated but did not vote for Mr Corbyn in the Labour leadership contest - said he was "not sure" why, adding: "We'll have to find out what he was doing."
Speaking later, Mr Khan said he was disappointed by the "negative and divisive" nature of Mr Goldsmith's mayoral campaign, which focused on Mr Khan's alleged links to Islamic extremists. But his victory, he said, was a rejection of the politics of "fear".
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon - who called Mr Khan a "Labour lackey who speaks alongside extremists" during the race - defended the Conservatives' approach, saying it was legitimate to put a candidate under scrutiny. Repeatedly challenged over whether he believed Mr Khan was a security risk to London, Mr Fallon said: "London is safe with a Conservative government working with the new mayor of London."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2016-36236538
Thursday, 5 May 2016
Preserving archaeology for remote viewing
It's depressing that this is necessary, but it provides a cool way for armchair archaeologists to explore ancient ruins.
This initiative aims to generate ‘‘digital twins’’ of threatened archaeological sites. Thanks to these 3D models, famous archaeological areas will now be accessible to a wide public. If they were to be destroyed, this digitalisation would also keep their memory. It might even make a reconstruction possible.
The technology used is based on “photogrammetry” a system involving an enormous number of photographs processed by algorithms. Photogrammetric algorithms analyze thousands of images taken and exploit the similarities between the pictures to reconstruct a ‘‘point cloud’’; in other words, a 3D version of the archaeological artefact.
https://blog.sketchfab.com/museum-spotlight-iconem
This initiative aims to generate ‘‘digital twins’’ of threatened archaeological sites. Thanks to these 3D models, famous archaeological areas will now be accessible to a wide public. If they were to be destroyed, this digitalisation would also keep their memory. It might even make a reconstruction possible.
The technology used is based on “photogrammetry” a system involving an enormous number of photographs processed by algorithms. Photogrammetric algorithms analyze thousands of images taken and exploit the similarities between the pictures to reconstruct a ‘‘point cloud’’; in other words, a 3D version of the archaeological artefact.
https://blog.sketchfab.com/museum-spotlight-iconem
Tuesday, 3 May 2016
The Breakthrough Prizes : incentivisation is a dangerous game
OK, massive financial awards for discovering how the Universe works.... yeah, what could possibly go wrong....
Researchers who helped detect gravitational waves for the first time, confirming part of Albert Einstein's theory in a landmark moment in scientific history, will share a $3 million Special Breakthrough Prize, according to the prize's selection committee.
The Breakthrough Prizes for scientific achievements were created by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner along with several technology pioneers, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-gravitywaves-prize-idUSKCN0XU10W
Researchers who helped detect gravitational waves for the first time, confirming part of Albert Einstein's theory in a landmark moment in scientific history, will share a $3 million Special Breakthrough Prize, according to the prize's selection committee.
The Breakthrough Prizes for scientific achievements were created by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner along with several technology pioneers, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-gravitywaves-prize-idUSKCN0XU10W
I want one of these even though it would go horribly wrong
I'm imagining this evolving into something like a flying Segway, where the user has a stick to alter the engine pointing rather than shifting their weight, and/or some other failsafe to stop them tilting it too far. From other articles (don't have time to find them right now) I believe the board can still function with three out of four engines, so there's some redundancy (though he did splashdown when the batteries failed). Not sure how you could protect against the user from flying into buildings though.
Source : http://bit.ly/24v7Thk
Franky Zapata of France flies 2,252.4 metres on prototype Flyboard Air, breaking the Guinness World Record by nearly 2km.
Monday, 2 May 2016
Reviewing peer review
Brief review of peer review, what it is, isn't, is supposed to be, etc. That kind of thing. And that does involve being an overly anal-friendly monkey from time to time.
Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Reviewer ?
Peer review is something I've talked about before from time to time, but apparently I'm not making myself clear. I don't know why, I use plain simple language, and it's not very hard to understand. But for the sake of having a go-to post, let me try and put things as briefly and as clearly as possible.
Sunday, 1 May 2016
A pseudoscientist who admits a mistake
Normally I wouldn't bother resharing stuff like this because it's obvious that the magnetic field didn't collapse, but the honesty of the confession is refreshing.
The Magnetic Field Did Not Collapse This Week 2 min 14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmuDWfk-tEM
The Magnetic Field Did Not Collapse This Week 2 min 14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmuDWfk-tEM
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