Friday 31st of December 2004
Earthquakes and tsunamis
I found a set of before and after images of the demage left in Banda Aceh and Sri Lanka by the tsumanis caused by the Indian Ocean earthquake on December 26.
Other interesing bits, some geophysicist theorize that the quake compacted the Earth enough to speed up the planet’s rotation by three microseconds. Other sources indicate that the quake moved the undersea tectonic plates by around 29.8~ meters, shifting islands near Sumatra out to sea an unknown distance.
Someone has compiled quite a bit of videos showing the tsunami hitting the coasts at different times. There’s also some very gruesome pictures to be seen.
The death toll from the earthquake, the tsunamis and the resultant floods was reported to be more than 135.000 people, with tens of thousands of people reported missing, and over a million left homeless. Here’s a list of organizations collecting donations organized by country. Also, in Spain you can send via SMS “ENT 57″ to 4004 to donate 0,90€.
Is it a digital clock? no! -it’s a sundial!
Designed and built in Germany, the digital sundial looks interesting. I’ll let them have their pitch:
In a singular blend of artistry and utility, the digital sundial combines the ancient science of sundials and advances of modern technology with elegant simplicity. Like a digital clock, the digital sundial displays the current time using digits. In the true tradition of all sundials, the device is purely passive - it operates without electricity, and has no moving parts. Instead, the sunlight is cast through two cleverly designed masks in the shape of numbers that show the current time of day. The sundial is available in two versions, for use in either hemisphere. Placed on the inside of a south-facing window (north-facing in the southern hemisphere), the sundial can be read through the horizontal mirror. The display updates every 10 minutes, and gives a remarkably accurate record of the time during the daylight hours.
Here’s some pictures and here are some videos of it. At almost 100€ (including shipping to my door) i’m not sure if it’s worth it, but I thought it was novel.
Thursday 30th of December 2004
Most novel use of a led
Well, two leds. We’ve all had our mother insatiably yell at us after we left a lovely yellow treat for her and other family members on the rim of the toilet after a stressful night. “I couldn’t see! it was dark!” was the most common excuse, that sadly, never seemed to work.
Future generations won’t have that problem: the NavLav (here’s a review of it) is a motion-sensing night light that attaches to the underside of the lid of your toilet in order to protect your family and roommates from your aimless and blind self.
It turns on when you approach in the dark, and turns off after you leave, shining gentle yet sufficient light where you need it, when you need it. Better yet, the LavNav uses RED or GREEN light to cleverly show the position of the seat. It’s smart, energy efficient lighting that makes the bathroom safe and easy to use at night.
So, when you leave the seat up, it glows red and when it’s down it will glow green, all for the convinience of your fellow women. The thing is brilliant.
I must have one.
Wednesday 29th of December 2004
Poking Darwin just a bit
Yesterday, while talking to Kathy about some $problem she had, she said something along the lines of “there’s three guys here and none know how to fix $problem“; I then said “and those are going to pass on their genes.. don’t let them touch you!“. Anyway, that got me thinking.
It seems like we’re reaching the point where the enviroment is no longer having as much of say on what get’s selected and what doesn’t regarding our genetic makeup. A thousand years ago my blindness would probably cost me my life; yet today, I can just buy some glasses, contact lenses or get a laser surgery. There, I just cheated evolution.
I’d dare say we been quite successful at blatantly ignoring enviromental pressures on the “selection of the fittest” to the point of even imposing our very own. If my eyesight would have cost me my life, I wouldn’t get to sexor some lovely woman with the intents of procreating; yet I intend to do just that, at some point very, very much far away along the line. And when I do so, I will cheat evolution once again and pass on my crappy eye genes.
I guess other forms of selection are still in place, such as sexual selection (eeeww he’s ugly) or social selection (but he’s so boring!), and while the former does directly have to do with the physique of the person in question, hence their physical fitness, the latter does not. You could argue he’s boring because he’s less intelligent, and thus, less fit in another aspect; but it could just be she’s into Hello Kitty while he likes the Thundercats.
Another point is, if we have the ability to alter our deficiencies trought the wonders of medicine (laser surgery, et cetera) isn’t that, then, an expression of being the fittest? -then again, I need a doctor to perform the surgery on me, and he needs someone to make the laser for him, and yet someone else to make the gloves he uses, and so on; at that point it’s not survival of the fittest individual anymore, we’ve made into survival of the fittest species as a whole.
Also, is it really going to be me or the average person in the society we partake on, going to make an indent on evolution? -I don’t have birth rate figures at hand, but I do know that Italy has a higher mortality than natality rate. Yet way more impoverished countries have soaring natality rates, with families having eight and more children.
Maybe in the not so near future “normal” will stop existing and everyone will have something wrong with them; but we, the mighty ones, have changed the process of “survival of the fittest”, so, I’m sorry Darwin, but who cares? -bring on the viagra!
Tuesday 28th of December 2004
Green lasers
I sincerely hope they don’t start selling these, even on their lowest denominators, on Target or Wal-mart any time soon, if ever. I’ll let the Thinkgeek punch line for it have some purpose:
Okay, just about everyone has a red laser pointer. Heck, we even sell a fine one here at ThinkGeek. But, we’re pretty sure you want to be a superior geek - and doing it with a green laser is the way to go.
And while the one they offer is over 5mW (here’s a review of it), i found some that output over 50mW and some that are over the 150mW mark. That’s just scary. If that last one can burn a hole in plastic cup, i don’t want to think about what it can do to one’s retina.
Maybe it can be used as a sort of geek mace? :p -as far as i know, regular pepper spray maces requires the victim to have it’s eyes open for it to work, so this wouldn’t be much different, other than the fact that you can use it from much farther away and you leave the perpetrator blind for life; and i’m all for that.
Seriously though, i don’t even have a laser pointer. The closest thing i have is this stupid led keychain that drained it’s battery in ~20 seconds. I want this red one; stylus, pen and cat toy all in one. Cute.
Monday 27th of December 2004
Hypercube
While i did like the original Cube movie by Vincenzo Natali, i wasn’t so moved by Cube 2: Hypercube, but it seems someone was.
I do have to admit that this is probably the most amazing homebrew case i’ve seen as of yet. As the article is long, here’s a link to some pictures of the finished product. Yes, it’s not really a tesseract, but oh well, it’s still quite impressive.
I just noticed there’s a third movie too, Cube Zero which seems to be already out in Spain. I have to find it now.
Sunday 26th of December 2004
The Matrix revisited
Being massively bored and with no will to do anything productive, i’ve been watching old movies these past two days. I just finished the Matrix trilogy.
There’s this part that bugs me; in the first movie the Oracle tells Neo that being the one is like being in love- no one can tell you- that you are in love, you just know it. Yet, on the third movie, when Neo wakes up in the mobil avenue subway station (if you scramble mobil you can form limbo with the letters) Ramakanta tell hims that he can see he’s in love with Trinity, that it’s all over him. So, which is it?
I could go on, there’s a lot of cliffhangers that just weren’t given proper explanation in the later movies, such as the ending of Reloaded, when he scrambles the four sentinels, you are just like *omg mayor twist*, then later in Revolutions (i handn’t watched it until now) the Oracle, when confronted with the why- how can Neo do trippy stuff in the supposedly real world, she just answereded as if she was Galician, totally dodging the answer and just giving more questions while at it.
Oh well, enough babbling- and i’m probably way late coming up with this now.