N Y B B L E M O N T H L Y N E W S L E T T E R
A Free Ezine about Anything Tech and Everything Else
2006.12.10 Issue No. 183
Question: How do you take a screenshot of a window that spans more
than one screen? Normally, I would do PrtSc, scroll down, and do more
PrtScs until I capture the whole window. Then it's off to a graphics
manipulation application to connect up all the screenshots into one.
There's actually a simpler way to do this. My laptop comes
pre-installed with an application called SnagIt, and it does scrolling
captures in just one click. Just point your mouse over the window you
want to capture, then right-click. SnagIt will start from the top,
auto-scroll the window to the bottom, and present you with a full
capture. It doesn't seem to be able to horizontal scrolling captures
though.
If only they could port this to digital photography. To make panoramic
photos, you have to take multiple shots of the landscape, holding your
camera at the same height level, and turning yourself on a pivot point
with every shot. Then, with lots of tweaking and aligning using the
photo-stitch software that comes with your digicam, you get your
panoramic photo. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. If the
camera manufacturers can somehow incorporate the scrolling capture
feature into their digicams, that'll be great. Heck, I'd be willing to
get a new digital camera just for this feature.
Have an answer, comment, suggestion, or violent reaction? Send them my
way by clicking on Reply or join nybbletalk@yahoogroups.com to discuss
a topic. If you think Nybble is good enough, do tell the photography
enthusiasts about it. Thanks.
_________TABLE OF CONTENTS_________
* New Urinals Rise up to the Challenge
* Space Sunshade to Fight Global Warming
* Smart Surveillance System from IBM
* Growing Chicken Wings
* Israel Develops Bionic Hornets
* Toshiba Introduces Re-writable Paper
* Automated Photo-tagging via Software
* Nanorust to Purify Water
* Wireless Electrical Power
* Nybblets
* Likeable Links
* Questionable Question
* Quotable Quote
* Trivial Trivia
* Laughable Laugh
_________NEW URINALS RISE UP TO THE CHALLENGE_________
http://www.johnchow.com/the-worlds-most-high-tech-urinal/
In an effort to handle its nighttime public urination problem,
Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, is considering installing
urinals dubbed Urilifts that disappear below street level during the
day for a nice clean look. Then at night, an operator comes by with a
remote and the Urilift hydraulically lifts to sidewalk level in about
two minutes. Then the unit is ready to serve all the nighttime party
animals who don't mind peeing in a very exposed public urinal. Unlike
the automated, self-cleaning toilets planned for Toronto and
Vancouver, which are enclosed booths with doors that that
automatically open after a set time period, the Urilift system is a
two-meter high stainless steel cylinder with three alcoves, each with
a urinal, and no doors.
Because there are no doors, there is little danger of any unauthorized
or illegal activities. San Francisco and Seattle's auto-toilets have
been derided as dens for drug dealers and prostitutes. In addition,
the presence of an attendant nearby to lower the system in the morning
means it's unlikely a drunken reveler who slumps over the Urilift will
wake up under the street.
The urinals are designed exclusively for men, and more specifically,
for male drinkers. The $75,000 system has been installed across the
Netherlands, and have spread to London and Belfast, but Victoria will
be the first North American city to try them out.
_________SPACE SUNSHADE TO FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING_________
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061104090409.htm
In the event of a global warming crisis, where it becomes clear that
Earth is unmistakably headed for disastrous climate change within a
decade or two, University of Arizona astronomer Roger Angel has this
novel idea of deploying a space sunshade to cool things down. The plan
would be to launch a constellation of trillions of small free-flying
spacecraft called flyers a million miles above Earth into an orbit
aligned with the sun, called the L-1 orbit. The flyer would form a
long, cylindrical cloud with a diameter about half that of Earth, and
about 10 times longer. About 10 percent of the sunlight passing
through the 60,000-mile length of the cloud, pointing lengthwise
between the Earth and the sun, would be diverted away from our planet.
The effect would be to uniformly reduce sunlight by about 2 percent
over the entire planet, enough to balance the heating of a doubling of
atmospheric carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere.
The lightweight flyers designed by Angel would be made of a
transparent film pierced with small holes. Each flyer would be two
feet in diameter, 1/5000 of an inch thick and weigh about a gram, the
same as a large butterfly. It would use "MEMS" technology mirrors as
tiny sails that tilt to hold the flyers position in the orbiting
constellation. The flyer's transparency and steering mechanism prevent
it from being blown away by radiation pressure. The total mass of all
the fliers making up the space sunshade structure would be 20 million
tons. The sunshade could be deployed by a total 20 electromagnetic
launchers launching a stack of flyers every 5 minutes for 10 years.
The electromagnetic launchers would ideally run on hydroelectric
power, but even in the worst-case environmental scenario with
coal-generated electricity, each ton of carbon used to make
electricity would mitigate the effect of 1000 tons of atmospheric carbon.
Good to know we have a backup plan.
_________SMART SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM FROM IBM________
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlebusiness.aspx?type=ousiv&storyID=2006-11-07T050342Z_01_N06294547_RTRIDST_0_BUSINESSPRO-IBM-DC.XML&from=business
IBM has release a new security product dubbed Smart Surveillance
System or S3 hat analyzes data from video surveillance cameras in real
time, generating instant alerts of potential security breeches. S3 can
transmit information collected by digital video cameras over computer
networks, allowing it to be monitored remotely. The software
automatically combs through those feeds, cross referencing and
analyzing the digital information. It issues alarms when it identifies
suspicious activity. In addition to video, the software can integrate
information from audio feeds, radar systems and chemical detection
units as it analyzes the data.
Such intelligent video analysis systems can identify questionable
situations such as when large quantities of merchandise are removed
from store shelves. They can also identify a cashier who is ringing up
a large order when there is no customer at the checkout booth, or a
clerk who unlocks a jewelry case, then walks away. IBM said that S3's
target market includes retail outlets, banks, airports, freight
terminals and mass transit systems. It is also being sold to public
security agencies and other government departments.
_________REGROWING CHICKEN WINGS_________
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/scientist-regrow-chicken-wing-12031.html
A research team at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies has been
able to regenerate a wing in a chick embryo -- a species not known to
be able to regrow limbs -- suggesting that the potential for such
regeneration exists innately in all vertebrates, including humans.
Studies show that vertebrate regeneration is under the control of the
powerful Wnt signaling system: activating it overcomes the mysterious
barrier to regeneration in animals like chicks that can't normally
replace missing limbs while inactivating it in animals known to be
able to regenerate their limbs (frogs, zebrafish, and salamanders)
shuts down their ability to replace missing legs and tails. In one
experiment, researchers removed part of the chick embryo's wing,
activated Wnt signaling by changing the expression of a few genes, and
got the whole limb back. Previously, scientists believed that once
stem cells turned into muscles, bone or any other type of cells, that
was their fate for life, and if those cells were injured, they didn't
regenerate, but grew scar tissue.
Manipulating Wnt signaling in humans is, of course, not possible at
this point, but hopes that these findings may eventually offer
insights into current research examining the ability of stem cells to
build new human body tissues and parts.
_________ISRAEL DEVELOPS BIONIC HORNETS_________
http://news.com.com/Report+Israel+developing+bionic+hornet+weapon/2100-11394_3-6136468.html?tag=nefd.top
According to a local newspaper, Israel is using nanotechnology to try
to create a robot no bigger than a hornet that would be able to chase,
photograph and kill its targets. Quote from Deputy Prime Minister
Shimon Peres, "It's illogical to send a plane worth $100 million
against a suicidal terrorist. So we are building futuristic weapons."
The flying robot, nicknamed the "bionic hornet," would be able to
navigate its way down narrow alleyways to target otherwise unreachable
enemies such as rocket launchers. It is one of several weapons being
developed by scientists to combat militants, it said. Others include
super gloves that would give the user the strength of a "bionic man"
and miniature sensors to detect suicide bombers. Prototypes for the
new weapons are expected within three years.
_________TOSHIBA INTRODUCES RE-WRITABLE PAPER_________
http://www.techworld.com/applications/news/index.cfm?newsID=7420&pagtype=all
Toshiba is pushing re-writable paper that it claims can be erased and
reprinted at least 500 times. The paper - actually thermo-sensitive
sheet-plastic - requires a special printer, the B-SX8R, which relies
on a heat-sensitive pigment in the ink. If heated above 180 degrees
centigrade it goes black, but if held at between 130C and 170C it
turns white again.
In Japan, the plastic paper is already being used in closed-loop
processes, such as pick-lists in a warehouse or build instructions on
a production line, where a printed sheet is only needed for a short
time and is then redundant, and where the printer's 300dpi resolution
is adequate. As well as the rewritable process reducing paper
consumption and shredding, manufacturing and recycling the plastic
sheets generates much less CO2 than manufacturing and recycling paper.
There are some downside though. The plastic paper costs around £5 a
sheet. That's fine if you do indeed use each sheet 500 times, but what
if a sheet is filed, scribbled on in ballpoint instead of one of
Toshiba's special erasable marker pens, or damaged by folding? The new
paper is also sensitive to heat and UV light, and the print is
actually grey rather than black. Power consumption is significant too,
with the erasing element having an 800W heater, and the printer won't
be cheap, at around £5,000, as and when it reaches the European market.
_________AUTOMATED PHOTO-TAGGING VIA SOFTWARE_________
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2006/11/02/tech-imagetag-061101.html
U.S. researchers from the Penn State University have developed a
computer system that can automatically recognize the content of a
photograph and describe it in English.
Image search engines currently rely on text tags to help index and
sort images, so those that don't have descriptions are effectively
invisible to search requests. The Automatic Linguistic Indexing of
Pictures Real-Time (ALIPR) system developed by Penn State associate
professors James Wang and Jia Li solves the problem by analyzing the
images and comparing them against a database. The computer then
suggests 15 possible tags out of a vocabulary of 332 words to annotate
a photo with subject-relevant descriptors or keywords. The analysis
takes about 1.4 seconds per image and in 98 per cent of tests suggests
at least one correct tag in the top 15.
The technology makes it possible to automatically tag images with
keywords, rather than having a person manually label the photos. The
system can tag online collections of images as they are uploaded.
_________NANORUST TO PURITY WATER_________
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn10496-cooking-up-nanorust-could-purify-water.html
A new recipe for "nanorust" could give developing nations a cheap tool
for removing arsenic from drinking water.
Arsenic contamination is linked to bladder cancer and is a big problem
in many places. Chemists know that arsenic binds particularly well to
iron oxides, including rust, but practical techniques for doing this
have been slow and laborious. Vicki Colvin and colleagues at Rice
University in Houston, Texas found a way to improve the efficiency of
this process by reducing the size of the iron oxide particles
employed. This is because a given weight of smaller particles has more
surface area available for binding than the same weight of larger
particles.
Nanorust isn't even hard to make. The team created them by dissolving
large pieces of rust in heated oleic acid, which can be found in
ordinary olive oil. The nanoscale iron oxide is added to contaminated
water, where it clumped together with the arsenic. They then
magnetised the nanoparticles with an electromagnet and pulled them out.
_________WIRELESS ELECTRICAL POWER_________
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6129460.stm
Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology have outlined a
relatively simple system that could deliver power to gadgets such as
laptops, MP3 players, and digital cameras wirelessly. Although the
team has not built and tested a system, computer models and
mathematics suggest it will work.
The thing that makes wireless energy transfer work is resonance, a
phenomenon that causes an object to vibrate when energy of a certain
frequency is applied. Typically, systems that use electromagnetic
radiation, such as radio antennas, are not suitable for the efficient
transfer of energy because they scatter energy in all directions,
wasting large amounts of it into free space. To overcome this problem,
the team investigated a special class of "non-radiative" objects with
so-called "long-lived resonances". When energy is applied to these
objects it remains bound to them, rather than escaping to space.
"Tails" of energy, which can be many metres long, flicker over the
surface. In practical terms, a simple copper antenna designed to have
long-lived resonance could transfer energy to a laptop with its own
antenna resonating at the same frequency. Any energy not diverted into
a gadget or appliance is simply reabsorbed. The systems that the team
have described would be able to transfer energy over three to five metres.
_________NYBBLETS_________
* The Internet Now has Over 100 Million Web Sites
* Every Microsoft Vista Computer Gets Its Own Domain Name
* Chinese GPS System Beidou To Be Offered Free
* Japanese Bar Performer Playing Harmonica Arrested For Copyright
Violations
* New Zealand to Allow "Text-Speak" in Exams
* Natural Painkiller 5x Better than Morphine Found in Human Saliva
_________LIKEABLE LINKS_________
Evolution of Dance
http://www.evolutionofdance.com/
Google 3D Warehouse
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/
Zach's Word Unscrambler
http://zbreiten.netfirms.com/UnscramblerForm.html
Mag's Word Finder
http://zbreiten.netfirms.com/UnscramblerForm.html
_________QUESTIONABLE QUESTION_________
Humans often times swallow air while eating. Later they release that
air in the form of a burp. Do fish swallow water and burp water?
_________QUOTABLE QUOTE_________
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and
I'm not sure about the former."
~ Albert Einstein ~
_________TRIVIAL TRIVIA_________
Will whispering save your voice?
Not really -- Whispering is more wearing on your voice than a normal
speaking tone. Whispering and shouting stretch the vocal cords.
Source: Arcamax Trivia
_________LAUGHABLE LAUGH_________
Our local paper runs a popular column called "10 Questions" that
spotlights people who live in our community.
In addition to the usual inquiries about occupation and age, people
are asked the questions that give a snapshot look of their personalities.
Recently one woman was asked, "What's the 'strangest' thing you ever
bought?"
She answered, "Dog toothpaste."
Next question, "What is the 'most common' thing people say to you?"
Her answer: "Where did you get such white teeth?"
That's all for this week. Nybble is and will always be a work in
progress. Please do send me your comments and suggestions on how to
improve Nybble. Just hit the reply button to you know, reply.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Wednesday, November 8, 2006
Nybble 2006.10.08
N Y B B L E M O N T H L Y N E W S L E T T E R
A Free Ezine about Anything Tech and Everything Else
2006.10.08 Issue No. 181
I've only had my Xbox for only a couple of months, but strangely
enough, I don't seem to be spending much time with it. I myself am
surprised because that Xbox is not an impulse purchase. And the reason
I bought it is because of it's "hackability" compared to the PS2. As
the gamers out there would probably know, an Xbox works best when
modded. I'm too lazy (and cheap) to bring it to a shop to have it
modded, so I spent quite a few long nights browsing different forums
trying to learn how to do a purely software mod. After verifying
kernel versions and dashboard versions and downloading all the
necessary hacking tools and exploits, it took me half a day taking
apart the Xbox, hot-swapping hard disks with a desktop PC (at the
right moment, which is always tricky, not to mention dangerous), and
finally soft-modding it properly. After that I spent a few weeks
installing XBMC, some Xbox games, various emulators and ROMS, a
portion of my photo, mp3, and movie collection, etc. At the end of the
day, I was able to watch DVDs and DivX/Xvid AVIs, do slideshows of my
photos (complete with background music), and play my mp3/ogg files
(complete with random visualizations). And play games, too. Then I got
bored, or maybe I was busy with something else, and lost my momentum.
If and when I get the urge back, I might connect it to the Internet
and do some Web browsing or audio streaming or a bit of online gaming.
We'll see.
Have an answer, comment, suggestion, or violent reaction? Send them my
way by clicking on Reply or join nybbletalk@yahoogroups.com to discuss
a topic. If you think Nybble is good enough, do tell the bored geeks
about it. Thanks.
P.S. I'm creating a new section called Nybblets. Don't ask me how many
bits that is.
_________TABLE OF CONTENTS_________
* Samsung Trials 4G
* Garbage Cans with RFID
* Robo-Transport in Europe
* IBM to Build Fastest Supercomputer
* Google to Sell Old News
* Plasma Arcs to Eliminate Landfills
* Toshiba Creates Three-Layered Disc
* Software Gives Sentence in Chinese Courts
* Nybblets
* Likeable Links
* Questionable Question
* Quotable Quote
* Trivial Trivia
* Laughable Laugh
_________SAMSUNG TRIALS 4G_________
http://weblog.infoworld.com/techwatch/archives/007741.html
While we're just starting to have a taste of 3G, Samsung is already
trialing their 4G solution to the general public. If you were in Jeju
Island, Korea recently, you could have hopped on board a specially
designed bus at Samsung's 4G Forum, in which the company presented the
world premier of 4G WiBro (Wireless Broadband) technology. The bus
stunt was an effort to prove the stability of 4G technology by
demonstrating a multi-cell handover with data speeds of 100Mbps,
simultaneously offering delegates a live broadcast of the forum,
Internet access, and video on demand. Additionally, the company showed
off 4G's nomadic speed of 1Gbps data transmissions inside the forum
venue with simultaneous 32HD channel broadcast (20Mpbs) downloads,
Internet access, and video telephony. Furthermore, a 3.5Gbps data
transfer demonstration using 8x8 MIMO (multi-input multi-output) was
part of the display.
A speedy cousin to WiMax, WiBro's nomadic speed of 1Gbps is 50 times
faster than 3G, according to Samsung. With speeds of 1Gpbs, it would
take about 2.4 seconds to transfer 100 MP3 files (300MB), and 5.6
seconds to transfer one 800MB movie, to put things in perspective.
WiBro is based on the IEEE 802.16.e-2005 standard. The 4G mobile
communications format is expected to become commercially available
around 2010. Samsung already holds more than 220 patents related to 4G
mobile communications.
_________GARBAGE CANS WITH RFID_________
http://www.livescience.com/scienceoffiction/060831_technovelgy.html
At least half a million "wheelie bins" across England now come with
RFID tags. The electronic devices (passive RFID tags) about the size
of a one-pence piece are screwed into a hole in the lip of the bin. As
the bin is hoisted up for emptying, an RFID reader on the refuse truck
interrogates the chip, which divulges a serial number identifying the
property owner. The weight of the bin is recorded by the truck's
sensors and is registered in a database entry along with the serial
number.
The database entries for the day are downloaded at the dump and stored
in a vast central databank of property owner behavior. What that
information is used for, we can only guess. A new "garbage tax" on
people with overly-heavy cans maybe? With more and more items having
RFID tags detailing the items'brand names and product names, it's
possible to use similar equipment to quickly scan your can to uncover
your purchasing habits.
_________ROBO-TRANSPORT IN EUROPE________
http://www.spiegel.de/international/1,1518,435805,00.html
Under the auspices of the European Union's "Citymobil" project, which
was launched on August 28, companies and research institutes
representing 10 countries have come together to develop small
automatic transportation systems. Currently, three model projects are
planned with funding of about €40 million.
The first is being built at London's Heathrow Airport where, starting
in summer of 2008, 19-computer steered electric cars will go into
operation. The automated taxis will be used to connect Heathrow's
Terminal 5 with a parking lot. The technology, which has been named
"Ultra," has been developed by the British firm ATS and is already
being tested. The driverless vehicles pick up passengers after they
are ordered and deliver them to their destination. Magnets or sensors
on the ground direct the vehicles along their route. In Rome,
driverless "cyber cars" will pick up visitors at a parking lot or the
nearby train station and take them to a new exhibition center. And in
the Spanish city of Castellón, a new driverless bus will be tested
that can travel through the city center on a specially designated
lane. Automation has long existed on some subway trains, monorails and
airport transport vehicles, but these would count among the first
major projects of smaller "peoplemover" systems.
_________IBM TO BUILD FASTEST SUPERCOMPUTER_________
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5322704.stm
Codenamed Roadrunner, the new supercomputer IBM plans to build could
be four times more potent than the current fastest machine,
BlueGene/L, also built by IBM.
The new computer is a "hybrid" design, containing 16,000 standard
processors working alongside 16,000 "cell" processors, designed for
the PlayStation 3 (PS3). Each cell chip consists of eight processors
controlled by a master unit that can assign tasks to each member of
the processing team. Each cell is capable of 256 billion calculations
per second. The power of the cell chip means Roadrunner needs far
fewer processors than its predecessors. The new machine will be able
to achieve "petaflop speeds," said IBM. One petaflop is the equivalent
of 1,000 trillion calculations per second. Running at peak speed, it
will be able to crunch through 1.6 thousand trillion calculations per
second. By comparison, BlueGene/L is capable of mere "teraflop"
(trillion calculations per second) speeds.
Roadrunner will be installed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory,
New Mexico. The laboratory is owned by the US Department of Energy
(DOE). Eventually the machine could be used for a programme that
ensures the US nuclear weapons stockpile remains safe and reliable.
_________GOOGLE TO SELL OLD NEWS_________
http://snipurl.com/yftz
Now who would buy that?! A new product being released by Google called
Google News Archive Search will make more than 200 years of news
content searchable to all users. The content will come from publishers
and aggregators such as The New York Times, Time magazine, The
Guardian, LexisNexis, and Factiva, many of which charge fees for
archived content.
Clicking on a search result will yield a summary and—here's the part
online publishers are sure to love—give users the option to buy the
full article. Contrary to the idea that Google devalues paid content,
the search engine could increase the value of content and subscription
services that users previously didn't know existed. What's more,
publishers don't have to share the wealth with Google. The
search-engine company will receive no payment from publishers' content
fees, advertising, or supplying traffic. Search results will be ranked
by relevance, without any influence from publishers. The results
initially will be served without Google's customary sponsored links on
the right side of the page, and at the outset, Google won't make money
directly from the service.
Doesn't really matter to Google, since its mission is to make all the
world's information available. The more information the company
offers, the more people may use its search engine. In addition, small
publishers that participate in the service may choose to use Google's
fee-based Checkout payment service to collect payments.
_________PLASMA ARCS TO ELIMINATE LANDFILLS_________
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-09-09-fla-county-trash_x.htm
St. Lucie County on central Florida's Atlantic Coast is planning to
build a $425 million plasma-arc gasification facility that will use
lightning-like plasma arcs to turn trash into gas and rock-like
material. It will be the first such plant in the nation operating on
such a massive scale and the largest in the world. The
100,000-square-foot plasma plant, slated to be operational in two
years, is expected to vaporize 3,000 tons of garbage a day using up to
eight plasma arc-equipped cupolas. County officials estimate their
entire landfill — 4.3 million tons of trash collected since 1978 —
will be gone in 18 years.
No byproduct will go unused, according to Geoplasma, the Atlanta-based
company building and paying for the plant. Synthetic, combustible gas
produced in the process will be used to run turbines to create about
120 megawatts of electricity that will be sold back to the grid. About
80,000 pounds of steam per day will be sold to a neighboring Tropicana
Products Inc. facility to power the juice plant's turbines. Sludge
from the county's wastewater treatment plant will be vaporized, and a
material created from melted organic matter — up to 600 tons a day —
will be hardened into slag, and sold for use in road and construction
projects.
Geoplasma expects to recoup its $425 million investment, funded by
bonds, within 20 years through the sale of electricity and slag.
_________TOSHIBA CREATES THREE-LAYERED DISC_________
http://snipurl.com/yfu2
Toshiba has been tinkering with the HD DVD and DVD disc formats,
putting together a hybrid format with three layers that contain both
formats.
So it looks like we'll be seeing either a single-layer 4.7GB DVD along
with a dual layer 30GB HD DVD, or conversely, a dual-layer 8.5GB DVD
and a single-layer 15GB HD DVD, all together on one disc. The DVD
section will be playable on conventional DVD players, and with a
firmware update, standard HD DVD players can play both formats. This
idea could add more capacity to those already-existing single-layer
hybrid discs, where a movie is offered on DVD for use today and also
includes a high-def HD DVD copy on the same disc for those who think
someday they may be suckered into buying an HD DVD player. Then again,
the big studios would rather sell us the same content over and over again.
_________SOFTWARE GIVES SENTENCE IN CHINESE COURTS_________
http://snipurl.com/yfu5
Apparently, a court in China has been using a software program to help
decide prison sentences in more than 1,500 criminal cases. The
software, tested for two years in a court in Zibo, a city in the
eastern coastal province of Shandong, covered about 100 different
crimes, including robbery, rape, murder and state security offenses.
According to the software's developer, Qin Ye, "The software is aimed
at ensuring standardized decisions on prison terms. Our programs set
standard terms for any subtle distinctions in different cases of the
same crime." Judges enter details of a case and the system produces a
sentence.
With the software, abuseof discretionary power of judges as a result
of corruption or insufficient training can be avoided. But some
Chinese newspapers criticized the move as a farce that highlighted the
"laziness of the court" and that would not curb judicial corruption as
touted. The software would be adopted by more courts in Shandong province.
_________NYBBLETS_________
* The GIMPS project has found a new record prime. 2 ^ 32,582,657 - 1
weighs in at over 9 million digits. Try memorizing that.
* The Nintendo Wii will go on sale on November 19th in North and South
America, at a cost of $250.
* Larry Sanger, first editor-in-chief of Wikipedia, forks the project
into Citizendium - a citizens' compendium of everything.
* Toshiba Corp. has offered to exchange 340,000 laptop computer
batteries made by Sony.
* Motorola unveils phone vending machines called Instamoto at 20 malls
and airports across the US.
* YouTube has informed potential buyers such as Viacom, Disney, AOL,
eBay and News Corp. that it won't be sold for anything less than
$1.5billion.
* Seitz announces a 160MP digital camera - almost 20" long, costs
about US$36,000, and with on-board gigabit Ethernet.
* Intel has developed an 80 core processor with claims 'that can
perform a trillion floating point operations per second.'
* IBM and Lenovo are recalling 168,500 ThinkPad notebook battery packs
in the United States and another 357,000 worldwide.
* Alan Watts, a British businessman, converts his 2,000,000 frequent
flyer miles for a ticket aboard a 2009 Virgin Galactic space flight.
* Microsoft's iPod-killer Zune to sell for US$249.99 starting November 14.
_________LIKEABLE LINKS_________
The Rasterbator
http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/
Learn Chinese
http://www.chinesepod.com/
Google Image Labeler
http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/
FreeDOS 1.0
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=608122
Airport Wireless Internet Access Guide
http://www.travelpost.com/airport-wireless-internet.aspx
_________QUESTIONABLE QUESTION_________
If you had no choice but to choose, which would you give up: access to
e-mail or the Web? Both still exist, just not for you.
_________QUOTABLE QUOTE_________
A diplomat... is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way
that you actually look forward to the trip.
~ Caskie Stinnett, Out of the Red (1960) ~
_________TRIVIAL TRIVIA_________
Why do magicians say hocus pocus?
The magician's words "hocus-pocus" were taken from the name of a
mythological sorcerer, Ochus Bochus, who appeared in Norse folktales
and legends.
Source: Arcamax Trivia
_________LAUGHABLE LAUGH_________
I watched an ant climb a blade of grass this morning. When he reached
the top, his weight bent the blade down to the ground. Then, twisting
his thorax with insectile precision, he grabbed a hold of the next blade.
In this manner, he traveled across the lawn, covering as much distance
vertically as he did horizontally, which both amused and delighted me.
And then, all at once, I had what is sometimes called an "epiphany"; a
moment of heightened awareness in which everything becomes crystal clear.
Yes, hunched over that ant on my hands and knees, I suddenly knew what
I had to do... Quit drinking before noon.
That's all for this week. Nybble is and will always be a work in
progress. Please do send me your comments and suggestions on how to
improve Nybble. Just hit the reply button to you know, reply.
A Free Ezine about Anything Tech and Everything Else
2006.10.08 Issue No. 181
I've only had my Xbox for only a couple of months, but strangely
enough, I don't seem to be spending much time with it. I myself am
surprised because that Xbox is not an impulse purchase. And the reason
I bought it is because of it's "hackability" compared to the PS2. As
the gamers out there would probably know, an Xbox works best when
modded. I'm too lazy (and cheap) to bring it to a shop to have it
modded, so I spent quite a few long nights browsing different forums
trying to learn how to do a purely software mod. After verifying
kernel versions and dashboard versions and downloading all the
necessary hacking tools and exploits, it took me half a day taking
apart the Xbox, hot-swapping hard disks with a desktop PC (at the
right moment, which is always tricky, not to mention dangerous), and
finally soft-modding it properly. After that I spent a few weeks
installing XBMC, some Xbox games, various emulators and ROMS, a
portion of my photo, mp3, and movie collection, etc. At the end of the
day, I was able to watch DVDs and DivX/Xvid AVIs, do slideshows of my
photos (complete with background music), and play my mp3/ogg files
(complete with random visualizations). And play games, too. Then I got
bored, or maybe I was busy with something else, and lost my momentum.
If and when I get the urge back, I might connect it to the Internet
and do some Web browsing or audio streaming or a bit of online gaming.
We'll see.
Have an answer, comment, suggestion, or violent reaction? Send them my
way by clicking on Reply or join nybbletalk@yahoogroups.com to discuss
a topic. If you think Nybble is good enough, do tell the bored geeks
about it. Thanks.
P.S. I'm creating a new section called Nybblets. Don't ask me how many
bits that is.
_________TABLE OF CONTENTS_________
* Samsung Trials 4G
* Garbage Cans with RFID
* Robo-Transport in Europe
* IBM to Build Fastest Supercomputer
* Google to Sell Old News
* Plasma Arcs to Eliminate Landfills
* Toshiba Creates Three-Layered Disc
* Software Gives Sentence in Chinese Courts
* Nybblets
* Likeable Links
* Questionable Question
* Quotable Quote
* Trivial Trivia
* Laughable Laugh
_________SAMSUNG TRIALS 4G_________
http://weblog.infoworld.com/techwatch/archives/007741.html
While we're just starting to have a taste of 3G, Samsung is already
trialing their 4G solution to the general public. If you were in Jeju
Island, Korea recently, you could have hopped on board a specially
designed bus at Samsung's 4G Forum, in which the company presented the
world premier of 4G WiBro (Wireless Broadband) technology. The bus
stunt was an effort to prove the stability of 4G technology by
demonstrating a multi-cell handover with data speeds of 100Mbps,
simultaneously offering delegates a live broadcast of the forum,
Internet access, and video on demand. Additionally, the company showed
off 4G's nomadic speed of 1Gbps data transmissions inside the forum
venue with simultaneous 32HD channel broadcast (20Mpbs) downloads,
Internet access, and video telephony. Furthermore, a 3.5Gbps data
transfer demonstration using 8x8 MIMO (multi-input multi-output) was
part of the display.
A speedy cousin to WiMax, WiBro's nomadic speed of 1Gbps is 50 times
faster than 3G, according to Samsung. With speeds of 1Gpbs, it would
take about 2.4 seconds to transfer 100 MP3 files (300MB), and 5.6
seconds to transfer one 800MB movie, to put things in perspective.
WiBro is based on the IEEE 802.16.e-2005 standard. The 4G mobile
communications format is expected to become commercially available
around 2010. Samsung already holds more than 220 patents related to 4G
mobile communications.
_________GARBAGE CANS WITH RFID_________
http://www.livescience.com/scienceoffiction/060831_technovelgy.html
At least half a million "wheelie bins" across England now come with
RFID tags. The electronic devices (passive RFID tags) about the size
of a one-pence piece are screwed into a hole in the lip of the bin. As
the bin is hoisted up for emptying, an RFID reader on the refuse truck
interrogates the chip, which divulges a serial number identifying the
property owner. The weight of the bin is recorded by the truck's
sensors and is registered in a database entry along with the serial
number.
The database entries for the day are downloaded at the dump and stored
in a vast central databank of property owner behavior. What that
information is used for, we can only guess. A new "garbage tax" on
people with overly-heavy cans maybe? With more and more items having
RFID tags detailing the items'brand names and product names, it's
possible to use similar equipment to quickly scan your can to uncover
your purchasing habits.
_________ROBO-TRANSPORT IN EUROPE________
http://www.spiegel.de/international/1,1518,435805,00.html
Under the auspices of the European Union's "Citymobil" project, which
was launched on August 28, companies and research institutes
representing 10 countries have come together to develop small
automatic transportation systems. Currently, three model projects are
planned with funding of about €40 million.
The first is being built at London's Heathrow Airport where, starting
in summer of 2008, 19-computer steered electric cars will go into
operation. The automated taxis will be used to connect Heathrow's
Terminal 5 with a parking lot. The technology, which has been named
"Ultra," has been developed by the British firm ATS and is already
being tested. The driverless vehicles pick up passengers after they
are ordered and deliver them to their destination. Magnets or sensors
on the ground direct the vehicles along their route. In Rome,
driverless "cyber cars" will pick up visitors at a parking lot or the
nearby train station and take them to a new exhibition center. And in
the Spanish city of Castellón, a new driverless bus will be tested
that can travel through the city center on a specially designated
lane. Automation has long existed on some subway trains, monorails and
airport transport vehicles, but these would count among the first
major projects of smaller "peoplemover" systems.
_________IBM TO BUILD FASTEST SUPERCOMPUTER_________
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5322704.stm
Codenamed Roadrunner, the new supercomputer IBM plans to build could
be four times more potent than the current fastest machine,
BlueGene/L, also built by IBM.
The new computer is a "hybrid" design, containing 16,000 standard
processors working alongside 16,000 "cell" processors, designed for
the PlayStation 3 (PS3). Each cell chip consists of eight processors
controlled by a master unit that can assign tasks to each member of
the processing team. Each cell is capable of 256 billion calculations
per second. The power of the cell chip means Roadrunner needs far
fewer processors than its predecessors. The new machine will be able
to achieve "petaflop speeds," said IBM. One petaflop is the equivalent
of 1,000 trillion calculations per second. Running at peak speed, it
will be able to crunch through 1.6 thousand trillion calculations per
second. By comparison, BlueGene/L is capable of mere "teraflop"
(trillion calculations per second) speeds.
Roadrunner will be installed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory,
New Mexico. The laboratory is owned by the US Department of Energy
(DOE). Eventually the machine could be used for a programme that
ensures the US nuclear weapons stockpile remains safe and reliable.
_________GOOGLE TO SELL OLD NEWS_________
http://snipurl.com/yftz
Now who would buy that?! A new product being released by Google called
Google News Archive Search will make more than 200 years of news
content searchable to all users. The content will come from publishers
and aggregators such as The New York Times, Time magazine, The
Guardian, LexisNexis, and Factiva, many of which charge fees for
archived content.
Clicking on a search result will yield a summary and—here's the part
online publishers are sure to love—give users the option to buy the
full article. Contrary to the idea that Google devalues paid content,
the search engine could increase the value of content and subscription
services that users previously didn't know existed. What's more,
publishers don't have to share the wealth with Google. The
search-engine company will receive no payment from publishers' content
fees, advertising, or supplying traffic. Search results will be ranked
by relevance, without any influence from publishers. The results
initially will be served without Google's customary sponsored links on
the right side of the page, and at the outset, Google won't make money
directly from the service.
Doesn't really matter to Google, since its mission is to make all the
world's information available. The more information the company
offers, the more people may use its search engine. In addition, small
publishers that participate in the service may choose to use Google's
fee-based Checkout payment service to collect payments.
_________PLASMA ARCS TO ELIMINATE LANDFILLS_________
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-09-09-fla-county-trash_x.htm
St. Lucie County on central Florida's Atlantic Coast is planning to
build a $425 million plasma-arc gasification facility that will use
lightning-like plasma arcs to turn trash into gas and rock-like
material. It will be the first such plant in the nation operating on
such a massive scale and the largest in the world. The
100,000-square-foot plasma plant, slated to be operational in two
years, is expected to vaporize 3,000 tons of garbage a day using up to
eight plasma arc-equipped cupolas. County officials estimate their
entire landfill — 4.3 million tons of trash collected since 1978 —
will be gone in 18 years.
No byproduct will go unused, according to Geoplasma, the Atlanta-based
company building and paying for the plant. Synthetic, combustible gas
produced in the process will be used to run turbines to create about
120 megawatts of electricity that will be sold back to the grid. About
80,000 pounds of steam per day will be sold to a neighboring Tropicana
Products Inc. facility to power the juice plant's turbines. Sludge
from the county's wastewater treatment plant will be vaporized, and a
material created from melted organic matter — up to 600 tons a day —
will be hardened into slag, and sold for use in road and construction
projects.
Geoplasma expects to recoup its $425 million investment, funded by
bonds, within 20 years through the sale of electricity and slag.
_________TOSHIBA CREATES THREE-LAYERED DISC_________
http://snipurl.com/yfu2
Toshiba has been tinkering with the HD DVD and DVD disc formats,
putting together a hybrid format with three layers that contain both
formats.
So it looks like we'll be seeing either a single-layer 4.7GB DVD along
with a dual layer 30GB HD DVD, or conversely, a dual-layer 8.5GB DVD
and a single-layer 15GB HD DVD, all together on one disc. The DVD
section will be playable on conventional DVD players, and with a
firmware update, standard HD DVD players can play both formats. This
idea could add more capacity to those already-existing single-layer
hybrid discs, where a movie is offered on DVD for use today and also
includes a high-def HD DVD copy on the same disc for those who think
someday they may be suckered into buying an HD DVD player. Then again,
the big studios would rather sell us the same content over and over again.
_________SOFTWARE GIVES SENTENCE IN CHINESE COURTS_________
http://snipurl.com/yfu5
Apparently, a court in China has been using a software program to help
decide prison sentences in more than 1,500 criminal cases. The
software, tested for two years in a court in Zibo, a city in the
eastern coastal province of Shandong, covered about 100 different
crimes, including robbery, rape, murder and state security offenses.
According to the software's developer, Qin Ye, "The software is aimed
at ensuring standardized decisions on prison terms. Our programs set
standard terms for any subtle distinctions in different cases of the
same crime." Judges enter details of a case and the system produces a
sentence.
With the software, abuseof discretionary power of judges as a result
of corruption or insufficient training can be avoided. But some
Chinese newspapers criticized the move as a farce that highlighted the
"laziness of the court" and that would not curb judicial corruption as
touted. The software would be adopted by more courts in Shandong province.
_________NYBBLETS_________
* The GIMPS project has found a new record prime. 2 ^ 32,582,657 - 1
weighs in at over 9 million digits. Try memorizing that.
* The Nintendo Wii will go on sale on November 19th in North and South
America, at a cost of $250.
* Larry Sanger, first editor-in-chief of Wikipedia, forks the project
into Citizendium - a citizens' compendium of everything.
* Toshiba Corp. has offered to exchange 340,000 laptop computer
batteries made by Sony.
* Motorola unveils phone vending machines called Instamoto at 20 malls
and airports across the US.
* YouTube has informed potential buyers such as Viacom, Disney, AOL,
eBay and News Corp. that it won't be sold for anything less than
$1.5billion.
* Seitz announces a 160MP digital camera - almost 20" long, costs
about US$36,000, and with on-board gigabit Ethernet.
* Intel has developed an 80 core processor with claims 'that can
perform a trillion floating point operations per second.'
* IBM and Lenovo are recalling 168,500 ThinkPad notebook battery packs
in the United States and another 357,000 worldwide.
* Alan Watts, a British businessman, converts his 2,000,000 frequent
flyer miles for a ticket aboard a 2009 Virgin Galactic space flight.
* Microsoft's iPod-killer Zune to sell for US$249.99 starting November 14.
_________LIKEABLE LINKS_________
The Rasterbator
http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/
Learn Chinese
http://www.chinesepod.com/
Google Image Labeler
http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/
FreeDOS 1.0
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=608122
Airport Wireless Internet Access Guide
http://www.travelpost.com/airport-wireless-internet.aspx
_________QUESTIONABLE QUESTION_________
If you had no choice but to choose, which would you give up: access to
e-mail or the Web? Both still exist, just not for you.
_________QUOTABLE QUOTE_________
A diplomat... is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way
that you actually look forward to the trip.
~ Caskie Stinnett, Out of the Red (1960) ~
_________TRIVIAL TRIVIA_________
Why do magicians say hocus pocus?
The magician's words "hocus-pocus" were taken from the name of a
mythological sorcerer, Ochus Bochus, who appeared in Norse folktales
and legends.
Source: Arcamax Trivia
_________LAUGHABLE LAUGH_________
I watched an ant climb a blade of grass this morning. When he reached
the top, his weight bent the blade down to the ground. Then, twisting
his thorax with insectile precision, he grabbed a hold of the next blade.
In this manner, he traveled across the lawn, covering as much distance
vertically as he did horizontally, which both amused and delighted me.
And then, all at once, I had what is sometimes called an "epiphany"; a
moment of heightened awareness in which everything becomes crystal clear.
Yes, hunched over that ant on my hands and knees, I suddenly knew what
I had to do... Quit drinking before noon.
That's all for this week. Nybble is and will always be a work in
progress. Please do send me your comments and suggestions on how to
improve Nybble. Just hit the reply button to you know, reply.
Tuesday, November 7, 2006
Nybble 2006.11.07
N Y B B L E M O N T H L Y N E W S L E T T E R
A Free Ezine about Anything Tech and Everything Else
2006.11.07 Issue No. 182
Lyrics search and display have definitely come a long way. I remember
the good old days of Winamp and searching far and wide for a lyrics
plug-in. Managed to find a few, but they don't work all the time. When
they work, all they do is display lyrics. You still have to supply the
lyrics yourself. If the timings don't match? You have to twiddle with
the time markers via a text editor, or by clicking on the displayed
lines. Since then I have moved on to foobar2000, the audio player of
choice by geeks. A few days ago that I started looking for some
lyrics-related plugins for it. A few plugins came up, but there's no
single one that can do everything - search, edit, display. If you
don't mind having an external application, you can try MiniLyrics and
EvilLyrics. I've tried EvilLyrics before, but for now I'm sticking
with MiniLyrics, as it's good enough for me. (Gone are the days when I
would download and install multiple applications to test which one is
the best.)
MiniLyrics is pretty good. As soon as a song is played in foobar2000,
it reads the relevant tags and goes to the Internet searching for the
lyrics. Usually, it'll decide on the best one, and immediately display
it on a separate window. If multiple entries come up, it'll open a
window and let you choose which one matches the song best. Select an
LRC file and you'll get scrolling lyrics in synch with the audio file.
Now all you need is a karaoke plugin that can eliminate the vocals,
and just leave you with a minus one. So long, MagicSing and Singstar.
Have an answer, comment, suggestion, or violent reaction? Send them my
way by clicking on Reply or join nybbletalk@yahoogroups.com to discuss
a topic. If you think Nybble is good enough, do tell the wannabe
singers about it. Thanks.
_________TABLE OF CONTENTS_________
* Single-Pixel Camera
* Cloak of Invisibility Closer to Reality
* Robot Swarm Carries Heavy Load
* CDs and DVDs with Smart Card and USB
* Yahoo's Digital Time Capsule
* Sewer Gas Induces Suspended Animation
* Virus-Infested Memory Chips
* Protein Gels Stops Bleeding Instantly
* Nybblets
* Likeable Links
* Questionable Question
* Quotable Quote
* Trivial Trivia
* Laughable Laugh
_________SINGLE-PIXEL CAMERA_________
http://physicsbuzz.blogspot.com/2006/10/single-pixel-camera.html
Scientists at Rice University in Houston have developed a one-pixel
camera. Yup, you read that right, one pixel. The camera produces
images by recording thousands of single-pixel images one after the
other, rather than simultaneously recording millions of pixels. As
such, it takes 15 minutes for this camera to take a picture.
What good is it then? Well, the primary benefit is that it needs much
less information to assemble an image. It compresses the image data
via its hardware before the pixels are recorded. As a result, it's
able to capture an image with only thousands of pieces of information
rather than millions. The compression is achieved with an array of
tiny, movable mirrors. Various mirror arrangements encode information
about the photographic subject as a whole, in lieu of the
point-by-point image recording in a normal camera.
The technology could make cameras much cheaper by letting us get by
with fewer pixels, or perhaps lead (some day) to gigapixel resolution
from megapixel cameras.
_________CLOAK OF INVISIBILITY CLOSER TO REALITY_________
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061019/ap_on_sc/cloak_of_invisibility_1
A team of American and British researchers has developed a cloak of
invisibility. Technically, it's more a cloaking device than a cloak of
invisibility. Cloaking differs from stealth technology, which doesn't
make an aircraft invisible but reduces the cross-section available to
radar, making it hard to track. Cloaking simply passes the radar or
other waves around the object as if it weren't there, like water
flowing around a smooth rock in a stream.
In an experiment, scientists used microwaves to try and detect a
cloaked copper cylinder. The two-dimensional cloak worked fine, but
did cast a small shadow. The ideal cloak would have nearly negligible
reflection and virtually no shadowing. Looking at a cloaked item, one
would see whatever is behind the cloak. That is, the cloak is,
ideally, transparent. The next step is to cloak objects from visible
light. In addition to hiding things, redirecting electromagnetic waves
could prove useful in protecting sensitive electronics from harmful
radiation. In another speculative application, one could imagine
'cloaking' acoustic waves, so as to shield a region from vibration or
seismic activity.
_________ROBOT SWARM CARRIES HEAVY LOAD________
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn10319-robot-swarm-works-together-to-shift-heavy-objects.html
Marco Dorigo at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium, along with
colleagues at the Institute of Cognitive Science and Technology in
Italy and the Autonomous Systems Laboratory and Dalle Molle Institute
for the Study of Artificial Intelligence, developed a swarm of robots
that works collaboratively to achieve a common goal. Called a
Swarm-bot, each of them is 19 centimetres high, has a rotating turret,
a claw-like gripper and moves using a combination of caterpillar
tracks and wheels. Each also has a basic computer and is loaded with
the same software. For the Swarm-bots to accomplish a particular task,
a set of simple rules are "evolved" to suit the particular task, and
loaded onto the robots. The robots cannot communicate and must act
only on what they can see around them. They follow simple rules to
fulfill their task - mimicking the way insects work together in a swarm.
In experiments, six of the cylindrical robots were able to drag an
object across the floor of a room. Working autonomously, they locate
and assemble around the object and either grab hold of it directly or
of another robot nearby, before slowly dragging it towards a target.
The robots can adjust their caterpillar tracks, to ensure they are all
pulling in the right direction. Each robot also uses its sensor to
identify any conflicting forces, and then changes direction
accordingly. Dorigo is now working on a swarm of robots that could
operate in a human environment.
I'd hate to think what happens when things go wrong. See Michael
Crichton's Prey.
_________CDS AND DVDS WITH SMART CARD AND USB_________
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn10306-invention-smartcard-dvds.html
The many things you can do with a CD. American-Israeli company Aladdin
think it can breathe new life into the CD and DVD formats by creating
a new disc that combines optical storage capacity with an embedded
electronic smart card chip and USB interface.
The irregularly-shaped "XCD" is the thickness of a normal optical disc
and can still play in any CD or DVD drive. But it also has a smart
card, with its own memory and processing components, embedded in the
plastic. The embedded chip is connected to a line of electrodes on the
surface of one side of the disc. The outer edge of the disc is cut
away so that the electrodes protrude and can plug straight into a USB
socket.
But why bother inserting a chip into a DVD or CD in the first place?
Aladdin thinks it could provide a clever way to digitally lock content
sold on optical discs. Music, video or data can be stored optically
and read by computer's CD or DVD player, while encryption keys can be
stored on the embedded chip and read by USB. The encryption keys could
be used to lock information so that it can only be played having
plugged the original disc in to the USB.
_________YAHOO'S DIGITAL TIME CAPSULE_________
http://snipurl.com/11eqi
For 30 days, from October 10 to November 8, Yahoo is inviting
donations from anyone and everyone for a time capsule project in
collaboration with Internet artist Jonathan Harris. This is by no
means an ordinary time capsule though. The final time capsule will be
digitized then beamed with a laser to outer space in a bid to contact
extraterrestrial life. The time capsule is organized into ten themes:
Love, Sorrow, Anger, Faith, Beauty, Fun, Past, Hope, Now, and You -
chosen to encompass the human experience. Contributions can be text,
images, audio and video that reflect these themes.
To make the project more exciting, the digitized time capsule will be
beamed from the ancient Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico
(formerly known as the City of the Gods). Hurry up, one day left to go.
_________SEWER GAS INDUCES SUSPENDED ANIMATION_________
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5412824.stm
In a study carried out recently at Massachusetts General Hospital in
Boston, scientists discovered that hydrogen sulfide, a toxic gas that
smells of rotten eggs and naturally occurring in swamps, springs and
volcanoes, can induce 'suspended animation' in mice. The mice were
administered the gas at a concentration of 80 parts per million - a
tenth of the dose which is lethal in humans. The researchers reported
that the heart rate fell from 500 to 200 beats per minute and
respiration fell from 120 to 25 breaths per minute. Core body
temperature also fell from 39 to 30 degrees C. Despite the reduction
in heart rate the blood pressure of the mice did not drop, which tends
to happen with other techniques such as lowering body temperature. The
effects of the gas seemed to be reversible with the mice returning to
normal two hours after the mice started to breathe normal air again.
Dr. Fumito Ichinose, assistant professor of anaesthesia at Harvard
Medical School said that if the effects of hydrogen sulfide was
confirmed in larger mammals it could be useful in helping to sustain
the functionality of organs in patients undergoing cardiac surgery or
in patients with severe trauma. Currently, the only way to protect
other organs is to cool the body and induce hypothermia. The problem
with hypothermia is it's not that easy to cool down the human body.
Dr. Ichinose added that the findings would need to be replicated in
larger animals such as pigs as mice may be more susceptible to induced
hibernation.
_________VIRUS-INFESTED MEMORY CHIPS_________
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn10228-happy-snaps-from-a-virusinfested-chip.html
A team of researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles
discovered that by coating 30-nanometre-long chunks of tobacco mosaic
virus with platinum nanoparticles, it's possible to create a
transistor with a very fast switching speed. The team built a
transistor by embedding the coated virus strips in a polymer matrix,
sandwiched between two electrodes much like a standard transistor.
Apply a voltage to the transistor, and the platinum nanoparticles –
roughly 16 per virus – each donate an electron to proteins on the
surface of the virus, moving the device to an ON state. When the
voltage dips below a certain threshold, the electrons jump back to the
nanoparticle, switching the transistor to an OFF state.
The switching speed takes just 100 microseconds because the charge
only has to travel 10 nanometres between each nanoparticle and the
surface of the virus. In flash memory chips, a capacitor is used as a
control gate, building up charge to a certain level before current is
able to flow to a second gate. Millions of these transistors could
eventually be used in a memory chip to replace flash memory in mp3
players and digital cameras, for example. The team hopes to build a
prototype packed with millions of single-virus transistors within four
years.
_________PROTEIN GEL STOPS BLEEDING INSTANTLY_________
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article.ns?id=dn10265&feedId=online-news_rss20
An international team of researchers has developed a solution of
protein molecules that self-organise on the nanoscale into a
biodegradable gel that stops bleeding in seconds. If the material
works as well in humans, it could save thousands of lives and make
surgery far easier in many cases.
Molecular biologist Shuguang Zhang, at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in the US, began experimenting with peptides in 1991. Zhang
and colleagues at MIT and the University of Hong Kong in China went on
to design several materials that self-assemble into novel
nano-structures, including a molecular scaffold that helps the
regrowth of severed nerve cells in hamsters. Their work exploits the
way certain peptide sequences can be made to self-assemble into
mesh-like sheets of "nanofibres" when immersed in salt solutions. In
the course of that research they discovered one material's dramatic
ability to stop bleeding in the brain and began testing it on a
variety of other organs and tissues. When applied to a wound, the
peptides form a gel that seals over the wound, without causing harm to
any nearby cells.
Still, they caution that extensive clinical trials are needed to make
sure the materials work properly and are safe. The MIT researchers
hope to see those crucial human trials within three to five years.
_________NYBBLETS_________
* NASA Announces Record Ozone Hole (Now at 10.6 Million Square Miles)
* Bacteria Found 2.8kms beneath the Earth Process Radioactive Water
for Food
* Coke and Nestle to Introduce Drink Called Enviga that Burns Calories
* Cornell University Report Shows Statistically-Significant
Relationship between Autism and TV-Watching
* Google's Silicon Valley HQ to Become the Largest U.S. Solar-Powered
Corporate Office Complex
* Two Russian Companies to Build World's First 120-Megawatt Floating
Nuclear Power Plant for $200M
_________LIKEABLE LINKS_________
Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
http://www.freesoft.org/CIE/index.htm
Wikipedia in Your Laptop
http://www.webaroo.com/rooWebPacks.html#wikipedia
Encyclopedia in Your iPod
http://encyclopodia.sourceforge.net/en/index.html
Google Docs & Spreadsheets
http://docs.google.com
Yahoo Time Capsule by Jonathan Harris
http://timecapsule.yahoo.com/capsule.php
_________QUESTIONABLE QUESTION_________
When squirrels rush in front of my car, are they doing it because they
get some kind of adrenaline rush?
_________QUOTABLE QUOTE_________
Who hears music feels his solitude peopled at once.
~ Robert Browning ~
_________TRIVIAL TRIVIA_________
Do buffaloes have wings?
Buffalo chicken wings were so named for their city of origin in New
York state, where they were created at The Anchor Bar.
Source: Arcamax Trivia
_________LAUGHABLE LAUGH_________
A few years ago a refugee from Laos came to the US in one of the
resettlement influxes. He had been an announcer in radio back in Laos,
and he wanted to get into the same line of work here. The first thing
he did was join AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio
Announcers). He tried to pursue a job, but of course, he had problems
with the English language, being a new resident. In order to keep body
and soul together while going to English classes, he took up
barbering. Soon, he became a very good barber, giving haircuts,
stylings, and shaves. He seemed to be an artist with the straight
razor. In fact, the shop where he worked made him specialize in giving
shaves.
Thus, he became known as an AFTRA shave Laotian.
That's all for this week. Nybble is and will always be a work in
progress. Please do send me your comments and suggestions on how to
improve Nybble. Just hit the reply button to you know, reply.
A Free Ezine about Anything Tech and Everything Else
2006.11.07 Issue No. 182
Lyrics search and display have definitely come a long way. I remember
the good old days of Winamp and searching far and wide for a lyrics
plug-in. Managed to find a few, but they don't work all the time. When
they work, all they do is display lyrics. You still have to supply the
lyrics yourself. If the timings don't match? You have to twiddle with
the time markers via a text editor, or by clicking on the displayed
lines. Since then I have moved on to foobar2000, the audio player of
choice by geeks. A few days ago that I started looking for some
lyrics-related plugins for it. A few plugins came up, but there's no
single one that can do everything - search, edit, display. If you
don't mind having an external application, you can try MiniLyrics and
EvilLyrics. I've tried EvilLyrics before, but for now I'm sticking
with MiniLyrics, as it's good enough for me. (Gone are the days when I
would download and install multiple applications to test which one is
the best.)
MiniLyrics is pretty good. As soon as a song is played in foobar2000,
it reads the relevant tags and goes to the Internet searching for the
lyrics. Usually, it'll decide on the best one, and immediately display
it on a separate window. If multiple entries come up, it'll open a
window and let you choose which one matches the song best. Select an
LRC file and you'll get scrolling lyrics in synch with the audio file.
Now all you need is a karaoke plugin that can eliminate the vocals,
and just leave you with a minus one. So long, MagicSing and Singstar.
Have an answer, comment, suggestion, or violent reaction? Send them my
way by clicking on Reply or join nybbletalk@yahoogroups.com to discuss
a topic. If you think Nybble is good enough, do tell the wannabe
singers about it. Thanks.
_________TABLE OF CONTENTS_________
* Single-Pixel Camera
* Cloak of Invisibility Closer to Reality
* Robot Swarm Carries Heavy Load
* CDs and DVDs with Smart Card and USB
* Yahoo's Digital Time Capsule
* Sewer Gas Induces Suspended Animation
* Virus-Infested Memory Chips
* Protein Gels Stops Bleeding Instantly
* Nybblets
* Likeable Links
* Questionable Question
* Quotable Quote
* Trivial Trivia
* Laughable Laugh
_________SINGLE-PIXEL CAMERA_________
http://physicsbuzz.blogspot.com/2006/10/single-pixel-camera.html
Scientists at Rice University in Houston have developed a one-pixel
camera. Yup, you read that right, one pixel. The camera produces
images by recording thousands of single-pixel images one after the
other, rather than simultaneously recording millions of pixels. As
such, it takes 15 minutes for this camera to take a picture.
What good is it then? Well, the primary benefit is that it needs much
less information to assemble an image. It compresses the image data
via its hardware before the pixels are recorded. As a result, it's
able to capture an image with only thousands of pieces of information
rather than millions. The compression is achieved with an array of
tiny, movable mirrors. Various mirror arrangements encode information
about the photographic subject as a whole, in lieu of the
point-by-point image recording in a normal camera.
The technology could make cameras much cheaper by letting us get by
with fewer pixels, or perhaps lead (some day) to gigapixel resolution
from megapixel cameras.
_________CLOAK OF INVISIBILITY CLOSER TO REALITY_________
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061019/ap_on_sc/cloak_of_invisibility_1
A team of American and British researchers has developed a cloak of
invisibility. Technically, it's more a cloaking device than a cloak of
invisibility. Cloaking differs from stealth technology, which doesn't
make an aircraft invisible but reduces the cross-section available to
radar, making it hard to track. Cloaking simply passes the radar or
other waves around the object as if it weren't there, like water
flowing around a smooth rock in a stream.
In an experiment, scientists used microwaves to try and detect a
cloaked copper cylinder. The two-dimensional cloak worked fine, but
did cast a small shadow. The ideal cloak would have nearly negligible
reflection and virtually no shadowing. Looking at a cloaked item, one
would see whatever is behind the cloak. That is, the cloak is,
ideally, transparent. The next step is to cloak objects from visible
light. In addition to hiding things, redirecting electromagnetic waves
could prove useful in protecting sensitive electronics from harmful
radiation. In another speculative application, one could imagine
'cloaking' acoustic waves, so as to shield a region from vibration or
seismic activity.
_________ROBOT SWARM CARRIES HEAVY LOAD________
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn10319-robot-swarm-works-together-to-shift-heavy-objects.html
Marco Dorigo at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium, along with
colleagues at the Institute of Cognitive Science and Technology in
Italy and the Autonomous Systems Laboratory and Dalle Molle Institute
for the Study of Artificial Intelligence, developed a swarm of robots
that works collaboratively to achieve a common goal. Called a
Swarm-bot, each of them is 19 centimetres high, has a rotating turret,
a claw-like gripper and moves using a combination of caterpillar
tracks and wheels. Each also has a basic computer and is loaded with
the same software. For the Swarm-bots to accomplish a particular task,
a set of simple rules are "evolved" to suit the particular task, and
loaded onto the robots. The robots cannot communicate and must act
only on what they can see around them. They follow simple rules to
fulfill their task - mimicking the way insects work together in a swarm.
In experiments, six of the cylindrical robots were able to drag an
object across the floor of a room. Working autonomously, they locate
and assemble around the object and either grab hold of it directly or
of another robot nearby, before slowly dragging it towards a target.
The robots can adjust their caterpillar tracks, to ensure they are all
pulling in the right direction. Each robot also uses its sensor to
identify any conflicting forces, and then changes direction
accordingly. Dorigo is now working on a swarm of robots that could
operate in a human environment.
I'd hate to think what happens when things go wrong. See Michael
Crichton's Prey.
_________CDS AND DVDS WITH SMART CARD AND USB_________
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn10306-invention-smartcard-dvds.html
The many things you can do with a CD. American-Israeli company Aladdin
think it can breathe new life into the CD and DVD formats by creating
a new disc that combines optical storage capacity with an embedded
electronic smart card chip and USB interface.
The irregularly-shaped "XCD" is the thickness of a normal optical disc
and can still play in any CD or DVD drive. But it also has a smart
card, with its own memory and processing components, embedded in the
plastic. The embedded chip is connected to a line of electrodes on the
surface of one side of the disc. The outer edge of the disc is cut
away so that the electrodes protrude and can plug straight into a USB
socket.
But why bother inserting a chip into a DVD or CD in the first place?
Aladdin thinks it could provide a clever way to digitally lock content
sold on optical discs. Music, video or data can be stored optically
and read by computer's CD or DVD player, while encryption keys can be
stored on the embedded chip and read by USB. The encryption keys could
be used to lock information so that it can only be played having
plugged the original disc in to the USB.
_________YAHOO'S DIGITAL TIME CAPSULE_________
http://snipurl.com/11eqi
For 30 days, from October 10 to November 8, Yahoo is inviting
donations from anyone and everyone for a time capsule project in
collaboration with Internet artist Jonathan Harris. This is by no
means an ordinary time capsule though. The final time capsule will be
digitized then beamed with a laser to outer space in a bid to contact
extraterrestrial life. The time capsule is organized into ten themes:
Love, Sorrow, Anger, Faith, Beauty, Fun, Past, Hope, Now, and You -
chosen to encompass the human experience. Contributions can be text,
images, audio and video that reflect these themes.
To make the project more exciting, the digitized time capsule will be
beamed from the ancient Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico
(formerly known as the City of the Gods). Hurry up, one day left to go.
_________SEWER GAS INDUCES SUSPENDED ANIMATION_________
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5412824.stm
In a study carried out recently at Massachusetts General Hospital in
Boston, scientists discovered that hydrogen sulfide, a toxic gas that
smells of rotten eggs and naturally occurring in swamps, springs and
volcanoes, can induce 'suspended animation' in mice. The mice were
administered the gas at a concentration of 80 parts per million - a
tenth of the dose which is lethal in humans. The researchers reported
that the heart rate fell from 500 to 200 beats per minute and
respiration fell from 120 to 25 breaths per minute. Core body
temperature also fell from 39 to 30 degrees C. Despite the reduction
in heart rate the blood pressure of the mice did not drop, which tends
to happen with other techniques such as lowering body temperature. The
effects of the gas seemed to be reversible with the mice returning to
normal two hours after the mice started to breathe normal air again.
Dr. Fumito Ichinose, assistant professor of anaesthesia at Harvard
Medical School said that if the effects of hydrogen sulfide was
confirmed in larger mammals it could be useful in helping to sustain
the functionality of organs in patients undergoing cardiac surgery or
in patients with severe trauma. Currently, the only way to protect
other organs is to cool the body and induce hypothermia. The problem
with hypothermia is it's not that easy to cool down the human body.
Dr. Ichinose added that the findings would need to be replicated in
larger animals such as pigs as mice may be more susceptible to induced
hibernation.
_________VIRUS-INFESTED MEMORY CHIPS_________
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn10228-happy-snaps-from-a-virusinfested-chip.html
A team of researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles
discovered that by coating 30-nanometre-long chunks of tobacco mosaic
virus with platinum nanoparticles, it's possible to create a
transistor with a very fast switching speed. The team built a
transistor by embedding the coated virus strips in a polymer matrix,
sandwiched between two electrodes much like a standard transistor.
Apply a voltage to the transistor, and the platinum nanoparticles –
roughly 16 per virus – each donate an electron to proteins on the
surface of the virus, moving the device to an ON state. When the
voltage dips below a certain threshold, the electrons jump back to the
nanoparticle, switching the transistor to an OFF state.
The switching speed takes just 100 microseconds because the charge
only has to travel 10 nanometres between each nanoparticle and the
surface of the virus. In flash memory chips, a capacitor is used as a
control gate, building up charge to a certain level before current is
able to flow to a second gate. Millions of these transistors could
eventually be used in a memory chip to replace flash memory in mp3
players and digital cameras, for example. The team hopes to build a
prototype packed with millions of single-virus transistors within four
years.
_________PROTEIN GEL STOPS BLEEDING INSTANTLY_________
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article.ns?id=dn10265&feedId=online-news_rss20
An international team of researchers has developed a solution of
protein molecules that self-organise on the nanoscale into a
biodegradable gel that stops bleeding in seconds. If the material
works as well in humans, it could save thousands of lives and make
surgery far easier in many cases.
Molecular biologist Shuguang Zhang, at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in the US, began experimenting with peptides in 1991. Zhang
and colleagues at MIT and the University of Hong Kong in China went on
to design several materials that self-assemble into novel
nano-structures, including a molecular scaffold that helps the
regrowth of severed nerve cells in hamsters. Their work exploits the
way certain peptide sequences can be made to self-assemble into
mesh-like sheets of "nanofibres" when immersed in salt solutions. In
the course of that research they discovered one material's dramatic
ability to stop bleeding in the brain and began testing it on a
variety of other organs and tissues. When applied to a wound, the
peptides form a gel that seals over the wound, without causing harm to
any nearby cells.
Still, they caution that extensive clinical trials are needed to make
sure the materials work properly and are safe. The MIT researchers
hope to see those crucial human trials within three to five years.
_________NYBBLETS_________
* NASA Announces Record Ozone Hole (Now at 10.6 Million Square Miles)
* Bacteria Found 2.8kms beneath the Earth Process Radioactive Water
for Food
* Coke and Nestle to Introduce Drink Called Enviga that Burns Calories
* Cornell University Report Shows Statistically-Significant
Relationship between Autism and TV-Watching
* Google's Silicon Valley HQ to Become the Largest U.S. Solar-Powered
Corporate Office Complex
* Two Russian Companies to Build World's First 120-Megawatt Floating
Nuclear Power Plant for $200M
_________LIKEABLE LINKS_________
Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
http://www.freesoft.org/CIE/index.htm
Wikipedia in Your Laptop
http://www.webaroo.com/rooWebPacks.html#wikipedia
Encyclopedia in Your iPod
http://encyclopodia.sourceforge.net/en/index.html
Google Docs & Spreadsheets
http://docs.google.com
Yahoo Time Capsule by Jonathan Harris
http://timecapsule.yahoo.com/capsule.php
_________QUESTIONABLE QUESTION_________
When squirrels rush in front of my car, are they doing it because they
get some kind of adrenaline rush?
_________QUOTABLE QUOTE_________
Who hears music feels his solitude peopled at once.
~ Robert Browning ~
_________TRIVIAL TRIVIA_________
Do buffaloes have wings?
Buffalo chicken wings were so named for their city of origin in New
York state, where they were created at The Anchor Bar.
Source: Arcamax Trivia
_________LAUGHABLE LAUGH_________
A few years ago a refugee from Laos came to the US in one of the
resettlement influxes. He had been an announcer in radio back in Laos,
and he wanted to get into the same line of work here. The first thing
he did was join AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio
Announcers). He tried to pursue a job, but of course, he had problems
with the English language, being a new resident. In order to keep body
and soul together while going to English classes, he took up
barbering. Soon, he became a very good barber, giving haircuts,
stylings, and shaves. He seemed to be an artist with the straight
razor. In fact, the shop where he worked made him specialize in giving
shaves.
Thus, he became known as an AFTRA shave Laotian.
That's all for this week. Nybble is and will always be a work in
progress. Please do send me your comments and suggestions on how to
improve Nybble. Just hit the reply button to you know, reply.
Saturday, October 7, 2006
Friday, October 6, 2006
Katherine Jenkins Living a Dream Tour
Scored two free tickets to Katherine Jenkins' Living a Dream Tour concert at the State Theatre. Got my sister to come along with me. This is the first time I've entered the State Theatre and the place is pretty nice. A bit old, but the art deco interiors and furnishings are still magnificent.Kane Alexander opened the concert with a few songs by Josh Groban and Seal, backed by a string quartet. There was a long lull after the opening act. The orchestra kept the audience happy with some classical pieces, then Katherine Jenkins burst on stage with a blindingly white costume.
What I noticed is that she sings with a full operatic voice, but when she speaks, her voice is like a little girl's. If I remembered correctly, she did four sets (based on the number of costume changes she had). A lot of the songs came from her new Serenade album: the Italian version of (Everything I Do) I Do for You, Chanson Boheme, then O Mio Babbino Caro, Granada, etc.While it's a good concert, I still think it's expensive at $99.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
New York Tour - Day 1
Today we start our official tour of New York. After returning the Pontiac G6 to Alamo, we got ourselves an all-day Metro pass. First thing I wanted to visit is the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Yeah, that's me all right. Dad and I went in the museum, while my brother waited for his friend at the steps. Now, the Met is one of those museums where you can easily spend a whole day in. 
Unfortunately, I have only two hours, and I'm not paying 20 bucks "suggested admission fee" for only two hours to see two million works of art across two million square feet of exhibition space. I was told by a little bird that if you're too cheapo to pay full price, you can opt to make a "donation" to the musuem, and you still get the entry sticker. Yup, that's me again. The Met has quite a bit of history. 
It first opened in 1820 along Fifth Avenue, then moved to West 14th Street in 1873. It later acquired some land on the east side of Central Park, and that became its home till the present. The museum's permanent collection ranges from paintings and sculptures from European masters and American artists alike, special sections for Greek and Roman art, Asian art, Islamic art, medieval art, Egyptian art, extensive collection of arms and armour, musical instruments, etc. Currently on special exhibit is Cai Guo-Qiang on the Roof: Transparent Monument - the "roof" being the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden. Personally, 
I think Chinese artists in general are getting quite a bit of exposure these days simply because of the novelty of it all. Anyway, the installation consists of four works:- Clear Sky Black Cloud - This seems to be the highlight of the exhibit. Every day at noon (except Mondays), a suite of three black-smoke shells are fired off, creating a black cloud in the city sky.
- Transparent Monument - This one's my favourite. The work is simply a 15-foot-tall unframed glass pane, at the base of which lie some dead pigeons, obviously hitting the clear glass in mid-flight and causing their own deaths. Well, the only thing real about them are the feathers.
Move Along, Nothing to See Here - This pair of open-mouthed crocodiles are obviously fakes, too. The life-sized crocs are skewered and propped up by bamboo poles, and their whole bodies bristling with hundred of sharp, dangerous items allegedly confiscated from airport security checkpoints - knives, screwdrivers, forks, switchblades, etc.- Nontransparent Monument - This is a 32-foot-long limestone relief with vignettes depicting life after 9/11, including scenes of bird flu, international festivals, same-sex marriage, terrorist hits, etc.
From Central Park, we took the subway to Grand Central Terminal (not to be confused with Chicago's Grand Central Station), where we had lunch at the food court (dining concourse) downstairs. Reminds me of the lunch we had recently at the food court of the Washington Union Station. The GCT is a tourist destination in itself. The main concourse is just cavernous - 120 feet wide, 375 feet long and 125 feet high. 
Those of you who have seen the movies Madagascar and Hackers would know how big it is. The ceiling is so high they were able to fit in a Redstone missle (vertically) in 1957. In erecting that missile, they had to cut a hole near Pisces, and that hole remained there ever since. If you're confused by the reference to Pisces, that was because I forgot to mention that on the ceiling of the main concourse is a mural of the New York sky with gilded stars and constellations. It was originally painted by French artist Paul César Helleu in 1912, and recently restored by cleaning away the years of grime and soot and smoke and plaster that accumulated. 
The cleaners apparently didn't do a good job because there's still an uncleaned patch above Michael Jordan's Steak House. Kidding aside, that's to remind people how bad the grime was.More trivia for you: if you look at the constellations, you'll notice that they're painted backwards. It's possible that the painter's no good at reading sketches. A more plausible explanation is that the painting is based on a medieval manuscript that shows the sky as seen from outer space. Near the Oyster Bar & Restaurant at the dining concourse is the "whispering gallery". Due to the physics/acoustics of the low arched ceilings, people at either ends of the gallery entryway can hear each other perfectly, even if they're only whispering.
It is also rumoured that underneath the GCT is a network of underground tunnels and tracks. By entering a secret entrance you gain access to a train platform and an elevator that goes straight up to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.Our next subway stop takes us to the Wall Street area. Along Broad Street, we find the the neoclassical New York Stock Exchange building.
Atop the six Corinthian columns is the pediment with John Quincy Adams Ward's sculpture called “Integrity Protecting the Works of Man”. Draped across the columns is a giant American flag. Along Wall Street, we find the Federal Hall National Monument with the bronze statue of Washington in front. The classical structure with its Doric columns and domed ceiling started life as New York City Hall in 1700. 
In 1789, it became the First Capitol of the United States. It later served as US' first Customs House, then a Federal Reserve Bank. In 1939, it was designated as Federal Hall Memorial, currently operating as a museum. Incidentally, this is where Washington was inaugurated as the first President.At the end of Wall Street is the Trinity Church. Too bad I didn't
even get the chance to take a glimpse of its interior, as our guide is walking quickly down Broadway. Down at the Bowling Green Park is the famous Charging Bull a.k.a. the Wall Street Bull. One caress of its bronze horns and you're sure to make a killing at the stock market. (That's not the only part of the bull that has become shiny with too much caressing, but we won't go into that.) Story goes that Arturo Di Modica created the 7000-lb. sculpture after the 1987 crash (at his own expense) and left it at the doors of NYSE building as a Christmas gift. The police wasn't happy with his "littering" and impounded the bull. 
The public wasn't happy with the police impounding the bull and raised a ruckus. The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation had no choice but to re-install it at the Bowling Green Park. But now, time for more trivia. Turning right at Battery Place at the end of Broadway, you'll see a short, nondescript building along Greenwich Street. On the face of the building it says "BROOKLYN BATTERY TUNNEL - TRIBOROUGH BRIDGE & TUNNEL AUTHORITY". 
It's supposed to be the ventilation building for the tunnel, but (sotto voce) it's actually the MIB headquarters.Going through the 21-acre (8.5 ha) Battery Park, we pass by Fritz Koenig's The Sphere. The metallic sculpture used to be located in the Austin Tobin Plaza between the World Trade Center towers. After the Sept. 11 attacks, it was recovered relatively unscathed, and now temporarily relocated along Eisenhower Mall in the northern section of The Battery. Just beside it is an eternal flame to commemmorate the victims of 9/11.
Further on, we reach Castle Clinton where ferry tickets to Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are sold. (For those who are interested to know, Castle Clinton is a low, circular sandstone fort built prior to the War of 1812 to protect the harbour from attacks.) The queue to the ferry dock is long and winding, but I'm not about to miss my date with Lady Liberty. 
After the requisite full security check, we're on our way to Liberty Island.So this is how the immigrants felt when they first saw the Statue of Liberty looming closer in the distance. (I seriously have to go NOW! :-)) The moment we docked, everybody spilled out and rushed over to the statue to take pictures. Commonly known as the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Enlightening the World is a gift from the Paris-based Union Franco-Américaine (Franco-American Union) in 1886.
Visitors to the island have a choice of a museum tour at the base of the monument or an observatory tour for the best views of the NY harbour. I did neither because half an hour later, I was already on the ferry to Ellis Island. Main attraction of the island is the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. If you've seen the movie Hitch, this is where the man took the girl after a day of jetskiing for some ancestor-hunting. Outside the building is an "American Immigrant Wall of Honor". 
You would think this is where they list all the immigrants that passed through Ellis Island. Wrong, because for as little as $150, you could put your family name on the wall as well.Back at Battery Park, it's a short walk to the World Trade Center Ground Zero. Five years after the event, I'm a bit saddened to see people walking around the site holding placards, still looking for their missing loved ones. Attached to the metal fences surrounding the contruction area are flags, flowers, pictures, baseball caps, and other memorabilia.
At the entrance of the WTC PATH Subway Station is a photo exhibit chronicling the events on that fateful day. There's even a guy there giving a very detailed narrative of what happened, complete with facts and figures. That guy sure knows how to tell a good story - everyone was bunched around him, hanging to his every word. Pressed for time, we moved on to St. Paul's Chapel, which is just across the east side of the World Trade Center. 
The little chapel's claim to fame is that it didn't suffer any damage during the 9/11 attack, not even a broken window. (Some say it's a miracle.) Due to its proximity to the disaster site, the chapel became a place of rest for the recovery crew, who were working shifts non-stop. Volunteers also used the place as a relief center, 
working 12-hour shifts to make beds, serve meals, offer prayers and counseling, etc. The chapel is now back to its regular religious duties, although it's now also a tourist attraction. It still retains most of the memorial banners and memorabilia people left behind. There's an extensive audio/video history of the inspiring event, and even a huge roll of paper where visitors could write down their dedication. I spied a few people sobbing quietly in the pews, and I knew it was time to leave.Taking the subway to Times Square, we spent most of the late afternoon
gawking at the billboards ads of upcoming TV shows and theater plays and scrolling displays of text ads and stock quotes. I don't mind having a bit of art and culture, but I really don't have time to watch a Broadway hit even if it's at half-price. Too bad. Dinner is at Ollie's Noodle Shop. Despite the prime location and trendy interiors, I can assure you this is an authentic Chinese restaurant. For one, the staff doesn't care about customer service. 
You sit down at the table, and the waitress slams plates, chopsticks, and teacup in front of you, without much of an excuse me. Just the way I like it. Table too big? No problem. Before you can say yes, please do join us, there's already another party of four seated across the table. For our after-dinner entertainment, we walked over to the Rockefeller Center. 
The Rockefeller Plaza is such a nice place to simply hang out. Sitting on the steps of the plaza, you can see the outdoor dining area at the Lower Plaza. There's the colorful water fountains with Paul Manship's sculpture of Prometheus. Behind him is the white 70-storey 266-meter GE Building rising all the way up to the night sky. At the plaza is a stone plaque with this long quote, which my brother liked a lot:- I believe in the supreme worth of the individual and in his right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
- I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty
- I believe that the law was made for man and not man for the law; that government is the servant of the people and not their master.
- I believe in the Dignity of labour, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a liking but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.
- I believe that thrift is essential to well ordered living and that economy is a prime requisite of a sound financial structure, whether in government, business or personal affairs.
- I believe that truth and justice are fundamental to an enduring social order.
- I believe in the sacredness of a promise, that a mans word should be as good as his bond; that character not wealth or power or position - is of supreme worth.
- I believe that the rendering of useful service is the common duty of mankind and that only in the purifying fire of sacrifice is the dross of selfishness consumed and the greatness of the human soul set free.
- I believe in an all-wise and all-loving God, named by whatever name, and that the individuals highest fulfilment, greatest happiness, and widest usefulness are to be found in living in harmony with His Will.
- I believe that love is the greatest thing in the world; that it alone can overcome hate; that
right can and will triumph over might.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Albert Goes to New York
Out of habit, we woke up late again. As usual, we have our late breakfast of cereals, donuts, and fruit juices. Ah, breakfast of champions. Went down to Alamo Union Square to pick up a rental car for our trip to New York. For $40, we have a choice between the PT Cruiser and the Pontiac G6 GT coupe. 
If you've seen a PT Cruiser before, you would know that this is an easy decision.Drove down to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial for a quick visit. It's a nice, quiet little place with lots of sculptures, engravings on walls, and water features. The 7.4-acre park is dedicated to the memory of FDR, who served four terms as President from 1933 - 1945.
Those are not easy years to be a President - what with the Great Depression and the Second World War, but I guess FDR did ok. I quite like the sculpture of a caped FDR with his dog Fala. And also the sculpture of 4 guys depicting a Great Depression bread line. People would fall in line and have their pictures taken.
With no time to lose, we drove to the other side of the Tidal Basin to visit Thomas Jefferson Memorial. Designed by John Russell Pope, and dedicated on April 13, 1943 (Jefferson's 200th birthday), the neoclassical building is defined by some marble steps, a portico, and a dome. Inside the open-air memorial is a 19-foot tall, 5-ton bronze sculpture of Thomas Jefferson done by Rudulph Evans. 
On the walls, are selected passages from Jefferson's writings. From the memorial, one gets a nice view of the Washington Monument.Again, due to lack of time, we have to content ourselves with a drive-by of the National Mall, and off to NY we go.
It's a good thing the state highways are wide, and there are not too many cars on the road. Having left Manila for almost three years, I've grown accustomed to Sydney's right-hand drive on the left side of the street. It's not really a big problem, just that I tend to drift over to the right side of the lane. After an hour's driving, I'm doing 80-90 mph and straight as an arrow. The drive is long and boring. Even with my shades and the sun visor down, the glare is still too much, making me tired and sleepy. Good thing the Pontiac G6 has wheel-mounted radio controls, 
so I was switching stations every 5 minutes to keep me awake.As we were nearing New York, it started raining cats and dogs. By the time we reached Lincoln Tunnel around 5pm, traffic is at a standstill. By the time we hit 42nd Street at 6pm, all the cars and cabs are out (and stuck),
horns are blaring, and people with umbrellas are jaywalking everywhere. The traffic police in their orange raincoats are out in force, but it's not helping much. For some crazy reason, this chaotic scene has a calming effect on me. Ah, reminds me what I have to go through every night in Manila. The only difference is that here, people actually use the turn signal (for a couple of seconds) before cutting in front of you. 
Despite the music halls, the theaters, and Times Square, all we want is a cheap place to park the car. We would've spent a few more minutes joyriding if not for the fact that one of us really have to go after being stuck in the car for one whole afternoon. So the next blue P sign we saw, we just swung the car in. Judging by the cars already parked, this is not a cheapo place. 
Yup, $15 for half an hour, $25 for an hour, and $30 for 2 hours. To add insult to injury, its washroom is not as clean was we wanted. We grabbed some quick bite from a nearby coffee shop, and away we go. Going north to south and back, we travelled along First, Second, and Third Streets, checking out New York's nightscapes. As it is still drizzling, we decided to head back for Flushing and check in Comfort Inn. Given its distance from New York central, I'm surprised we're still paying $170 per night. You get free off-street parking though. Fortunately for us, it's off-season for the nearby Flushing Meadows, or else. At this time of night, our only food choices are the Chinese/Taiwanese restaurants down the road. As I've mentioned before, if you're hungry, everything tastes superb.
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