soon

Elsevier Boycot started among Scientists

Jan 292012

In the list of supporters of SOPA and PIPA, we earlier found academic publishers Elsevier, Macmillan and McGrawHill.
We noted before that particular Education seems to become less open.

“The academic publisher Elsevier has attracted controversy for its high prices, the practice of bundling journals for sale to libraries and its support for legislation such as SOPA and the Research Works Act. Fields medal-winning mathematician Tim Gowers decided to go public with a blog post describing how he’ll no longer have anything to do with Elsevier journals, and suggesting that a public website where mathematicians and scientists could register their support for an Elsevier boycott would further the cause. Such a website now exists, with hundreds of academics signing-up so far. John Baez has a nice write-up of the problem and possible solutions.”(via)

ACTA, SOPA and PIPA also try to kill off already open initiatives in which Universities participate.. excuse me? Again it can be much more open.

100 Years Alan Turing

Jan 282012

lioAs mentioned at the first day this year, this year it will be 100 years ago that Alan Turing was born.
Instead of waiting till the media bandwagon will start in June, giving us the information overload, why not spread it a little bit? Why is Turing relevant?
 
 
Alan Turing counts, because he lay pretty much the scientific foundations of Artificial Intelligence and Computers, helped win World War 2 for the Allies by cracking the Enigma code and is seen as a famous gay martyr.
Besides that, Turing is fascinating because his cutting edge theories were directly related to his cutting edge practical applications, which he was building. That’s hip!
Go watch the Hollywood movies made about him.

Breaking the Code (Movie)

Next post more on the technical side of Alan.

Apoptosis

Jan 272012

Ever wondered how diseased cells kill them selves in protection of the rest? Here’s the mechanics. Already 5 years old, but enjoy.

Smart Car new competition

Jan 262012

Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic theory

Jan 202012

Because we like drawings, why not draw in 4 minutes a fastrack of economic theory & economic change.

IBM cuts bit size to 12 atoms

Jan 152012

Computerworld – IBM announced Thursday that after five years of work, its researchers have been able to reduce from about one million to 12 the number of atoms required to create a bit of data.
The breakthrough may someday allow data storage hardware manufacturers to produce products with capacities that are orders of magnitude greater than today’s hard disk and flash drives.
“Looking at this conservatively … instead of 1TB on a device you’d have 100TB to 150TB. Instead of being able to store all your songs on a drive, you’d be able to have all your videos on the device,” said Andreas Heinrich, IBM Research Staff Member and lead investigator on this project.

Via. Respects!

Nobel Prize winners 2011 regarding EU crisis

Jan 132012



Thomas Sargent en Christopher Sims. Sargent (New York University) en Sims (Princeton) won the economic nobel prize for their empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy. Like 17 others before them they have a very specific view on the current economic crisis and the European Banking crisis in particular. The video above is a compilation of their press conference at Princeton. While at first they acted dumb, having no opinion, later they clearly critized the EU.
Notice that they see politics, not economic theory as the foremost barrier for the solution.

Stephen Colbert Interview – Montclair Kimberley Academy

Nov 292011

A discussion about science, society, and the universe with Stephen Colbert and Niel deGrasse Tyson, who is out of character, at the Kimberley Academy in Montclair, New Jersey. [via]

Fukushima – Pending China Syndrome

Nov 212011

china syndrome

Architect of Fukushima Daiichi Reactor 3, Uehara Haruo, the former president of Saga University had an interview on 11/17/2011. In this interview, he admitted Tepco’s explanation does not make sense, and that the China syndrome is inevitable. He stated that considering 8 months have passed since 311 without any improvement, it is inevitable that melted fuel went out of the container vessel and sank underground, which is called China syndrome.

Do we need more warnings?

An universe of nothing

Oct 022011


Theoretisch fysicus Lawrence Krauss geeft een geestige en indringende lezing over de staat van de natuurkundige kennis. De lezing is opgezet door evolutiebioloog en atheïst Richard Dawkins en dat zet de toon. (via)

CmdrTaco has left the building (Slashdot)

Aug 252011

c
30 seconds after saving the last Slashdot story

Slashdot, with CmdrTaco (Rob Malda), had a big influence in shaping early online media, since 1997. E.g Slashdot effect. CmdrTaco has now given up his posting rights to the site completely. Reason?

After 14 years and over 15,000 stories posted, it’s finally time for me to say Good-Bye to Slashdot. The internet has changed dramatically since I started here, and that’s part of my reason for leaving. For me, the Slashdot of today is fused to the Slashdot of the past. This makes it really hard to objectively consider the future of the site. Posting stories has always been my favorite part of the job. I created Slashdot to share these stories with my friends from IRC and school. It was never ‘work’. I wish I could continue to post stories forever, but those closest to me know that if I maintained the ability to post, I’d never move on. I’ll continue to read Slashdot and hopefully my occasional story submissions will make the cut.

Knowning when to stop is just as important as being successful in the first place. Respect and all luck in your other adventures CmdrTaco! Wonder, was he an apple fanboy?
Continue reading »

Nouriel Roubini: Karl Marx Was Right

Aug 162011

Kevin Slavin: How algorithms shape our world

Jul 252011

George Church about Personalizing Genetics

Jul 182011

Genetics is running fast to personalized DNA self help, see also earlier posts (especially 2nd paragraph). Besides Greg Venter, George Church is one of the driving foreman in this field. He’s onto interesting things.
See also the following video from 2004: Continue reading »

Nasa’s Direction 2011

Jul 082011

shuttle

Today, or this weekend, the last space shuttle flight will commence.There is much emotional goodbyes going around. However, there are plenty of reasons to stop. For example the space shuttle was too expensive, ineffective. Its advantage as large space cargo delivery fully undercut by the 1/4 of a price conventional rockets. Now, by ending the Shuttle Program, Nasa says it can use all that money to fund research for better space flight and reaching its goals faster. But will this happen? Critics still say No.

Nasa plans in their eyes don’t provide enough focus to make their success likely. The proposed “Flexible plans” seem increasingly fewer plans.
Also do they lack the human hero’s and inspiration to cover for the disappearance of the shuttle crews from the media. Nasa’s Plan replaces shuttle with 5 to 10 years of no space flights. Even comparable commercial space flights take at least 5 years to come. With current historic low young Nasa employers numbers (only 20% is between 20-40 years old), waning interest among teenagers (the source of support & brilliant researchers) and more space jobs now being lost, congress is rightly restless. Sure, there are enough great technical challenges, but these will remain unreachable without public interest, short-term.

Neill deGrasse agrees that we really NEED manned flight, for that interest. Regardless of the goals.

Fukushima – Don’t worry people

Jul 042011

Michio Kaku on CNN: Fukushima – “They Lied to Us” – June 21, 2011
Video is from 1 month ago.. still, a number of problems he mentions are actually now coming to the surface.. (sign)
[More on Fukushima]

The End of the Camera Focus

Jun 222011

tg

Is it here??

Would be amazing camera industry progress.

Tesla Coils Perform Theme From Doctor Who

May 242011

Ted Talk: Bruce Schneier: The security mirage

May 122011

More Ted. and great post about “misjudged risks”

A new Copernican revolution?

Apr 182011

The strange thing is that the science community is really digging for those facts..
We live in weird times.

Tsunami – Heed the Warnings

Apr 122011

heed 

centuries-old tablet that warns of danger of tsunamis stands in the hamlet of Aneyoshi, Iwate Prefecture, northern Japan. Hundreds of such markers dot the coastline, some more than 600 years old. Collectively they form a crude warning system for Japan, whose long coasts along major fault lines have made it a repeated target of earthquakes and tsunamis over the centuries.

(via) 
  
More Tsunami posts.

How the 2011 Japan tsunami happened

Apr 022011

PBS NOVA science documentary about the events of Japans March Earth Quake.

Matt Haughey on 11 years of Metafilter Community

Mar 202011

Lessons from 11 years of community (my SXSW 2011 talk) from Matt Haughey on Vimeo.

A lot of people missed my talk so I recorded it in my office as soon as I got home from Austin. It covers mainly moderation tips and ideas for building tools for more effective moderation.

I’ll answer any questions below here on Vimeo.

(I used ScreenFlow on a second mac to record a iChat Theater session of my talk that was done in Keynote)

MetaFilter founder Matt Haughey posted a copy of his SXSW 2011 talk about the lessons he’s learned from 11 years of running an online community.(via)

Deb Roy: The birth of a word

Mar 092011

:: Harry G. Frankfurt : on Bullshit ::

Feb 222011

Because there is so much bullshit.

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