Dr. Zubrin Paying Us a Visit

I'll be hosting a tech talk with Dr. Robert Zubrin (Founder of the Mars Society) coming up in the next few weeks. It's an honor to have him visit us, and frankly I'm very much looking forward to it. I'll post the Authors@Google link when it's ready. Happy groundhog's day.

"Insightful" Comments

Just recently I came across a rather comprehensive paper, a Cost Analysis, rather, of Windows Vista content protection. I didn't have time to read the entire paper, but noticed some comments from high ranking Microsoft systems architects, research scientists, and engineers on the bottom:

“No amount of coordination will be successful unless it's designed with the needs of the customer in mind. Microsoft believes that a good user experience is a requirement for adoption” — Microsoft.

“The PC industry is committed to providing content protection on the PC, but nothing comes for free. These costs are passed on to the consumer” — ATI.

“How do I put all these companies in a position where, regardless of what they see is in their best interest, they have to adopt your technology? […] I realized that a major part of my job was to figure out how to use technology control to create economic force, or leverage, such that money and business flowed in Microsoft's direction” — Alex St.John, father of DirectX.

“I'm not sure how the company lost sight of what matters to our customers, both business and home, the most, but in my view we lost our way. I think our teams lost sight of what bug-free means, what resilience means, what full scenarios mean, what security means, what performance means, how important current applications are, and really understanding what the most important problems our customers face are” — Jim Allchin, Platform Products and Services Group, Microsoft.

Banff Mountain Film Festival Winners Announced

"The 32nd annual Banff Mountain Film Festival, presented by National Geographic and New Balance, brings you the world’s best mountain films and speakers. Experience the adventure of climbing, mountain expeditions, remote cultures, and the world’s last great wild places — all brought to life on the big screen.

Films are at the heart of the festival. From the over 300 films entered into competition, the top 50 or so are screened throughout the festival. Competition winners are[were] announced on Sunday evening."

Back in Santa Barbara, Campbell Hall is usually packed, every year, with UCSB students and other zealous outdoorsy free-spirited types to watch the 3-4 hour Banff Award winning movies. Some of the best outdoors footage you'll see before your eyes are shown in the festival. I'll be going again next year... Tuesday & Wednesday 27th, 28th of February, in Campbell Hall, Santa Barbara, CA. Well worth your $12. Here's the trailer; buckle up...

A plastic 'garbage island' twice the size of Britain, floating in the Pacific Ocean?

When we throw things away, we must ask ourselves “where is away?” The clip below, will give you an idea of where at least one of these ‘away’ locations.



From the Sydney Morning Herald: "In one of the few places on Earth where people can rarely be found, the human race has well and truly made its mark. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean lies a floating garbage patch twice the size of Britain. A place where the water is filled with six times as much plastic as plankton. This plastic-plankton soup is entering the food chain and heading for your dinner table."

The solution is to move away from non-biodegradable plastic. As soon as we can.

Happy Belated 90th, Sir Arthur C. Clarke

Beloved author of 2001: A Space Oddysey has recently turned 90. He goes over his 3 wishes, as well as touching up on many other historic events. Give it a listen, pay your respects.

The Good Doctor Breaks Fundraising World Record

On December 16th, tens of thousands helped make history. 234 years after the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, Dr. Ron Paul brought in over $6 Million of donations from people like you and me, beating the single-day presidential primary fundraising record of John Kerry's $5.7 million in 2004. I'd like to collectively congratulate everyone and commend the donors for fulfilling their civic responsibilities. With 17 days left until the Iowa caucus, I am cautiously optimistic the media will have no choice but to give Ron Paul the airtime he deserves and abandon their bias and misrepresented poll data.

We are at $18.3 Million. Become part of this historic fundraising success here.

A Talk Not To Be Missed.

We had the honor and privilege to hear Craig Venter talk On Nov 12th. He is an ex surfer turned scientist and a Vietnam war veteran. He began his academic career at a community college, after enlisting in the U.S. Navy and serving a tour of duty during the Vietnam War. He contemplated suicide at one point by swimming out into the sea, but was persuaded to return upon encountering a shark.

He's also the mastermind behind the Human Genome Project.

In a recent interview with New Scientist when asked 'Assuming you can make synthetic bacteria, what will you do with them?' Venter replied

'Over the next 20 years, synthetic genomics is going to become the standard for making anything. The chemical industry will depend on it. Hopefully, a large part of the energy industry will depend on it. We really need to find an alternative to taking carbon out of the ground, burning it, and putting it into the atmosphere. That is the single biggest contribution I could make.'
The article suggests that one of the main purposes for creating synthetic bacteria would be to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels. (Source: New Scientist Issue 2626 Pg 57.)

This will be one of the most important talks I will post here.

Fly away with Google Earth Flight Simulator

1. Go to google.com/earth, download, install, and run the app.
2. Press Ctrl+Alt+A
3. ????
4. Explore and have fun!

Speed up and down with Pgup, Pgdn.
Use your flaps w/ [ and ].
Toggle your gear with G.
Use your mouse to fly around.

Classical Music added to the Genome Project: Pandora.com

Pandora has finally added classical music to its genome project. And yes, there is some GREAT classical guitar. Torroba, Tarrega, Bach, whatever you want, all there. This'll get you started. Type in the name of the composer if you want to get a bit more technical.

* Symphonic, Classical Period:
http://dbm.pandora.com/t?ctl=168E43A:F5E758FB492411C8EE2D6B3BB7924EA9050542759970026E
* Symphonic, Romantic Period:
http://dbm.pandora.com/t?ctl=168E436:F5E758FB492411C8EE2D6B3BB7924EA9050542759970026E
* Piano Concerti, Classical Period:
http://dbm.pandora.com/t?ctl=168E439:F5E758FB492411C8EE2D6B3BB7924EA9050542759970026E
* Opera, Romantic Period:
http://dbm.pandora.com/t?ctl=168E438:F5E758FB492411C8EE2D6B3BB7924EA9050542759970026E
* Chamber, Baroque Period:
http://dbm.pandora.com/t?ctl=168E437:F5E758FB492411C8EE2D6B3BB7924EA9050542759970026E

100-Year History of Classical Music in 1 Minute.

It is very difficult in the end to make distinctions on differentiating types of music. I hope this video will show you how wrong you are about pidgeonholing and painting what you call 'classical music' with a very broad brush. 'You' being the average Joe; sorry, within this context I have to generalize.

Presidential Candidates, on The Issues

Need a quick reference guide to what each presidential candidates supports? Make sure to visit ontheissues.org. You might not had known that
- Ron Paul strongly opposes replacing oil & coal with alternatives
- Barack Obama isn't planning to get US out of Iraq until 2013
- You tell me!

Larry Lessig: How creativity is being strangled by the law

Dr. Lessig ponders and ruminates on how our RW (read-write) culture is being transformed into a RO (read-only) culture. How do we turn it around? How do we create economic incentives so that corporations stop bottling up innovation behind patents? Where do you fit in?

Pictures from Iran

I've come across some incredible pictures taken in Iran. Brace yourselves folks, this is some intense stuff.

Really Achieving your Childhood Dreams

Carnegie Mellon computer science professor Randy Pausch is terminally ill; he's been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was told he would have 3 to 6 months to live, this past September, 2007. This is his last lecture, about really achieving your childhood dreams. An important and inspiring life lesson in and of itself.

John Doerr: Seeking Salvation and Profit in greentech

"I don't think we're going to make it," John Doerr proclaims, in an emotional talk about climate change and investment. Spurred on by his daughter, who demanded he fix the mess the world is heading for, he and his partners at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers embarked on a greentech world tour -- surveying the state of the art, from the ethanol revolution in Brazil to Wal-mart's (!) eco-concept store in Bentonville, Arkansas. KPCB is investing $200 million in green technologies to save the planet and make a profit to boot. But, Doerr fears, it may not be enough.

What do 16,000 People do at Google?

I wish I could say more, but alas, I can only send you a link.

Enjoy :-D

Charlie Rose' 1 hour chat with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

A rather involved & comprehensive interview w/ the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Many topics are discussed, their reasoning behind supporting Hamas, building 50 centrifuges, their views on the people of Palestine, the speech given at Columbia University, and much more. If you prefer to get your information straight from the horses mouth, here's your water....I see what I did there ;-) Then again there's always good ol' Fox 'News', CNN, MSNBC, and other conglomerates, your decision.

Libraries

With the onset of living online wikis, the importance of Libraries are coming to a head once again. Libraries are book repositories, an old-fashioned medium, a dead-tree form of storing information. More importantly, it's a pilgrimage to a place where people gather and exchange information, build communities, and get in touch with each other. Sure all this can be done using a computer, but we're far from replacing the commune of living, walking, organic matter; we're far from replacing ourselves, I sure hope. Some impressive libraries for you all to enjoy.

Extended Overseas Traveling (Is not a big deal)

I'll be taking a few weeks off to do face time with family in Turkey, and possibly make a pit stop at Switzerland to visit more family. Just recently we had Rolf Potts visit us and give a talk about his experiences traveling the world. A little bit on Rolf; he's a self-proclaimed vagabond who has traveled at lengths of up to 8 years. The idea that traveling is ideal for the wealthy non-white is gracefully put to rest by Rolf. He reinforces the idea that scrubbing toilets for a few months provides enough capital to take you quite far for a long while. So skip an hour from your overpriced cable TV and enjoy this talk. Feel free to leave any comments.

http://www.rolfpotts.com/

Keeping Death in Perspective

Once in a while, I'm urged to inform the average citizen with some relevant facts. Considering the current state of our media outlets, I feel this is becoming more important every passing day. Allow me to highlight a few excerpts from an LA times article written by Meghan Daum, 8/19/07

"On any given day, an average of 148,000 people will die. That means over a million people have died in the last week. Nearly 5 million have died since around this time last month, which, incidentally, was exactly when we were briefly bombarded with the news that 199 people were killed in a Brazilian airliner crash."

"Based on estimates from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there were about 3,500 automobile-related deaths during that monthlong period. U.S. cancer deaths hover around 42,000 a month. As for heart disease, the American Heart Assn. tells us that someone dies of cardiovascular disease every 36 seconds. And that's just in this country."

"As staggering as these numbers are, they don't seem to scare or interest us nearly as much as things like plane crashes, mountain lion attacks, deadly roller coaster mishaps or avian flu. And because the news media is savvy about (and complicit in) our fears and fascinations, we are fed an endless supply of death news that has little to do with how most people actually die."

That's all I'll quote from the article; that should be enough in guiding us to draw our own conclusions.

Have a graceful summer Sunday.