Something from nothing

This is a fabulous talk by cosmologist Lawrence Krauss. Get some lunch, sit back and enjoy..

no one has the right to live without being shocked

Do we think this is true? Does your mother? We are shocked when something happens that we didn't anticipate, which is a part of our ignorance. Then, to express being shocked is to be proud that your didn't know something. But at the fundamental base of his response is a right to free information exchange.

from Boing Boing

Philip Pullman, addressing an audience at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, was asked about whether his latest book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, was offensive. Here's his reply:

"It was a shocking thing to say and I knew it was a shocking thing to say. But no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if you open it and read it, you don't have to like it. And if you read it and you dislike it, you don't have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or bought, or sold or read. That's all I have to say on that subject."

via Boing Boing

Vitamin D

Here is a link to a great article about vitamin D. The summary is reduced cancer risk, heart disease, and overall better health with the daily consumption of 1000 iu (international units: what that is in grams I don't know). Too much and you can cause damage to some organs.

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/05/16/f-health-vitamin-d.html


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Do people have a right to be not offended?

Do people have a right to be not offended?

I say "of course not!!!"

You take offense, it is not given!

I'm offended by bad driving, uncoordinated clothing, stupid people, people who chew with their mouths open, people who walk with their mouth open, people who take homeopathic medicine etc.. and that is MY PROBLEM!! not theirs.

Offense is your reaction to something, and does not necessarily reflect the intention of the act.

Well this is what is on trial in the Netherlands. Geert Wilders is going on trial for offending Muslims by stating that he believes that Islam is bad. He has no problem with Muslims, but thinks that the ideals of Islam is a danger to our culture. He makes a good point. I would go further by grouping Judaism and Christianity in with it.. but I may offend :-\

There is a new trend to treat groups (religions and businesses) like they are people. But are they? If I get together with friends, to we as a group get extra rights?

A decent rant about this is given by Pat Condell in youTube



Geert's website is wildersontrial.com. A good article by Douglas Murray is found here.

what do you think?

Back from vacation and the word is being taken over

What are you going to do when we are run by the soulless corporation? These ideas are for science fiction, but with the appearance of the leaked ACTA documents, we see how seriously changes are being pushed through far reaching international treaties; a good summary has been posted by Michael Geist in his ACTA Guide. Here is the agenda for round 7 which started yesterday here in Mexico.

Well the best thing is to keep communication open and flowing. That is where Tor comes in. It is a way to open proxy servers for use by anonymous people. A good overview was given and wildbee.org.

Get Tor

To become a volunteer, download this software.

To use Tor to protect your own privacy, download this software

The freedom of information and the public domain wars has taken on a new face with the proclamation of "The Public Domain Manifesto". To read about it you can go to their site and sign to show your support (done by Communia), or

Then with your information stream unhindered, you can fabricate your own tech. As I've mentioned before about the fab labs and home 3D printers, wired had a great article on the next revolution being 3D printers writing with atoms; Wired, Atoms are the new bits (very similar to the Diamond age by Neil Stevenson.)



And finally for today, a great journal, the Journal of Serendipitous andUnexpected Results. I love the idea of a journal of discoveries that happened when we weren't looking for them.

White roofs do help

It seems so obvious that I'm surprised that a law has not been passed forcing all flat roof buildings to be painted white. But aside from that, I con't understand why people don't paint their house's roof white just to take down the heat in the summer. Here is CICESE the roofs were all white, but this last year they repainted all of them red.. which makes no sense and was a very uninformed move.

Well, there is not good data from simulations stating the obvious.. white roofs are a good idea; Computer modeling indicates white roofs may be a good idea.

Pedal powered boat

from a gizmag article on a pedal powered boat set to sail from Vancover to Hawai this summer.

Patients Like Me

This is a fabulous talk by Jamie Heywood about a web site (patientsLikeMe.com) for medical analysis and social networking, where he is shows how people simply by sharing their experiences combined social networking and some data analysis can help predict solutions to medical treatments and problems.

I've been curious about this idea for many years. What if everyone shared how they feel, where they live, and what they do. Then crunch those numbers. How many toxic environments would be found, dangerous jobs singled out, and diseases could be seen. Maps showing the progress of the flu.. but better yet, what the people who didn't get that sick had in common. There is so much data out there, the problem is it is not shared, and no analysis is done!

At the end of young street

A cool stop motion video of walking down Young street in Toronto (Well, part of it at least.)

At the End of Yonge St from Fixinmytie on Vimeo.

Robotic dance comptiton

Like I always say, sciencific advance does not go like people think. It is always considered that robots would be advanced by useful endevors like building stuff, or cleaning... but I bet that leaning to make them dance is advancing the study more than anyone would have thought.

Osmotic power

Using osmosis to provide a pressure difference, and then this pressure to drive a turbine; a great idea using a microscopic principal.

There is now a company, Statkraft, making a prototype system.

The hormone that brings us together

A great article in the NY times about oxytoxin, a hormone found to influence animal social behaviour; allowing animals to interact in a positive way to one another;

The researchers found that the oxytocin-enhanced subjects were significantly more likely than the placebo players to trust their financial partners: whereas 45 percent of the oxytocin group agreed to invest the maximum amount of money possible, just 21 percent of the control group proved so amenable. Moreover, the researchers showed that the oxytocin boost didn’t simply make subjects more willing to take risks and throw their money around. When participants knew they were playing against a computer rather than a human being, there was no difference in investment strategy between the groups. Trust, it seems, is a strictly wetware affair.

Yet the hormone doesn’t turn you into a sucker. In the Nov. 1 issue of Biological Psychiatry, Simone Shamay-Tsoory of the University of Haifa and her colleagues reported that when participants in a game of chance were pitted against a player they considered arrogant, a nasal spritz of oxytocin augmented their feelings both of envy whenever the haughty one won and of schadenfreudian gloating when their opponent lost.

As a rule, though, oxytocin is a joiner not a splitter. Analogues of the molecule are found in fish, perhaps to help facilitate the delicate business of fertilization, by inhibiting a fish’s natural tendency to flee from other fish. The more elaborate grew the social demands, the more roles oxytocin assumed, reaching its apotheosis in mammals. If you’re going to give birth to a litter of needy young, why not let the same signal that helped push those mewlers into the world give you tips on their care and feeding? And if you’re a human, bent on turning everything into an extended family affair, here is oxytocin again to cheerlead and teleprompt. C. Sue Carter of the University of Illinois at Chicago, a pioneer in the study of oxytocin, suspects that the association between the hormone and childbirth long kept scientists from taking it seriously. “But now that it’s been brought into the world of economics and finance,” Dr. Carter said, “suddenly it’s very hot.”

Good/Bad science jokes

Bike racks

Ensenada is in need of bike stands. Here are a few links to bike stands; Google Image search and a decient post on R U Biking. Of course I'm use to the classic Toronto solution of the bike ring (see image.)

asum scottish band

After listening to a few rememberence podcasts from the CBC I've had a craving for hearing the bagpipes..

Here is an great video of a bags and pipe band on the streets in Scotland.
Talent with Bagpipes.

Religous biggots threaten land owner to remove Godless billboard

A billboard in Cincinnati has been taken down and moved to a new location after threats to the owner of the land were placed; most likely by "peace loving christians".

The billboard put up by the United Coalition of Reason read “Don’t Believe In God? You are not alone”.

The full article in RichardDawkins.net. Ensenada needs a free thought group. I had to correct a person when they said "I respect belief..." Why!? Do you respect people who believe that Harry Potter is real too.. no you ridicule them for being idiots." We laugh a children who cover their eyes and ears to hide.. belief is the same thing, but on a much more dangerous level.

Belief: "an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists" But without proof. This is dangerous, and in any other context is called stubborn.

A couple of good videos have been posted on you tube.

Transition to atheism, and my favorite No true Scotsman. A nice little tidbit of wisdom is in the first video; "one of life's little rules, People who don't want you to think are never your friends."

Lots of water on the moon

NASA sent a probe to the moon that took its old booster and threw it into a crater wall on the lunar pole; LCROSS mission. The idea was to make a large explosion of material from the moons surface that is in permanent shade (at -230 deg C) and send the ejecta into the sun light. The probe, who collided several minuets later to make its own crater, quickly looked at the spectra of the ejected material to see what it was made of. They were hoping for teaspoons of water in a football field sized area, but have found buckets of water.



Why is this important? Because water is heavy, and crucial to life and rocket propellent. Ideally, we want to send up people and a few machines to the moon, but need there to be raw materials there to live off. A base on the moon is useful because it would be an ideal jumping point to go to other planets.

Videos are on CNN and youtube. I'm excited. A dream for me would be to design habitats on the moon and mars for people to live in. Sustainable living in these environments would is a necessity and the idea of designing this type of habitat here on earth is what I've been thinking of for a while.

An open letter to President Caldarón to not permit GM maize in Mexico

The letter in english and en espanole.

We are compelled to write this letter, given the latest element of a scientifically unjustifiable drive, embodied in the publication of amendments to the Law for the Biosafety of Genetically Modified Organisms (published by the Diario Oficial de la Federación on March 6, 2009), which disable the Special Protection Regime for Maize and other crops, for which Mexico is center of origin and diversification.

Sears coming to Ensenada

Seams like Ensenada has contracted yet another big chain store; I'd really like to find a good way to get tailored clothing. CNC sewing machine?

Yea! Google wave invitation!

I finally got my invitation to goole wave!! While google wave sounds totally cool, I think its not going to really peak until it there are enough people signed up.. but really.. I haven't done anything more then send invites to a friend in spain. I think I'll also send one to some in Vancover, San Fran, a Toronto jazz artist, someone who likes sports and politics, and my brothers. I really like the combination. Astrophysicist, carpenter, economist, environmental engineer, drummer, waiter/legal-assistant, economist, and two scientist.