You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December 2006.
Feliz Ano Novo – Happy New Year
Originally uploaded by ! Claudio Lara ♫.
Happy New Year 2007
- High Dynamic Range is a software technique of taking either one image or a series of images, combining them, and adjusting the contrast ratios to do things that are virtually impossible with a single aperture and shutter speed. Check a good tutorial and hdr clusters at flickr.
- Do You Have Mouse Rage Syndrome? The effects include increased heart rate, screaming at the display, furious clicking and mouse bashing. I hate annoying flash ad’s covering up what I want to read.
- Green tea + Caffeine = Negative Calories? Mellow Monk advises drinking a lot of green tea, which will boost your metabolism and give you all of the other benefits of green tea but without all of the other chemicals found in bottled drinks like Enviga.
- Jatropha can grow in wastelands, and it yields more than four times as much fuel per hectare as soybean, and more than ten times that of corn. Researchers in Idia are developing new methods for cultivating japtropha.
- Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is an approach to mitigating climate change by capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from large point sources such as power plants and subsequently storing it away safely instead of releasing it into the atmosphere.
- Andrew Hopper was made an CBE for services to the computer industry. Now the head of the University of Cambridge computer lab, Prof Hopper is best known for his part in founding iconic British technology firm Acorn. One of the most influential subsidiaries that grew out of Acorn was Advanced RISC Machines which is now known as ARM.
- US proposes to list the Polar Bear as an endangered species. I thought it was already listed.
- Google Maps Has Become a Real Trip Planner – you can add multiple destinations to your driving directions and change the order by drag and drop.
- SearchMarch.com – Google’s upcoming Search Mashup service
- Eureka – “I am in a state of having found it” – is the state motto of California, referring to the momentous discovery of gold near Sutter’s Mill in 1848.
BBC’s 10 things, by which I was inspired to write my 10 things, has a 100 things post to round off the year.
Dear Mother Earth
Originally uploaded by deestea.
An Inconvenient Truth is now posted to YouTube in nine 10-minute installments [via Jeff at sustainablog].
[Update: They have been removed for an obvious reason]
I don’t link all here as YouTube shows them in the related videos list. This is being spread among environment bloggers. I thought I ought to spread this a little.
They were posted on November 9, 2006. I don’t think this is an official release. I heard many negative reviews of the film, but just watch it (again) before deleted. You will agree with Michael who argued Al Gore should make the film available for free as an educational campaign on global warming.
At the end of 2006, climate change still remains a controversial issue with arguments from both sides. BBC has an excellent review of Climate 2006 “Rhetoric up, action down“. A quote from Britain’s Environment Secretary David Miliband sums it up quite well, “The gap between what the science tells us is necessary and what the politics is delivering is still signficant.”
Also worth mentioning, the Scientists have discovered that an enormous ice shelf broke off an island in the Canadian Arctic last year, in what could be sign of global warming. How many more evidence do we need to take environmental political actions to save the mother earth?
Don’t forget to read deestea’s essay of the above photo: “You are so big, round and voluptuous. Maybe it’s Your size that gives we humans the illusion that we can ravish You without any repercussions. …”.
By the way, Al Gore used Apple’s Keynote on his PowerBook for his presentation. Unfortunately Apple products still contain toxic chemicals and
they are ranked at the bottom of the latest Greenpeace’s Green Electronics Guide. The iconic Apple store on 5th Avenue in New York is bathed in green light to highlight that Apple should go green.
Menu for Hope
Originally uploaded by sassyradish.
The Menu for Hope started back in February 2005 as fundraising campaign for UNICEF to support the victims of the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004. The Menu for Hope II last year raised $17,101.32 for UNICEF to support the victims of the Kashmir earthquake. They came up with a very simple and great idea – online raffle tickets for prizes donated by participating food bloggers.
This year, Menu for Hope III came back bigger than ever. Check the list of participating bloggers and their prizes (it’s now closed). It raised $58,256.70 to support the UN World Food Programme, which provides hunger relief for needy people worldwide.
This campaign has been organized by Pim and participated by hundreds of food bloggers across the world. They didn’t look for publicity. They didn’t do any PR. All they did was posting about the campaign on their blogs.
Viv, one of the fundraisers, has an excellent writing:
Community. It is such a beautiful word. A term that never fails to evoke a feeling of fellowship, kinship, similarity, it speaks of everything that is intrinsically natural, good and unifying in our human experience.
We all belong to communities around the world, big and small. We rejoice in their achievements and celebrate their accomplishments, we pride ourselves in being a part of them and look for ways of furthering our participation and role in them.
And when catastrophe afflicts our brothers and sisters in communities outside of our own, no matter how far removed, as members of one global neighborhood, we are moved, we empathize, we grieve, we want to help.
I did not know Pim and the Menu for Hope campaign until I read my blog backlog during Christmas holidays. I discovered Pim via Intel Blogger Challenge where she has a great last post on Technology brings people together.
I have been a tech-oriented blog reader and reading some about design and environment recently. But, I started getting fed up with fear and loathing postsin tech blogosphere. There are thousands of bloggers who are passionate about food. Their blogs are more fun to read and have yummy photos. I have subscribed some and look forward to finding something new and interesting for my life.
Photo by Tim Ockenden/PA
Originally uploaded by vivido.
More than 1,000 flights were cancelled run-up to Christmas because of dense fog. Why do such weather conditions result in chaos at airports at Heathrow?
Despite planes have the ability to fly blind and all aviation technology, pilots still rely a surprising amount on a very simple piece of technology – their eyes when landing and taxiing planes. So with less visibility, traffic controllers increase the airspace between planes. This means less aircraft can use the airport resulting in cancellations.
The Heathrow airport operates at 98% capacity and severe weather and new security measures throw things into chaos and cost economy.
The infrastructure needs to be expanded in a sustainable way. Obviously it needs an another runway, which the government has reaffirmed. The terminal 5, which is surprisingly 11 months ahead of schedule and going to be opened in May 2010, can accommodate more passengers, not in marquees in the event of an emergency.
There has been an inconsistency in the government’s policy, future aviation growth and climate change. More flights and more vehicles in and out of the airport will increase carbon emissions. It’s not a bad idea to charge airlines (or even passed to passengers) and vehicles reaching to the airport under the missions trading plan.
I might be talking rubbish. But, here is my two cents.
The number of flights should be limited (by law if necessary) to 70% capacity (this is my wild guess) or a rate where the airport can operate all flights on time towing every airplane to a runway with its main engine off as a trial by Virgin Atlantic. That could save two tonnes of fuel per airplane. Environmentalists complain that is only 3% of fuel for a transatlantic flight, but that’s what we can do right now to reduce carbon emissions before a major breakthrough in renewable energy technologies.
It’s a bit off topic, but most of passengers’ complaints in recent airport chaos were lack of information about their flights. TV and news coverage of the chaos provided a free phone number and websites for the latest information, but I doubt if they were effective. Presumably most passengers have mobiles with them and airlines or BAA could provide a mobile text service to keep them updated with their flight and other essential information. In fact, BAA has Flying Messenger Plus service (costs 75p plus network charge). Why can’t they provide this service free of charge in the event of an emergency?
Originally uploaded by minato.
Happy Holidays!
- Electric sports car (video)- Superb!
- Paris Syndrome – the psychological damage experienced by Japanese tourists shocked by the rudeness of Parisians. WTF? I love Paris. Maybe I’ve lived in London too long.
- Parthenogenesis has been described before in about 70 species of vertebrates, even turkey. via ‘Virgin births’ for giant lizards (Komodo dragons)
- A two-headed reptile has been found in fossil form in China. More than 400 two-headed snakes have been recorded.
- Linkbait – via ProBlogger’s Times wins linkbater of the Year Award – MattCutts on linkbait
- Auto-Dimming Mirror – it automatically dims at the glare of oncoming lights from the rear and it shows you exactly what’s behind you at reverse gear. I want one. via Gizmodo
- Fance Telecom is one of the main investors behind Jabber Inc. and Orange is already running XMPP servers. via a comment from GiaOM’s Forget iPhone, Think Google Phone
- Hyperlinking Reality via Phones – Nokia researchers are working on a system that allows physical objects to be identified and connected to the Internet through mobile-phone screens. Hmm, any connection with Google Phone?
- “Spring” represents a fresh start after the “winter” of traditional J2EE. Do you use Spring Framework?
- Google “the answer to life, the universe, and everything” (without the quote marks) returns 42
Gapminder example
Originally uploaded by eszter,
who has a related blog post
I have been interested in visualizing data for some time. Visual complexity and information aesthetics are interesting sites which feeds I subscribe to.
Today I came across Gapminder on the highly recommended Guardian technology blog – Probably one of the best talks you’ll ever see…, which is Hans Rosling’s talk at TED.
Hans Rosling is professor of international health at Sweden’s world-renowned Karolinska Institute, and founder of Gapminder, a non-profit that brings vital global data to life. With the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, he debunked a few myths about the “developing” world in his talk.
Thanks to TED for making this great talk available on the web. I watched the video twice. His talk was amazing and he provided insight to a complicated issue in both an entertaining and informative manner using Gapminder. It’s worth watching the video just to see the data presentation alone.
Via amanzi (and as mentioned at the Gapminder home page), Google has been hosting the Gapminder tool since Spring 2006 with an AJAX interface. You can choose the variables for each axis, linear or logarithmic scale, and the color coding. Check the one miniute demo.
One idea from me. In the map mode, it would be very interesting if territories were re-sized according to the subject of interest like worldmapper rather than just mapping re-sized bubbles.
Lastly, Business Week has an article on this (my emphasis):
REACHING THE MASSES. Rosling believes that making information more accessible has the potential to change the quality of the information itself. Eric Swanson, program manager for the World Bank’s Development Economics Data Group, a leading supplier and compiler of global-development statistics, explains: “Anything that makes people look hard at data increases the feedback to the suppliers [of the data], and therefore ultimately increases [its] quality. Our riff is that nobody wants poor-quality data, and if nobody wants it, then there’s really no reason to supply it. You need to break into that cycle and increase the awareness of how data can be used.” Gapminder’s graphical illustrations shine a spotlight on the data, not only increasing its visibility, but potentially putting its errors and omissions in starker relief.
sashimi（raw fish）
Originally uploaded by tokyo ayano.
Rick Stein is the first TV chef everyone in England thinks of when it comes to seafood. I watched “Rick Stein and the Japanese Ambassador” on BBC2 last night. It was one of the best recent programmes about Japanese food, particularly seafood, which I love. I really enjoyed it.
When the Japanese Ambassador saw Rick preparing sushi onboard a boat off Cornwall, he was not terribly impressed. However, this sparked off an idea where Rick would go on a voyage of discovery to the ultimate seafood lovers destination – Japan. On his return he promises to create a banquet fit for an Ambassador and his friends.
The Guardian has an article on the programme.
The first half of the programme was his journey of discovery in the land of seafood heaven, Japan. First, he tried an izakaya, which he described as Japanese tapas bar. He was impressed by the quality of the food and excellent Japanese beers. It brought back my old days in Japan straight away.
Next morning, he went to the Tsukiji fish market and had a sushi at a restaurant near the market. There are many seafood restaurants around the market serving fresh seafood directly from the market at reasonable price. I have been there a few times and I would like to go back again when I get a chance.
He also had a grand meal at Asadaya, one of top Japanese-style restaurants, in Kanazawa which is well-known throughout Japan for its traditional cuisine. He praised that the meal was much better than those at michelin starred restaurants. Of course it is!
Back in London, he created an eight-course banquet at the Japanese embassy, but he had to ask the two embassy chefs for help. He was very impressed by their skills. The way the chef cut a fish is simply an art show.
I would like to try one of his restaurants in Padstow, Cornwall one day.
He has a lovely dog called Chalky.
scotland
Originally uploaded by Alan Saunders.
- ‘You‘ named Time’s person of the year for 2006 – “It’s about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes,” Time magazine’s Lev Grossman writes.
- Blogging ‘set to peak next year’ – Gartner said that during the middle of next year the number of blogs will level out at about 100 million. 200 million people have already stopped writing their blogs.
- Piccadilly line celebrates 100th anniversary – Check gallery. Oh, my local station Purley opened in 1841 and the current station was built in 1899!
- Tesco to create UK’s biggest store, which is my local Tesco in Purley. No thanks! I will never buy non-food products in Tesco and have already hated queuing in “10 items or less” checkout.
- Tesco to run three quarters of its delivery fleet on biodiesel from January next year – and other little helps by Tesco on environment.
- swap-raising – Giant pandas give birth to twin cubs, but the mothers can care for only one cub, so usually only one twin will survive. “swap-raising” is a revolutionary new method of rearing twin cubs so that each cub is raised by both its natural mother and one of the Reserve’s veterinarians. via ITV’s Extinct
- Japan upgrades the country’s defence agency to a full ministry and teaches patriotism in the classroom – I am not sure about this.
- Tiny tangerines are little sweeties – but really need to import them from China?
- Airbus Beluga – There are five of these monsters in service, transporting whole airplane fuselages around the world. via Laurence Timms
- Google “blog:” operator to search blogs – alternate to Google Blog Search. I’m surprised that my most popular post is at the top of “blog: spirit of dubai” google search. via STUFFLEUFAGUS
Yahoo! announced the new Yahoo! TV on their own blog post a few weeks ago and got trashed by users. Jeremy Zawodny has a summary of negative feedback in blogosphere.
Some of feedback in the comments to the post were complaints about Yahoo! not providing a feedback link at the home page.
When I drafted this post a few days ago, I was going to say that Yahoo! TV should had a feedback link like one Yahoo! Autos has. It was introduced in August and I really liked its concept. They came up with the idea in Yahoo! Hack Day in April. I actually wrote a similar small webapp in Ruby On Rails at work. I was inspired by The Robot Co-op’s feedback/ideas. The URL http://feedback.yahoo.com/homepage/?prop=autos has suggested that the webapp could be used by any other Yahoo products and they have done it!
When I checked Yahoo! TV again today before publishing this post, I’ve found that they’ve finally got a suggestions link at the bottom of the home page. The suggestions page has a different URL http://suggestions.yahoo.com/?prop=tv from Autos’, but they are the same webapp and interestingly if you change the URL to http://suggestions.yahoo.com/?prop=autos, you get to the Autos’ suggestions page. So I expect Yahoo! will add more suggestions links to other products soon. I predict http://suggestions.yahoo.com will become a home of suggestions by Yahoo! users.
I’ve also found it interesting that the Yahoo! TV’s suggestions page has a link to Yahoo! TV Blog at Yahoo! 360 (product blog). The new Yahoo! TV was announced there a week before it was on Yodel Anecdotal (corporate blog). Yahoo! TV home page (still) does not have a link to either blog (intentionally?). Only people who have subscribed to the blog feeds knew the posts and were able to post their comments. (they accept comments, which are good.) The both blogs have not announced the suggestions link yet.
UPDATE: The suggestions link was announced in the blog post on 15th December.
Supermellie
Originally uploaded by mr.nz.
- Sinterklaas – a holiday tradition in the Netherlands and Belgium celebrated every year on Saint Nicholas’ eve December 5 and an origon of Santa Claus. via Scobleizer
- Honeybees might one day join the front line of national security to detect bombs
- Shard of Grass – The London Bridge Tower will be Europe’s tallest building, at 305 metres – or 66 storeys, in 2010
- Water ‘flowed recently’ on Mars – It’s one more reason to think that life could be there
- Every year there are as many as 40 tornadoes across the UK – one hit London. More extream weather to come?
- Left-handers ‘think’ more quickly and use both sides of the brain for language
- NASA plans permanent base on the moon by 2024 – Why the Moon? Earth should be at the top priority?
- Solar cell has broken the 40 per cent efficiency barrier for the first time
- LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System – Intel will build the country’s first “green building” in Israel
- U.S. Patent 223,898 – Thomas Edison’s Incandescent Lamp – to be auctioned at Christies
MyOpenID
Kiyo\'s Blog 
Recent Comments