A GenX Liberal Geek's Take on Science and Finance in the News: June 2011

Friday, June 17, 2011

Quantifying Myself: A Month of Self-tracking - Technology Review

ironically the more or less toys that this article talks about is really the beginning of the way to save money in healthcare, and to improve care at the same time. Think of it. you go to your regular doctor. they set up some parameters for you; each person is different. you have these sensors monitoring you, and updating the doctor's "computer". if any of your numbers get outside some set parameters, the doc is alerted. then they can call you in for an appointment, or take other appropriate actions. healthcare as a continuous service as opposed to measured doses as we do now. catching things earlier... think of the possibilities; particularly for the old and infirm.

NASA spacecraft captures video of asteroid approach - Astronomy Magazine

it's amazing that we live in a time where we can see such things. just over 2 weeks ago, NASA captured these images. now we all can see them!

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

BREAKING – major AAS solar announcement: Sun’s Fading Spots Signal Big Drop in Solar Activity | Watts Up With That?

Uh oh.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Maximum PC | 1Gbps Internet Access For $70 in America? Sonic Says Yes

Bring it to NYC!

Solar activity still driving in the slow lane | Watts Up With That?

Still very few sunspots...

The Chaos theoretic argument that undermines Climate Change modelling | Watts Up With That?

Chaos theory and climate change ... for the layman. well, techie, layman. good read.

Friday, June 10, 2011

MASTIO: Dead bodies demand organic food moratorium - Washington Times

interesting perspective... More people have died in Germany from eating ORGANIC bean sprouts than died in Japan's Nuclear meltdown and BP's oilspill in the Gulf!

A Practical Way to Make Invisibility Cloaks - Technology Review

Okay so the invisibility cloak thing sounds fantastic, but the fact is that we will have them to some degree. These guys found a cheap way to MAKE THEM at a university in Illinois.

Super-lenses are what have me really excited as they will instantly make it cheaper to make smaller computer chips. This is great stuff.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

One more reason to say asphalt affects local weather | Watts Up With That?

Translation, light colored roofs are a solution to this; as well as using other materials that hold less heat. Essentially, they are saying that the urban heat island effect weakens the shore breeze.

Clive Best » Blog Archive » 1990 IPCC predictions confront the data

20 years ago, the climate moddlers made some predictions. Guess what? They were wrong. Take a look at a graph of their predictions and reality.

Alarmists refuse to take on skeptical geologists | Watts Up With That?

Geologists think human caused global warming is bunk. How about that?

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Titantic II Sinks on Its Maiden Voyage - FoxNews.com

too funny...

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

SkyDrive - Windows Live

Google Vs Microsoft in the world of Free Apps online

Most folks I know are aware of how much I like using the free online Apps (spreadsheet, document editor, drawings, presentations) from Google. Let me not forget my undying support of Gmail, and a few of you might even know that I use that site to upload and backup a few things worth having a backup copy of. Google offers you 1GB free, and charges $5 for 20GB per year. They charge more for more space. Microsoft now offers their Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and One Note and 25GB of space for free. That includes space for uploading your own files; this is that "Cloud Drive" thing you are hearing about.

Now I am NOT suggesting you put passwords, Tax Returns, or anything that you would be embarrassed to find on the front page of the newspaper; hackers have a better shot of getting stuff in a cloud drive than on your home pc. Actually, for stuff like that, I recommend a external hard drive or a small flash drive that you can put in a safe place.

Anyway, I do recommend using this thing for say wedding pictures, baby pictures, or anything like that which you want to not lose. This is just another safe offsite place to put them if your computer dies on you, or something else bad happens; say a flood or a tornado. Your boiler failing flooding a room counts, and that happens often enough.

For folks who like to use office applications, and don't want to pay the big buck for them, this is perfect. I would reccomend either google or microsoft's app to anyone. They both are great, but since microsoft has more free space, I suggest htem for now.

Me, I'll use both. I don't plan on giving up gmail, but I do like some of microsofts apps better than google's. Microsoft limits each file to being 50MB, but that should be fine for pictures and general documents.

I should point out that Microsoft even has a sync application which I have yet to play wiht that allows you to actually sync to it with up to 5GB of separate storage space, and this is without the 50MB limit. This is good, and I am sure they will give you more space for a fee. That would be a true media backup.

NJ court: No shield law for message boards posters - Yahoo! News

I agree with this. There is a difference here.

Sun Unleashes 'Spectacular' & Powerful Eruption | Solar Flares, Sun Eruption & Sun Storms | Space Weather & Solar Cycle 24 | Space.com

Good thing it's not aimed at us. If it was, it would have been annoying.

The Best Hard Science Fiction Books of all Time - Technology Review

my new reading list!

Using Wi-Fi for Navigating the Great Indoors - Technology Review

this is really cool, and would have a huge impact on people's lives. it;s one of those saves you a couple of minutes things, but those minutes will add up quite a bit!

Startup Thinks It Can Make Flow Batteries Cheaper - Technology Review

more hope on the renewable energy front- "flow batteries". basically, it's another battery device, only for large scale, that uses cheap abundant materials; unlike lithium in our cell phone batteries which, compared to iron, zinc, water, and salt, is neither cheap or abundant.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Edge of Solar System Filled with Bubbles, NASA Says | NASA & Voyager Spacecraft | The Solar System & Milky Way | Space.com

34 years ago NASA launched Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. Today they are still telling us new things about our solar system. Amazing!

Friday, June 3, 2011

Decoy swarm has the potential to protect attacking jets with hundreds of drones -- Engadget

hehehehe this is too cool

Thursday, June 2, 2011

USDA's MyPlate - Home page

This is an improvement over the old food pyramid, and I am glad this change has taken place. Good job Mr. President and First Lady for pushing this to happen.

Why do I like this, it's simpler. It's easier to understand. It's more accurate. It included the importance of activity.

Countdown to flatline: world carbon trading market falls for first time – World Bank reports rumblings of possible failure | Watts Up With That?

tee hee hee. i love it. it's a stupid idea. Who gets the money, traders and governments. neither will help solve the CO2 problem, which of course is not a problem in the first place. Still, even if it were, this isn't the way to do it. Invest in non carbon energy sources, which is good for a variety of non AGW reasons, and make it cheaper than fossil fuels. That's how fossil fuels got so popular in the first place, they were better than the alternatives.

Maximum PC | Micron's P320h Enterprise-class SSD Runs Circles Around the Competition

time for an upgrade? i think so, although i am still trying to wait until Ivy Bridge MoBos come out next spring.

New research: Post-exercise recovery advantages of lowfat chocolate milk

the greatest news ever... chocolate milk, albeit low-fat, helps with your recovery from workout... no joke here ... this is real.

Too cool!

Evidence that cosmic rays seed clouds | JunkScience.com

this is a conservative blog post that is anti, as i am, the human caused global warming belief, and more importantly, it has links to the real science behind how nature is causing the climate change; which in and of itself is real, and is something we must adapt to; not try to control.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

US Economy: 150 Economists Back US Republicans in Debt Fight - CNBC

Good. I hate to say it but there are lot of good programs that are going to get cuts. I don't there are too many programs, that are totally worthless. Some may be unnecessary to some folks, and others to others, but at the end of the day I am sure most are good, and helping good people.

The sad things is that those statements are meaningless. The simple fact is that the government is not taking in enough money to cover its obligations. There are two options: raise taxes or cut spending. Raising taxes hurts our ability to come out of the recession that is technically over, but certainly it lowers growth. That means cuts. I don't care how we do it, but things need to be cut. Cut X % across the board, fine, selectively cut less important programs and possibly hurt fewer folks, fine. Either way, it must be done.