53 Degrees

Not there yet

2008-10-17T02:14:00.000-07:00

Ah yes, And this is what I'll be coming home to.

Toilet Humour

2008-10-13T05:25:00.000-07:00

Found this today on the door of the toilet on my floor.

I couldn't bring myself to go in.

The financial crisis and subprime lending in a nutshell

2008-10-02T09:04:00.000-07:00

Just watch.

Brain scans as court evidence of guilt?

2008-09-15T01:24:00.000-07:00

India's use of brain scans in courts dismays critics.

The new technology is, to its critics, Orwellian. Others view it as a silver bullet against terrorism that could render waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods obsolete. Some scientists predict the end of lying as we know it.
Now, well before any consensus on the technology's readiness, India has become the first country to convict someone of a crime relying on evidence from this controversial machine: a brain scanner that produces images of the human mind in action and is said to reveal signs that a suspect remembers details of the crime in question.
More:

Charlie Potter & the Quest for Romantic Ireland

2008-09-08T07:50:00.000-07:00

The next installment from the incomparable Langerland.

Via:

hmm... Bacon!

2008-09-08T07:26:00.001-07:00

via.

The Arctic becomes an Island

2008-09-05T03:42:00.000-07:00

This is the first time in a reportedly 125,000 years the northwest and northeast passages have opened. Shipping companies are already planning to exploit the new route, which would take 4,000 miles off the journey between Europe and Japan.

I'm sure that turning the northwest passage (over Canada) into a shipping lane will cause even more damage to one of our very last "pristine" environments left on the planet.

Full story here

Viva la Vida

2008-09-02T12:17:00.000-07:00

Quite by accident I ended up going to Coldplay's first concert on their European tour last night.
In the amazing Zenith venue in Strasbourg.

Overall a great atmosphere and some nice surprises, but perhaps a little too short, however for 40euro I can't really complain.

If you like coldplay, then make sure to go.

Some videos from the night:

Mars to fund the sequencing of the Cacao Genome

2008-06-26T06:38:00.001-07:00

This is where I see these type of projects at the moment. The Government agencies are not so keen to sequence "yet another plant/animal/fungal genome". Its the companies which have a vested interest in particular organisms that are going to fund these in the future, and it is enterprising scientists that are going to reap the benefits of being the first to approach them with a good plan to sequence "their" organism.
Hang on...... Oi! Fyffes! Wanna do the banana tree genome?

More information at the BBC

Is counting instinctive?

2008-06-16T05:19:00.000-07:00

This is pretty amazing, These researchers have looked at indiginous tribes in the in the Amazon who have had no formal education and used some very clever tests to see how instictively they think of numbers.
The surprising result is that they found that instinctively they mapped numbers onto a logrithmic scale rather than a linear one suggesting that the concept of a linear scale is a technological advance learned through formal education.

This is interesting also because of the Weber–Fechner law, which attempts to describe the relationship between the physical magnitudes of stimuli and the perceived intensity of the stimuli. It finds that the relationship between stimulus and perception is logarithmic.

As the Authors themselves say:

The mapping of numbers onto space is fundamental to measurement and to mathematics. Is this mapping a cultural invention or a universal intuition shared by all humans regardless of culture and education? We probed number-space mappings in the Mundurucu, an Amazonian indigene group with a reduced numerical lexicon and little or no formal education. At all ages, the Mundurucu mapped symbolic and nonsymbolic numbers onto a logarithmic scale, whereas Western adults used linear mapping with small or symbolic numbers and logarithmic mapping when numbers were presented nonsymbolically under conditions that discouraged counting. This indicates that the mapping of numbers onto space is a universal intuition and that this initial intuition of number is logarithmic. The concept of a linear number line appears to be a cultural invention that fails to develop in the absence of formal education.

You can get more here:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/320/5880/1217

Virtual Barbershop

2008-06-13T01:50:00.000-07:00

Just close your eyes while listening to this (with headphones). Its amazing!

BMW car with a fabric skin!

2008-06-12T08:37:00.001-07:00

Meet Gina, the car with a fabric Skin.....

Check out it opening its eyes.. eh I mean lights!

More great Pictures here

The evolution of Dance

2008-04-30T01:25:00.000-07:00

Jesus!

2008-02-22T05:27:00.000-08:00

'nuff said I think........

Doctors

2008-02-21T05:58:00.000-08:00

So what is it about German Doctors that they all close on a Wednesday? If you have a problem on a Wednesday you have to go to your nearest A&E. This comes up because I'm looking for a doctor to visit and even though it's not Wednesday none of them are open. However I've been told that if I persevere I should get through to one eventually. Here's hoping.
I did have a few scoops last night with James last night, but I'm pretty sure that this is unrelated, that said, I'm supposed to go Skiing on Saturday and I'll be well pissed if I can't go!

The Dark knight.... In LEGO!

2008-02-07T04:26:00.000-08:00

They should make all film trailers like this......

Via the the Brill Rick O'Shea

Bizzare German Sign of the week

2008-01-31T05:07:00.000-08:00

Ok, this can probably also be filed under the category "disturbing to see inside the door of the cubicle in the mens toilet". More so is the fact that the third one says "nearly right"!

Once again everyone.... Dublin is not in the UK!

2008-01-22T08:19:00.001-08:00

I was very surprised when I first came to Germany 2 years ago how many people didn't really know where Dublin was and were convinced it was in the UK. My surprise is probably because of my Ireland-centric view of the world, but while it might be asking alot of the average European to understand that Ireland is a different country (Yes I've been asked this several times), I would expect that all companies expecting to do business in Ireland would have done their homework. Not so.
While looking for flight options to travel from Germany to Ireland I found this:
(click to zoom in)

Will this stop me from buying flights from them?.... well if the price is really good......

My books of 2007

2007-12-19T00:07:00.000-08:00

So I had one of those "what book are you reading" applications on facebook until I got bored and deleted it (along with just about everything else). But as its the end of the year I thought I'd pull my thoughts together on what were some of the best books I've read this year (of those I can remember :-).
[Caveat: Some of these book have been around for a while so its not just for books published this year]

The Time Traveler's Wife
Amazon.com. Apparently going to be made into a movie next year

While it is billed as a Love story it is the writing that fascinated me. Niffenegger manages to make the writing style not only a method of conveying the events but also a part of the story itself. It is one of the very few books that I was unable to put down at night and consequently the cause of several sleepy mornings :-). I don't know how much else to say without spoiling it for anyone. I believe that this book should be read without knowing anything about the plot, and should be discovered as the writer intended.
I would recommend this book to anyone.

Marley and Me
Official website. Apparently also going to be made into a movie starring Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson. I have serious misgivings about this......

This is a highly enjoyable book, but probably only for the dog lovers out there. I wonder what someone who never had a dog would think of this, however as the previous owner of several dogs I loved every second of it. I could see my own experiences in the trials and tribulations the family go through with their completely insane Labrador retriever. A true life story written by the dog's owner (who is a journalist) I cannot recommend it highly enough.

This is Charlie Bird
Amazon link.

Probably not for everyone. This gave a fascinating insight into some of the biggest news stories over the last 20 years. It seems Charlie has been in the middle of every big Irish (and some international) story of the last two decades. From Charlie Haughey to the IRA. From the South-East Asian tsunami to the middle east, its all here. Well worth the read.

Others well worth checking out:
The house at Riverton
The light of day
The end of Mr Y

Read any good books this year? Comments welcome!

Armstrong & Miller - WWII RAF Sketches

2007-12-18T05:14:00.000-08:00

Just watch!
Part 1:

Part2:

Part 3:

Torn by Johan Lippowitz with Natalie Imbruglia

2007-12-12T06:17:00.001-08:00

I loved the original of this that was going around a few years ago. This is just as good.... with a special guest!

Shanghai's "seven don'ts"

2007-11-30T05:56:00.000-08:00

Pictures that caught my eye

2007-11-29T01:19:00.000-08:00

Is it Christmas?

2007-11-12T01:48:00.000-08:00

Is hard to believe that the shops could keep getting earlier with their Christmas stock every year, but somehow they manage it. This year there were reports of christmas stock out before the Halloween stock........ so wrong!
Anyway, in case you are one of these Christmas crazed folk and are confused as to whether it is Christmas yet, a handy website has be made just for you: http://www.isitchristmas.com.

Who knew cattle could be so trendy?

2007-11-02T04:38:00.000-07:00

A report from Sky news about the up and coming fashion of getting yourself branded instead of tattooed. Apparently lots of tattoo parlours offer the service where they heat a wire on a pen-like instrument to about 1,000C and then apply it to wherever you want the design.
One tattoo artist is quoted saying:

"We've had all sorts of people - I've branded teachers, police officers, it is very popular among young professionals who are looking for something different."

Personally... eh no thanks.. I might get a tattoo done if I could think of something I'd like to have on my person for the rest of my life... but I think I'm too fickle. I'd want to change it too soon.
Speaking of which, there has been a series of posts on science tattoos on The Loom check it out. Some of them are quite cool... although I don't think I'm quite nerdy enough for this :-)