February 2008 Archives

Top Midnight Sun Pictures in Northern Norway from 2007

This is my favorite of all of his or her pictures:

The explanation, for those who've never heard of it: the Earth's axis is tilted (~23%), so while we orbit in our ellipse around the sun, parts of the Earth are tilted towards the sun and the opposite parts are tilted away. In the northern hemisphere's winter, the earth is closer to the sun than in summer, but the northern hemisphere is tilted away, meaning that it receives less (amount) and less (downtoner) direct sunlight than the southern hemisphere. This makes days shorter in lower latitudes and causes the polar night event in higher latitudes that there recently was a crazy vampire movie involving that I wanted to see (30 Days of Night). But that would mean that the picture should be dark, no, because Norway is in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere, yes? So then the only alternative: these pictures were taken in summer, when the northern hemisphere tilts towards the sun.

Yeah, that's not the best explanation, so here's a link: axial tilt

A quicker way of figuring this out would've been just to read the photographer's description.

I skipped past this the last time I saw it, but I actually paid attention this time and couldn't help but giggle. A man in Britain built a mock-Tudor castle and hid it behind hay bales, but now the gov has found out and wants to tear it down because they broke the law by not going through the proper channels.

Problems began last April when Mr Fidler, thinking he had beaten the planning system, applied for a certificate of lawfulness which is given if a property is erected but nobody objects to it after four years.

But Reigate and Banstead Council says the four-year period after which the building would be allowed to stay is void – because nobody had been given a chance to see it.

Who would want to tear this down, though:

You should see the inside. It really is a beautiful home. I hope they can find some way of getting it checked out structurally and everything so it can be allowed to stand.

For the first time ever, a Beagle has won the best in show at Westminster:

Barking and baying up a storm, Uno lived up to his name Tuesday night by becoming the first beagle to win best in show at the Westminster Kennel Club.

The nation's new top dog was clearly the fan favorite and drew a standing ovation from the sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden when he was picked.

... The only dog consistently listed among America's most popular breeds for nearly 100 years, a beagle had never won in the 100 times Westminster picked a winner.

Look at that cute face!

My family has a pure-bred Beagle that we rescued from the pound, it's actually a rather interesting story:

My brother found her wondering around outside in the street with no tags, so my family took her in. Thinking she might be a lost dog, my family took her to the authorities, where they found out she was heavily infected with heart worms.

The vet also commented that she was pure-bred, no more than 2 years old, and had already had a littler of puppies.

This immediately led us to believe she had been part of a puppy mill operation and had escaped; you see, these puppy mill operations set up shops along the highway near my house, which would explain her wondering around nearby.

However, because we were not her registered owners, and because she was infected with heart worms, they would not release her to us, and told us she would be put down!

We promised to treat the heartworms, we showed them we were already dog owners (we also have a chocolate pure-bred lab) with a large house and yard, and still they refused because of her medical condition.

Obviously, we didn't want her put down, so eventually we found an organisation called Houston Beagle Rescue that was able to get the pound to release her to them, and Beagle Rescue then turned around and released her to us as her new owners.

Since then, she's become a wonderful (and cute!) member of the family. The only minus: as a side effect of the heartworm infection she had (she is now completely heartworm free), she now has a sinus topography that makes her the loudest snorer in the whole house. You can hear her in every room of my family's two story house!

The Top 50 Proprietary Programs that Drive You Crazy — and Their Open Source Alternatives, from homotron.net. I looked through the list and saw a few that I could use. I switched to Firefox a while back and found it much better than the IE of the time (and even the new one, which I really dislike because everything is placed horribly).

At the end of last semester I switched over from Microsoft Office 2000 to OpenOffice, and I just switched my e-mail client from Microsoft Outlook 2000 (I didn't uninstall Office yet) to Mozilla Thunderbird, and, even though I have to learn everything for these kinds of programs all over again, I'm finding them easy enough to use. I've used some other free open-source programs, like NetBeans and Praat, and found them very easy to use, as well as some that weren't that I hated and consequently don't remember. I hope the former true for some of these other popular ones because I'll probably download something for a web editor and a graphics program, mostly because I want to make some mind maps for some things in my field, like language history and typology (though I may end up trying to figure out more Java stuff to make an applet). Thoughts? Criticism?

Polaroid, known for their "instant" developing cameras, is getting out of the instant photography business:

It was a wonder in its time: A camera that spat out photos that developed themselves in a few minutes as you watched. You got to see them where and when you took them, not a week later when the prints came back from the drugstore.

But in a day when nearly every cellphone has a digital camera in it, “instant” photography long ago stopped being instant enough for most people. So today, the inevitable end of an era came: Polaroid is getting out of the Polaroid business.

Polaroid had already stopped production of the cameras last year, and will make enough film to last them through 2009. They are willing to license the technology, if some company wishes to supply the now niche market.

Polaroid will now be focusing on its line of digital cameras and photo printers.

Guess the lyric "shake it like a Polaroid picture" will now soon become an anachronism.

Via kottke.

Despite what the Bush White House may think or say, the technique of waterboarding has been declared as torture and prosecutable as such by the UN Human Rights Chief:

"I would have no problems with describing this practice as falling under the prohibition of torture," the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, told a news conference in Mexico City.

Arbour made her comment in response to a question about whether U.S. officials could be tried for the use of waterboarding that referred to CIA director Michael Hayden telling Congress on Tuesday his agency had used waterboarding on three detainees captured after the September 11 attacks.

Now if only the UN member countries had the teeth and courage to begin using the principal of universal jurisdiction to begin prosecuting members of the administration for approving and ordering waterboarding to be used on prisoners by the US.

I find the last sentence in the article a nice little finishing touch:

Latin American dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s were known to use waterboarding on political prisoners.

Mica Rosenberg, who wrote the article at Reuters: bravo.

A great new technique for creating the illusion of 3D on a 2D display using current console technology has been developed for the Nintendo Wii by the famous Johnny Lee.

The technique uses the infrared sensors in the wii-mote to track the movement of your head (with the help of some infrared LEDs) and adjust the display in real time so that the perspective changes. This creates the illusion of seeing a truly 3D image without the headache inducing stereoscopic techniques used in 3D IMAX theatres.

You can see Johnny Lee demonstrating the technology in the video below. It's very impressive:

Thomas Miller at Sony also was impressed and ported the technique to the PlayStation 3 and has released the code for free to all PS3 developers:

I'm actually excited about these techniques because they require a minimum amount of fuss from a development and materials stand point, and produce very impressive results. I can't wait for a game that uses this!

Found via Digg, a beautiful shot of the Space Shuttle in orbit; click the picture for a large version:

Simply amazing.

Man reduces waste to nothing, cancels trash pick-up, and city sues. from Planetizen

The lawsuit, filed by San Carlos Deputy City Attorney Linda Noeske in San Mateo Superior Court on Jan. 22, seeks a permanent injunction forcing House to maintain garbage service. City officials are also seeking to recoup from House the costs of the lawsuit.

The lawsuit claims House broke the city’s municipal code requiring all residential, commercial and industrial properties to contract with Allied Waste for pickup at least once a week — a standard requirement in most cities, San Carlos Deputy City Manager Brian Moura said.

[...]

House recycles paper, metal and plastics, regularly hauling them in his pickup truck to a recycling center and collecting the refund, he said. What little backyard waste he generates is ground into powder by his wood chipper and food scraps are either pulverized by his garbage disposal or eaten by his dog. House’s larger items are either sold or given to people on Craigslist, he said.

“I don’t understand a city ordinance that requires you to fill up a can. That’s downright foolishness,” he said.

His neighbors raised a stink about him raising a stink by burning garbage, but whenever the fire department has come, he was burning firewood. House also says he thinks that the city is getting back at him for complaining about the next door apartment building that causes problems.

I can understand the ordinance for sanitation issues, but why pay for a service you don't use? And the city trying to get the legal costs back out of the man who lives alone with his dog: that's just wrong.

As I listened to a recent podcast of the excellent The Splendid Table from NPR, I heard mention of an interesting new product: the knork.

You've heard of a spork, right? The combination of a spoon and a fork you may have gotten the last time you went for some fast food?

Well, someone's gone and combined a fork with a knife.

How? Basically they taper the edges of the outer teeth of the fork to make them into mini-knives. I might actually order one of these just to try it out!