Scientists have created the world’s first human-sheep chimera – which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs. The sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells – and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer. Professor Esmail Zanjani, of the…
R2 honored by USPS
WASHINGTON – Thirty years ago, in theaters near and far, far away, a movie opened the imaginations of millions, combining the magic of mythology and special effects to launch the “Star Wars†phenomenon. A star of these films  the brave little droid R2-D2  is about to take a turn collecting mail as the…
Surveillance
I created the short below as part of a multimedia installation for a gallery at my office. It is a brief meditation on public video surveillance using footage i took from out of my office window in downtown Minneapolis. The audio i mixed from various podcasts available on the Web.
Bradley Bergey
Bergey and Ton just announced their plans to marry this summer! Congratulations, you two! Soon after the wedding, they’ll be moving to Barcelona where Bergey has accepted a teaching position. We’re currently in the process of adding the most recent work to his website which was built by yours truly. Check it out here if…
How to interview the whole world
The Washington Post is trying a novel idea to increase circulation: interviewing all of us so we can “get to know each other better” Duh – if we all feel included, then, we’ll buy more subscriptions, right? Time will tell… Meanwhile, an interesting idea from other perspectives. Not to mention, the site is well done,…
Are you Tone Deaf?
take this nifty test developed by Jake Mandell and find out in 6 minutes or less. if you are, don’t feel bad. Linda McCartney, first wife of Paul, often was the brunt of jokes about being perhaps the most tone deaf person to ever be in a band – Wings! = c
Honeybees split town
David Bradshaw has endured countless stings during his life as a beekeeper, but he got the shock of his career when he opened his boxes last month and found half of his 100 million bees missing. In 24 states throughout the country, beekeepers have gone through similar shocks as their bees have been disappearing inexplicably…
VisuWords
remember the brain? the technology has evolved into many cool applications, not the least of which is VisuWords. check it out! = c
how to move up the food chain
Since the 1960s scientists have known that chimpanzees are able to make and use toolsâ€â€Âbehavior once thought to be an exclusively human trait. Now National Geographic-funded researcher Jill Pruetz has observed toolmaking behavior that further blurs the line between the apes and humans: chimps in Senegal sharpening sticks into crude spears and thrusting them into…
Mobile phones are the new garden fences?
Whatever its moral status, there is certainly some evidence to suggest that gossip is a deep-seated human instinct: evolutionary psychologists have compared the evolution of gossip in humans with the practice of ‘social grooming’ among chimps – where the animals spend hours grooming each other’s fur, even when they are perfectly clean, as a form…
Three-dimensional coordinate system
The three dimensional coordinate system provides the three physical dimensions of space  height, width, and length. The coordinates in a three dimensional system are of the form (x,y,z). As an example, two points are plotted in this system P(3,0,5) and Q(−5,−5,7). The axes are depicted in a world-coordinates orientation with the z-axis pointing up….
Lucas’ network infrastructure trumps world
Given the cult-film status of 1971’s THX 1138 in the George Lucas universe, it should come as little surprise that the total capacity of Lucasfilm’s giant data center is 11.38 petabits per second. Granted, that number–which represents the value one would get by adding up the bandwidth capacity of all the company’s 1 gigabit per…
Goodbye-Microsoft.com
Debian hacker Robert Millan has just announced the availability of a Debian-Installer Loader for win32. The program, inspired by Ubuntu’s similar project, features 64-bit CPU auto-detection, download of linux/initrd netboot images, and chainloading into Debian-Installer via grub4dos. The frontend site goodbye-microsoft.com has been set up for advocacy purposes. Even tho we know MS will continue…
The Unfilmables: A List of the Hardest Novels to Film
With the release of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, an adaptation of a novel once considered impossible to film, what better time to look into the process of adaptation. Most movies these days are based on literary sources. Which is ironic, considering the increasing lack of interest in books these days as opposed to…
No third party crap [i mean apps]
via [slashdot] In an interview with the New York Times, Steve Jobs confirms reports that the recently-announced iPhone will not allow third party applications to be installed. According to Jobs, “These are devices that need to work, and you can’t do that if you load any software on them.” In a similar vein, Jobs said…
Shiny, pretty…
It looks kick ass. It couldn’t have better hype. At less than $600 not too bad for a phone/media player with 8GB on board. Hurry, June. We all want to play with Apple’s latest wow device. Read more about it here if you likey. = c
what does this mean?
i took this over the weekend just walking around on an afternoon stroll. if anyone knows what this means, would you please fill me in? = c
It’s been REAL he says…
our mentors in the lost art of pumpkin-carving, Dave n Sarah, have left their j-o-bs to travel around the world in 365 days. yep, sucks to be them ; ) Dave left the following words of wisdom for his colleagues at RealNetworks after 7 1/2 years working down on Elliott [taken from his blog, davethegrinch.net]:…
A car for your favorite soak
(via the Associated Press) — Toyota Motor Corp. is developing a fail-safe system for cars that detects drunken drivers and automatically shuts the vehicle down if sensors pick up signs of excessive alcohol consumption. Cars fitted with the detection system will not start if sweat sensors in the driving wheel detect high levels of alcohol…
Birthday Tomorrow: James Frazer
from our friend Gerald’s blog : http://reykr.livejournal.com/ When I was a boy, in the 1940s, I sometimes read the Sears-Roebuck catalogs, for fun and information. Among the books that were shown for sale in those catalogs was an abridgement, I think in one-volume, of Frazer’s classic work “The Golden Bough.” I don’t think that book…
Speaking of Orwell…
Whoever controls the image and information of the past determines what and how future generations will think; whoever controls the information and images of the present determines how those same people will view the past.  George Orwell, 1984 (1949)