I’ve always considered IT certifications as mostly worthless, but still, what this little girl accomplished is pretty amazing. This only goes to prove one thing: Anyone with an exceptional memory can succeed at those Microsoft certification exams. I wonder how she would manage to deal with real-life IT issues, such as rebuilding a corrupted Exchange database or implementing a layered security architecture?
Nikon’s New S60 Face Detection Ads are Hilarious
These are absolutely hilarious. Apparently, the face detection technology on Nikon’s new S60 camera can spot up to 12 different faces in a scene. Check it out.
However, even though the ads are very good, customers’ reviews on amazon.com seems to indicate that this camera is a real piece of junk. Proof that you should never rely on an ad to purchase a product.
[Via LA Weekly]
500 Rounds Per Minute Nerf Vulcan Gun Hack
In its original version, the Nerf Vulcan is already one of a hell of an office war weapon, but when slightly modified with a few extra battery packs, it quickly becomes a rather frightening instrument of destruction. Check it out:
To accomplish this, the guys from Manapotions increased the voltage inside the Nerf Vulcan’s firing engine using 2 X 9.6v battery pack. I’m sure you’ll agree, The result is quite impressive to say the least. The new version fires up to 500 rounds per minute and costs about $79 to make. If you’re interested in building one of these babies for yourself, you can follow the step-by-step guide located right here.
[Via TechEblog]
Einstein Proven From the DARK SIDE
By Will Sullivan
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
This is especially for the cosmology wunderkinds among us geeks; hey, it takes geeks of all kinds! Among “the rest of us,” we merely semi-brilliant folk, Einstein may be most famous for his General Relativity theory, which is mind-blowing enough; however, he also famously regretted to himself and the truly brilliant astro-physics cognocenti what he felt at the time was his truly greatest “blunder”: that he had to “fit” a tiny, slight constant into his calculations to make the whole thing “work.” Everything “worked,” but only with that tiny nudge, that he apparently felt may have been dishonest.
Ironically, he himself was not dishonest about that “nudge,” and his calculations surely showed such (to those capable of understanding them!). And, here’s where it all gets a little sticky, or weird, and pretty cool…
It seems that his “cosmological constant” nudge actually has been found to be a real, measurable phenomenon. Scientists using both Earth-based and spaced-based telescopes across spectra have confirmed that so-called “dark energy” is driving the universe apart—counteracting the consolidating effects of gravity. As a matter of perceived fact, the universe is accelerating its expansion effects. The tiny force that can account for this effect—such that even totally empty space has mass (and therefore energy)—corresponds pretty much exactly with Einstein’s “cosmological constant” nudge.
Not that anyone truly understands it all—just that it fits calculations. Perhaps it “looks” or operates thusly:
No one understands gravity—the attractions of objects in curved spacetime to one another—let alone the increasing (tiny) force that is driving everything away from everything else, at an accelerating rate, that counteracts the gravity force.
“Dark energy” is the answer, but we don’t even understand the question…although Einstein did, intuitively…he just made it all work out, and was right, in the end. His other major regret–in effect that he couldn’t calculate or overtly make room for “God”–has yet to be fulfilled…or has it? Hopefully all the things we don’t understand right now, we will come to understand in time…
Comments always are welcome!
Exploring the frontiers of happiness
In the following video presentation, Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert presents research and data from his exploration of happiness — sharing some surprising tests and experiments that you can also try on yourself.
The premise of his current research — that our assumptions about what will make us happy are often wrong — is supported with clinical research drawn from psychology and neuroscience. But his delivery is what sets him apart. His engaging — and often hilarious — style pokes fun at typical human behavior and invokes pop-culture references everyone can relate to.
[Source: TED]
Star Trek Icon Passes Away
By Jimmy Rogers
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
Last Thursday, December 18th, 2008, Majel Barrett Roddenberry died at the age of 76.
She was the wife of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, but she had many roles both in front of the camera and behind the scenes. In The Original Series, she played “Number One” (in the pilot) and “Nurse Chapel,” Dr. McCoy’s assistant. She was also the lady behind “Lwaxana Troi,” feisty mother of Deanna Troi, in The Next Generation and Deep Space 9 (where she was called “Ambassador Troi”).
Roddenberry played the voice of the ship’s computer in pretty much every instance of its use. You’ll notice that the voice remained unchanged from The Original Series all the way to the later series like Deep Space 9 and Voyager. In fact, her work is not done. Shortly before her death, Majel Barrett Roddenberry finished the voiceover work for the new Star Trek movie, which will open next year.
Personally I will always remember her first as Counselor Troi’s mother in TNG, since that was the first role I saw her play. What a great character! You’ll be missed Majel.
Here is UserFriendly.Org’s tribute to the first lady of Star Trek:
Pictorial: Google Holiday Season Doodles Through Time
As the #1 search engine of the Internet, Google is probably one of the most well known companies in the world. Since most of us see their logo almost every day, it stands to reason that when they change it slightly, it literally jumps in our face.
In a tradition that’s been going on since 1999, Google has been occasionally modifying their logo to celebrate specific events or people through the years. And once again this year, they changed it in honor of the holiday season. Just hit the search engine home page, you’ll see what I mean right away.
So today, in honor of all the “Google Doodles” created, I present to you a pictoral of all the holiday Google logos ever published on the search engine’s front page. Enjoy!
A Bit of Free Sci-Fi: “The end of Science”
By Jimmy Rogers
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
As a scientist (or at least a scientist-in-training), I tend to think of the physical world and human curiosity as eternal bedfellows. As long as there are other worlds to ponder, be they huge or microscopic, we will do what we have always done: “Seek out and explore new worlds.”
The other day, I stumbled upon a piece of science fiction that does not doubt human curiosity, but instead, the physical world. Nik Papageorgiou’s short story, “The end of Science,” is set thousands of years from now, when humans have answered all the big questions and now have only small quandries to ponder. In fact, there is only one scientist left – sitting in an enormous bank of AI-driven computers.
After reading it, I would love to hear some feedback on what YOU think of Papageorgiou’s story and what the ending means.
Cell phone modded to detect diseases
If you’re a member of Generation Y, chances are you can do a lot of different things with your cell phone: text, email, surf the web, pay for merchandise, take pictures and movies — oh, and even talk to people in real time! But have you ever used it to test your blood for diseases? Didn’t think so.
Dr. Aydogan Ozcan at UCLA looked at the relatively inexpensive hardware in a Sony Ericsson w810i camera phone and thought, “I could use that to detect malaria.” By adding a filtered light source (blue in the image below), the camera is able to acquire images that can then be analyzed for the presence of distinguishing cell characteristics that indicate specific diseases such as malaria — or to count CD4+T cells to monitor the health of patients with HIV.
The process is known as LUCAS, which loosely stands for Lensfree Ultrawide-field Cell-monitoring Array platform based on Shadow imaging. Currently, Ozcan’s software for analyzing the images must be run on a desktop computer, but his plans include loading the software into a hand-held device that could provide both imaging and analysis on the spot. This could not only improve turn-around time for diagnosis at the doctor’s office, but could revolutionize diagnostic medicine in third-world countries where labs are as scarce as the money to equip them.
The same technology could also be used to build larger, more powerful devices that would still be much smaller and less expensive than existing laboratory test equipment. These larger systems would be capable of providing different light frequencies to test for more markers, whereas the handheld devices would be more targeted to specific tests.
As one commenter on Slashdot said: “And thus the building blocks of the medical tricorder are laid.” Obviously it’s got a long way to go, but this looks like a step in the right direction.
[via Wired]
Can Young Kirk Really Survive the Car Jump In the New Star Trek?
A few days ago PopSci’s Adam Weiner wrote a blog post listing some calculations he did to see if young Kirk could survive the car jump in the new Star Trek trailer. According to Gizmodo, Adam’s wrong. They have the real answer in their own video.
[Via Gizmodo]