Secrets of the Southpaw

If you’ve ever wondered why some people are left-handed, the answers may lie in the rest of the animal kingdom. Nora Schultz has explored the issue in a fascinating article in the latest edition of NewScientist.

The starting point of Schultz’s piece is the idea that having a dominant side is a feature of most creatures and, as with humans, there is usually a minority which is stronger with the “wrong” side.

The simplest explanation is that many animals share the human trait of brains having different skills handled by different sides of the brain (we recently noted that human brains use a physical divide to do two things at once), which is usually reflected in the dominance of one side of the body.

But surely evolution should mean that the animals for which this isn’t the case would be at a disadvantage and the “flaw” would eventually die out?

It turns out the answer is most likely that having the “wrong” side dominant often produces its own advantages which outweigh the drawbacks. The main advantage is that it can lead the animal to behave and act in a different way, which makes it less predictable to predators.

Another advantage is that having the wrong side dominant is a benefit when it comes to physical clashes with the same species. That’s illustrated by boxing where southpaws are often at an advantage: a southpaw will have spent more time fighting or sparring with orthodox fighters than the other way round, thus being more used to their fighting style. (The same idea applies to non-combative sports such as tennis.) There’s even some evidence to suggest this extends outside of sport and that a left-handed person is more likely to survive a hand-to-hand fight.

The Danger of Science Denial

Vaccine-autism claims, “Frankenfood” bans, the herbal cure craze: All point to the public’s growing fear (and, often, outright denial) of science and reason, says Michael Specter. In the following video, he warns that the trend may spell disaster for human progress.

Girls are REALLY bad at sound effects [Videos]

In fact, they’re so bad, that they can turn any average movie into an hilariously awesome experience.

Part I

Part II

OMG this is Awesome: Apollo 11 Saturn V Launch

This clip is raw from Camera E-8 on the launch umbilical tower/mobile launch program of Apollo 11, July 16, 1969. This is an HD transfer from the 16mm original. The camera is running at 500 fps, making the total clip of over 8 minutes represent just 30 seconds of actual time. Narration is provided by Mark Gray (me), Executive Producer for Spacecraft Films.

[Via Gizmodo]

Boy Scouts earn video game honor

You might think the Boy Scouts was a way to encourage children to spend more time on healthy outdoor pursuits and less time slumped in front of a screen. But now the movement is offering an award for video gaming.

The awards, from the Boy Scouts of America, are not for in-game achievements but rather about life skills related to gaming. The new honor is not the better known merit badge, which is for scouts aged 11 and over. Instead it is available in two forms, for Tiger Cubs, Cub Scouts, and Webelos Scouts aged from 6 to 11.

The first is a belt loop. Its requirements include explaining how video game age ratings work, building gaming into a schedule alongside chores and homework, and learning a new video game (the choice of which must be approved by an adult.)

The second honor is an academics pin, available to those who have already achieved the belt loop. It requires the successful completion of five tasks from a list of nine, ranging from the simple (play a game with a friend for an hour) to more complex (teach an adult how to play a game) to the downright dangerous (produce a comparison between two game consoles, presumably while wearing flame-retardant clothing.)

One task I particularly like is for the scout to choose a game and compare offers from three different stores, taking into account return policy’s and warranties as well as the price.

In scout geek news of another type, we must offer our congratulations to 18-year-old Walker Lansbarkis who has become the first person in his troop’s history to earn all 126 merit badges on offer. That’s not bad going considering you only have to earn 21 badges to become an Eagle Scout, the highest ranking available.

Among the badges Lansbarkis earned were basketry, bugling, fingerprinting, golf, journalism, nuclear science, plumbing, pottery, salesmanship, space exploration and truck transportation.

Tim Gunn Critiques Superhero Costumes

You might remember our recent discussion of catsuits in comic book films, but what about the wide array of superhero costumes over the decades to grace the pages of comic books? In this episode of Crazy Sexy Geeks, Project Runway fashion guru Tim Gunn gives his expert opinion on comics style.

For example, Black Canary? He prefers her without the fishnets. “Frankly as a superhero I take her much more seriously. Because she looks like she’s ready for combat. What is she ready for here, a cocktail and a roll in the hay?” And as for the catsuit, he favors Michelle Pfeiffer over Halle Berry.

Earth as Viewed From Mars

What you see above is the first picture of Earth as taken from the surface of Mars by one of NASA’s rovers back in March 2004.

Schwarzennegger to get Judgment Day over video games

The Californian state government will go to the Supreme Court in a bid to ban the sales of violent video games to children.

The case involves a law passed in the state in 2005 but barred by local courts before it could take effect. That sparked a legal process which will be settled by the Supreme Court some time after October.

As is always the case in the legal process, a case can only go to the Supreme Court where there is a dispute involving fundamental issues of law rather than fact. In this case, the issue is the extent to which the First Amendment’s free speech provisions extend to material made available to children.

As a general principle, laws which could limit the First Amendment are only allowed when they are a clear response to a specific issue. A previous hearing in the appeals process held that the state government had not offered enough evidence to support its claim that the law was needed to prevent games causing psychological harm to children. The court ruled that the evidence it did provide showed correlation rather than proving causation.

The most disputed aspect of the proposed law is that it bars depictions of “killing, maiming, dismembering or sexually assaulting an image of a human being” unless the game possesses “serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.” That’s prompted concern that the law would allow the government to make judgments about a game’s artistic merit.

As the Video Games Voters Network points out, six other states have attempted to introduce laws restricting the availability of violent games to children. All have been struck down by courts on constitutional grounds.

It’s also notable that the game industry itself, while hardly upset at getting cash from young game buyers, is not necessarily arguing that violent games should be sold to children, but rather that that decision should not be taken by government.

HOW TO: Copy Outlook Contacts to Abook

By Sterling “Chip” Camden
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

In the mass migration of end users from Windows to Unix-based workstations, one question that’s asked over and over again is “What will I ever do without Outlook?”

Wait, wait, CUT! Let’s try that again, from the top.

In the trickle of tech-savvy users who’ve ditched Windows for a better computer, one question that’s asked over and over again is “How did I ever use that pig, Outlook?” — often followed immediately by “How do I get all my Outlook contacts moved over to something else?”

I recently converted to FreeBSD for my main squeeze, and decided on mutt for my new email client, based on recommendations from Chad, Mackenzie, and almost every other console-oriented *n*x geek out there. Mutt, like most good Unix programs, does one thing well: email. Its support for contact management is minimized to the concept of aliases: short names associated with full addresses, nothing more. However, there are a few choices of contact managers that work well with mutt, allowing you to look up contacts while still within mutt. One that’s specifically designed for use with mutt is abook. It’s lightweight, uses a simple text file as its database, and provides support for several import/export formats, including CSV (comma-separated values).

Outlook provides an export to CSV. While in Contacts, select “File/Import and Export…” (Office 2007).

Select “Export to a file”, and click “Next”.
Select “Comma Separated Values.” There are two possible options here, DOS or Windows. It doesn’t seem to matter which one. Click “Next”.
Select your “Contacts” folder, and click “Next”.
Save the file. I saved mine directly to a Samba-shared folder on my FreeBSD system. Otherwise, you can copy it over later.
Just click “Finish.” Even though the order of fields as output by Outlook does not match what abook expects, we’ll reorder them with a Ruby script instead of fiddling with the “Map Custom Fields” GUI. That’s because we also want to combine some fields that Outlook separates.

Now, on the Unix side, you’ll need this script:


#!/usr/bin/env ruby
class String
  def q
    '"' + self + '"'
  end
  def u
    self.sub(/^"(.*)"$/, '\1')
  end
  def c
    self + ','
  end
end
class NilClass
  def u
    ""
  end
  def c
    ','
  end
end

full = ''
$<.each do |line|
  full += line.gsub!(/[\r\n]*/,'')
  if /(,|[^,]")$/ =~ line
    f = full.split /,(?=[,"]|$)/, -1
    full = ''
    print  f[3].c +     # last name
         (f[2].length > 2 ? (f[1].u + ' ' + f[2].u).q : f[1]).c + # first
         f[5].c +       # notes (company)
         (f[3].u + ', ' + f[1].u + ' ' + f[2].u).q.c +          # nickname
         f[31].c +      # workphone
         f[37].c +      # phone
         f[30].c +      # fax
         f[40].c +      # mobile
         f[57].c +      # email
         (f[8].u + ' ' + f[9].u + ' ' + f[10].u).q.c +          # address
         f[11].c +      # city
         f[12].c +      # state
         f[13].c +      # zip
         f[14].c +      # country
         f[87].c + f[88].c + f[89].c + f[90].c + f[91].c +      # custom
         "\n"
  end
end

Save that as ol2ab.rb, and make sure it’s executable. Then create an intermediate csv file with this shell command:

ol2ab.rb < contacts.CSV > tmpfile.csv

That remaps the columns in the order that abook expects for its “Palm CSV” format. I chose “Palm CSV” instead of just “CSV” because it imports more fields. I also mapped “Company” to “notes”, because abook doesn’t have a Company field. For “nick” (Nickname), I combined the name fields (Last, First M). And I mapped the four user-defined fields plus the “Web Page” field from Outlook to the five “custom” fields in abook. You may also notice from the script that I account for an odd line-wrapping, the cause of which I do not know. Some lines of the Outlook-generated CSV file were wrapped on a space. So, I collect lines until they end appropriately – with either a comma or a quote, but not with the comma-quote combination. Then I split them into fields on a comma, but only if it is followed by another comma, a quote, or the end of the line. The regex-savvy amongst you readers will realize that this can be broken by a text field that ends with a comma. Oh well.

Next, run the new csv file into an abook address file. First, install abook. On FreeBSD, it’s in ports in /usr/ports/mail/abook. Make sure that the directory ~/.abook exists and does not contain the file ‘addressbook’. Then execute this shell command:

abook --convert --infile tmpfile.csv --informat palmcsv --outfile ~/.abook/addressbook --outformat abook

Voila. Not all the fields from Outlook have been brought over, but a lot of the important ones were.

James Hance’s Amazing Star Wars-Themed Art

I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Star Wars-themed art. Yes, I know, this shouldn’t really come as a surprise to anyone here, I am a geek after all! So when Geeks are Sexy reader Amanda contacted me to let me know about one of her friend’s art, I eagerly clicked on her link, and let me tell you, I really, really liked what I saw.

James Hance is a Jacksonville-based artist who takes his inspiration from television shows and movies from his childhood to create some of the best paintings I’ve seen in a long time. When I asked James about what medium he uses and where he takes his inspiration for his paintings, here’s what he replied:

I paint in acrylics, mainly on wood board. I pick up well-loved and slightly sorry looking frames from thrift stores and the like as I feel they sometimes offer just as much character to the painting as the painting itself. :)

I’m inspired by television and movies from my childhood. It’s funny how you watch some of those things today and wonder why you were so obsessed with them at the time. I remember the Fonz being SO much cooler than he actually was. My paintings are basically just placards screaming ‘Childhood! It was amazing! I want it forever, please!’ I paint mainly in my pajamas, watching the Muppet Show and eating cereal. I’d like to think it shows.

Painting in your pajamas while watching the Muppet Show and eating cereal? That sure sounds like fun, James, and as far as I’m concerned, yes, it does show.

Here are a few more of James’ paintings (posted with permission), for your viewing enjoyment.