Politics

“Carbon Dioxide. They call it pollution. We call it life.”
– ExxonMobil Advertisement

1977 Political Interference Cartoon

This year the biggest political target was Global Warming Theory on this the 10th Anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol with the U.S. the Last Country Not to Sign treaty. While ExxonMobil offered $10k to any scientist who would dispute the IPCC report, it was the Bush Whitehouse that made the most obtuse attacks on science.

From warning Government Employees Traveling around the Artic not to discuss climate change or polar bears, to Interior Officials Overriding Work of Scientists, to the Whitehouse editing the CDC’s Climate Change Testimony (you can read the redacted Testimony here), it was a status quo effort to oppress truths unfavorable to George Bush’s political ideology and corporate supporters. His presidency has so distorted science, that former surgeon general, Richard Carmona (2002-2006), came out to testify that the Bush Administration was, the most partisan, vindictive, and mean-spirited of any administration when it came to distorting science for political gain.

LOL Quack George Bush

Al Gore was the big name this year, following the success of his film, An Inconvenient Truth, by testifying before Congress and finally exposing Senator Inhofe for the uneducated bafoon that he is. He weathered attacks on his character, his lifestyle, errors in his film, and accusations that it’s all part of a ploy to run for president. He organized the Live Earth Concert, which was of dubious benefit, but Gore and the IPCC winning the Nobel Peace Prize was a fantastic victory. Al Gore is thoroughly enjoying his power as Ambassador to the World, as was seen when he led a shadow U.S. Delegation to the Bali Climate Change talks, usurping George Bush’s authority before the world.

Most promising of all, was the way the political climate changed this year. Newt Gingrich and John Kerry came from opposite sides of the political aisle to hold a debate on Global Warming that accepted it as reality and focused on how best to solve it. The Senate Panel passed a Bill to Limit Greenhouse Gases and the Senate passed a Watered-Down energy bill, the first step in the Federal government acknowledging the crisis. U.S. States signed a Global Warming Pact and California won the right to limit cars’ emissions in court (until Bush’s EPA struck down mileage standards).

There’s nothing solid yet, and we still have a year of the Bush Administration remaining to stifle action, but this year the American Government finally started talking about Global Warming and Alternative Energies, so now science can’t help but win. The truth doesn’t stop being the truth just because politicians reject it.

The Environment

Saiga Antelope One of the Top 100 Edge Species

The evidence for Global Warming grew more overwhelming this year as the 2006-2007 Winter became the Warmest on Record and 2007 took 7th place in the list of warmest years since 1850 according to early data, making the top 11 warmest years occurring in the last 13. The Fourth IPCC Climate Change Report dropped the wishy-washy language and argued strongly that Anthropogenic Global Warming was real, spurring many critics to declare case closed on whether it was happening and arguing that it was time to figure out what to do about it.

And the need to do something about it grew ever more urgent this year as more than one independent report called Global Warming a Security Threat, and the Pentagon announced that thawing ice would force it to close three NORAD Early-Warning Radars. The Northwest Trade Passage Opened Up as Arctic ice ebbed to record levels, prompting the Coast Guard to begin planning an Arctic Base to patrol the region.

The Great Lakes Shrank, prohibiting larger cargo vessels from trading in them. The Southeast remains in the worst drought of a century. Retreating glaciers in Greenland kept mapmakers busy, retreating ice revealed a wealth of new species in the Arctic all endangered by Climate Change, and natural resources, sparking a space-race style run on the Arctic between Russia and the U.S.

Ecological Debt Day, the day when the people of Earth have used up all the resources the planet can replenish each year, came a little earlier on the 6^th of October, and will probably come earlier still in 2008. A United Nations report made the shocking declaration that there were five years left to save the orang utan. Scientists remained baffled by the sudden and dramatic loss of Honey Bees across the world from the mysterious colony collapse disorder. An entire Salmon Farm was wiped out in a jellyfish attack, as the animals swarm in larger numbers thanks to global warming and the collapse of their predators’ fish stocks.

With all of these immense challenges facing the human race, the world’s scientists are rising to the challenge. The EDGE of Existence Programme highlighted the world’s most evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service requested $27 Million for recovery efforts to find the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. The Congo created a Massive Reserve to protect our closest relative out of all species, the Bonobo. While video game maker EA and BP Oil collaborated to Add a Global Warming Threat To SimCity.

After the beautiful freshwater river dolphin, the baijis, went extinct last year in China, the Chinese government began taking serious steps toward ecological sustainability, pulling all stops to keep the last female Yangtze turtle on the planet alive for breeding, and establishing the country’s First National Park. However, there’s much more work for China ahead.

While the Southwestern Bald Eagle was taken off the Endangered Species list, leaving 1,926 species to go, scientists argued that the Bush Administration manipulated findings and lowered the requirements in order to claim this victory.

There were two definite positives this year, as scientists fitted a handicapped dolphin with an artificial tail, and the beaver returned to New York City after 200 years.

Dolphin Gets Artificial Tail

Discovery

Astronomers kicked off the year with the discovery of an asteroid that has a one in 45,000 of hitting the Earth on April 13th, 2036. The cabinet of astronomical curiosities grew with the discoveries of a Diamond star (named “Lucy” after the Beatles song), a square nebula, a star 13.2 billion years old, a new Saturnian moon, bringing the planet’s total to 60, a Galactic Death Ray, and Comet Holmes expanded to a size bigger than the Sun. Cassini returned stunning views of Saturn, including a photo of the planet backlit by the sun, revealing additional rings:

Saturn Backlit by the Sun Can You Spot the Earth in this Photo?

China and Japan joined the Cool Kids Club with their moon missions. China sent its first moon probe into space, revealing the country’s first lunar images. Japan’s SELENE probe returned the first high definition images of the moon.

Paleontologists condemned Jurassic Park to look dated and silly with the discovery that Velociraptors had Feathers. An ancient sea scorpion the size of a man took the title of biggest insect ever to roam the Earth. The Cowlike Dinosaur, Nigersaurus, was brought out in fascinating detail for all to see, and a mummified dinosaur, complete with skin, brought all dinosaurs into clearer detail.

In human origins, it was revealed that early humans lacked Achilles Tendons, and it was concluded that the Indonesian Hobbit is a distinct species.

Nigersaurus image copyright Todd Marshall, courtesy Project Exploration

Our present living world continued to prove that it has plenty of mysteries to reveal as New Zealand fisherman landed a colossal squid, the rare Primitive Frilled Shark was caught on film, a spider community was found that covered acres of land, and scientists revived an eight-million year old bacterium from an ice core.

The human tendency to underestimate the intelligence of animals was highlighted again as cameras caught crows making tools and chimpanzees beat college kids at memory games.

In the abstract sciences, Mathematicians mapped E₈, an equation the size of Manhattan (video of E⁸ here). The Earth was found to be 0.1 inches smaller than previously thought, and the standard kilogram lost mass to the bewilderment of physicists.

Science revealed more secrets about human beings intrinsic nature. Eye-tracking technologies revealed that men stare at crotches. A study found that lap dancers at the most fertile point in their menstral cycle got the biggest tips, suggesting that human females are similar to other mammals in that they send out signals that they are in “heat.”

A positive aspect of scientists’ argument that world oil supplies will run out faster than expected, was a study predicting lower obesity rates as gas prices rise. Other paths to self-improvement were found, as low Literacy was connected to shortened lifespans, lending further support to the discovery that education, more than any other element, extends a person’s lifespan. How you percieve and tell the story of your life affects your outlook on the present.

Innovation

OLPC

This year the World Economic Forum dropped the U.S. to Third Place as an engine of technology innovation behind Denmark and Sweden, but Americans continued turning out great ideas, as did the rest of the world.

We all started thinking really hard about energy as oil prices hit record highs. Saint Louis researchers invented batteries that run on sugar. A London-based defense firm’s Solar Plane Set a
54 hour Record flight time. Researchers at MIT successfully demonstrated the transfer of electricity Without Wires, opening the doors to whole new realms of innovation. This renewed interest in energy alternatives was best symbolized by New York shutting down the last DC power station in existence, started by Thomas Edison.

In a year where the release of Windows Vista totally sucked lemons and forced many people to unnecessarily scrap their old computers for upgrades able to run the bloated OS, more people turned to the much more eco-friendly Linux and its Ubuntu flavor for relief. A growing open source culture for a human race that produced 161 exabytes of data the year before, an explosion of information nicknamed the “Digital Big Bang.”

Information technology created new forms of employment, as World of Warcraft and other worlds made gold farming a way to make a living in China. Sex got more wired as a Master’s Student developed a sexual videogame using wired underwear, and biology became less of a nuisance as Menstration Became Optional. The U.N. Warned of impending human clones, and roboticists figured out the trick to getting children to accept their creations.

Amateurs and professionals proved their maker skills as scientists developed Stem Cells from Skin, and amateurs pulled Stem Cells from a Placenta. Google offered $30 million for a robotic Moon rover mission, while Make Magazine sent a Balloon to Space, and unfortunately lost it.

A frustrated Professor built expensive microfluidic devices using Shrinky Dink, and an Astrophysicist replaced expensive time on Supercomputers with Eight PlayStation 3s. Makers short cut microscopes costing hundreds of dollars with 30 minute USB microscopes and Microscopes made from bamboo.

I think the DIY hero of the year was the One Laptop Per Child project. It ended up costing $100 more than the original $100 goal, but the buy one for a needy child, get one for yourself gave the project a good start and opened the educational tool up to the world of hackers, who will improve on it, finding better ways to accomplish the educational project’s goals. That’s the nature of open source.

Entertainment

There was a smattering of science-themed movies this year. Flock of Dodos came out in 2006, but didn’t arrive at my local theaters until 2007. Randy Olson’s film explored personality differences that made creationists more likable than evolutionists. In the Shadow of the Moon took what might be the last walk down memory lane with the only human beings to set foot on another world. Disney’s Meet the Robinsons was an animated film that made scientists the heroes (however zany). Jerome Bixby’s The Man from Earth provided a surprise treat, an engaging science fiction film that takes place entirely at one location and relied heavily on engaging intellectual dialogue.

In books, Natalie Angier’s The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science achieved what I always wanted in a science book, an adventure from the quantum to the microscopic to the macroscopic to the astronomic realms of science. Steven and Lucy Hawking’s Book George’s Secret Key to the Universe achieved what I never realized I’d wanted in a children’s book, hard science fiction. Howtoons: The Possibilities are Endless brought the Do It Yourself movement to children (and adult-children, like myself), and supplemented it with an awesome website.

Michael Pollan’s incredible NYT article “Unhappy Meals” provided the best, most conclusive dietary advice you’ll ever need: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Make it your mantra to healthy living.

Microscopic Rodin’s Thinker Credit: Dong-Yol Yang et al., Applied Physics Letters

In the art world, the Brown Hall of Entomology offered 25 cents per cockroach for a display on the “sanitary engineers” of the insect world. Korean researchers crafted a microscopic Version of Rodin’s “The Thinker”, about twice the size of a red blood cell. Scientists at Harvard and MIT genetically modified mouse neurons to fire “tracers,” which produced colorful Brainbows.

Relationships Among Scientific Paradigms Information Aesthetics

While on the Internet, Information Aesthetics Relationships Among Scientific Paradigms free downloadable wall chart presented a fantastic visualization tool that provokes hours of examination and reflection. The Science Creative Quarterly hit it big with their Order of Science Scouts Badges, an Internet meme I hope to see become a standard. E.O. Wilson’s Encyclopedia of Life went online, but then failed to produce much of anything by way of content, while Google Space took the prize for the coolest new software toy of the year free or otherwise.

Homo sapiens

A Navy presentation on recruiting Millenials called MySpace Kids an “Alien Life Force.” Perhaps it was stories like the two-year-old girl who became a member of Mensa, the woman visiting her own heart at an exhibition, the labor unions protesting IBM in Second Life, or the Artificial Intelligence cited for unlicensed practice of law that prompted the characterization.

Megan Meier’s tragic suicide after a MySpace hoax drew the most Internet outrage, prompting some to consider criminalizing misrepresentation online.

It was a great year for humanity in space, as 21 years after the Challenger accident took the life of Christa McAuliffe, teacher Barbara Morgan made it to space at 55 years of age. Stephen Hawking got to experience Zero-Gravity at 65 years of age on a Boeing 727. Star Trek’s Scotty’s ashes touched space, while Sulu got an Asteroid named for him.

Lisa Nowak NASA File Photo

My favorite space story of the year was Lisa Nowak’s kidnapping attempt of a rival lover. While the average person couldn’t get past the police report’s mention that she wore diapers to make the cross-country drive without stopping, the real story here was of a spectacular over-achiever having a complete mental breakdown. Nowak’s e-mails, which NASA posted online, revealed the busy life of uber-professionals that was also somewhat ordinary. It was comforting to know that someone like Lisa Nowak, who represents the best of the best of the best, can be driven to dramatic, irrational acts for love.

There’s something timeless about that, symbolized by archeologists discovery of a Couple locked in 5,000 year old embrace.

---

Kurt Vonnegut Photo by Ryan Somma

This year we said good bye to the Princeton Lab of ESP , to the delight of many scientists who felt the institution was a waste of time on “pseudoscience.” Alex the Grey Parrot, hero of the animal world for his amazing cognitive powers, passed away at 31. Don Herbert, aka “Mr Wizard”
passed away at 89, he was a grumpier version of Bill Nye.

We also lost Kurt Vonnegut at 84, World War II Veteran, Science Fiction author, President of the American Humanist Association, lifetime member of the ACLU, and all around great humanist.

“So it goes.”

I had this fantastic idea for a science-themed holiday ornament for the science center, where I would elaborate on the Dixie Cup Spherical Dodecahedron, by putting string lights in the cups and everyone would look on in awe at how awesomely brilliant I am… except I put it together wrong:

Holiday Dodecahedron

I have vowed to get it right next year.

BTW: Special Thanks to Christianity for the day off!

Senator Inhofe’s latest U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007 is generating a lot of attention on right-wing news sources like Faux and the Mooney Times. A quick google search showed the parrotheads got the morning e-mail, and unthinkingly cut and pasted the appropriate quotes into their blogs the day after the report came out, all with the same title this post has.

It’s important to understand the type of report we are talking about here. This isn’t a scientific report, where great volumes of scientific data are gathered, analyzed, and peer-reviewed before conclusions are presented. This is citation report, a thesis statement is made, “There are scientists who dispute global warming theory,” and then news reports and Internet sources scoured to support it.

Because this is purely a political book report, it’s okay to examine the political background of it’s authors. Senator Inhofe is the ranking minority member for the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), the same Inhofe who has compared environmentalists to nazis, and has been the most vociferous skeptic of Global Warming of any politician. Marc Morano is one of Inhofe’s spokespeople, political consultant, and former reporter and producer for the Rush Limbaugh Television Show. So we know where their coming from.

These politicians have written a blockbuster report. We know it’s a blockbuster because the report tells us it’s a blockbuster:

This blockbuster Senate report lists the scientists by name, country of residence, and academic/institutional affiliation. It also features their own words, biographies, and weblinks to their peer reviewed studies and original source materials as gathered from public statements, various news outlets, and websites in 2007. This new “consensus busters” report is poised to redefine the debate. (Emphasis Mine)

I counted approximately 40 climatologists and 60 meteorologists, many of whom were TV weathermen, among those voicing doubts. Fair enough. But there were also approximately 60 physicists, 40 geologists, 15 biologists, and more than five astronomers listed as well. All of these various fields do have perspectives to contribute to Climate Change science, but it is not their field of expertise. The biggest stretch of all was the 20 economists counted among the skeptics. If Alan Greenspan were to voice skepticism of Global Warming tomorrow, I doubt it would get much media attention, but the parrotheads won’t think twice about economists appearing in this report as scientists.

You’re not going to see a lot of scientists responding to this report, and that’s because there isn’t any science to respond to. This isn’t a scientific report by any stretch of the imagination; it’s just a collection of quotes disputing everything from a warmer Earth being a bad thing, to other issues that should take priority over Global Warming, to the motivations of Al Gore, the IPCC, and Environmentalists.

Let’s remember the consensus on Global warming is that (1) it’s happening, and (2) humans are causing it. That’s all.

So when inventor Ray Kurzweil is cited as disagreeing with Al Gore on Global Warming because Kurzweil believes nanotechnology will solve Climate Change. Ray doesn’t dispute the consensus, he disputes that Global Warming is a problem because technology will solve it. Ray also believes we will all become immortal in a few decades by transcribing our brains into computers. Maybe half the scientists listed in this report are actually disputing the consensus, and much less then that number offer scientific arguments to back up their opinions.

Inhofe points out that “Only 52 Scientists Participated in UN IPCC Summary;” and his report cites eight times that number. Technically correct, but so what? This is like saying, “Only one scientist took part in writing the IPCC report’s table of contents.” It only means something to unthinking parrotheads. The IPCC report was written by 600 authors from 40 countries, and reviewed by over 620 experts and governments. Inhofe’s report didn’t even have 52 scientists collaborate on it, as the IPCC summary did, it was written entirely by Inhofe’s spokespeople, who aren’t scientists at all, but political consultants. Inhofe is technically correct, but intellectually dishonest.

Inhofe’s report doesn’t hold a candle to the IPCC report because the IPCC Report is a collaboration, not just a cherry-picked list of opinions and names of people, many of whom probably don’t even know they are in his report. The IPCC Report’s scientists and reviewers were all tasked with figuring it out, and they engaged in scientific inquiry to best articulate the truth.

If Inhofe’s report was such an inquiry, then with 400 Scientists disputing global warming, why would Inhofe make science fiction author Michael Crichton his star witness before the Senate Committee investigating Global Warming? Because Inhofe’s list is not a collaboration, it is a grocery list assembled by his aides, who were tasked with digging up as many skeptics they could find.

Most of all, Inhofe’s report is total bull$#!% because I had better things to write about this weekend. The whole reason behind his perpetual stream of nonsense is simply to force people like Grist, Kos, energysmart, ClimateProgress, Andrew Revkin, and others to respond, perpetuating the myth of a debate and feeding parrothead self-righteous indignation. So long as they can keep us debating, they foster inaction. They win the argument just by arguing.

So Inhofe has scrounged up 400 scientists, the majority of whom are not climate scientists and the majority of whom are not demonstrated disputing the consensus on Anthropogenic Climate Change, and probably few, if any, know they were included in this book report.

On the other hand, we have the consensus on Global Warming, which has been explicitly endorsed by the Academia Brasiliera de Ciências (Bazil), Royal Society of Canada, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Academié des Sciences (France), Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (Germany), Indian National Science Academy, Accademia dei Lincei (Italy), Science Council of Japan, Russian Academy of Sciences, Royal Society (United Kingdom), National Academy of Sciences (United States of America), Australian Academy of Sciences, Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts, Caribbean Academy of Sciences, Indonesian Academy of Sciences, Royal Irish Academy, Academy of Sciences Malaysia, Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Academy of Sciences (NAS), State of the Canadian Cryosphere (SOCC), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Royal Society of the United Kingdom (RS), American Geophysical Union (AGU), American Institute of Physics (AIP), National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), American Meteorological Society (AMS), Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS), and more.

And when the legitimate media doesn’t bother to cover Inhofe’s latest dishonesty, the parrothead lobby will take that as conspiracy against them, further vindicating their skepticism.

---

They don’t have a response out yet, because real science takes time, but RealClimate always has the best science writing on the subject of Anthropogenic Climate Change. Keep an eye on them for a response to this book report, if they bother.

Image by The Slumbering Lungfish (flyingsirkus)

Happy Winter Solstice (in the Northern Hemisphere) to all my fellow Secular Humanists out there! At 6:08 this morning the Sun reached its greatest distance opposite the Earth’s equatorial plane relative to the Northern polar hemisphere, making it the longest night of the year and our days will only get longer an brighter from now till Spring! Hooray!!!

Also celebrated on or around this day are Amaterasu celebration, Beiwe Festival, Choimus, Christmas, Deuorius Riuri, Deygan, DongZhì Festival, Goru, Hogmanay, Inti Raymi, Junkanoo, Karachun, Koleda, Lenæa, Lucia, Makara Sankranti, Meán Geimhridh, Midvinterblót, Modranicht, Perchta ritual, Rozhanitsa Feast, Sabe Cele, Sanghamitta Day, Saturnalia, Seva Zistanê, Sol Invictus Festival, Soyal, Tekufat Tebet, Wayeb, Yule, Zagmuk, and
Happy Holidays to All!!!

Here’s a classic dancing Holiday Lights video set to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s “Wizards in Winter:”

 

My Legoland Avatar

This free software is available for download, and is a great way to introduce your child to 3-D Modeling software. It’s also free and didn’t cause my computer to explode, so you’ve got nothing to lose by trying it out.

A huge selection of Lego parts are available in the application, which also allows for zooms and 360-degree rotations. In fact, this software is so much like other 3-D design tools I have used, that I started calling it “Lego Cad.”

Once your child has built a model they want to have in real life, they can order the exact parts they need online, and the software will walk the child through the process of assembling their model in real life. Although I haven’t had the opportunity to order any parts through this software, Lego is an established brand, and I don’t have any doubts that they are a safe company to buy from online.

This is software is a really neat toy in and of itself. I had very few problems learning my way around the program, and am confident that most children will fall right into the Lego virtual world, and, like most computer-related things, become better at it than their parents possibly could.

I mentioned it’s free and you don’t have to brave the consumer feeding frenzy at the stores for this last minute gift right?

Lego is also a big-time exercise in imagination too…

Lego Imagination Ad

If you like the above Lego ad, also check out these other creative Lego ads.

When I was in elementary school, there was a huge Rubik’s Cube fad. In addition to the Rubik’s Cube, there was the Jacob’s ladder-like Rubik’s Magic, Barrel, Diamond, and many more. My favorite was the Pyraminx because it was the most complex puzzle I could actually solve on my own.

I am happy to see today that the Rubik’s Cube has made a serious comeback. Speedcubing events are taking place all over the world, and new records are being set regularly. Even so, the Rubik’s Cube as a gift will often be quickly forgotten for most children.

The problem with the Rubik’s cube comes with it’s unsolvability. 99.9% of us are never going to figure it out on our own, and that’s why it’s important to go online and learn how to solve one.

It’s a surprisingly easy thing to do. You only need to memorize six simple Algorithms to Solve a Rubik’s cube. “Algorithm” is a scary word, but it shouldn’t be. An algorithm is simply a set of steps to perform some task. For instance, the directions on a Betty Crocker box are an algorithm for making a cake. You can learn how to solve a Rubik’s Cube in about an hour. That’s pretty amazing when you consider there are forty-three quintillion possible permutations to a Rubik’s Cube.

A Rubik’s Cube is best solved in three layers. The first is super-easy to master, the second involves memorizing two algorithms that are mirrors of one another, and the third is where things get a bit more complex.

The following are pictures of my Rubik’s Cube in various states of completion, solving layers one, two, and three. Just ignore the numbers on the cube, I wrote those on there in permanent ink so I could play sodoku, which prompted a friend to ask me, “Are you that hurting for things to do???”

Rubik’s Cube Scrambled

Rubik’s Cube Layer One

Rubik’s Cube Layer Two

Rubik’s Cube Layer Three

Add a Twist

The following two videos by Dan Brown are the best instructionals I’ve found for learning how to solve a Rubik’s Cube. You’ll need to watch them several times, pausing and rewinding, and write down the algorithms on a cheat sheet for practicing while your waiting in line at the grocery store, on a plane, or ignoring your significant other.

 
How to solve a Rubik’s Cube (Part One)

 
How to solve a Rubik’s Cube (Part Two)

Dan Brown has also got other great videos online, like how to lubricate your Rubik’s Cube using petroleum jelly for speed cubing and other nifty tips.

Rubik’s Cubes are a great way to teach spatial relations. Learning how to solve a Rubik’s Cube only gave me a better appreciation for the puzzle and a better understanding of how the parts worked.

Adding a Sodoku Layer is great way to teach math, but be sure to give the cube a few days for the ink to set, or find a better way to paint the numbers on. Mine keep rubbing off.

If you’ve got a free weekend on your hands, you might want to try making a Rubik’s Cube out of Dice too.

Happy Cubing!

Blade Runner The Final Cut

I watched Blade Runner, The Director’s Cut for the upteenth time Monday, appreciating the film’s flaws, and speculating on which ones Ridley Scott would clean up with the final, digitally-remastered version.

Of course, all the silliness that made the original theatrical release of Blade Runner a total flop would stay on the cutting room floor. The bad narration and pasted in happy ending wouldn’t sully the film, but what about the other items that dated the movie? The strings visible in one scene… The H.R. Geiger background that doesn’t quite fit… The sound overlays that didn’t quite match… how much of this would Ridley Scott fix?

When you can add “esque” to the end of a film’s title, you know it was a breakthrough in filmmaking. Ridley Scott’s story takes place in San Angeles, San Diego and Los Angeles grown into one another, a bit of futurism considered outlandish in 1982, but today is a reality. Akira, Battle Angel Alita, and Ghost in the Shell all model their worlds on Blade Runner’s cinematic style. The film’s philosophical dilemmas were as old as Frankenstein, but the plot devices used to explore them were novel, later appearing in films like A.I. and I, Robot.

The Final Cut was released yesterday, but nowhere in Elizabeth City would carry it and it’s not on Netflix. One kid working at Blockbuster apologized and couldn’t believe they didn’t get at least one copy.

So I scrambled, found a copy, and just finished watching it. It’s Beautiful!!! The special effects are so much clearer, revealing more detail in the city. The sound effects are so much more detailed, so that we can hear Roy whispering to Sebastian as he comes after him in a haunting scene. This is movie that could have come recently, it’s so relevant and it’s style so dateless.

The plot twist is still there, and is still very easy to miss if you aren’t paying attention. I’ve never actually met anyone who’s caught it, and only know about it myself from an interview with Ridley Scott, where the director actually came out and explained it.

This is a classic groundbreaking film, and deserves to be in everyone’s film collection.

Plot spoiler!!! (If you’ve never seen ANY version of the film)

Pay attention to Deckard’s dream/waking vision of a unicorn running through the forest, and the origami calling card left for him at the film’s end.

Why would that be there?

Kill-A-Watt

Awhile back I blogged on Blackle.com, a black-background version of google.com that purported to save energy by reducing the amount of light monitors needed to emit to display their page. Researchers confirmed this was true of old, obsolete CRT monitors, but flat screens used more energy to suppress white than display it.

Well, my Kill-A-Watt ($25) arrived in the mail awhile back, and it’s now official. My computer system, running dual flat-screen monitors uses 254 to 255 Kilowatt Hours of electricity to display Google on both screens, and 255 to 256 kilowatt hours to display Blackle on both screens. With both monitors turned off, my computer uses 142 kwh.

You know what else I found? My computer consumes 14 kHz when it’s turned off. After some troubleshooting, I found this was because I leave my speakers on, turning them off reduced my power consumption at this wall socket to zero when not in use.

The Kill-A-Watt is a handy device, and one I’ve returned to regularly in the last couple of months out of curiosity to see how changes to my computer affect its power consumption. It provides several different ways to measure consumption, including a clock that tracks total energy used.

The Kill-A-Watt has also made me a bit more energy conscious, and that’s why I’m recommending it as a gift. It’s a scientific tool that gives me a clearer understanding of how my actions affect the burden I place on the Earth, and the burden I place on my pocketbook when the power bill arrives.

Worldchanging A User’s Guide to the 21st Century

“Happiness demands giving up all hope of a better past.”
– Buddha

I dilly-dallied about checking out this book when it came out last year. Then one day, I happened to pick up an opened copy at the bookstore and immediately fell into profound ionian enchantment with it. This is the kind of book I would normally bounce around, taking it down off the bookshelf every now and then and opening to a random subject to enjoy whatever topic I stumbled upon. I still do that to my now dog-eared copy with its worn binding, but I first read it cover to cover, bibliography and all.

With more than 60 authors, many mainstream and noteworthy, contributing to this tome of a book, fantastic design layout, inspiring photographs, and though-provoking material, it would be a wonder if I didn’t fall in love with it. For 2007, this was my catch-all gift, everyone who got a present from me got this book, and everyone receiving it loved it too.

Worldchanging is the greatest collection of sustainable living innovations ever compiled. Worldchanging introduced me to the Mega Cities Project, which seeks innovative solutions to urban living, NGO-in-a-Box open-source software for managing Non-Governmental Organizations, Solar Energy Products at Real Goods, H₂ouse home water-saving ideas, the United Nation’s World Food Programme free video game where players deliver aid to countries in crisis Food Force, the free International Futures modeling software, Gapminder free software to visualize world development, and numerous other resources online, offline, and within myself. Not to mention, the Worldchanging Website, called the “leading sustainability-focused website on the planet” and has “an archive of 7,600 stories on ecological innovation, breakthrough design and social change.”

Most of all, Worldchanging makes us hopeful about the future. It recognizes the myriad problems the global village faces and places its focus on finding the solutions to them. This is the best DIY book ever. After reading over 500 pages of projects, inventions, lifestyle modifications, and products, you will see the world around you in a whole new light. And a fresh outlook on life is one of the best gifts you can give.

Available at Amazon.

ZomeTool’s connector balls are small rhombicosidodecahedrons

I started playing with Zome Tool after watching the college lecture series Joy of Thinking: The Beauty and Power of Classical Mathematical Ideas on DVD, which required no mathematical background and I highly recommend for anyone interested in learning about why Math totally rocks from a humanistic perspective. I wanted to try out some of the geometrical concepts the lecture series talked about and needed a construction set that would suit this need.

Zome Tool is like an errector set, only incredibly geometrically well thought-out. The vertices, connector balls, for the Zome Tool are small rhombicosidodecahedrons, one of the 13 types of Archmedean Solids (this link has 3-D examples that you can rotate). This means that there are three types of connections for the edges, a pentagon, rectangle, and equilateral triangle; and for this reason, the edge pieces come in three different color-coded types.

The length of these edge pieces are related to one another along the Golden Mean, a proportion found throughout nature, art, and architecture, and one that allowed me to build three interlaced golden rectangles inside an icosahedron.

Icosahedron with Three Interlaced Golden Rectangles

I later added another layer to this, by putting the icosahedron inside the dodecahedron with it’s verticies touching the middle of each of the dodecahedron’s faces.

Also on a Holiday note, check out a Zome Christmas Tree