For our 2300th post, allow me to introduce

... the future. Holy shit!


I've got this in my pocket right now, and it works as advertised.

Check what China is up to

There's some hot shit in this wikileaked cables!

Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak ... was designed to be a controlled nuclear fusion tokamark reactor with superconductive toroidal and poloidal field magnets and a D-shaped cross-section. One of the experimental goals of this device was to prove that a nuclear fusion reaction can be sustained indefinitely, at high enough temperatures, to produce energy in a cost-effective way. In 2009, IIP successfully maintained a 10 million degree Celsius plasma nuclear fusion reaction for 400 seconds. IIP also successfully maintained a 100 million degree Celsius plasma nuclear fusion reaction for 60 seconds. ...

The Chinese Academy of Science ... has developed a biometrics device that uses a person’s pace to identify them.  The device measure weight and two-dimensional sheer forces applied by a person’s foot during walking to create a uniquely identifiable biometrics profile. The device can be covertly installed in a floor and is able to collect ... biometrics data on individuals covertly without their knowledge. When questioned about the device’s potential applications, IIM officials stated the device was being used by “secret” customers and was not available on the commercial market. ...

Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale (HFNL). HFNL has 95 faculty members and roughly 400 graduate students. HFNL research focuses on quantum communication, nanoscience, superconductors, spintronics, and cognitive sciences. In the area of quantum communication, HFNL was conducting research in quantum teleportation and free space quantum cryptography that scientists hope will result in “totally secure” communications. USTC also oversees China’s “Program 178,” although they did not describe the nature of this program. (COMMENT: A cursory walk through their labs seemed to indicate they had already succeeded in single-particle quantum teleportation and are now trying to conduct dual-particle quantum teleportation. END COMMENT)

via wikileaks | img

FAA gives first-ever approval for a flying car

By day, the I-Tec Maverick is a canvas covered car that does 0-60 in under 4 seconds.

Also by day, the Maverick flies!

The I-Tec Maverick, which is a roadworthy dune buggy powered by a Subaru engine, has finally been granted the first certification from the Federal Aviation Administration for a flying car. Developed by the Indigenous People’s technology and Education center, The I-Tec Maverick is certified as a “powered parachute,” which comes with a 170-hp, 2.4 liter Subaru four-cylinder built into a canvas-covered frame. The Maverick can do up to 60mph in under 4 seconds, and can take off within 100 yards. The car priced at $80,000 deploys a cloth wing on a 22-foot mast and takes flight.

via

Say you have a very tiny pie that you want to throw in the face of a bee

There's a catapult for that!   (ht kottke)

Q. What do you read, my lord?

Answer is, obviously, "words, words, words."

Q. What's the matter? The matter is contained in the words. Not in the cover art. Not in the spine. And not in the typeface. Groooober says, about typeface:

So the knock against e-books, in my opinion, is that they’re not carefully dressed like print books are. They’re wearing generic uniforms.

Fair enough. But think back to your favorite book in the world. Do you have a strong association with the cover art? With the spine of the book? With the size or color of the page?

For me, the answer to the above is yes, but barely. Even the smell of an old book (which is a powerful and distinctive memory) is amazingly secondary to the matter of the words. The ability to read book after book after book on my (lightweight, always in my pocket) phone is, for me, an extraordinary evolution and enhancement of the written word.

What about you, dear reader? Do you like ebooks, or is your relationship with books less about the words and more about the paraphernalia?

News from Texas

It's snowing in Austin. Y'all Northerners are used to snow, but for us, this is a rare, non-accumulating treat.

Jack Rose R.I.P.

I'll give you a hand, Jason. Although my first post of the new era is not a happy one.
I learned today from Rob Cambre, an acquaintance in New Orleans, that Jack Rose died of a heart attack this month. Rose was a master guitarist whose work in the drone band Pelt would be notable enough had it not been eclipsed by his solo work. He was mentioned in the same breath as John Fahey, and he was 38. I saw him live thrice, once opening for Mogwai, where I met with him briefly. You know when you meet someone for the first time and knew they were ok? It was like that. But the first time was when he opened for Donald Miller at the Zeitgeist in New Orleans. He played this awesome blues piece that, over the course of a minute or so, morphed seamlessly into an Indian raga played at the speed of speed metal. It was one of the most transcendent musical moments I've ever experienced.

Listen and watch via authormag.

Design FTW

I love this. A simple design for a folding plug that will instantly be popular with anyone who travels with a charger in (or to) the U.K.

This is very appealing to the design geek in me: Great design overcomes stupid existing hardware, pushing it towards obsolescence while remaining backward-compatible. I work on similar problems in my current job (and it's just about the only interesting thing about my job).

Check out the whole article at Icon Magazine Online.

Gremlins with a time machine

Two physicists suggest that the interference from the future is causing bad luck to our high-energy physics experiments:

“It must be our prediction that all Higgs producing machines shall have bad luck,” Dr. Nielsen said in an e-mail message. In an unpublished essay, Dr. Nielson said of the theory, “Well, one could even almost say that we have a model for God.” It is their guess, he went on, “that He rather hates Higgs particles, and attempts to avoid them.”

This malign influence from the future, they argue, could explain why the United States Superconducting Supercollider, also designed to find the Higgs, was canceled in 1993 after billions of dollars had already been spent, an event so unlikely that Dr. Nielsen calls it an “anti-miracle.”

via NYT (reg. req.)

Computer, what is the nature of the universe?

WolframAlpha launches tonight. It will turn your computer into the magic "smarter-than-you" box you've been waiting for all these years. Well, maybe not tonight, but it really represents a new way of making computers work for you. A "computational knowledge engine", it won't just look up an answer, but will compute answers and correlating data.

Check out the demo here.

This might explain my uncanny skill at piloting spacecraft

Cornell's Daryl Bem studies precognition:

In conventional psychological tests, subjects recall words they’ve had a chance to study better than words they’ve seen only briefly. Bem reversed the usual order of events and found that his subjects were significantly more likely to recall words they would study later than words they wouldn’t study at all. Extroverts show the most precognition.

Friday awesomeness

I don’t want to trivialize the difficult complexities of the Tibetan diaspora by saying things like “this guy is cooler than we’ll ever be!” But - just this once, forgive me - this guy is cooler than we’ll ever be. I mean, look at him. He will hack your system, friends. With his mind.

via colihouse

"Well, here's your problem right here..."

From Wikiped⁽¹⁾:

GhostNet is the name given to a recently-discovered, large-scale hacking or possible electronic spying operation, based mainly in the People's Republic of China, which has infiltrated at least 1,295 computers in 103 countries. Computer systems which would normally be expected to have high levels of security protection have been compromised, including many belonging to banks, embassies, foreign ministries, and other government offices around the world, as well as the Dalai Lama's Tibetan exile centers in India, Brussels, London, and New York City.

...

The system disseminates malware to selected recipients via computer code attached to stolen emails and addresses, thereby expanding the network by allowing more computers to be infected. Once infected, a computer can be controlled or inspected by its hackers. The malware even has the ability to turn on the camera and audio-recording functions of an infected computer, enabling monitors to see and hear what goes on in a room.

Researchers also believe they have found evidence of real world actions taken by government officials from the People's Republic of China, as a result of information obtained via the 'GhostNet'; including Beijing officials making a call to a diplomat discouraging a visit with the Dalai Lama, after that person had received an email invitation (from the Dalai Lama's representatives) to do so, and a woman on her way to Tibet being stopped by Chinese intelligence officers and shown transcripts of her online conversations

While a report from researchers at Cambridge University says they believe that the Chinese government is behind the attacks, the researchers from the University of Toronto stated they could not conclude that the Chinese government was responsible for the spy network, and noted alternative possibilities such as an operation run by private citizens in China for profit or for patriotic reasons, or intelligence agencies from other countries such as Russia or the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. The Chinese government has denied any involvement, stating that China "strictly forbids any cyber crime".

Yikes! Makes Storm Botnet seem like a pile of puke.

---
⁽¹⁾ 11:03 CDT 3/30/09 edition

img via

... I want one so bad ...

Even more than the Tesla Roadster, I want the Model S Electric Sedan:


UPDATE: ... definitely a gadget.

Friday awesomeness

QR codes are 2D barcodes that can contain exponentially more info than a bar code. Cameraphones with the right software can read these codes, but so far they have been used for small things like URLs.

You can't cram a whole lot of info into something that can be captured by a cameraphone (yet), but these crazy Japanese people want to use the technology to distribute software, "over the paper."

Cool, daddy, cool

via

"Let the Right One In"

Absolutely the best vampire movie I have seen in years. It really succeeds despite being a vampire movie. It's very Swedish, which in this case is a good thing. I can't really tell you why you need to go see this movie, but you need to go see it as soon as possible.



Here is some random bits of the film that I liked. None of these are the main reasons you need to go see the movie, of course, because like I just told you, I can't really tell you that.

* The characters hang out at the "Sun Palace."

* With one exception, the CG effects are incredibly subtle, yet effective.

* You find out the right and wrong ways to try to murder someone and/or to hide a body in Sweden.

* You find out the absolutely wrong way to try to commit suicide in, well, anywhere

Wow

Last night was a lot more personally emotional than I expected it to be. I didn't know how to write about it then. I was stuck in a hotel room in a California suburb, trying not to cry, feeling alone and foolish and awkward about just how moved I was.

But now I am reading emails from my friends, seeing a ton of text messages from last night that finally hit my phone, and looking at pictures of celebrations that happened just a few miles away in San Jose.

Wow! Now I don't feel so foolish. It was an emotional night.

And not emotional because a Democrat won (although, wow, that's nice). And it's not because a black guy won (although, really, wow).

I think it's because of just how wound up we've all been through the Bush years. It was a dark time in so many ways. America started to resemble the weirdest, most cynical comic-book versions of itself.

And now, for the first time in at least six years, I feel like we're in the real America again... in the America described in my highschool texbooks, the America where we are the good guys, and the America where it's actually possible to get things done.

Wow.

image credit

November surprise

You people need to take a Zoloft or something. Obama will win, and win big. His grandmother has made the final, ultimate sacrifice for her little Bear. All of those stupid undecided voters conditioned by a lifetime of Hallmark cards and afterschool specials will be wiping away tears as they vote for the big O.

More of this, please

This is just good stuff: A startup company is building an enormous, underground, hydroelectric battery in Maine.

Their plan, which has some impressive backing, is to blast giant caverns out of the bedrock 600 meters below and then, during times of peak electricity demand, divert water from the Black River into the caverns, which would power electric turbines on the way down. When demand is low, meanwhile, excess electricity would be used to operate the turbines in reverse, pumping water back out of the caverns. Because the power generated at a hydroelectric plant is proportional to the height the water travels, and because the Maine project would be twice the height of the tallest hydroelectric dam in the world, this underground hydro plant could generate a huge amount of electricity. It would have a capacity of 1000 megawatts, and could run at full bore for six to eight hours before its storage caverns were full. | TNR |

This is totally awesome for the following reasons:

Reason the first: Based on existing and well understood tech, cost estimates for this project can be very accurate.

Reason the second: It is useful in our current energy climate (where we are evening out the load on the grid using the battery), but is also poised to capitalize on--and lays the groundwork for!--future wind and solar power initiatives. It's agnostic about where the power comes from: It can just store that power relatively cheaply.

Reason the third: All this investment is good for the economy, and gosh, we could use more of it.

I suspect this is going to turn out to be a money maker for BlackRock. Plans for this kind of battery have been on the books for years, but with energy costs going up and wind/solar power coming on strong, I bet their break-even date is a lot sooner than it would have been five years ago.

In the future, I hope we'll see more projects like this, including projects that are even more like water towers: Pump the water up when you've got extra juice, and then on the way back down the water can provide power just like today it provides water pressure.

As we've already been covering, the future is full of win.