Technology

Opinions Needed ASAP On A PDA/Cellphone

Mulder

I am probably going to be getting a new cellphone/PDA over the next week or so and need some input.

I currently use a Treo 600 and have used a Palm device for several generations going back to Palm III devices. I have also used both the original blackberry and one of the newer blue tinted models that are being offered for $150 by Rogers.

If anyone has an opinion on a specific Blackberry model or PDA/Cell that they can give, I would really appreciate it. My main concern is that I hear the sound quality on the blackberry’s is not up to snuff.

I would appreciate feedback in the comments below.

How The Twin Towers Fell

Mulder

I tried swimming through the NIST report on how the towers fell but not until this morning did I get a decent, easy to understand explanation. This came courtesy of Discovery Channel’s Frontiers of Construction, one of my favourite shows.

It helps dispel the theory that bombs or internal explosions brought the tower down and runs through the key reasons why the towers fell.

Of particular note is the comment that once the towers hit, it was inevitable that they were going to fall due to the fireproofing being scoured off the supports. Had the fireproofing been intact and the fire continued to rage, there was a very high likelihood the towers would have remained standing.

This was an incredible revelation.

I recorded and uploaded to YouTube for the world to see two things.

1) how the towers fell and
2) what a great show Frontiers of Construction is.

If you can’t see the above video, then you can visit the YouTube link here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-UZoNqluFs

Name A Hungarian Bridge

Mulder

Hungary has this amazing suspension bridge that the Hungarian government wants help naming via an online poll. The current leader has over 2 million votes, but with a concerted effort I think we can get the bridge named the Canada Bridge.

I have submitted the name and urge you all to head over to their site, scroll down to Canada Bridge in the list, give the radio button a check and then scroll down and submit your vote.

Note, the site is in Hungarian so you may not understand most of the text but there are some amazing photos of this bridge. It’s a doozy!!

If you want to help spread the word and get the bridge named the Canada Bridge, feel free to link to their site or this blog post and help get the ball rolling.

Currently, there are some pretty whacked out names up there. The Chuck Norris bridge has over 360,000 votes!!! As a nation we can beat Chuck Norris!!!

CURE FOUND FOR HIV/AIDS!!!

Mulder

Have you ever gotten those emails with the annual Darwin Award winners? You know the ones that pick winners for the stupidest ways people die? The motto of the winners is “I don’t think, therefore I am not.” They are a classic example of thinning the herd.

I would like to know why they haven’t added “sharing drug needles” or “having unprotected sex” to these lists of insanely stupid ways to die? Instead they teach us to not have a strength contest by hanging on a freeway overpass railing. Or they teach us not to get off a bus moving 60 MPH for a cigarette.

At the International HIV/AIDS conference going on in Toronto Bill Gates gave the cure out, but very few people heard him.

You see, Uganda has dramatically reduced HIV in their nation by implementing something called ABC.

A – Abstinence
B – Be Faithful
C – Condomize

Yet the crowd in Toronto was so upset at the mention of “abstinence” that they booed so loud the B and C parts were drowned out. Every person at the conference who booed and dies of AIDS should be a Darwin Award winner.

Are the attendees at this conference so hard up (pardon the pun) to shove their unprotected peckers between a couple of hairy buns that they would risk their lives for it? I would classify this as Darwin Award winning behaviour, wouldn’t you?

This disease can be licked in a single lifetime. Our lifetime. All that we need to do is follow the ABC method and stop sharing drug needles. We don’t need billions on research for a cure. We already have it.

It’s easy as ABC folks.

I Think Intel Might Be In Trouble – AMD To Buy Canadian Graphics Chip Giant ATI for $5.5B

Mulder

Source says Applied Micro Devices could announce deal with #2 Canadian chipmaker as early as Monday

When I read the post at Digg, I was thinking “no way” but sure enough CNN Money is reporting the following.

Advanced Micro Devices, the No. 2 supplier of computer processors, is close to a deal to buy graphics chip maker ATI for $5.5 billion, a source familiar with the situation said on Friday.

Any such deal would shake up the processor industry, which is witnessing a battle over market share between AMD and larger rival Intel

For those who aren’t familiar, ATI is a company very close to my heart. (no disclosure needed because they are not close to my wallet. Too bad.) This Canadian giant of graphics has been a mainstay in almost every gamerz computer at some point in time via their Radeon series graphics cards/processors.

With Dell opening up to using AMD this year, and the ATI-Dell relationship, this is not going to be pretty for Intel. AMD also laid the gauntlet down recently and announced plans to release a true quad-core processor in 2007, which looks to have forced Intel to either open their hand up or play catch up.

The only thing that could be worse is if Lenova was to sign up AMD as their primary processor supplier. (Watch for it!)

It also raises a question that has me perplexed. Who would be Canada’s #1 chip maker?

Embryonic, Adult, and Umbilical Cord Stem Cells … WTF Is The Difference?

Mulder

In light of President George Bush’s virginal veto last week, I thought Lucy might need some ‘splainin’.

I hope Ann Coulter doesn’t sue me for quoting from her new book but here is a major difference.

A short list of successful treatments achieved by adult stem cells are these:

  • Rebuilding livers wracked by otherwise irreversible cirrhosis
  • Repairing spinal cord injuries by using stem cells from nasal and sinus regions
  • Completely reversing Type I diabetes in mice using adult spleen cells
  • Putting Crohn’s disease into remission with the patient’s own blood stem cells
  • Putting lupus into remission using stem cells from the patient’s bloodstream
  • Treating sickle-cell anemia using stem cells from Umbilical Cord blood
  • Repairing the heart muscles in patients with congestive heart failure using adult stem cells from bone marrow
  • Repairing heart attack damage with the patient’s own blood stem cells
  • Restoring bone marrow in cancer patients using stem cells from umbilical cord blood
  • Restoring weak heart muscles using immature skeletal muscle cells
  • Putting leukemia into remission using umbilical cord blood
  • healing bone fractures with bone marrow cells
  • Restoring sight in blind people using ocular surface stem cell transplant and a cornea transplant
  • Treating urinary incontinence using stem cells from underarm muscle
  • Reversing severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) with genetically modified adult stem cells
  • Restoring blood circulation in legs with bone marrow stem cells

Meanwhile, embryonic stem cells have never cured anything in any living creature.

(bolded emphasis above is mine)

It is obvious that embryonic stem cells have done Bo Diddley (not to mention Christopher Reeves) squat.

The Best Toilet In The World

Mulder

Considering there has been much talk lately about the “wizkids“, many blogs continue to write about urination and the forces of nature that make people go in public.

I have a great solution, but it would require investment, and a few laws being changed depending on the province.

Why am I suggesting this you might ask? Well three or four years ago, I too was down at the Canada Day festivities and my bladder started calling. So me and my family went into the Tim Horton’s not far from the Hill. There was a huge lineup and when I took my turn and walked into the single toilet bathroom (no stalls), I was gagging. The toilet bowl was full to the brim with a filthy brown water. The reek was immense.

And as is pointed out in a post by Proud To Be Canadian, many places around the country have issues with bathrooms. Be it a lack of them, or bars/restaurants having rules stating the facilities are to be only used by patrons, or as I experienced, during busy events, some bathrooms just cannot be cleaned frequently enough.

Here is the solution. I would suggest putting these all over cities in the heart of the bar districts, wherever events are held, and in various tourist attraction areas.

Self Cleaning Toilet

I came across this very bathroom while walking along the Piers in San Francisco. The bathroom is a pay bathroom with a grated floor. It is stainless steel and after each usage, the door closes, and the bathroom starts churning away as it “self cleans”. After waiting in line behind a couple of people I took my turn. The water was still dripping off the grates when I entered but the toilet was spotless and dry. The sink was spotless and dry. And it was the best money I ever spent.

The only drawback was the time it took to do the cleaning. But if you supplement them with a few portapottys, or allow a cleaning bypass for families lined up together, they could prove to be the answer to the problems plagued by drunk youth and those with weak bladders.

9/11 Conspiracy Theorists Need To Tighten A Screw Or Two In Their Heads

Mulder

I have been seeing a link to a mock science experiment that the right is using to downplay the conspiracy theory’s regarding the collapse of the WTC.

You can read about this mock science experiment here. It is interesting to see the effect of fire on chickenwire, but I think NIST has done a far better job at explaining how the towers came down. Most left wing whack jobs probably didn’t even gander at it.

You can view the whole pdf of the NIST analysis (over 400 pages with diagrams, charts, analysis, etc.) here. I urge you to go to about page 282 of the document, which is page 364 of the pdf file and read the 20 to 40 pages about their analysis of each tower falling and keep in mind, that the structural integrity changes once parts go into motion. A building is designed to be inert. Once parts start moving beyond tolerance of design, any architect will tell you that the building is in trouble.

But to provide my own analysis of the main conspiracy theories I have seen:

Conspiracy Theory: The jet fuel could not burn hot enough to melt steel girders.

Explanation: It would not have to melt the steel girders, just heat them up enough to allow for sag, which the NIST report points out. Once sag starts to happen on a floor the horizontal pull of the floor would cause the outer walls to be pulled inward, thus providing a kink in the shape which would cause the tower to give. Think of how much stronger your arm is when your elbow is locked straight than when you bend it a little bit and force so much more weight on the tendons and muscles holding your arm in that bent position. Give it try. Take a five lb weight in each arm and hold one straight over year head with elbow locked, and the other over your head with the elbow bent slightly and see which arm tires out first.

Conspiracy Theory: The tower was using reinforced steel and had been designed well. How could fuel have melted the girders and caused the collapse.

Explanation: According to NIST, WTC 1 fell because of buckling around floor 98 due to the heat buildup weaking specific structural points. This means that when the 12 or so floors above came crashing down on a weakened floor 97, the amount of pressure was immensely more than the structure was designed to support in a stable, inert environment. ex. Think of when you jump down about 5 feet or so and land on your feet. The pressure on your ankles and knees is far more than that of your weight when you stand on them.

Conspiracy Theory: People saw explosions around the base of the tower.

Explanation: Continuing the above example, with an analogy, when someone jumps from a buildings second or third floor to save their life and they land on the ground, they inevitably have shattered ankles and/or knees and broken foot arches from the pressure of landing and all their weight coming down on these joints. Similarly, every time the mass at the top hit downwards the pressure on the base of the tower would have reverberated the footings and pillars near the bottom almost as much as the ones at the top where the pancaking occurs. Eventually the concrete, as it does under very high stress, cracks and explodes outwards looking like an explosion. Remember, we aren’t talking about someone on the 98th floor jumping up and down. We are talking about the mass of every concrete and steel section above the 98th floor all coming down at about 10 ft/s and accelerating. The weight would crush each floor underneath and add that floors weight to the next floor being struck, and each time there would be a massive amount of pressure being applied to the floors far lower in the tower.

Conspiracy Theory: Bush killed almost 3000 people to start a war.

Explanation: Leftwing nutjob whackos grasping at straws.

Please feel free to post any other conspiracy theories here. I would be glad to debunk them.

H/T to Kate at SDA for the chickenwire experiment.

Now can I please get back to watching the F1 race before taking my daughter to see the movie Cars?

Did The Korean Missile Fail? Or Were The Americans Successful?

Mulder

Reprinted from Jack’s Newswatch

I was thinking about the huge missile that Korea launched all day today as I followed the news…

Bravo to the Bush administration for its measured response to North Korea’s Fourth of July fireworks display.

The North’s missile tests, their date chosen to coincide with America’s Independence Day, were, as the president’s national security adviser called them, “provocative behavior.”

Yet the firing of the single intercontinental Taepodong II, which exploded in mid-air less than a minute after launch, just shows how unsophisticated Pyongyang is. The overall display, which included up to six other missile launches as of this morning, also demonstrates how desperate the country is for international attention.

…And I just chased something down that has been bothering me.

The ABL is designed to detect and destroy theatre ballistic missiles in the powered boost phase of flight immediately after missile launch. The aircraft loiters at an altitude of 40,000 feet. Missile launch is detected by a reconnaissance system such as satellite or Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft and threat data is transmitted to the ABL aircraft by Link 16 communications. A suite of infrared, wide-field telescopes installed along the length of the aircraft’s fuselage detects the missile plume at ranges up to several hundred km.

The pointing and tracking system tracks the missile and provides launch and predicted impact locations. The turret at the nose of the aircraft swivels towards the target and a 1.5 metre telescope mirror system inside the nose focuses the laser beam onto the missile. The laser beam is locked onto the missile, which is destroyed near its launch area within seconds of lock-on. Where the missile carries liquid fuel, the laser can heat a spot on the missile’s fuel tank, causing an increase in internal pressure resulting in catastrophic failure. Alternatively, the missile is heated in an arc around its circumference and crumples under atmospheric drag force or its own G-force.

“Nah, couldn’t be – could it?”

It sure could be Jack!! I was never a true believer that the Star Wars SDI program was something that would work, but I also know laser technology fairly well. I also know that computers these days can accomplish amazing things, and the capability to use DSPs and high speed sampling is quite possible. In fact, capabilities of processors and DSPs are often measured in MIPS (millions of instructions per second) and sampling in the 100’s of millions of samples per second can easily keep a focus on a moving object at high speed. Lasers travelling at the speed of light can zip (or zap as the case may be) 300km in 1 millisecond. i.e 1/1000th of a second.

If I were Pyongyang, I would be quite concerned about that failure.