Science hopes to change events that have already occurred
October 26th, 2007
Ever wish you could reach back in time and change the past? Maybe you’d like to take back an unfortunate voice mail message, or rephrase what you just said to your boss. Or perhaps you’ve even dreamed of tweaking the outcome of yesterday’s lottery to make yourself the winner.
Sote
October 25th, 2007
Iranian electronic artist: “re-invents Persian and Iranian folk music modifying traditional instruments and voices with heavy experimental electronics” – the music is interesting and out there!
Sote is for sure the most puzzling artist I’ve ever come across. His single on Warp had been a shock, those devastating breaks with overloaded distortions seemed extremely hardcore when I wasn’t into breakcore yet, and keep on scaring me now. A few years later I receive this Dastgaah, and it’s a totally different story.
Techno Radio
October 24th, 2007
Sounds good to me!
Another site for buying dance oriented mp3s
October 23rd, 2007
Storm Track Appeasement: How to Boil an Infidel Frog
October 15th, 2007
This is a very biased article – but worth a read, I also left a comment but not responses as yet.
Islamist are on a roll – the Empire State Building bathed in Islamic green as today’s example. The Islamist are well versed how to boil a frog. In this case – the infidels.
For those of you who are not aware of the boiling frog process, it goes like this. You can’t throw a frog into a pot of boiling water. He’d jump right out. So, you put him in a pot of cold water and slowly, very slowly, turn up the heat until it’s too late and he boils.
What Was Once a Revolutionary Guard Is Now Just a Mafia
October 14th, 2007
Written by Mohsen Sazegara.
Back in October 1978, none of us in exile with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini imagined that victory for the Islamic Revolution would be attained only a few months later. It was during those days in Neuf-le-Chateau that the notion of starting a “people’s army” first took hold, and expecting that our battle would be a long one, we took as models for our soon-to-be established army the forces in Algeria and Cuba.
But on February 1, 1979, we stepped off a plane from France into Tehran, and 10 days later we were in power. Suddenly we had a position to protect, and the model for our people’s army changed dramatically. It seemed more appropriate to emulate such forces as the Swiss Armed Forces, United States National Guard or Israel Defense Forces.
On The Line: Iran’s Revolution – 25 Years Later
October 13th, 2007
Reformist law makers in Iran called the controlled February 20th elections there a “sham” that “Deprived the people there of the most basic right — the right to choose and be chosen.” More than two thousand reform candidates were blocked from running for Parliament by the twelve-member Guardian Council, an unelected group that wields enormous power in Iran’s theocratic system. Parliamentary leaders wrote a six-page open letter to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that said bluntly: “You lead a system in which legitimate freedoms and the rights of the people are being trampled on in the name of Islam.” The lawmakers called the election “unfair” and “vastly illegal”. Many others announced a boycott.
History of Religion
October 12th, 2007
A short Flash movie showing how the main 5 religions spread throughout the world over the past 5000 years or so.
Is this really true?
October 11th, 2007
This article in the NY Times is a pretty good read along the same lines.
Learning to think differently
October 10th, 2007
From slashdot.org
A couple of times a year, I pull up the following and read it, trying to realign my thinking process. I don’t know who originally wrote it; I’ve had it for years. I apologize for the long post, but it’s worth it:
Some time ago I received a call from a colleague. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed a perfect score. The instructor and the student agreed to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected.
I read the examination question: “SHOW HOW IT IS POSSIBLE TO DETERMINE THE HEIGHT OF A TALL BUILDING WITH THE AID OF A BAROMETER.”
The student had answered, “Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it,lower it to the street, and then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building.” The student really had a strong case for full credit since he had really answered the question completely and correctly! On the other hand, if full credit were given, it could well contribute to a high grade in his physics course and to certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this.
I suggested that the student have another try. I gave the student six minutes to answer the question with the warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics. At the end of five minutes, he had not written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said he had many answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best one.
I excused myself for interrupting him and asked him to please go on. In the next minute, he dashed off his answer which read: “Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch.Then, using the formula x=0.5*a*t^^2, calculate the height of the building.”
At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded,and gave the student almost full credit.
While leaving my colleague’s office, I recalled that the student had said that he had other answers to the problem, so I asked him what they were. “Well,” said the student, “there are many ways of getting the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer. For example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building,and by the use of simple proportion, determine the height of the building.”
“Fine,” I said, “and others?”
“Yes,” said the student, “there is a very basic measurement method you will like. In this method, you take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and this will give you the height of the building in barometer units.”
“A very direct method.”
“Of course. If you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of g at the street level and at the top of principle, can be calculated.”
“On this same tact, you could take the barometer to the top of the building,attach a long rope to it, lower it to just above the street, and then swing it as a pendulum. You could then calculate the height of the building by the period of the precession”.
“Finally,” he concluded, “there are many other ways of solving the problem. Probably the best,” he said, “is to take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent’s door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows: ‘Mr. Superintendent, here is a fine barometer. If you will tell me the height of the building, I will give you this barometer.”
At this point, I asked the student if he really did not know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think.
The student was Neils Bohr.