Facebook to preserve accounts of dead members

Facebook has recently made a decision to preserve the accounts of its dead members as "memorialized accounts." Photos and wall posts will continue to be displayed, but status updates won't. Friends and family members are encouraged to fill out a form to report the death of a member.

One Little Cigarette, One Big Effect

A study presented to the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress has showed that in people aged 18-30, just one cigarette increases the stiffness of arteries by 25%. That's right, just one cigarette, even if it's your first one ever, can do this to you. This damages your arteries and puts more stress on your heart, and can lead to blood clots, a decreased amount of oxygen in the blood, plaque build up, higher blood pressure, and a stroke.

Internet Adresses to go beyond the Latin Alphabet

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (the ICANN) is getting the internet ready for web domain names in non-Latin scripts, like Chinese and Arabic. More than half the internet users in the world do not use a latin based script to write their language, so this new compatibility will help make the internet "more international."

Yahoo! - Oops!

At Yahoo's Open Hack Day in Taiwan, many happy develop and programmer attendees got more than what they came for.

Apparently, Yahoo! had hired women to give lap dances to those who wanted them, no doubt making some female coders (yes, they do exist) feel a bit awkward about the whole situation for a variety of reasons.

Photos got out on the internet, and people were understandably not too happy about it and not everyone approved. Here is Yahoo's apology statement issued by Chris Yeh of their development network:

"I wanted to acknowledge the public reaction generated by the images of female dancers at our Taiwan Open Hack Day this past weekend. 

Our hack events are designed to give developers an opportunity to learn about our ... (programming) and technologies. As many folks have rightly pointed out, the 'Hack Girls' aspect of our Taiwan Hack Day is not reflective of that spirit or purpose. And it’s certainly not the message we want to send about our values here at Yahoo! Hack Days are about making everyone feel welcome, including women coders and technologists.

[It is] regrettable and we apologize to anyone that we have offended. Rest assured, it won’t happen again."
 

Damn right it doesn't "reflect the spirit or purpose" of it. Do they really need lap dancers to encourage people to come?

This kind of stuff happens all the time though, and whether or not you hear about it is just a matter of whether or not anyone was caught.

Dutch Court Clamps Down on Pirate Bay Torrents

Today, a Dutch court ordered Pirate Bay to remove copyrighted torrents from their site and to block Dutch users from parts of the site where one can find them. Pirate Bay operators have been given 3 months to comply. If they do not, then they will be fined 5,000 euros a day, (approximately $7,5000 USD).

The court has ruled that Pirate Bay in itself does not infringe copyright, but merely facilitates it, and ruled accordingly.

Fingernail Sized Chip Could Potentially Store 1TB of Data

Engineers at North Carolina State University have created a material that could be used to create a chip capable of storing a terabyte of data. That's 250 million pages of text or 20 high-def DVDs.

To create this, they worked at the atomic level using a process called "selective doping" which is adding an impurity to a material, thereby changing its properties. In this case, they added nickel to magnesium oxide. This created clusters of nickel atoms no larger than 10 square nanometers, a 90% size reduction with what most other methods can get you.

This cannot only get us those 1TB chips the size of a fingernail, but also higher fuel economy for vehicles
and higher computer storage capacity. 

Constant Light Depresses Mice, and Us

Researches recently did an experiment that showed that mice living in a room that was lit 24 hours a day exhibited symptoms of depression. The mice who were kept on a normal light/dark cycle or with constant light but a dark tube to hide in did not experience the symptoms/as much of them as did the constant light mice.

This correlates to the increase in depressive disorders in humans as people are exposed to more light during the night that go against our natural sleep cycles.Our cycles are influenced by things like staying up at night to watch TV or going out to a lighted city, or working late...as more and more people are exposed to more light at night, depressive disorders may be more of a risk for everyone and their numbers will continue to rise.

Moral: make sure you get a good nights sleep!

Microsoft Looks to Redeem Itself with Windows 7

The latest installment of Windows 'officially' launches today with Windows 7 (ironically, the version number is 6.1), much to the joy of those whose hopes sunk with Vista and those who want an upgrade  from it, (why wouldn't they?) and those still using Windows XP, a now 8 year old OS.You can either buy the disk, or get a PC with Win7 pre-installed on it if you want.

Win7 promises to be quicker in performance than its predecessors, with speed variations varying from insignificant to a more noticeable improvement depending on your computer's setup. This includes application launch times, sleep and resume times, and boot and shutdown times.

Some features:

• ready to work on 64-bit processors
• promises to work well on multicore computers
• support for a wider variety of file types
• battery life improvements by running less background processes that aren't in use, ect...
  
• re-designed desktop and task bar with a new library of default wallpapers
• fewer "are you sure you want to..." operations require your consent so you aren't bombarded with "wait! are you sure?" messages
• compatible with touch screen PCs
• quicker detection of USB devices

Speed Limit on Computer Processors

Within this century, we may hit a limit as to how fast we can make our computer processors. As it turns out, there is a speed limit so to say on how fast a processor can possibly run, which means that Moore's Law will eventually become a thing of the past as we keep nearing that limit. Some estimates say around 75 years, others say around 20.

"Technological barriers" however could slow down the progress towards the limit, because as the components get smaller and smaller and we get into quantum computers, there are many small things that could hinder our progress, things like temperature change and little kinks in wires which could "cause havoc" to the system unlike in an electrical computer.

"Poisoned" - an exhibit of Nazi Garden Gnomes

In protest of "lingering fascist tenancies" in German and European society and to draw attention to the dangers of the far right,  German artist Ottmar Hoerl has created an exhibit consisting of 1,250 identical gnomes  all frozen in a Hitler salute. The exhibit has been shown in several European countries, and now is for the first time on public display in the Bavarian town of Straubing.

The exhibit has ignited controversy in Hoerl's native Germany,  as all symbols of/pertaining to the Third Reich, Hitler, and Nazism are illegal and have been so since the end of the second world war.


Quoth Hoerl's official site on his gnome exhibit "Poisoned" :

"...We should not turn our eyes away from the fascistic, dictatorial constant, the Fuhrer-principal: striving to oppress or control people is as dangerous now as it has ever been...."

"...The Poisoned Gnome reminds us that people can coalesce into large and dangerous groups if rituals and gestures are used that under certain conditions are more signs of contempt rather than being socially beneficial..."

"...We should cast doubts on the idea of trademarks and seductive symbols. We should think long and hard about their qualities and values. We must not let ourselves be manipulated..."

Jellyfish Caramel Candy! In Space!

No, the caramel isn't shaped like a jellyfish: it's made out of jellyfish.

Nomura's Jellyfish, which can grow up to 6 feet long and weigh 450 pounds, have been a big problem for Japanese fisherman since 2005 when ocean currents started pushing them into the Sea of Japan from the Yellow Sea and waters around China. It seems they are targeting Japan for their impending invasion.

Because of their huge size, they often tear fishermen's nets and swarms of them can cause devastation to coastlines and communities that are dependent on fishing. When caught, whether they tear the nets or not, they often end up poisoning the entire catch of fish making it useless. Not only that, but they can get sucked up into nuclear power plants as many of them use seawater to cool their reactors. Ouch.

But Japan is fighting back against these creatures! Students at Obama Fisheries Highschool have developed a caramel made from the powdered Nomura Jellyfish in an effort to turn these jellyfish into something useful, and are campaigning to have it sent into space as a snack for those aboard the International Space Station. They have also used the powder in their own brand of cookies, which fittingly have the outline of a smiling jellyfish imprinted on them.

The caramels are "described as having a sweet and salty flavour" to them. No word on how the cookies taste yet though....

Follow-up on Moon Missile Crash

On Friday, the missile was successfully crashed into the moon at the desired location.

While it was predicted that it would kick up a plume of material that would be visible from Earth, no such immediately visible plume was detected.

Equipment on Earth however did pick up information from the crash which indicated that material had in fact been kicked up and disturbed by the missile crash. This information came in the form of changes to the amount and intensity of different types of light, which can be analyzed through spectrophotometry to determine the composition of the material that was kicked up by the crash. Hopefully, traces of more water will be found.

High Rates Of Childhood Exposure To Violence And Abuse In United States, New Study Finds

High Rates Of Childhood Exposure To Violence And Abuse In United States, New Study Finds

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One More Crater on the Moon

This Friday (October 9th) at around 12:30 pm, one more crater will be added to the face of the moon.

NASA (along with other organizations) plan to launch a rocket to smash a crater in the South Pole of the moon which will propel around "350 tonnes of material" into space. The sun will shine on the matter in space, and scientists on the ground will be able to analyze its composition to see if there is ice present in it.

The collision of the rocket onto the moon won't have any negative effect on it or us, so don't worry, the oceans won't swell out of control and the moon won't spin out of orbit. These sort of collisions are happening all the time.

"Special Brain Wave Boost Slows Motion"

ScienceDaily (2009-10-05) -- Researchers have found that they can make people move in slow motion by boosting one type of brain wave. The findings offer some of the first proof that brain waves can have a direct influence on behavior.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091001163607.htm

"Seven New Luminescent Mushroom Species Discovered"

ScienceDaily (2009-10-05) -- Seven new glow-in-the-dark mushroom species have been discovered, increasing the number of known luminescent fungi species from 64 to 71. The new finds include two new species named after movements in Mozart's Requiem. The discoveries also shed light on the evolution of luminescence, adding to the number of known lineages in the fungi "family tree" where luminescence has been reported.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091005123045.htm#

'We can't stop here, this is bat country!' : on moderation and the American Dream in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"

The last movie I saw was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which partly chronicles the search of a journalist and his attorney to find the ‘American Dream’ while on assignment in Las Vegas. For many people, the American Dream is to find, most simply, happiness. It is to find happiness, freedom, and peace in having a comfortable middle class life style where you no longer have to become the producer, but the consumer. It is a prosperous world, where your money can go to be spent on material items which can bring you further happiness. Las Vegas in Fear and Loathing represents a place where one might find the ‘American Dream’ and be able to enjoy it. It is a place where you can enjoy some of the ‘great’ things that America has to offer, and to enjoy your ‘American Dream’ fulfilled by celebrating in buying yourself more and more happiness and living in excessive amounts of everything that you want to have or experience. This is how the two protagonists in Fear and Loathing see and find the ‘American Dream’ that they were searching for; a gross celebration in excess of happiness through material indulgence viewed through the eyes of drugs which turn their thoughts “real” into frightening and fantastic visions of the ‘American Dream.’ It is shocking and quite literally inspires “fear and loathing” in the main characters and presumably in thousands of others who come to Vegas, sober or not, in search of a dream. The only difference is that the two protagonists experienced their “fear and loathing” through drugs, and the irony is that they didn’t need the drugs to experience that. The drugs merely made everything more profound and terrifying and showed them a harsher more exaggerated view of Las Vegas and what can happen to society because of that ‘American Dream;’ Las Vegas became a flashy materialistic hideaway for you to spend all your time and money on trivial and entertaining pursuits for your pleasure with little restriction as to how wild and crazy things could become. They found Vegas as the place where all the excess runoff of the successes of a thousand people’s ‘American Dreams’ had collected and became an exaggerated sort of creature full of illusions of every aspect of life, where all the proponents and seekers of said dream came to celebrate it and find a gross satisfaction that they couldn’t find in their normal lives, where all the craziness happened and the ‘American Dream’ had corrupted itself, and you didn’t need to be high like the protagonists to see it.

Even though the book on which this movie was adapted from was written in early 70’s, much of it is still true today. People still seek out their own personal ‘American Dream’ to better their lives, and it is true that for a thousand people out there, that dream must be realized in material and financial wealth. It is also true that there are those who already have it may not realize it or not see it as “enough”, and seek to experience it going through the excess, (or realize what they have always have by going through an extreme shortage of what they had.) Others will always choose to celebrate what they have by flaunting it and obtaining more. You shouldn’t live the entirety of your life in this way; it’s fine and natural to enjoy it and want to experience it, but constantly living it in can be damaging and turn into a negative experience along the way. Moderation is the key to a more stable life; you can do anything you want except take those things in excess and so prevent an imbalance that could cause you (and others) harm whether it be physical, psychological, or financial. Certain environments, like Las Vegas in Fear and Loathing, thrive and are built on overindulgence and survive because no matter how horrible or crazy it gets, people will always want more of it. It’s an environment that is created where you can find happiness in exaggeration to celebrate your dream (or realize it more clearly). Some, like the two main characters in the movie, see these types of environments as a sort of corruption of the American dream and the overall gradual sort of corruption of society itself, as an exaggeration of what already exists. In real life there are always people who are horrified by what they see as ‘stark materialism’ and ‘degradation’ of a person/society through people ‘selfishly’ following their own desires. In real life, Las Vegas can symbolize this for many people. Las Vegas is an exaggeration, people know this, and it is why many come and why many stay away. It is the celebration of excess. It can be intriguing, exciting, and fun, but it can also inspire jealousy, fear, and loathing and should be taken, as the protagonists of the film failed to do, in small doses; in moderation.