Poodwaddle.com

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Poodwaddle.com

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A Final Farewell
How Randy Pausch, a 47-year-old college professor, came to teach his family about love, courage -- and saying goodbye
By JEFFREY ZASLOW
May 3, 2008; Page R1
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120951287174854465-N0ZYiuOX7jVuNQ_2tgh_eFMRvoM_20090506.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

Posted at 05:57 AM in Science, Video | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Expelled Exposed:  "Intelligent Design is just Creationism in Disguise

Posted at 06:25 AM in Religion, Science, Video | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Great commercial via the Discovery Channel: I Love the World

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Poodwaddle.com

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Swedish graduate student Emil Ernerfeldt created the program Phun, a 2D physics playground, and has made it free to download for non-commercial use. He demonstrates it in a zenful YouTube video, where he creates devices like cars and piston engines in seconds using simple shapes.

Cool!

via boing boing

Posted at 06:52 AM in Science, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Shown on the same scale as the Earth

All the water in the world (1.4087 billion cubic kilometres of it) including sea water, ice, lakes, rivers, ground water, clouds, etc. and all the air in the atmosphere (5140 trillion tonnes of it) gathered into a ball at sea-level density.

Posted at 06:31 AM in Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Via Indexed comes this terribly funny card:

Posted at 06:14 AM in Humor, Religion, Science | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Hilarious:

>

hat tip: There's this picture I'd like to show you... 

Posted at 06:00 AM in Humor, Religion, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

How wicked cool is this:

Posted at 06:31 AM in Science, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Who ever would have guessed that the Chinese communist controlled media would fake a photograph?

Earlier this week, Xinhua, China's state-run news agency, issued an unusual public apology for publishing a doctored photograph of Tibetan wildlife frolicking near a high-speed train.

The deception -- uncovered by Chinese Internet users who sniffed out a Photoshop scam in the award-winning picture -- has brought on a big debate about media ethics, China's troubled relationship with Tibet, and how pregnant antelope react to noise.

The antelope imbroglio began in the summer of 2006. The Chinese government was celebrating its latest engineering feat, and an enthusiastic wildlife photographer from the Daqing Evening News was camped out on the Tibetan plateau eating energy bars and waiting for antelope to pass.

Front page WSJ:
click for interactive photo

courtesy of WSJ

As published:

courtesy of WSJ

Source:
China Eats Crow Over Faked Photo Of Rare Antelope
They Didn't Truly Run With a Train to Tibet; Xinhua Agency Recants
JANE SPENCER and JULIET YE
WSJ, February 22, 2008; Page A1
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120363429707884255.html

Posted at 09:34 AM in Idiot!, Media, Science | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Via Katherine Gates' book, Deviant Desires: Incredibly Strange Sex, comes this chart of various Fetishes. Compelling and bizarre:

click for jumbo flowchart

Posted at 09:13 AM in Books, Science | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

via The Atlantic

Posted at 06:47 AM in Humor, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Amusing, via Mark My Words   

Posted at 06:59 AM in Humor, Philosophy, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wicked cool:

via kottke

Posted at 06:04 AM in Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Pretty wild:

Via Art Department

Posted at 06:55 AM in Art & Design, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

How cool is this stuff?

Posted at 08:28 AM in Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Nice:

1) Carcharodon megalodon
Last seen 1.6 million years ago.

2) Arthropleura armata
Last seen At the beginning of the Permian period (290 million years ago)

3) Meganeura monyi (Not shown)
Last seen The Permian extinction (250 million years ago).

4) Aepyornis maximus
Last seen In the 16th century.

5) Elasmotherium sibiricum
Last seen 800,000 years ago.

6) Gigantopithecus blacki
Last seen 300,000 years ago

7) Jaekelopterus rhenaniae (Not shown)
Last seen 248 million years ago.

8) Shonisaurus sikanniensis
Last seen At the end of the Norian stage (204 million years ago).

9) Doedicurus clavicaudatus
Last seen 15,000 years ago.

10) Ceratogaulus rhinoceros
Last seen 5 million years ago.

Source:
The Best: Extinct Animals, From an Elephant Bird to a 10-Foot-Long, 4-Eyed Spider
Daniel Dumas   
Wired, 01.18.08 | 6:00 PM
http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/magazine/16-02/st_best

Posted at 06:40 AM in Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Scienceblogs (via Metasurfing) gives us this list of the top 50 Atheist t-shirts

Top Fifty Atheist T-Shirt and Bumper Sticker Aphorisms

1. Abstinence Makes the Church Grow Fondlers


2. Honk If Your Religious Beliefs Make You An Asshole


3. Intelligent Design Makes My Monkey Cry


4. Too Stupid to Understand Science? Try Religion.


5. There's A REASON Why Atheists Don't Fly Planes Into Buildings


6. "Worship Me or I Will Torture You Forever. Have a Nice Day."­ God.


7. God Doesn't Kill People. People Who Believe in God Kill People.


8. If There is No God, Then What Makes the Next Kleenex Pop Up?


9. He's Dead.
   It's Been 2,000 years.
   He's Not Coming Back.
   Get OVER It Already!


10. All religion is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.  -Edgar Allen Poe.


11. Viva La Evolución!


12. Actually, If You Look It Up, The Winter Solstice Is The Reason For The Season


13. I Wouldn't Trust Your God Even If He Did Exist


14. Cheeses Is Lard. Argue With THAT If You Can.


15. People Who Don't Want Their Beliefs Laughed at Shouldn't Have Such Funny Beliefs


16.   Jesus is Coming? Don't Swallow That.


17. Threatening Children With Hell Is FUN!


18. GOD - APPLY DIRECTLY TO FOREHEAD!


19. Jesus Told Me Republicans SUCK


20. God + Whacky Tobacky = Platypus


21. God Doesn't Exist. So, I Guess That Means No One Loves You.


22. When the Rapture Comes, We'll Get Our Country Back!


23. Q. How Do We Know the Holy Ghost Was Catholic?
    A. He Used the Rhythm Method Instead of a Condom.


24. You Say "Heretic" Like It Was a BAD Thing


25. I Love Christians. They Taste Like Chicken.


26. Science: It Works, Bitches.


27. "Intelligent Design"  Helping Stupid People Feel Smart Since 1987


28. I Found God Between The Sheets


29. I Gave Up Superstitious Mumbo Jumbo For Lent


30. My Flying Monkey Can Beat Up Your Guardian Angel


31. Every Time You Play With Yourself, God Kills a Kitten


32. If God Wanted People to Believe in Him, Then Why Did He Invent Logic?


33. Praying Is Politically Correct Schizophrenia


34. ALL Americans Are African Americans


35. I Forget - Which Day Did God Make All The Fossils?


36. I Was An Atheist Until The Hindus Convinced Me That I Was God


37. The Spanish Inquisition: The Original Faith-based Initiative


38. If we were made in his image, when why aren't humans invisible too?


39. JESUS SAVES....You From Thinking For Yourself


40. How Can You Disbelieve in Evolution If You Can't Even Define It?


41. Q. How Can You Tell That Your God is Man-made?
    A. If He Hates All the Same People You Do.


42. Every Time You See a Rainbow, God is Having Gay Sex


43. I Went to Public School in Kansas and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt and a Poor Understanding of the Scientific Method.


44. WWJD = We Won. Jesus Died.


45. The Family That Prays Together is Brainwashing the Children


46. Oh, Look, Honey Another Pro-lifer For War


47. Another Godless Atheist for Peace and World Harmony


48. God is Unavailable Right Now. Can I Help You?


49. When Lip Service to Some Mysterious Deity Permits Bestiality on
    Wednesday and Absolution on Sundays, Cash Me Out.  Frank Sinatra.


50. No Gods. No Mullets.

Posted at 11:28 PM in Humor, Philosophy, Religion, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

There goes the neighborhood:

click for jumbo image

An Einstein Ring happens when two galaxies are perfectly aligned. The closer galaxy acts as a lens, magnifying and distorting the view of a more distant galaxy. But today astronomers announced that they've discovered a double Einstein Ring: three galaxies are perfectly aligned, creating a double ring around the lensing galaxy. The odds of finding something like this are pretty low. And yet… here it is.

Universe today via kottke

Source:
Hubble Sees a Double Einstein Ring
Fraser Cain
Universe today January 10th, 2008
http://www.universetoday.com/2008/01/10/hubble-sees-a-double-einstein-ring/

Posted at 11:36 AM in Science | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Awesome:

One of the strongest storms recorded in the northern Pacific Ocean pummeled the West Coast last weekend, leading to widespread flooding and state and federal disaster declarations. The storm also left behind some of the most remarkable waves ever surfed.

Cowabunga!

>

Source:
Surfers Defy Giant Waves Awakened by Storm
CHRIS DIXON
NYT, January 9, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/sports/othersports/09surf.html   

Posted at 06:59 AM in Science, Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

In this witty monologue, Malcolm Gladwell follows the career of a food industry consultant who uncovered a key secret to what eaters like. Running huge focus groups to find customers' truest tastes, Gladwell's hero draws a radical conclusion, an epiphany that has defined food marketing ever since. Note: The theme of the 2004 conference was "The Pursuit of Happiness" -- hence the talk's quirky presence

click to play

Posted at 06:15 AM in Food and Drink, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Good advice:

1. Learn what is the "It" in "Use It or Lose It".

A basic understanding will serve you well to appreciate your brain's beauty as a living and constantly-developing dense forest with billions of neurons and synapses.

2. Take care of your nutrition.

Did you know that the brain only weighs 2% of body mass but consumes over 20% of the oxygen and nutrients we intake? As a general rule, you don't need expensive ultra-sophisticated nutritional supplements, just make sure you don't stuff yourself with the "bad stuff".

3. Remember that the brain is part of the body.

Things that exercise your body can also help sharpen your brain: physical exercise enhances neurogenesis.

4. Practice positive, future-oriented thoughts until they become your default mindset and you look forward to every new day in a constructive way.

Stress and anxiety, no matter whether induced by external events or by your own thoughts, actually kills neurons and prevents the creation of new ones. You can think of chronic stress as the opposite of exercise: it prevents the creation of new neurons.

5. Thrive on Learning and Mental Challenges.

The point of having a brain is precisely to learn and to adapt to challenging new environments. Once new neurons appear in your brain, where they stay in your brain and how long they survive depends on how you use them. "Use It or Lose It" does not mean "do crossword puzzle number 1,234,567". It means, "challenge your brain often with fundamentally new activities."

6. We are (as far as we know) the only self-directed organisms in this planet.

Aim high. Once you graduate from college, keep learning. The brain keeps developing, no matter your age, and it reflects what you do with it.

7. Explore, travel.

Adapting to new locations forces you to pay more attention to your environment. Make new decisions, use your brain.

8. Don't Outsource Your Brain.

Not to media personalities, not to politicians, not to your smart neighbor, not to this blogger... Make your own decisions, and mistakes. And learn from them. That way, you are training your brain, not your neighbor's.

9. Develop and maintain stimulating friendships.

We are "social animals", and need social interaction. Which, by the way, is why the Baby Einstein series has been shown not to be the panacea for children development.

10. Laugh. Often.

Especially to cognitively complex humor, full of twists and surprises. Better, try to become the next Jon Stewart, and create your own unique humor.

Source:
10 Habits of Highly Effective Brains
ALVARO FERNANDEZ
December 18, 2007 | 03:47 PM (EST)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alvaro-fernandez/10-habits-of-highly-effec_b_77369.html

Posted at 06:06 AM in Philosophy, Science | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

A short history of humanity:

• First, tribes: tough life.
• The defaults beyond the intimate tribe were violence, aversion to difference, and slavery. Superstition: everywhere.
• Culture overcomes them partially.
• Rainfall agriculture, which allows loners.
• Irrigation agriculture, which favors community.
• Division of labor plus exchange in trade bring mutual cooperation, even outside the tribe.
• The impulse is always there, though: "Kill or enslave the outsider."
• Gradual science from Athens' compact with reason.
• Division of labor, trade, the mastery of knowledge, plus time brought surplus, sometimes a peaceful extended order and, rules diversely evolved and, the cooperation of strangers - always warring against the fierce defaults of tribalism, violence, and ignorance.
• No one who teaches you knows what will happen.

-Alan Charles Kors

George H. Walker Endowed Term Professor of History
University of Pennsylvania
School of Arts and Sciences 

Posted at 06:38 AM in Science | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

A stunningly beautiful video of underwater Belize, a small Caribbean country in Central America. Fishes and sea creatures dancing to Bolero by Ravel. Just beautiful.

via haha.nu

Posted at 05:42 AM in Music, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Until 2002, these giant creatures were seen only occasionally in Japanese waters. But for the past five years, they have been swarming every year into the Sea of Japan, the water that separates Japan from mainland Asia. During the biggest invasion so far, in 2005, an estimated 500 million jellyfish -- not yet mature -- drifted in each day.

It's hard to calculate financial damage to fishermen, but the Japanese government last year counted about 50,000 incidents of jellyfish trouble. Fish poisoned by jellyfish tentacles die with their mouths agape. That mars their appearance and reduces their value by as much as 20%. "When their mouths are wide open, it means they've died going, 'I'm in pain! I'm in pain!' " explains Mr. Yoshida.

Scientists have various ideas about what causes the outbreak. One has devised a computer model of ocean currents that suggests the jellyfish are breeding off the Chinese coast near the mouth of the Yangtze River. One theory is that pollution, perhaps linked to industrialization in China, is helping create more algae in the sea. The algae are food for plankton, which is food for jellyfish.

Source:
Invasion of Jellyfish Envelops Japan In Ocean of Slime
Pink 450-Pound Blobs Clog Nets but Spur New Recipes;
Pointing Fingers at China
SEBASTIAN MOFFETT
WSJ, November 27, 2007; Page A1
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119612452419404666.html

Posted at 06:09 AM in Food and Drink, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Across the United States, the number of severe rainfalls and heavy snows has grown significantly in the last half-century, with the greatest increases in New England and the Middle Atlantic region, according to a report released yesterday

Environment America, a national group that advocates new laws and policies to mitigate the effects of climate change, issued the report.

The report, on the group’s Web site, environmentamerica.org, is an independent analysis of precipitation data from 1948 to 2006 that was vetted by two climate scientists.

It shows that the number of downpours and heavy snows has increased by 22 percent to 26 percent across the country since 1948. Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont were among the states in which occurrences of severe precipitation have increased more than 50 percent, according to the report. In Oregon and Florida, however, the incidence of extreme rainfall dropped slightly, though in Florida the drop was not statistically significant.

Source:
Precipitation Across U.S. Intensifies Over 50 Years
FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: December 5, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/us/05storms.html

Posted at 06:29 AM in Science | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Cool map of cerebrum island:

flickr set

Unit Seven via boingboing

Posted at 05:57 AM in Art & Design, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Are we shortening the life of the Universe by merely observing it?

Forget about the threat that mankind poses to the Earth: our very ability to study the heavens may have shortened the inferred lifetime of the cosmos.

That does not mean the field of astronomy does direct harm. A universe with a truncated lifespan may come hand in hand with the ability of astronomers to make cosmological measurements, according to two American scientists who have studied the strange, subtle and cosmic implications of quantum mechanics, the most successful theory we have.

Over the past few years, cosmologists have taken this powerful theory of what happens at the level of subatomic particles and tried to extend it to understand the universe, since it began in the subatomic realm during the Big Bang.

But there is an odd feature of the theory that philosophers and scientists still argue about. In a nutshell, the theory suggests that quantum systems can exist in many different physical configurations at the same time. By observing the system, however, we may pick out one single 'quantum state', and therefore force the system to change its configuration.

Does this mean we can stop recycling . . . ?

Source:
Mankind 'shortening the universe's life'    
Roger Highfield, Science Editor
UK Telegraph 12:01am GMT 21/11/2007
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/21/scicosmos121.xml

Posted at 08:51 AM in Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Think you know what a typical Turkey Day meal looks like? Well, look closer. No — much closer. Wired asked Mike Davidson, a biologist and expert photomicrographer at Florida State University's National High Magnetic Field Lab, to turn his lenses on the all-American meal. The images aren't particularly appetizing, and they probably won't help you keep your gobbler moist this year (try brining), but at least you'll be more intimate with the stuff that's making you loosen your belt as you collapse on the couch:

Source:
Wired Puts Your Thanksgiving Feast Under a Microscope
Tom Conlon
10.23.07 | 12:00 AM
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/15-11/st_thanksgiving

Posted at 01:09 PM in Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Light Bulb

«... good enough for our transatlantic friends ... but unworthy of the attention of practical or scientific men.»
British Parliamentary Committee, referring to Edison's light bulb, 1878.

«Such startling announcements as these should be deprecated as being unworthy of science and mischievous to its true progress.»
Sir William Siemens, on Edison's light bulb, 1880.

«Everyone acquainted with the subject will recognize it as a conspicuous failure.»
Henry Morton, president of the Stevens Institute of Technology, on Edison's light bulb, 1880.

Automobiles

«The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty, a fad.»
The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford's lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903.

«That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced.»
Scientific American, Jan. 2 edition, 1909.

«The ordinary "horseless carriage" is at present a luxury for the wealthy; and although its price will probably fall in the future, it will never, of course, come into as common use as the bicycle.»
Literary Digest, 1899.

Airplanes

«Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical (sic) and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.» - Simon Newcomb; The Wright Brothers flew at Kittyhawk 18 months later. Newcomb was not impressed.

«Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.»
Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal Society, 1895.

«It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere.»
Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1895.

«Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.»
Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre, 1904.

«There will never be a bigger plane built.»
A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten people.

Computers

«Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons.»
Popular Mechanics, March 1949.

«There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.»
Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), maker of big business mainframe computers, arguing against the PC in 1977.

«I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year.»
The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.

«But what... is it good for?»
IBM executive Robert Lloyd, speaking in 1968 microprocessor, the heart of today's computers.

Events

«We will bury you.»
Nikita Krushchev, Soviet Premier, predicting Soviet communism will win over U.S. capitalism, 1958.

«Everything that can be invented has been invented.»
Charles H. Duell, an official at the US patent office, 1899.

«I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious sensibilities of anyone.»
Charles Darwin, in the foreword to his book, The Origin of Species, 1869.

«Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.»
Irving Fisher, economics professor at Yale University, 1929.

«If anything remains more or less unchanged, it will be the role of women.»
David Riesman, conservative American social scientist, 1967.

«It will be gone by June.»
Variety, passing judgement on rock 'n roll in 1955.

«Democracy will be dead by 1950.»
John Langdon-Davies, A Short History of The Future, 1936.

«A short-lived satirical pulp.»
TIME, writing off Mad magazine in 1956.

«And for the tourist who really wants to get away from it all, safaris in Vietnam»
Newsweek, predicting popular holidays for the late 1960s.

«Four or five frigates will do the business without any military force.» -– British prime minister Lord North, on dealing with the rebellious American colonies, 1774.

«In all likelihood world inflation is over.»
International Monetary Fund Ceo, 1959.

«This antitrust thing will blow over.»
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft.

«Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop - because women like to get out of the house, like to handle merchandise, like to be able to change their minds.»
TIME, 1966, in one sentence writing off e-commerce long before anyone had ever heard of it.

«They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist-»
Last words of Gen. John Sedgwick, spoken as he looked out over the parapet at enemy lines during the Battle of Spotsylvania in 1864.

«Our country has deliberately undertaken a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far reaching in purpose." -– Herbert Hoover, on Prohibition, 1928.

«It will be years - not in my time - before a woman will become Prime Minister.»
Margaret Thatcher, future Prime Minister, October 26th, 1969.

«Read my lips: NO NEW TAXES.»
George Bush, 1988.

«You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees.»
-– Kaiser Wilhelm, to the German troops, August 1914.

«This is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time.»
-– Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister, September 30th, 1938.

«That virus is a pussycat.»
-– Dr. Peter Duesberg, molecular-biology professor at U.C. Berkeley, on HIV, 1988.

«The case is a loser.»
-– Johnnie Cochran, on soon-to-be client O.J.'s chances of winning, 1994.

«Reagan doesn't have that presidential look.»
-– United Artists Executive, rejecting Reagan as lead in 1964 film The Best Man.

«Capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a law of nature, its own negation.»
Karl Marx.

«Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote.»
Grover Cleveland, U.S. President, 1905.

«Man will not fly for 50 years.»
Wilbur Wright, American aviation pioneer, to brother Orville, after a disappointing flying experiment, 1901 (their first successful flight was in 1903).

«I am tired of all this sort of thing called science here... We have spent millions in that sort of thing for the last few years, and it is time it should be stopped.»
Simon Cameron, U.S. Senator, on the Smithsonian Institute, 1901.

«The Americans are good about making fancy cars and refrigerators, but that doesn't mean they are any good at making aircraft. They are bluffing. They are excellent at bluffing.»
Hermann Goering, Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, 1942.

«With over fifteen types of foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big share of the market for itself.»
Business Week, August 2, 1968.

«The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no limit to this fever for writing; every one must be an author; some out of vanity, to acquire celebrity and raise up a name, others for the sake of mere gain.»
Martin Luther, German Reformation leader, Table Talk, 1530s(?).

«Ours has been the first [expedition], and doubtless to be the last, to visit this profitless locality.»
Lt. Joseph Ives, after visiting the Grand Canyon in 1861.

«There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. As this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them.»
General Tommy Franks, March 22nd, 2003.

Radio

«Radio has no future.»
Lord Kelvin, Scottish mathematician and physicist, former president of the Royal Society, 1897.

«The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?»
Associates of David Sarnoff responding to the latter's call for investment in the radio in 1921.

«Lee DeForest has said in many newspapers and over his signature that it would be possible to transmit the human voice across the Atlantic before many years. Based on these absurd and deliberately misleading statements, the misguided public ... has been persuaded to purchase stock in his company ...»
a U.S. District Attorney, prosecuting American inventor Lee DeForest for selling stock fraudulently through the mail for his Radio Telephone Company in 1913.

Space Travel

«There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States.»
T. Craven, FCC Commissioner, in 1961 (the first commercial communications satellite went into service in 1965).

«Space travel is utter bilge.»
Richard Van Der Riet Woolley, upon assuming the post of Astronomer Royal in 1956.

«Space travel is bunk.»
Sir Harold Spencer Jones, Astronomer Royal of the UK, 1957 (two weeks later Sputnik orbited the Earth).

«To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth - all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances.»
Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, in 1926

Rockets

«We stand on the threshold of rocket mail.»
-– U.S. postmaster general Arthur Summerfield, in 1959.

«... too far-fetched to be considered.»
Editor of Scientific American, in a letter to Robert Goddard about Goddard's idea of a rocket-accelerated airplane bomb, 1940 (German V2 missiles came down on London 3 years later).

«A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth's atmosphere.»
New York Times, 1936.

Atomic and Nuclear Power

«The basic questions of design, material and shielding, in combining a nuclear reactor with a home boiler and cooling unit, no longer are problems... The system would heat and cool a home, provide unlimited household hot water, and melt the snow from sidewalks and driveways. All that could be done for six years on a single charge of fissionable material costing about $300.»
–- Robert Ferry, executive of the U.S. Institute of Boiler and Radiator Manufacturers, 1955.

«Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in 10 years.»
-– Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum cleaner company Lewyt Corp., in the New York Times in 1955.

«That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done [research on]... The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives.»
Admiral William D. Leahy, U.S. Admiral working in the U.S. Atomic Bomb Project, advising President Truman on atomic weaponry, 1944.

«Atomic energy might be as good as our present-day explosives, but it is unlikely to produce anything very much more dangerous.»
Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister, 1939.

«The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine.»
Ernest Rutherford, shortly after splitting the atom for the first time.

«There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.»
Albert Einstein, 1932.

«There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom.»
Robert Millikan, American physicist and Nobel Prize winner, 1923.

Films

«Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?»
H. M. Warner, co-founder of Warner Brothers, 1927.

«The cinema is little more than a fad. It's canned drama. What audiences really want to see is flesh and blood on the stage."
-– Charlie Chaplin, actor, producer, director, and studio founder, 1916.

Telephone/Telegraph

«This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.»
A memo at Western Union, 1878 (or 1876).

«The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.»
Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer, British Post Office, 1878.

«It's a great invention but who would want to use it anyway?»
Rutherford B. Hayes, U.S. President, after a demonstration of Alexander Bell's telephone, 1876.

«A man has been arrested in New York for attempting to extort funds from ignorant and superstitious people by exhibiting a device which he says will convey the human voice any distance over metallic wires so that it will be heard by the listener at the other end. He calls this instrument a telephone. Well-informed people know that it is impossible to transmit the human voice over wires.»
News item in a New York newspaper, 1868.

Television

«Television won't last. It's a flash in the pan.»
Mary Somerville, pioneer of radio educational broadcasts, 1948.

«Television won't last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.»
Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox, 1946.

«While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming.»
Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, 1926.

Railroads

«Dear Mr. President: The canal system of this country is being threatened by a new form of transportation known as 'railroads' ... As you may well know, Mr. President, 'railroad' carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by 'engines' which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed.»
Martin Van Buren, Governor of New York, 1830(?).

«What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stagecoaches?»
The Quarterly Review, March edition, 1825.

«Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.»
Dr Dionysys Larder (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London.

Other Technology

«Transmission of documents via telephone wires is possible in principle, but the apparatus required is so expensive that it will never become a practical proposition.»
Dennis Gabor, British physicist and author of Inventing the Future, 1962.

«[By 1985], machines will be capable of doing any work Man can do.»
Herbert A. Simon, of Carnegie Mellon University - considered to be a founder of the field of artificial intelligence - speaking in 1965.

«The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most.»
IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959.

«I must confess that my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea.»
HG Wells, British novelist, in 1901.

«X-rays will prove to be a hoax.»
Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1883.

«Very interesting Whittle, my boy, but it will never work.»
Cambridge Aeronautics Professor, when shown Frank Whittle's plan for the jet engine.

«The idea that cavalry will be replaced by these iron coaches is absurd. It is little short of treasonous.»
Comment of Aide-de-camp to Field Marshal Haig, at tank demonstration, 1916.

«Caterpillar landships are idiotic and useless. Those officers and men are wasting their time and are not pulling their proper weight in the war.»
Fourth Lord of the British Admiralty, 1915.

«What, sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I pray you, excuse me, I have not the time to listen to such nonsense.»
Napoleon Bonaparte, when told of Robert Fulton's steamboat, 1800s.

«The phonograph has no commercial value at all.»
Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1880s.

«If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said 'you can't do this'.»
Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads.

«Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever.»
Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1889 (Edison often ridiculed the arguments of competitor George Westinghouse for AC power).

Source:
Top 87 Bad Predictions about the Future
3/28/2006    
http://www.2spare.com/item_50221.aspx

Posted at 06:25 AM in Current Affairs, Science | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

source: Health vs. Pork: Congress Debates the Farm Bill   

Hat tip kottke

Posted at 06:52 PM in Current Affairs, Idiot!, Politics, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Terribly amusing biology work:

See also Skeletal Systems
http://michaelpaulus.com/gallery/v/character-Skeletons/

Posted at 06:40 AM in Design, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wow!

via boingboing

Posted at 08:12 AM in Science | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Its nearly a full moon; good to kow the Coral are keeping an eye on things:

Birds do it. Bees do it. Even lowly corals do it — but infrequently, forgoing sex for as long as a year.

      

Then, at night, just after the full moon, under warm tropic breezes, the corals dissolve in an orgy of reproduction, sowing waters with trillions of eggs and sperm that swirl and dance and merge to form new life. The frenzy can leave pink flotsam.

Scientists discovered the mysterious rite of procreation in 1981 and ever since have puzzled over its details. The moon clearly rules the synchronized mass spawning, which happens during different months in different parts of the globe, but usually in the summer. But how do corals monitor the moon’s phases and know when to start mingling?

Today, seven scientists from Australia, Israel and the United States report in the journal Science that corals have primitive photoreceptors, if not true eyes. In experiments, they found that the photosensitive chemicals respond to moonlight as admirably as, well, human lovers.

“This looks to be the smoking gun,” Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a team member at the University of Queensland, said in an interview. “It triggers the largest spawning event on the planet.”

Source:
Sexy Corals Keep ‘Eye’ on Moon, Scientists Say   
WILLIAM J. BROAD
NYT, October 19, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/19/science/19coral.html

Posted at 05:51 AM in Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Fascinating:

Posted at 06:17 AM in Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wearing your anatomy on your skin:

via Street Anatomy
http://streetanatomy.com/blog/?p=132

Posted at 06:42 AM in Art & Design, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Eeesh! Gross!

via kottke

Posted at 12:31 PM in Science | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

I'm always attracted to books that give insight into the investor's mind.

The newest outing from Harvard prof Steven Pinker looks to be just that sort of book: “The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature” explores human cognition:

“The Stuff of Thought” explores the duality of human cognition: the modesty of its construction and the majesty of its constructive power. Pinker weaves this paradox from a series of opposing theories. Philosophical realists, for instance, think perception comes from reality. Idealists think it’s all in our heads. Pinker says it comes from reality but is organized and reorganized by the mind. That’s why you can look at the same thing in different ways.

Then there’s the clash between ancient and modern science. Aristotle thought projectiles continued through space because a force propelled them. He thought they eventually fell because Earth was their natural home. Modern science rejects both ideas. Pinker says Aristotle was right, not about projectiles but about how we understand them. We think in terms of force and purpose because our minds evolved in a biological world of force and purpose, not in an abstract world of vacuums and multiple gravities. Aristotle’s bad physics was actually good psychology.

How can we be sure the mind works this way? By studying its chief manifestation: language. Variations among verbs reflect our distinctions among physical processes. Nuances among nouns illustrate the alternate interpretations built into our most basic perceptions."

-from the NYTimes review

Fascinating concept, completely applicable to the Bull/Bear debate.

A great video of Steven Pinker at TED is below:

“The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature”

Posted at 06:34 AM in Books, Philosophy, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Source:
Nuclear Energy's Second Act?
Bid to Build Two New Reactors  In Texas May Mark Resurgence;  NRC Gears Up for Many More
REBECCA SMITH
September 25, 2007; Page B1
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119065338090237606.html

Posted at 06:07 AM in Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack