Archive for August, 2011
How To Build The Great Pyramid
Photo using Dassault Systemes
Many myths of how the Great Pyramid of Giza was built include help from extraterrestrial visitors, elaborate ramps and crane machines. Still is remains a mystery. French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin has used a 3D modeling software to explain his theory that suggests “that a ramp was indeed used to raise the blocks to the top, and that the ramp still exists—inside the pyramid!” Bob Brier writes in Archeology:
Of the seven wonders of the ancient world, only the Great Pyramid of Giza remains. An estimated 2 million stone blocks weighing an average of 2.5 tons went into its construction. When completed, the 481-foot-tall pyramid was the world’s tallest structure, a record it held for more than 3,800 years, when England’s Lincoln Cathedral surpassed it by a mere 44 feet.
We know who built the Great Pyramid: the pharaoh Khufu, who ruled Egypt about 2547-2524 B.C. And we know who…
Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth Documentary
Please take a moment to look with an open mind at the evidence that has been compiled by independent researchers around the world that calls into question The 9/11 Commission Report’s findings and omissions of key testimony, forensic evidence and other crucial information that calls into question the established story as explained by the U.S. government.
Dieting Forces Brain To Eat Itself
It’s pretty much common sense that starvation diets are bad for you, but when your brain starts eating itself you know it’s time to stop! Nick Collins reports for the Telegraph:
Like other parts of the body, brain cells begin to eat themselves as a last-ditch source of energy to ward off starvation, a study found.
The body responds by producing fatty acids, which turn up the hunger signal in the brain and increase our impulse to eat.
Researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in New York said the findings could lead to new scientifically proven weight loss treatments.
Tests on mice found that stopping the brain cells from eating themselves – a process known as autophagy – prevented levels of hunger from rising in response to starvation.
The chemical change in their brains caused the mice to become lighter and slimmer after a period of fasting, the researchers reported…
The Kabuki Play On Capitol Hill Comes Right Before The Deal
Oh, the gnashing of the teeth. Oh, the flamboyant tactics. Oh, all the breaking news excitement on cable news as the debt ceiling countdown saga went down to the wire with an intense political confrontation of a kind we haven’t seen before…
Or maybe we had — in the TARP debate and so-called Obamacare vote, to cite but two moments of high political drama. Once again, all the key players knew the outcome but wanted to keep us guessing because it served everyone’s interests.
For Boehner and the boys on the GOP side it was the great leadership test subplot. He would prove how tough he was, demonstrate his leadership mettle, get equal time with the president, and even look presidential. The orange tan was gone. His moment had in the sunlight had come as he roped the Tea party kids into the politically correct corral. The Congressman from Ohio was now…
Decades Old Nixon Testomony To Be Unsealed…
While this may not be breaking news it’s an interesting read for anyone with an interest in politics and American history. Let’s hope it actually sees the light of day. The U.S. government still has a chance to appeal and keep Nixon’s testimony sealed … if the government is able to do that, how can it claim to stand for transparency in government? Via the BBC:
The secret grand jury testimony given by former US President Richard Nixon over the Watergate scandal is set to be released after more than 36 years, following an order by a federal judge.
Judge Royce Lamberth granted a request by historian Stanley Kutler to release the transcript, citing of its historical significance.
But it will not be unsealed until the government has had a chance to appeal.
The political scandal prompted Nixon to resign in 1974. Nixon, who died 17 years ago, was the only US president to resign. He left office amid the fallout after a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington.
Putin Calls U.S. A ‘Parasite’ Over Its Debt
Just over its debt, Mr. Putin…? Richard Boudreux writes in the Wall Street Journal:
MOSCOW — Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called the U.S. “a parasite” because of its huge debt load, evoking a term used by Soviet leaders to demonize people who didn’t work, study or serve the Communist state.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, shown at a youth forum, on Monday labeled the U.S. ‘a parasite’ for its debt load. The term is steeped in Soviet rhetoric: Lenin invoked it after the 1917 revolution, and Stalin, himself denounced as a parasite by Trotsky, used the label against Jews, dissidents and others.
In a speech Monday, Mr. Putin said Russia and other countries should seek new reserve currencies to hedge against “a systemic malfunction” in the U.S. Both Russia and China in the past have questioned the dollar’s pre-eminence as a reserve currency and its role in international trade and investment.
Russia keeps…
Get A Bot To Live As You Online
rep.licants.org enables you to hand over control of your Facebook or Twitter account to a bot that simulates your speech patterns, personality, and interests. Your online friendships and connections will be maintained and even enriched and expanded, while you get to play outside in the sunshine:
rep.licants.org is a web service allowing users to install an artificial intelligence (bot) on their Facebook and/or Twitter account. From keywords, content analysis and activity analysis, the bot attempts to simulate the activity of the user, to improve it by feeding his account and to create new contacts with other users.
Social networks are the first medium showing the social success of a person via a statistical way (eg number of friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter). For many users, reaching the hoped-for success can become a tough and difficult task. Especially when some human factors such as shyness, introversion or personal worth are present.
The bot does…
Leaked Documents Reveal BP’s Control Over Iraq’s Oil
The Iraq War probably didn’t start out being about oil — it just seems to be ending that way. Oil industry watchdog PLATFORM London gained access to a leaked copy of a contract between BP and the Iraqi government which reveals the extent to which the company has gained control over Iraq’s resources. New Left Project writes:
BP was awarded the 20-year deal at an auction in June 2009, but suspicions were raised when the company did not sign the contract until four months later. The Iraqi government said nothing had changed in the interim, only “clarifications” – claims that the leaked contract show not to be true.
PLATFORM obtained from a reliable source a version of the Rumaila contract with BP/CNPC dated 8 October 2009. This leaked version was compared with the official model contract, dated 23 April 2009, which formed the basis of the first bid round.Several key changes were made, including:
> BP could…
Legal Moonshine On Sale In South
If you’re hankering for some moonshine, head on down to South Carolina, where it’s finally legal, reports Harriet McLeod for Reuters:
Two entrepreneurs are taking advantage of new micro-distillery laws in South Carolina to make and sell traditional moonshine whiskey legally for the first time in the southern state.
The Dark Corner Distillery will open next month in Greenville, where engineer Joe Fenten, 27, and longtime home beer brewer Richard Wenger will produce and sell small batches of 100-proof moonshine from a custom-made copper still.
The distillery, housed in a 1925 building, will also include a tasting bar and a museum dedicated to the history of the Dark Corner, the local mountains that were once full of moonshiners, feud and mayhem, Fenten told Reuters.
The area was settled, along with the nearby Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, by Scots, Irish and Welsh who migrated down through the Appalachian…
Honor Your Loved One’s Memory By Firing Away
Via Neatorama:
If you’d like to go out with a bang, Holy Smoke LLC offers to pack your cremated ashes (or those of your loved ones) into ammunition cartridges. You tell them the caliber or gauge, ship the remains to them, and they’ll load the cartridges:
Once the caliber, gauge and other ammunition parameters have been selected, we will ask you (by way of your funeral service provider) to send approximately one pound of the decadent’s ash to us. Upon receiving the ashes our professional and reverent staff will place a measured portion of ash into each shot-shell or cartridge.[...]
Our return shipment to the sender will be the finished ammunition, boxed in available labeled ammunition boxes. We also offer mantle-worthy wooden carriers with engraved name plates. Your return shipment will also include any unused ash in a separate, labeled container.
Burning Man Has (Literally) Sold Out
Anyone going this year? If not, ever been? If not … Andrew Averill writes on SF Gate:
Many Burning Man festival participants climb a huge butterfly art structure to watch the sunrise over the playa. This year, the festival’s permit limits participants to 50,000 at one time.
When the first Burning Man event took place on San Francisco’s Baker Beach in 1986, it was such a lawless free-for-all that when it came time to burn The Man, a woman ran toward the engulfed 20-foot-tall humanoid structure and held its hand while wind blew the flames away from her.
Twenty-five years later, the annual event has become a mass sojourn into the Nevada Black Rock desert — one that some of its most loyal followers complain is becoming increasingly rigid and commercial.
And now it has come to this: For the first time ever, Burning Man has literally sold out. Organizers were forced to cap…
UFO At The Bottom Of The Baltic Sea?
Something very large and circular slid across the ocean floor off the coast of Sweden. Is it a UFO? If so, our extraplanetary visitors should be commended on selecting the best country for initiating contact. Via Gizomodo:
Swedish sea treasure hunters have found something extraordinary: A 60-foot disc sunk in the bottom of the ocean, with what appears to be 985-foot-long impact tracks leading to it.
Test Tube DNA Brain Gets Quiz Questions Right
A step closer to artificial intelligence? Discovery News reports:
A team of researchers lead by Lulu Qian from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have for the first developed an artificial neural network — that is, the beginnings of a brain — out of DNA molecules. And when quizzed, the brain answered the questions correctly.
They turned to molecules because they knew that before the neural-based brain evolved, single-celled organisms showed limited forms of intelligence. These microorganisms did not have brains, but instead had molecules that interacted with each other and spurred the creatures to search for food and avoid toxins. The bottom line is that molecules can act like circuits, processing and transmitting information and computing data.
The Caltech used DNA molecules specifically for the experiment, because these molecules interact in specific ways determined by the sequence of their four bases: adenine (abbreviated A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T). And what’s more, scientists can encode…
U.S. Approves Free Birth Control For Women
Photo: Ceridwen (CC)
It’s a good time to be a woman. Via Reuters:
U.S. health insurance companies must offer women free birth control and other preventive health care services under Obama administration rules released on Monday, a historic decision supported by family planning groups and opposed by conservative groups.
The rules from the Health and Human Services Department are part of the nation’s healthcare overhaul and largely follow recommendations from an advisory group released last month.
The U.S. Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, commissioned by the Obama administration, recommended that all U.S.-approved birth control methods — including the “morning-after pill,” taken shortly after intercourse to stop a pregnancy — be added to the list of preventive health services.
[Continues at Reuters]
In Support Of Octagon Houses
Break free from the tyranny of the square! The pleasingly odd Octagon House Inventory is “a permanent record of locations and histories of all known octagon houses (nearly 1000) built in the U.S. and Canada between 1848 and 1920″ with photos, descriptions, blueprints, and newspaper clippings (although many of the links are dead). Here’s hoping that octo-houses, which offer panoptic views and the ability to be clustered in all sorts of formations, will someday return to their rightful place in the architectural vanguard.
God’s Approval Rating Falls To 52 Percent
We all know that the vast majority of Americans believe in God. However, that doesn’t mean they like him. The Atlantic Wire writes:
Public Policy Polling released the results of a survey today that included the question: “If God exists, do you approve or disapprove of its performance?” Fifty-two percent of the 928 respondents approve of the job the Almighty’s done while 9 percent disapprove. So about half the public isn’t too thrilled with the way God is handling, well, everything.
Seventy-one percent of the American public approves of God’s handling of the creation of the universe, 56 percent approve of (his? or her?) handling of the animal kingdom, and even 50 percent like the way he manages natural disasters.
Facebook And The Destruction Of Innocence In Computing
The computer history blog ASCII lays out the meaning of Facebook in the grand scheme of things:
Facebook is the third of what is probably a quartet (or quintet) of the destruction of the innocence of computing. First was viruses, second was malware, third is facebook. I suspect fourth will be related to control of networking itself, and fifth will be licensing of high level computer ability. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Facebook is a living computer nightmare. Just as viruses took the advantages of sharing information on floppies and modems and revealed a devastating undercarriage to the whole process, making every computer transaction suspect… and just as spyware/malware took advantage of beautiful advances in computer strength and horsepower to turn your beloved machine of expression into a gatling gun of misery and assholery… Facebook now stands as taking over a decade and a half of the dream of the World…
