Month: November 2008

Global Warming and the World Wide Pirate Shortage

It seems that piracy is returning to favor in parts of the world. We hear more stories about pirates taking massive tankers and cargo ships in certain parts of the world, and the ransom demands for the return of these ships is growing ever greater. After decades of global warming, there is talk that we are now heading for another ice age.

It has plagued scientists and politicians for decades, but scientists now say global warming is not the problem.

We are actually heading for the next Ice Age, they claim.

British and Canadian experts warned the big freeze could bury the east of Britain in 6,000ft of ice.

There can be little doubt, given the inverse relationship between global warming and worldwide number of pirates (read beginning just above the graph half-way down the article) that these events, the increase in piracy and the return to an ice age, are related. This is simply the environmental impact of a poor world economy, I suspect. As it gets harder for people to earn a few dollars by working, they’ll look to earn a few hundred million dollars from stealing massive tankers. That’s just forward-thinking economics, really.

In response to the multiple looming crises, several world governments have taken to combating piracy. For example, an Indian warship has recently sunk a pirate “mother ship” to fight piracy.

An Indian naval vessel sank a suspected pirate “mother ship” Wednesday in the Gulf of Aden and chased two attack boats into the night, officials said, as separate bands of brigands seized Thai and Iranian ships in the lawless seas.

A multinational naval force has increased patrols in the region, and scored a rare success Tuesday when the Indian warship, operating off the coast of Oman, stopped a ship similar to a pirate vessel described in numerous bulletins. The Indian navy said the pirates fired on the INS Tabar after the officers asked to search it.

If the global temperature goes up next week, you’ll know why. Besides, the Indian government is apparently forgetting the trickle-down effect that the $100 million ransom will have on the global economy is the Somali pirates get the money they are asking for. I’m betting it could show up as early as next month in your pay check. If you get a little pay bump or a Christman bonus, remember to thank a Somali pirate.

[tags]Piracy, FSM, Pastafarian, Global economy, Climate change, Global warming, Global ice age, Trickle down economics[/tags]

The World’s Sexiest Man (other than me)

People magazine has once again named the world’s sexiest man, and once again they somehow overlooked my qualifications that should have assured my winning. I don’t harbor any resentment for the winner, naturally, but I do feel I fare much better in the moderately-overweight, middle-aged man with bad habits. And that’s something I just don’t see Mr. Hugh “I’m totally Wolverine AND Van Helsing at the same time” Jackman “Oh, and I can dance and sing, too”.

He’s a triple threat: a star who can sing, dance and wield a weapon.

At 6-foot-2, all scruff and biceps, Hugh Jackman looms large in the epic “Australia,” which he says kept him “dirty 95 percent of the time” and left people stammering, “Oh … my … God,” according to costar Nicole Kidman, who adds, “Women’s jaws drop when Hugh walks into a room.”

The interviewer with the magazine goes on the ask him about such silly topics as the success of his marriage (he and wife Deb just are happy to be together), the secret of keeping passion alive (his costumes feed fantasies of affairs), and what he wears to bed (hey, you’ll have to look that up yourself). No mention of how he produces claws from his knuckles, nor how he gets through airport security without the alarms going off (is adamantium non-magnetic? I think X2 says otherwise, but that could just be poetic license). No discussion of his experiences as a werewolf, nor the pain involved in infection, transformation, or cure.

There is a mention of his new movie Australia, but I’m really not at all interested in talk of a fictional nation/continent on the bottom of the world, unless they at least film with authenticity and show everyone upside-down. Folks – the world is flat, and people would fall off if they were on the bottom. Really. What do they teach you people in “school” these days?

UPDATE: Images added

[tags]Hugh Jackman, People magazine, World’s sexiest man, Mythical continents[/tags]

Start slicing stuff – no sharks included

So long, we have failed to talk lasers here on the Blahg.  If you’ve been around long, you know it’s one of our favorite topics.  But what is happening in the laser world?  What goes on when the Blahg doesn’t mention lasers?  If someone puts out news on a laser, and the Blahg doesn’t cover it, does it deserve to be mounted on the head of a friggin’ shark?  Well yes.  Yes it does.  Every laser deserves a shark of its own.

That out of the way, what good news to we have?  Well, how about a guide to building your own laser cutter?  Would you be interested in getting a knife made of focused light?  And what if it was less than $50?

This project demonstrates a simple hack to create a large format laser cutter utilizing all the scrap electronics you may have lying around. If you have a broken scanner or two, the cost can be just about 30 dollars for the entire project.

I totally need to build one of these, even if it isn’t actually a hand-held laser knife.  It sounds cool enough that it could go in to The Best of Instructables book, although it looks like it didn’t make the first volume.  Maybe volume 2?

So we’ll try to get you up date on the coolest or most useless new laser news in the coming days.  And as always, we’ll watch for news of advances on the friggin’ shark front.

[tags]lasers, laser, shark, Instructables, Laser knife[/tags]

Weird Al wonder

The wifey-person and I just finished watching Weird Al on the Biography channel.  I know there are folks who don’t like Weird Al.  Of course, I’m not much of one to care what others think, so I’ll go ahead and post about him anyway.  Every time I think about Weird Al, I think about this, one of his two finest videos:

Rumor has it that Coolio wasn’t too happy with Weird Al over this video.  Although all reports are that later they worked things out, perhaps minus hugs and kisses.

Although Yankovic traditionally secures permission from the artists he parodies (even though this is not legally required), and was told by his record label that Coolio had given permission, Coolio later claimed that he had not given such permission. This created a minor controversy, as speculation surfaced that Coolio had actually given permission but later claimed he had not in the fear that allowing the parody would not be seen as “cool”, or that Yankovic’s record label had lied to Yankovic in the hopes that the song would become popular.

During the show, one of Weird Al’s cohorts mentioned that pretty much every artist Weird Al contacts now is willing to let him create parody works.  Nearly everyone says yes, although Prince is apparently the perpetual holdout.  I wonder why that is.

And while I’m sure you don’t actually care what his other best video is, I’m going with The Saga Begins.

But I must say, some of his latest songs and videos are quite good, too.

[tags]Weird Al, Amish Paradise, The Saga Begins, Video[/tags]

Back, and slowly re-building

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, if you are either of my regular two visitors at least, the Blahg is finally back, although still not updating daily.  I am in the process now of restoring 1200+ image files that got lost in the move to a new host and went unnoticed among all the other issues that kept me mostly inactive.  I still have a few hundred to try to recover, but my backups are either incomplete, broken, or on my recently deceased laptop where I worked on the Blahg most frequently.  So while I will restore more as I can track down what else I’m missing, there will likely be an occasional dead image that is unlikely to get restored unless I get lucky and find a more recent backup that is complete and not damaged.

New thoughts on brain disorder

I have a powerful fascination with all things brain and intellect.  When I was younger, I had a hang-up with the flawed concept of IQ.  Later, when I hoped to become a psychiatrist, I did dvolunteer work in an out-patient mental-health facility.   More recently, I’ve been reading a lot on autism, schizophrenia, and other brain development challenges.  Basically – I like learning more about what goes on within the brain.  Of course, given how limited my access to research is, and how little I’ve read on the subject, my knowledge is pretty damned limited.  Still, when I find an article like this NY Times story on new thinking about mental disorders, I have to check it out.

The theory emerged in part from thinking about events other than mutations that can change gene behavior. And it suggests entirely new avenues of research, which, even if they prove the theory to be flawed, are likely to provide new insights into the biology of mental disease.

. . .

Their idea is, in broad outline, straightforward. Dr. Crespi and Dr. Badcock propose that an evolutionary tug of war between genes from the father’s sperm and the mother’s egg can, in effect, tip brain development in one of two ways.

In short, it sounds like when one parent’s genes overpower the other sufficiently, it can affect brain development.  Which parent’s genes exert a greater influence will change how the brain develops.

A strong bias toward the father pushes a developing brain along the autistic spectrum, toward a fascination with objects, patterns, mechanical systems, at the expense of social development. A bias toward the mother moves the growing brain along what the researchers call the psychotic spectrum, toward hypersensitivity to mood, their own and others’.

Ah Ha!!!  Psychotic!  And that’s their word, not mine.  I’m sure many men, at this point, would be nodding their head and saying “Of course that pushes the brain towards psychotic.”  Except, of course, most of us man can’t really focus long enough to get this far in the story.  🙂

Better said by NY Times:

In short: autism and schizophrenia represent opposite ends of a spectrum that includes most, if not all, psychiatric and developmental brain disorders. The theory has no use for psychiatry’s many separate categories for disorders, and it would give genetic findings an entirely new dimension.

But before putting too much stock in this theory, realize it has early critics.  And it has early problems worth working through before giving too much confidence in the end concept.

“The reality, and I think both of the authors would agree, is that many of the details of their theory are going to be wrong; and it is, at this point, just a theory,” said Dr. Matthew Belmonte, a neuroscientist at Cornell University. “But the idea is plausible. And it gives researchers a great opportunity for hypothesis generation, which I think can shake up the field in good ways.”

The full story at the NY Times delves deeper in to the thinking behind the theory, how the authors game up with the idea, and why it might or might not develop into something useful.  I just wish I knew enough to make better sense of it and have more of value in commenting on it.

[tags]Brain development, Brian disorder, Psychotic, Autism, Schizophrenia[/tags]

Blind pilot – talk me down

You get in your plane.  You take to the skies.  All seems good.  Suddenly – you go blind.  Now, how are you going to get back home alive?  Well, if you are bad-ass Jim O’Neill, you just get someone to talk you down to a safe landing.

A British pilot who was suddenly blinded by a stroke during a solo flight was talked safely down by a military pilot, the Royal Air Force said Friday.

. . .

The air force said in a news release that O’Neill initially believed he’d been “dazzled” by bright sunlight, and made an emergency call for help. He then realized that something more serious was happening, and said, “I want to land, ASAP.”

Because, well, when you suddenly can’t see, the first thought is probably “Yo, tower – having a little trouble seeing.  Can I get assistance?” I guess.

Now I confess, this is no “I’m trapped by this rock.  Guess I’ll cut off my arm.”  But it’s still pretty bad-ass to land with verbal guidance only.  Well, and skill.  Mad, mad skillz.

[tags]Stroke, Blindness, Bad-ass, Royal Air Force[/tags]