Cell phones might not be killing bees

I realize this might be a difficult claim to accept, especially if you are my wife, but there is some evidence that I was right. At least, there is evidence that I was right when I recently claimed that cell phones weren’t killing all the bees. Instead, a new theory is coming out saying that a deadly fungus may be causing Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). The scientists behind this thought have said this is very early preliminary information, and they don’t think they can say yet that the CCD issue has been solved. However, the idea looks to be gaining traction when you see reports from other scientists.

A fungus that caused widespread loss of bee colonies in Europe and Asia may be playing a crucial role in the mysterious phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder that is wiping out bees across the United States, UC San Francisco researchers said Wednesday.

. . .

But the results are “highly preliminary” and are from only a few hives from Le Grand in Merced County, UCSF biochemist Joe DeRisi said. “We don’t want to give anybody the impression that this thing has been solved.”

Other researchers said Wednesday that they too had found the fungus, a single-celled parasite called Nosema ceranae, in affected hives from around the country – as well as in some hives where bees had survived. Those researchers have also found two other fungi and half a dozen viruses in the dead bees.

N. ceranae is “one of many pathogens” in the bees, said entomologist Diana Cox-Foster of Pennsylvania State University. “By itself, it is probably not the culprit … but it may be one of the key players.”

There is still quite a bit of research to do to verify this, it seems. But as the article notes, other scientists are seeing this same fungus in the hives they are checking. And I would like to add that there is no evidence that I am right on anything else, nor evidence that I have ever been right before, nor evidence that I will ever be right again. Just in case you think maybe my wife should start giving me a little slack and listening when I say something.

[tags]Possible culprit found for disappearance of bees[/tags]

Legislation offered to set net-radio fees based on revenues

You might remember that I recently wrote about new use fees set for music played on Internet based radio stations. These fees were determined using costs and figures from the dot-com boom time when everything was overvalued by an order of magnitude or more. The new use fees were set so high that nearly all Internet radio stations would have to pay more than pre-tax earnings, effectively killing net-radio. A new bill has been put forward that would legislate the rate at 7.5 percent of revenues (the same as satellite radio broadcasters pay) instead.

A bill introduced in Congress today could nullify the new rates set by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) which advocates say would put webcasters out of business.

Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Rep. Don Manzullo (R-IL) have headed the “Internet Radio Equality Act,” which aims to stop the controversial March 2 decision which puts royalty of a .08 cent per song per listener, retroactively from 2006 to 2010 on internet radio.

I’m not generally in favor of the government getting in and messing with private business affairs like this. Given the Copyright Royalty Boards unwillingness to consider realistic pricing schedules, however, this is the only way to get reasonable rates set that I can see outside of letting the current fees kill off net-radio. Then the CRB would have to reset fees far lower so the 2nd wave of net-radio stations could be created and actually get valid rates. (via slashdot)

[tags]New bill to legislate net-radio fees based on revenues[/tags]

Have you had your head checked lately?

Have you ever wondered if your spouse is dead or just not interested in putting out for you? Have you ever wanted to check someone for epilepsy? Shoot, have you ever just wanted to see the brain waves of someone you know while they slept?

Well, thanks to the tireless efforts of hardware and software hackers from around the world, you now have a way to build and use your own EEG for home use. Of course, I doubt you’ll be able to use the information for any valid clinical diagnosis. Still, it’s a pretty cool project, and completely open-source.

Many people are interested in what is called neurofeedback or EEG biofeedback training, a generic mental training method which makes the trainee consciously aware of the general activity in the brain. This method shows great potential for improving many mental capabilities and exploring consciousness. Other people want to do experiments with brain-computer interfaces or just want to have a look at their brain at work.

Unfortunately, commercial EEG devices are generally too expensive to become a hobbyist tool or toy.

The OpenEEG project is about making plans and software for do-it-yourself EEG devices available for free (as in GPL). It is aimed toward amateurs who would like to experiment with EEG. However, if you are a pro in any of the fields of electronics, neurofeedback, software development etc., you are of course welcome to join the mailing-list and share your wisdom.

On the other hand, it’s a pricey project to try out:

The designers have done their best to create a safe device, but knowing whether the effort is good enough is a completely different matter (an $8000 matter actually). Therefore: everything is provided as is, without any warranty of any kind, expressed or implied.

If you build one, let me know – I’ll volunteer to try it out for you.

[tags]Open source EEG, Check your own bravewaves with this make-it-at-home project[/tags]

Bandwidth issues clearing up

Between cutting out two animated GIFs that were each close to 1 Meg and renaming the 32K jpeg of Keira Knightly, I dropped bandwidth today to less than 10% of what it was yesteday.  After realizing that most of my bandwidth was going to a Myspace page as I noted in the post before this one, I created a new copy of the jpeg which was being used which was just text indicating that the image was hosted elsewhere.  If you’d like to see who was stealing most of my bandwidth, check out this MySpace page (for as long as my image stays in place).  If the updated background is gone and you’d like to see what was changed, let me know and I’ll post a screenshot of it.

And thanks for visiting, anyone who saw my update.  I’m sorry to do that, but I’ve had more and more people stealing my bandwidth, which costs me money I don’t have available to spend on web hosting.

Ohhhh, so that’s where my bandwidth went

After more searching, I found out where so much of my bandwidth is going.  Some pigfucker on myspace is hotlinking to an image on my web site for their background on their profile page.  And current access logs are showing over half my web requests for that one file.  So I’ve deleted it.

Now to work on getting a plugin to reduce hotlinking – it’s a problem I’ve let slide, but I’m seeing more and more hits to my site for people stealing my bandwidth, and I’m going to have to pay extra for hosting this month because of it.

Traffic explosion for the Blahg

I’ve held steady under 1 Gig of bandwidth since launching a year and a half back (under 100 Meg initially, in fact). Because there is so little traffic here, I’ve been able to get by with some low price hosting ever since launching. In the past 3-4 months, however, traffic has exploded on the site, jumping from less than 50 visitors a day in November and December last year to several hundred visits plus 1500-2000 RSS hits per day in the past few weeks. Just how much a jump counts as an explosion in my view? Well, here’s traffic stats by month from the beginning of the year:

blahgstats-20070427.jpg

And let me point out that the bandwidth counter is missing some traffic, as I received a warning Sunday night for passing 80% of my cap (10 Gig per month). Total traffic on my site is as follows:

Continue reading “Traffic explosion for the Blahg”

Hawking weightless at last

Apparently, weightless flight has long been one of Stephen Hawking’s dreams. I’m not quite sure of the logistics in setting up the experience for Hawking, but I see it was good for him.

Free of his wheelchair and tethered only to heart rate and blood pressure monitors, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking on Thursday fulfilled a dream of floating weightless on a zero-gravity jet, a step he hopes leads to further space adventures.

The modified jet carrying Hawking, a handful of his physicians and nurses, and dozens of others first flew up to 24,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean off Florida. Nurses lifted Hawking and carried him to the front of the jet, where they placed him on his back atop a special foam pillow.

The jet then climbed to around 32,000 feet and made a parabolic dive back to 24,000 feet, allowing Hawking and the other passengers to experience weightlessness for about 25 seconds.

I wish I could afford a weightless flight. It sounds really cool.

[tags]Hawking’s weightless flight, Hawking experiences weightlessness dream[/tags]