Offered without comment

Gaming at work.

Nuclear Energy Innovations

Due to recent events, we have been having lots of discussions about nuclear power plants recently. For some reason, we seem to like discussing energy sources or policy in general, so I thought people would be interested in a new design for nuclear reactors that has a lot of bold promises:

• It uses depleted uranium as fuel, which is a waste product of current reactors
• It uses cooling systems that don't require power to function

(link via Freakonomics blog)

The Internet is always one step ahead of us

From the Urban Dictionary:

The Call:
	When you know your gonna have randy crap. O sh!t, the trains gonna leave the station, this is the call, I better head to the john.

Happening at a McMenimins Bathroom near you….

(via Morglums)

Sobering article on the Events in North Africa

This is a fairly long, dry, article on the events in Tunisia and the continuing protests in other countries in North Africa and elsewhere:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22963

the upshot is, there is an enormous generation of young (under 30), fairly educated youth who have a bleak economic future, and are increasingly taking to the street...

-Morgan

Moovie Review: Splice

Well I finally got around to watching this movie. I had high hopes for it after seeing some reviews when it initially came out, but I get to see so few movies it took a while to percolate up my queue.

I have to say it did not really meet my expectations. It was a solid concept: creepy genetic engineering mixed with corporate profit pressures and an undertone of good-old Freudian psycho-sex; but it just didn't have the room to breathe. The ending was a bit horror cliche.

But the real reason I am posting it on the blog is because the villainous CEO in the movie was a pitch perfect French Canadian version of Carly Fiorina. I can't help but believe the character was modeled after her. In fact the movie would have been better with more of her in it.

Anyway, even with it's flaws, it still may be work a Netflix.

My other post of the week ...

I put this on my Facebook, and didn't ahve to wait an hour to get an angry, fact-free reply from one of my Texas T-bagger friends.

HealthCare explainoned on 4 napkins (which somehow translates to a couple dozens slides ... but worth seeing)

http://www.slideshare.net/danroam/healthcare-napkins-all

I like this as much for the stick-figure aided technique as the actual contnet ... though both seem true and effective as best I can tell.

WebMD goes all Dan Brown on me ...

Check out this DaVinci Code-esque health advice they just sent me ...

Last Supper Paintings Point to Ungodly PortionsPaintings Reveal That Plate, Portion Sizes Gradually Grew in the Past Millennium

https://www.webmdhealth.com/nl/nlv.aspx?id=gbeEorIjhXc=&s=11886

What would Jesus eat, hmm?

According to the TIOBE Programming Community Index for April 2010 the C programming language is back on top.

After more than 4 years C is back at position number 1 in the TIOBE index. The scores for C have been pretty constant through the years, varying between the 15% and 20% market share for almost 10 years. So the main reason for C's number 1 position is not C's uprise, but the decline of its competitor Java. Java has a long-term downward trend. It is losing ground to other languages running on the JVM. An example of such a language is JavaFX script that is now approaching the top 20.

I don't know why this surprises me... I guess with all the advantages to OO programming I am just a little amazed that C is on top. I guess I should be happy since I spend 90% of my time writing in C. Also note that if you add C and C++ together then they totally squash everything else on the list.

VIruses, Evolution, and DNA/RNA

Sent in from Morgan, relevant to discussions had at the call:

Pertinent to our discussion at the call, Here is an article talking
about an virus that integrated into our DNA a long time ago:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/01/bornavirus-in-human-dna/

I don’t really understand it all, but it seems similar to what I was describing to
Paul (ie. Viruses as a vector for mutation/evolution…)

I know, I know, this should be on the blog… [ed: sent via email instead]

Movie: Primer

At the call today, while comparing and contrasting movie plots (the team activity's movie still fresh in our minds) I was stumped trying to remember a well-recommended movie about time travel that was supposed to be well-nigh impossible to completely understand the first time through. I promised I would post the title on the blog as soon as I remembered.

Well, it was Primer. A movie about two engineers who accidentally discover time travel in their garage. (HP really should have sponsored this at some point, since it's quickly becoming a cult classic.)

I had never even heard of the movie until I saw this comic.

And I still haven't watched it, even though it's free to watch on Google Video.

Tobor

That's it. I am going to legally change by name to Tobor.

Most lucrative college degrees

There is a somewhat interesting article talking about the Most lucrative college degrees on money.cnn.com. The data comes from the National Association of Colleges and Employers so I guess that makes it legit. I thought it was interesting because when I was in school the top of the list looked like this:

1. Chemical Engineering
2. Electrical Engineering
3. Computer Science

Now the top of the list looks like this:

1. Petroleum Engineering
2. Chemical Engineering
3. Mining Engineering
4. Computer Engineering
5. Computer Science
6. Electrical Engineering

However, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, and Electrical Engineering have such similar salaries that for all practical purposes they tied for fourth. Even so, that still means hat Mining and Petroleum bumped them out of the top three. I guess the world isn't as digital as we all though.

Android vs Chrome (OS)

I think there is a lot of confusion regarding google's decision to come out with another linux based operating system. You can read some of the debate here on gizmodo. I myself think it may have been a pretty dumb idea to call your OS the same thing you call your web browser... but hey. I will reserve judgement, maybe that is exactly what they wanted to do.

Also, I will offer this guess: The difference between Android and Chrome will be, by and large, the graphics pipeline/subsystem. Android's largest difference from normal linux is its use of a custom framebuffer instead of the X11R6 we all know and love. I predict that in the long term you will see Chrome and Android move close together, but Chrome will maintain X11R6. That's my guess and its worth what you paid for it.

They just don't do movie trailers like they used to ...

... but maybe they should.

Please compare ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz86TsGx3fc

Mildly intriguing ... at least until you realize it's from the Dean/Emmerach team who've already bored us with blowing most of this stuff up many times before. The say "from the director of Independance Day and The Day After Tommorrow" CLEARLY like they think that's a good thing.

At least you can't say they didn't warn you first.

And now, for the awesome v1970's version.

http://vimeo.com/5463875

Now you kinda wanna see it anyway, don't you?

Wells Fargo competes for worst bank in the world

Just when JP Morgan Chase and Citi are being hounded for their credit card policies, it is good to see that Wells Fargo is keeping them honest.

The City of Baltimore and the NAACP have now filed suit against Wells Fargo for marketing sub-prime home loans to prime black borrowers. Because this is a law suit there are now sworn affidavits from people like Mr. Paschal who says:

They referred to sub-prime loans made in minority communities as ghetto loans and minority customers as "mud people..." The company put "bounties" on minority borrowers. By this I mean that loan officers received cash incentives to aggressively market sub-prime loans in minority communities.

The New York Times conducted their own study and found that in the city of New York, 16.1% of black borrowers making at least $68k per year had a sub-prime home loans while only 2% of white owners in the same income bracket had sub-prime loans. The New York Times quoted Beth Jacobson, Wells Fargo's top producing sub-prime loan officer, as saying:

We just went right after them. Wells Fargo mortgage had an emerging-markets unit that specifically targeted black churches, because it figured church leaders had a lot of influence and could convince congregants to take out sub-prime loans.

That's right, Wells Fargo aggresively marked sub-prime loans to black people at their churches. You can read more here.

Good Ethiopian Restaurant in PDX

Periodically, I'll just repost stuff I don't want to lose down my Inbox memory hole. Like a personal review of a promising restaurant to keep in mind:

For father’s day the family took me out to a new (to me) Ethiopian
restaurant that we really enjoyed:

http://www.bete-lukas.com/
http://www.yelp.com/biz/bete-lukas-ethiopian-restaurant-portland

I like Ethiopian food, but it’s normally too spicy for the kids and Tomo. Bete Lukas was not spicy, but extremely savory. We ordered a couple of the vegetarian platters and chicken dish. I had a glass of the honey wine, which was pretty tasty too..

This place is pretty nice compared to Jarra’s or Queen of Sheba: It has full bar, and is vegetarian friendly. (Thought the kids were literally fighting over the chicken dish we got, so we had to order a 2cd plate of it.)

Anyway 4 stars! If you like Ethiopian, or if you have never had it, I highly recommend it. (It would be a good place for a date for you bachelors, or a nice place to take the wife…) It’s on SE 50th between division and Powell. It’s on the 2cd floor of kind of non-descript cinderblock building, so it’s easy to miss, but well worth the effort. Dinner only.

-Morgan

Economy to get better... except for jobs.

The National Association of Business Economists is forecasting a modest Q3 rebound in real GDP. However, they expect the national unemployment rate to hit 9.8% by the end of 2009. That, in it self is neither surprising nor troubling to me. What troubles me is that they forecast unemployment to improve only slightly and for us to have a 9.3% unemployment rate at the end of 2010. Ick.

Terraform Earth Now!

I've been reading the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson.  It's quite good, though rather long and has some tedious (for me) passages detailing Martian landscape and geology.  Terraforming (and the political battles surrounding the speed, methods, and outcomes) is a major theme of the series.

One thing I've been noodling on is the idea "Terraforming" earth.  I see global warming as a proof-of-concept that we can influence (control) our macro-environment.  According to this article, we've have been doing it indirectly for 1000's of years:

"About 7,000 years ago, levels of carbon dioxide and methane began rising. During every previous similar interglacial period, of which there are at least seven, greenhouse-gas levels fell.

To explain this, palaeoclimatologist Bill Ruddiman formulated the “early anthropogenic hypothesis,” which holds that the source of these gases was land clearing and flooding for rice production by prehistoric farmers beginning 8,000 years ago. While this hypothesis still ruffles the feathers of many a climatologist, there remains no better evidence explaining the Holocene greenhouse-gas anomaly.It is even possible that global warming caused by prehistoric farmers has delayed the onset of the next ice age, which is due right about now."

from "http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/ftf-ellis-1/"

Banks would rather tear down brand new homes than sell them for a loss!

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Partially-completed-SoCal-apf-15147127.html?.v=3

They will foreclose on people and throw them out, and then turn around and tear down perfectly good brand new houses rather than sell them at a loss.... What is wrong with this picture....

Swine flu sound track (H1N1)

Stolen directly from gizmodo.