We fill the sky

A video on how many planes fill the sky over the course of a day. How I love well represented graphical data.

E8 Theory of Everything conclusively disproved

Elegant but unfortunately inaccurate, Garett Lisi's E8 Theory of Everything sought to map out all particle (known and yet to be discovered: see Higgs Boson among many others) interactions in physics in a Grand Unified Theory (GUT). The E8, for those of us who are not mathematicians, is a complex member of the Lie Group of mathematical structures of dimension 248. As an individual with a profound interest in physics, it's a relief to conclude that there is an exceptional amount of work to be done (who would have thought?).

Lisi's Theory has in criticized by a number of experts of both mathematics and physics, including Dr. Skip Garibaldi, of Emory University. According to a recent article on Physorg, Garibaldi collaborated with University of Texas Physicist Jacques Distler to conclusively debunk the Lisi's Theory of Everything by proving some formula's in Lisi's E8 paper simply do not work.

In Garibaldi's words,

"You can think of E8 as a room, and the four subgroups related to the four fundamental forces of nature as furniture, let's say chairs," Garibaldi explains. "It's pretty easy to see that the room is big enough that you can put all four of the chairs inside it. The problem with 'the theory of everything' is that the way it arranges the chairs in the room makes them non-functional."

If you're interested, you can read Garibaldi's paper here.

Source: PhysOrg

Fairing Earthquakes: Haiti vs. Chile

First of all, let me state that in no way am I an expert in either building technology nor natural disasters. As a student though, I am surrounded by academia that deal with these situations in an idealistic way and shoot for perfection. Therefore, they present ideas that in reality would save lives, if not for the shackles of bureaucracy and money.

Also, before you read this post, I urge you to give whatever you can to the relief effort in Haiti; namely, NGOs organized to respond to physical and economic infrastructure reconfiguration (the people trying to get kids back into schools, hospitals functioning, and roofs over heads).

Everyone has seen the images and heard the statistics. The Haiti earthquake was one of the worst disasters most of us have seen in our lifetimes in terms of actual destruction and death rates. Many people wonder, though, what the difference was between Haiti and Chile, and why a more powerful earthquake in Chile caused astoundingly less destruction.

The answer falls on how we construct our built environment. As John D Sutter explained in his article for CNN In Search of an Earthquake Proof Building, "The technology exists to make buildings nearly earthquake-proof today. However, installing those safer buildings all over the world isn't so simple. Neither is figuring out who will pay."

In my Urban Policy class this week, I was given a first hand account of the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake from a Haitian-American city planning professor, Harley Etienne, who was asked to travel to Haiti and assess both physical and social damage caused by the quake. Aside from an insurmountable assemblage of horror stories and tough-to-look-at pictures, he gave us the straightforward answer as to why this happened.

The answer falls on the fact that Haiti has no building codes to speak of. Though it falls directly on a major fault line that lies under various Caribbean islands, it had no earthquake ready buildings aside from a few major projects built recently by outside developers. The two most hurtful problems came down to two things that fit in your hand: sand and steel.

The concrete that Haiti has been using for years is filled with sand. Sand, while a cheap way to supplant the aggregate material needed to make concrete, has a high concentration of salt, and therefore erodes the rebar laid within it over time.

Secondly, the steel rebar that was used in many of these buildings was smooth. The standard in the US, and the general standard across the globe, logically, is to use ribbed rebar instead of smooth; ribbed performs much better under stress the same way a screw performs much betters than a nail.

Unfortunately, Professor Etienne showed pictures of piles of sand on the side of the road, ready to be filled into more concrete; pictures of men hitting rubble laid with steel with sledgehammers, trying to remove the smooth rebar and sell it to reconstruction efforts. To prepare for the next earthquake, as Etienne and his colleagues show, Haiti must understand the importance of building codes and earthquake proof building technologies. These, of course, cost money and manpower, both of which Haiti is unreasonably short on.

In the US, we have a greater knowledge and appreciation for these types of technologies. Many buildings in earthquake prone zones, San Francisco for example, are built on a sort of rubber pad that takes most of the lateral forces jabbed at the building from the earthquake. The Golden Gate Bridge even is taking in these technologies. The earthquake shakes the foundation of the building, jiggles a rubbery plinth under the building, and the building feels little to nothing but a shake from the rubber.

Haiti is at a tipping point; unfortunately, it had to come at the price of their largest city and many of its inhabitants. Without a doubt, Haiti will reform its building policies and codes requirements to adapt their building practices to their environment. Hopefully it will come faster than the next quake.

Transonic Combustion Revitalizes Engine Output

Teaching an old dog new tricks seems to be the way we are approaching energy consumption; the Transonic Combustion engine is a new trick for a nearly dead dog. The new combustion style uses supercritical fluids that ignite when in contact with air, exactly timed to the piston's most efficient position. This way, no energy is wasted in combustion that is not used in the piston movement. Experts say that the expected out put on the engine will be somewhere around 98 mpg Highway, twice that of the best hybrids on the road today. Transonic says that the technology will be hitting the pavement somewhere between 2013-2014.

Via Inhabitat.

More Awesome Statistics

(TED)

Google's New Public Data Explorer

As great as WolframAlpha is for data search, I have to say that as a designer, I am partial to visual representations and graphs. Google recently released its visual data representation labs that track the rates of everything from birth rate to retail sales rates on an interactive graph. Of course it's Google, and of course it's free.

Check some of them out here:

International Fertility Rates vs. Death Rates

Link to explore

Unemployment Rate By State

Link to explore

Reported STD Cases in the US by State

Link to explore

Khaled Al-Saai, Arabic Graffiti

Known artist Khaled Al-Saai composes atmospheric artworks out of Arabic calligraphy. The changing opacities of the different strokes create fantastic compositions that dive into the wall and change the viewers perspective. A few examples below. Really great work.

Porsche Gives the Hybrid-Class Some Biceps.

Porsche has unveiled its newest addition to the hybrid movement, the 918 Spyder. It stands right now as the first plug-in hybrid ever. Along with this: 0-60 in 3.2 Seconds, can go 16 miles on electricity alone, and achieves 78 mpg. The way it achieves these in parallel is a combination of two motors: a 500 hp V8 and a set of electric motors that add another 218 hp. While it is still a concept car, Porsche is well known for fulfilling their concepts into realities.

Via Inhabitat.

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale

Life beyond our universe

This is the kind of thing that we just can't understand. The scope of our own universe is beyond what is imaginable. I think the extent to which we can know and study the existence of multiple universes is knowing that we can't know. In an article posted on Physorg, some MIT physicists explore the aforementioned possibility.

If you're brave enough, catch the article here.

The food we eat and why it's killing us

Check this out. TED prize winner Jamie Oliver educates the world on our most devastating oversight; dietary health.

Things are speeding up, budgets are getting cut, and the food we're eating is considerably worse, and more over-processed than it was just a couple of decades ago. Why are vending machines filled with garbage? Why does it cost so much to eat well. How many college students cook meals vs. grab taco bell for dinner?

"If I came here with a cure for AIDS or cancer you'd all be fighting and scrambling [to see it]. [Obesity] is preventable. We've got a problem here, and we need to reboot."

Jaimie really hits the nail on the head with this talk. Check out his website here.

Let the smashing begin: LHC back up and running

(PhysOrg.com) -- For the Christmas holiday, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN was shut down for a break and for a little technical tinkering. But next week, the hope is that the LHC will start up again around the 25 of February.

Read the news here.

Mosquito Lasers

If played in real time, these pests would be getting gunned down in less than a tenth of a second. Just like most anything, though, its much cooler in slow motion. For anyone squeamish about smacking a pest on their arm when its biting you, you might want to skip to the next post. The device has been developed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help fight malaria. As PhysOrg notes,

"The new version could cost as little as $50 to manufacture, depending on volume. During his demonstration, Myhrvold released hundreds of mosquitoes into a glass tank. A laser tracked their movements and shot them down one by one, leaving their carcasses on the bottom of the tank. Myhrvold said that the lasers could shoot between 50 and 100 mosquitoes per second."

My Dad is going to want one of these for the ditch in front of our house in VA.

Windows Mobile is not dead

Following iPhone OS (Apple), WebOS (Palm), and Android (Google), Microsoft has finally modernized its mobile platform (Windows Mobile). Windows Mobile is a new stripped and completely reworked mobile OS, taking some cue's from the wonderful Zune HD interface, but also adding many new features. The new UI (user interface) completely removes the classic (and sadly boring) windows feel, and replaces it with a streamlined, ultra useable, no gloss/shadow, simple recipe of shear usability. I love where this is going. What do you think?

Grab the preview here (engadget).

Goodbye power cord; You will not be missed.

A group of researchers at MIT have made yet another breakthrough in wireless power. By imbedding a large copper coil in a wall or ceiling and using electromagnetic resonance to transfer power between multiple devices, physicists André Kurs, Robert Moffatt, and Marin Soljačić have managed to generate fairly high efficiency by strategically coupling multiple devices as opposed to a single device. When the devices resonate at the same frequency, power is transferred with little interference by other objects resonating out of that frequency. Efficiency decreases with distance, but the system works from more than 2 meters away.

Click the read link for the goodies.

Fall Into a Black Hole at the Speed of Light (Simulation)

"Not too many of us have actually seen a black hole, but Thomas Müller, physics student, and Daniel Weiskopf, computer science professor, at the University of Stuttgart, have programmed a vision for us. With their simulation of a black hole in space, you can really imagine what it would be like to be in the pull of one." (PhysOrg)

Read the full article and catch the videos here.

Video: Massive Attack "Splitting the Atom"

New video from Massive Attack. Cool shooting and a cool song.

Massive Attack-Splitting the Atom-directed by Edouard Salier from edouard salier on Vimeo.

Shoot 1080p For Less than $1000

As Moore's Law suggests, the power of a technology and its cost to produce that same power are exponentially related. Every 18 months to 2 years, a technology will be half as expensive to produce the same capabilities. Canon's new Rebel T2i is no different.

One can now, for the relatively modest price of $800, shoot 30 frame per second- 1080p movies from a digital SLR. On top of that, the camera takes beautiful resolution images at 18 megapixels, ISO between 100 and 6400, and a continuous shooting function that takes 3.7 pictures per second. The camera will be released in March.

Google Smartphones To Translate Live

Franz Och, head of Google's Translation Services and Chair of the Hilarious Names Committee, said recently that Google is working on improving speech recognition software so that live translation can occur language to language. Imagine calling a friend who only speaks Swedish and being able to communicate with them as if they were speaking to you in perfect English. Important to note, as PhysOrg says, "Google's system would analyze speech in the same way as a human interpreter, listening to a package of speech to gather the full meaning before it attempts to translate. It will improve in accuracy the more it is used." Google expects to release this function after a few more years of research.

The implications of this are huge. Economic dominance has forced certain languages to become more prevalent on a global scale. This type of technology would preserve languages as they are, allowing families and regions to have their own dialects and colloquialisms. For right now, I think, as posted below, it is direly important that Americans join the bi- and trilingual groups that are populating the world, and learn a few languages.

East Meets West: Will Americans Learn Chinese?

Yesterday, the New York Times tackled the aforementioned question in their Room For Debate blog. Essentially, the shrinking (or flatening) of the world is bringing the Far East closer and closer to the West. If you name one company that does all of its manufacturing in the United States, I'll name 5 that do all of their manufacturing abroad. Communication is increasing exponentially as an effect of symbiotic relationships between global companies in both the East and West. Many fear without the ability to communicate globally in a number of languages they will be left in the dust.

Check out the expert opinions after the break.

How It's Made: Google Nexus One

Alright Google, you got me. I love this kind of thing.

Google has been putting together a series of short films collectively called Nexus One: The Story. Now in case you missed it, the Nexus One is the Google phone. Yeah, there are a lot of Android phones (DROID, G1, etc.), but the Nexus One is the first phone that Google has directly collaborated on the actual hardware and design. The company manufacturing the device, HTC, worked closely with Google to fabricate the perfect Android phone in Google's image.

Check out all of the videos after the break.

The Future of Personal Computing: Closing the gap between smartphones and laptops

Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for consumer technology at market research and analysis firm the NPD Group gives an interesting view of the past several years of personal computing in his article Switched On column on engadget.

Laptops are getting smaller, faster, and cheaper while phones are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Much of the smartphone's usability lends itself to rather new technologies such as multi-touch, which weren't around just a few years ago. I'm counting the days until a keyboard and mouse are completely optional accessories.

Read the article here.

Facebook turns Six

This is one of those times where the young are made to feel old. As a junior in high school (early 2006), I initially started using 'thefacebook.com' to keep in touch with some of the friends I had made in an exchange trip to Norway. Founded February 4th, 2004, FB now has 350 million users worldwide, headquarters in Palo Alto, Seoul, and Dublin, and is available in 71 different laguages (including Pirate and upside down English, in some places). As a businessman, I am sure Mark Zuckerberg never knew that the social connector he meant for just his Harvard classmates has turned into the world's way of keeping in touch (and his way of making $2 billion by the age of 25). Congrats to Facebook, and let this early success hopefully inspire any young entrepreneurs.

Fascinating Improvements in TIssue Reconstruction

Anthony Atala of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine shows the work of "seven hundred researchers over a period of twenty years," and where that has gotten the institute and the state of tissue regeneration. This video is incredible. My favorite part:

"(As you watch an inkjet printer shoot back and forth) This is actually one of our strategies. We use a printer. And instead of using ink -- you just saw an inkjet cartridge --we just use cells. This is actually your typical desktop printer... it's actually printing a two chamber heart one layer at a time."

Real Time Webcams Enrich Google Earth

I almost cannot remember a time when I couldn't go to my computer and get turn my turn directions to anywhere I wanted to go, down to the feet on the block. Google Earth and Google Maps have changed the way humans use both navigational systems and maps themselves. Below, PhD candidate Austin Abrams has developed a system that utilizes live webcam feeds to inform the facades of buildings in Google Earth. The system is connected to nearly 1000 webcams, some of which need to be calibrated by locals (if you get a few minutes, public help is requested). The NewScientist article quotes Georgia Tech researcher Kiwhan Kim as saying he is impressed with the new technology, but sees that full real-time Google Earth is still years away.

A quick video after the jump.

MPD Magicians

Oldie but goodie. I wanted to make sure everyone knows that the masters of production are still alive and kicking, even if they aren't getting the recognition they deserve on the radio. Here's a now aging video of DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, and Numark doing some nice MPD work.

Make sure you watch until 4:00.

Winching: Urban Wakeskating

I've been wakeboarding since I was young, but this video is much different from the wakeboarding I learned how to do. These guys put powerful winches near urban rivers and wakeskate to their content. It's a great idea, and really cool to watch (especially with the Justice playing).

Video after the jump.

Morons of Milky Way: What E.T. thinks of us.

"In 2008, NASA beamed the Beatles song "Across the Universe" into deep space, sending a message of peace to any extraterrestrial who happens to be in the region of Polaris, also called the North Star, in 2439." (PhysOrg)

While waiting to checkout at the super-market I find myself overwhelmed by a re-occuring notion: we (humans) are idiots.

Check out this article that showcases some of the data that Earthlings have been beaming up to the cosmos. Some of my favorites after the break.

The Gates' Donate $10 Billion to fight disease

In the words of the great captain of industry, Andrew Carnegie:

"The amassing of wealth is one of the worse species of idolatry. No idol more debasing than the worship of money... the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced."

Bill and Melinda Gates announced today that they would be donating $10 Billion of their cumulative wealth solely to the purpose of finding vaccines for the larger diseases that plague man today: AIDS, TB, rota virus, and pneumonia, mainly.

As stated in an economists take on the worlds more pressing issues, disease control is economically the most feasible and cost effective problem we can fix with the world. The Gates' donation in reality is a large chunk of the battle that could solve these problems. To solve our issues with fresh water and world hunger, it would only take a few federal donations of the same amount to alleviate them all together. As a believer in Carnegie's idea on the purpose of amassing wealth, I appreciate the Gates' donation and hope it sparks similar acts in other superwealthy men.

High Speed Rail Connectivity

When ideas for Obama's high speed rail system first surfaced, people were skeptical of its realization, but hopeful for its promise. It seems that the starting point for the project has been finalized, and will soon start building in Florida. This project could be the connection that the country needs to change the way we travel and work in the positive direction.

Details and elaboration after the jump.

Piezoelectricity moves forward (no pun intended)

Princeton scientists have introduced a new form of piezoelectric material, a rubber sheet that when stretched and strained, converts mechanical energy to electrical energy. The sheets are made of organic lead zirconate titanate, layered over silicone with an embedded chip. Imagine the interior of tires lined with this, gaining energy simply from the pressure of the road; or, as PhysOrg notes, a pace maker that can retain energy from each pump. Click the above links for the full articles and studies.

Evolution vs. Creationism battle fought at collegiate level

"There is an insidious and growing problem," said Professor Jones, of University College London. "It's a step back from rationality. They (the creationists) don't have a problem with science, they have a problem with argument. And irrationality is a very infectious disease as we see from the United States."

Read the full article here.

Via The Guardian.

Levitating Magnets may be key to Fusion's Future

Recently, I saw an article on TED about the longevity of fusion power; that we have enough Lithium ions in the ocean to serve our energy needs for thousands of years. A new type of fusion reactor was tested at MIT to see if a levitating magnet used to contain the plasma particles needed to cause the fusion worked better than one supported by beams from below. The study shows that the plasma was much easier to contain and caused much more random interaction that spurs fusion than the old model.

Read the full article here.

Via PhysOrg.

Apple Releases iPad: Impressive (kind of)

(Engadget hands-on iPad)

A couple of days ago I threw together a little analysis of the up and coming Apple Tablet (released today as iPad). My pricing prediction (starting at $499) was spot on, as well as the concept image I chose to display in the article, and the overall goal Apple had in mind when designing this product. I'm quite satisfied with the shear power they've managed to pack into this thin device, but I have quite a few qualms with Apple's decisions. Check out my thoughts after the break.

Campus green spaces enhance quality of life

(Photo usage abides by GT Photography Usage Agreement)

"The next time you see students playing an energized game of touch football or studying in the sunshine on a college quadrangle, consider this: campus green spaces can help students feel better about life and improve learning."

(Physorg September 29, 2008)

The Third & The Seventh, by Alex Roman

Watch this beautiful video (watch the whole thing, too, trust me), then read the secret after the jump.

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

New York Rethinks the Sidewalk Shed

Mayor Bloomberg came out with an announcement this week that:

"This new design is great for building owners because less of your building will be hidden, and it's great for pedestrians because there's more space to walk, run, or shop than ever before."

If you cannot tell what exactly they are replacing, then they've done a good job.

More details after the jump.

Tilt Shift: Hong Kong

If you haven't heard of Tilt Shift, it seems to be the freshest way to time lapse videos. This style of filming selectively focuses to make the subjects in the film, even though they are shot in real life, seem as if they are miniature figures shot in stop motion.

This quick video of Hong Kong is a cool example.

Hong Kong Tilt Shift from Klas Ehnemark on Vimeo.

Strip Steve- Breakin'

Strip Steve - 'Breakin' from Boysnoize Records on Vimeo.

How much cooler can a flash video with a dancing lobster and a moonwalking triangle be?

The answer is none. None more cool.

Color Changing Windows: A Greener Future

"Imagine wrapping a giant pair of Wayfarers or Aviators around your house on a sunny day. Wouldn't that be cool?

NREL researchers are trying to do the high-tech equivalent of putting sunglasses on buildings with a new generation of insulated "dynamic windows" that change color to modulate interior temperatures and lighting."

Read the whole article here.

Will Apple beat Amazon at their own game?: iPad vs. Kindle 3

(GIZMODO)

What is the Apple iPad (or maybe its iSlate?) you ask? Well, its an unannounced unleaked apple tablet that rumor speculates will be released in 2 days time, at Apple’s Media Event. With pricing speculated as high as $1000 (although in my worthless opinion it will be a subsidized $499 with data plan from VZW or ATT), it might seem insane to argue it will overtake amazon’s best-selling device this holiday season.

Some mashups just make no sense. Some don't need to.

Tom Caruna, who I have to admit, is a new, fresh favorite, just recently released a mashup of Wu-Tang vs. the Beatles. While the connection is a stretch, it is not the catchy, cheesy, only mashed for the funny name mash up. TC makes some decent beats and mixes them with the more than decent Wu Tang.

Listen and download for free here.

This Is Beautiful

Burj Khalifa

A few weeks ago, the SOM designed Burj Khalifa (formerly called the Burj Dubai) opened. A few stats and thoughts about the tallest building in the world below.

Personal Flight: Check

We're there. Humans have finally realized an idea (or at least a glimpse) of personal flight. NASA is developing a way for the Puffin to be the first commercial, electric, and personal plane.

An interesting adaptation...

"The mutation responsible for the alcohol flush reaction, an unpleasant response to alcohol that is relatively common in people of Asian descent, may have occurred following the domestication of rice. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology traced the history of the version of the gene responsible." (PhysOrg)

So what is a genre again?

As exciting as this lineup sounds, what has happened to the genre? Well I think there might be a few reasons. Check out the Coachella line-up here, and the genre bashing after the jump.

Let me start by saying that in no way am I complaining: anywhere that has Flying Lotus, Portugal. The Man, De La Soul, Old Crow, Major Lazer, The Avett Brothers, and Thom Yorke, all in three days is the place I want to be. If you can figure a way to get there for the weekend, it is definitely worth the money.

Had to happen sometime

Of course this would happen in Korea first. A while ago, a friend and I had a semi-Kindle type of machine for a project, and the major criticism was that to have a successful replacement for a magazine or a book, the device would need to be flexible, say like rolling a magazine up into a beach bag. The technology has plenty of different applications, too.

Book Talk: Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut

Short explanation: we have been on a reading kick lately, sharing books and what not. So we have decided to post some reviews, really short essays, on what we gathered from the books. Really, there is no point in a review: it only tells you what one person liked or did not like. What is important, though, is what has been successfully communicated from author to reader, and what the reader has learned or discovered.

Vonnegut, for me, is a sharp pen.

And a prophet.

What am I doing?

“You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” - Steve Jobs

Putting Thoughts in Jars

A while ago, a friend made an offhand comment about thoughts. He said, "you can't put a thought in a jar." I think about that from time to time, the fact that all that I am writing here does not exist except for the movements my fingers are making on the keyboard. If you have a little time, read through this article on consciousness. Human consciousness is a fascinating thing to talk about, in that we, as humans, have metacognition: the ability to think about thinking. A dog can't sit in his house and think about the reason why he wants his dinner: he just does.

Read the article here.

New Blood

So here goes. Masse and I wanted to start a blog that displayed what our current interests and muses are. We hope you enjoy the posts, but more importantly, we want to aid to the greater enlightenment of others. Our posts may seem random and unrelated, but so are our interests. Thanks for viewing, and don't forget to comment.