Spacetime Invisibility

Yesterday, I was linked to by Warren Kinsella's blog. That lead to an extra 250 or so visitors than I normally get each day. I don't expect many (or, really, any) repeat visits - but it was still pretty cool. Even if I did call Mr. Kinsella a hack. (For the record, I meant it in the nicest possible way, just to highlight how big a deal it is that he's speaking out against Iggy's policy on Afghanistan.

If any of you did come back after yesterday - welcome! I really wasn't expecting that, but it's neat having you back.

Anyway, for today's topic... I thought this was pretty cool, so I figured I'd share: Theoretical Spacetime Invisibility Cloaks.

The basic idea is surprisingly simple. We see things because our eyes are able to interpret information from visible light. That light travels at, obviously enough, the speed of light, which means we see things once light has traveled from them to our eyes. Technically speaking, we never see anything the exact instant happens - there's always a time lag between the object and when we see it.

This is fairly well-known for anyone with an interest in astronomy. The Moon is one light-second away, the Sun a little over eight light-minutes away, the nearest star 4.3 light-years away, the nearest galaxy , and so on. There are time lags on even everyday distances, however impossibly slight. For something a meter away, we see it as it was about 1/300,000,000th of a second ago.

Here's how you use that information to build a spacetime cloak. All those times are for the speed of light in a vacuum, but light can slow down depending on what material it passes through. Researchers have slowed down light to as little as 38 miles per hour by sending it through a special, super-dense form of matter. And it's through carefully slowing down and speeding up light that we can create a temporal void.

Let's say you're standing a mile away from an observer. You start slowly decreasing the speed of the light traveling towards the observer so that it's only traveling at 60 miles per hour, or a mile per minute. Since you're slowing the light down gradually, the observer won't be able to perceive the change. Once the light has reached 60 miles per hour, the observer is now seeing you as you were one minute ago. You've now created a one minute spacetime corridor. You've now got a minute to do whatever you want without the observer having any idea what you're up to.

Samsung Unveils See-Through Monitor. Also, Japan is Still Weird.

That's cool, I guess.  But where's my rocket car?

Also!  A friend of mine, currently living in Japan, pointed out this video (or rather, a related one, but I like this one better) that I felt I had to share.  This is Hatsune Miku, a character mascot from a music software program called Vocaloid...  And she's giving a live concert here.  In holographic form.



S1m0ne is getting more and more prophetic every year.  Incredibly, I find myself wondering if Jem was similarly prophetic, but down that road lies madness.

And yet, I can't help but admit that this is kinda awesome.

Retinal Chip Helps the Blind to See

Some smart folks in Germany figured out that they could help people with a certain kind of hereditary blindness see by inserting a subretinal implanted chip beneath the retinas of the blind.

One of the patients surprised researchers by identifying and locating objects on a table; he was also able to walk around a room unaided, approach specific people, tell the time from a clock face, and describe seven different shades of gray in front of him.

The particular type of eye disease this alleviates affects 200,000 people worldwide. The chip functions by "[replacing] the retina's cones and rods - its light receptors - which were lost in retinal degeneration."

The down side is that the test worked with 11 subjects; only three of them received any benefits, the others' conditions having progressed too far.

Still, it's a pretty major breakthrough in the fight for vision.

Finger-Licking Ugh

This is mechanically separated chicken.

 

If you've ever eaten a Chicken McNugget, or bought pre-fab chicken nuggets from the grocery store, then you've had some of this before.

It contains:

-All sorts of parts of the chicken people don't normally eat.

-Ammonia (to kill the massive amounts of bacteria).

-Artificial flavouring (hence the pink colour).

Next they'll add food colouring so it doesn't look pink anymore.

For the record, this is also available in beef, turkey, and pork versions.  Pre-fab burgers anyone?

Guys?  Meat shouldn't look like ice cream, guys. 

UPDATE:

Found this video on the topic:

Also this one, which is less catchy but has better visuals:

How To Decipher a CPC Press Release

From here.

On Tuesday, Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, and Christian Paradis, Minister of Natural Resources, released an update on our Government’s economic and fiscal projections – for the first time showing a return to a balanced budget.

...by "balanced budget" they mean "largest deficit in history."

(In the interest of fairness, and to make sure I'm not misleading my readers, this is true in terms of raw numbers. As a percentage of the GDP, though, Mulroney's deficit was larger. So depending on how you look at it, this might only be the second-largest deficit in Canadian history. NOICE!)

With help from Canada’s Economic Action Plan, Canadians are recovering from the economic recession, and getting back on their feet. In fact, since July 2009, our Conservative Government has helped create over 400,000 new jobs across the country.

Notice they don't mention anything about all the jobs that Canada's been bleeding out lately. Nor does it point out how many of those 400,000 jobs are full-time, how many are part-time, and how many are seasonal. I won't go into any spoilers here, but here's a hint: Knowing these things makes that 400,000 figure a lot less impressive.

And while we continue to help Canadians make ends meet, our Government is looking ahead to balanced budgets, and building a strong foundation for future economic growth.

Help Canadians make ends meet... Except for all those Canadians who are unemployed. Or underemployed. Or having trouble with the rising costs of food or education or whatever. But it's not like they count.

Today’s update shows that our Government’s plan is on track. The federal deficit will be lower this year than previously forecasted.

This is really easy to do. I can do it myself, in fact. Watch.

Me: "I predict that I will lose $200 at this casino."

*enters casino, bets $150 at the craps table, loses it all*

Me: "My losses are much less than was previously predicted. Yay me!"

And for the first time since the global recession, we are forecasting a balanced budget.

"Forecasted." This means that they're really, really hoping the economy will grow enough that they can keep doing what they're doing and then, maybe, by 2015, everything will just magically fall into place.

I'm not kidding. 2015 is the year that they're talking about when they say

While Canada is on the right track, our recovery remains fragile. That’s why our primary focus must remain jobs and growth.

*cough* seasonal, part-time jobs... *cough*

Clearly, the Harper Government is helping solidify Canada’s recovery. By contrast, the Ignatieff/ NDP/Bloc-Québécois Coalition plans to raise job-killing taxes such as payroll taxes, by bringing in a 45-day work year. This would halt our recovery in its tracks and, according to experts, kill almost 400,000 jobs.

Ah, yes, the coalition boogeyman.

"Beware the Coalition!  It comes to devour your child-folk!  Ooga-booga!"

 Our Conservative Government will not put the economic recovery in jeopardy.  We will continue to prioritize the economy and the implementation of Canada’s Economic Action Plan.

This is the same Action Plan that I've previously made fun of. Well, aspects of it at least. To be fair, there are significant parts of the CEAP of which I'm in favour, even if I suspect it's not really being implemented in the best way.

* * * * *

By the by, if you're wondering what the 45-day work year this press release was talking about, it's a reference to Bill C-308. This was a Bloc bill that reduced the number of days required to qualify for EI benefits to 45. There's a bit about it here.

That evil coalition obviously doesn't have much of a united front, since Ignatief's Libs killed it.

Said Ignatief:

Ignatieff said upgrades of the EI benefits, an idea he once supported and an issue over which he threatened a year ago to force an election, are too expensive and no longer needed.

Just so's you know how big a shitheel Ignatieff is, when he supported the bill unemployment was at 8.3%. It's currently at 8.1%. WHY YES IGGY THAT IS ONE HUGE POLICY-CHANGING DIFFERENCE THERE.

To this unexpected change of vote, Layton rejoined:

"I guess there's not much room for the unemployed in the big red tent."

Oh, snap!

Another Nation May Back Out of the ACTA

This time it's Mexico.

The ACTA stands for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, basically a bunch of international standards on intellectual property and copyright that's being hammered out by a bunch of different countries - including Canada.  (This is why the Tories want to pass bill C-32, to get us up to snuff with the ACTA should it pass.  This is a topic on which blogger Michael Geist has written at length, and he's far more informed and up-to-date on this issue than I am.  Head over to his blog if you want to educate yourself.)

Thing is, a lot of the nations involved in the negotiations have become less and less keen as time has gone on.  The EU parliament, for example, is making noises that they may ultimately reject the agreement due to a lack of transparency throughout the process, combined with worry about "giving governments a blank cheque to write draconian anti-counterfeiting laws that endanger citizens' fundamental freedoms."  Many have also suggested that some parts of the ACTA have proven to be overly preferential to corporate interests.

And Mexico's now unofficially rejected the ACTA in a non-binding agreement.  Which may amount to nothing, but is more likely an indicator that Mexico's going to make its withdrawal official pretty soon.

Canada's still all up ons, though.  So, congratulations, Canadians!  Our government is now officially more secretive and beholden to corporate interests than Mexico's government.

Earth-2

I thought this was tremendously cool!

And it's only twenty light years away!  On the scale of space, that's practically next door.

Muzzling Federal Scientists

By my own rules, I'm allowed to use Thursdays for pretty much anything I want, so I'm going to share the other thing I wanted to talk about yesterday. As reported in the Calgary Herald, the Harper government doesn't want any federal scientists talking to the media about pesky science-related things:

Natural Resources Canada scientists were told this spring they need “pre-approval” from Minister Christian Paradis’ office to speak with national and international journalists. Their “media lines” also need ministerial approval, say documents obtained by Postmedia News through access-to-information legislation.

So, they're not allowed doing interviews or journal articles that would have national or international coverage without clearing it with their superiors first. Particularly nothing about 13,000 year old floods, oilsands, or climate change.

This is all pretty unprecedented; these are rules no government has ever made for its federal scientists before. Of course, the Harper government claims that this has been policy for years:

“Departmental officials speaking on behalf of the department are to consult the minister’s office in preparing responses,” [acting media relations manager at NRCan] Micheline Joanisse says. “While this may have been misinterpreted as being a new policy, it has been in place for years.”

This is a lie. It's a bald-faced, unequivocal lie. We know it's a lie because not only does it come as a complete shock to the scientists themselves, when asked to be pointed to where this policy was written down or officially announced, they were met with the sound of chirping crickets.

All in all, this is just another example of how the Harper government hates dealing with those pesky "experts" and their "expert opinions." It goes hand-in-hand with the destruction of the census. Stevie's not about good government, he's about maintaining power - like the worst of Cretien's and Mulroney's years put together without any of the good stuff or redeeming features. I know I keep saying stuff to that effect, but that's because it hasn't ceased being true.

Facebook Users Suck

You can read about some interesting research about the sort of people who use Facebook the most over at the Telegraph. I found the opening paragraph rang especially true for me:

The social networking site is a haven for narcissistic people because they can establish a large number of hollow 'friendships' without having to establish a real relationship, a study found.

Reflects my own thoughts on the subject of all things Facebook quite well. Of course, there's an irony here in that I'm considering starting up a Facebook page again - I want a convenient way to stay in touch with my uncle's widow and their daughters. So, I guess the joke's on me?

I really love TED

Whenever I get depressed at how horrible the world is, a visit to TED usually helps cheer me up.

Here's a talk by proud Princeton dropout Seth Priebatsh on turning the world into a game.

It was bound to happen eventually...

...I'm blogging about rats.

Archaeologists have discovered what they think is the largest species of rat that ever lived, with a body weight of six kilograms: 

Carbon dating shows that the biggest rat that ever lived survived until around 1000 to 2000 years ago, along with most of the other Timorese rodents found during the excavation. Only one of the smaller species found is known to survive on Timor today.

Unlike the capybara, this was a true rat of the genus rattus, and was three times the size of the largest rats we know of today. Cool, huh?