Author: KcM

And Thanks For All the Fish.


“At first, divers will play back one of eight “words” coined by the team to mean “seaweed” or “bow wave ride”, for example. The software will listen to see if the dolphins mimic them. Once the system can recognise these mimicked words, the idea is to use it to crack a much harder problem: listening to natural dolphin sounds and pulling out salient features that may be the ‘fundamental units’ of dolphin communication.“

As it happens, the iPad wasn’t the only modern technology predicted by Douglas Adams. Researchers at Georgia Tech and the Wild Dolphin Project develop a machine that will (hopefully) speak dolphin — or at least speak at dolphins. Says a skeptic: “‘Imagine if an alien species landed on Earth wearing elaborate spacesuits and walked through Manhattan speaking random lines from The Godfather to passers-by.’”

Still a Hoopy Frood.


“I suppose earlier generations had to sit through all this huffing and puffing with the invention of television, the phone, cinema, radio, the car, the bicycle, printing, the wheel and so on, but you would think we would learn the way these things work, which is this:

1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;

2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;

3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.“

In remembrance of Douglas Adams, ten years after his untimely passing: His 1999 essay, “How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet” (although I think he too would have despised the term “webinar.”) If only he lived to see the actual, honest-to-goodness Hitchhiker’s Guides! (Pic via here, which also tells the story of Adams’ lost Doctor Who episodes.)

The Lost Generation.

“The outlook isn’t sunshine and roses: Rick Raymond, of the College Parents of America, notes, ‘Graduates are not the first to be hired when the job markets begins to improve. We’re seeing shocking numbers of people with undergraduates degrees who can’t get work.'”

According to a new poll conducted by Twentysomething, a whopping 85% of college grads are moving back in with their parents after graduation. They’re also facing the worst job market on record and holding a record amount of college debt.

In other words, it’s crisis time. Should we ramp up government spending and fashion 21st-century versions of jobs programs like the CCC, WPA, and NYA? Or should we cut public sector jobs and just concentrate on lowering corporate taxes? hey, Win the Future™ and all that.

Lenny Bruce is Not Afraid.


“According to the biblical passage 2 Peter 3:8, ‘one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.’ Therefore, argues Camping, Rapture should occur 7,000 years after the Flood. And the 7,000th anniversary of the biblical deluge, by his math, falls on May 21, 2011.“

The signs have been all over DC: Now, Salon‘s Peter looks into exactly why the world ends at 6pm next Saturday, May 21st. (Memo to myself: Stock up on Balance Bars.) And why is it, exactly? Well, it’s been 13,023 years since the world began, apparently, and “Five means ‘atonement.’ Ten indicates ‘completeness.’ And 17 signifies ‘heaven.’ Thus: Armageddon.” Well, it’s hard to fault the math. (Pic via here.)

This Will Be a Day Long Remembered.


“Obi-Wan Kenobi ‘s demise is a defining moment in the stormtrooper-led fight against terrorism, a symbolic stroke affirming the relentlessness of the pursuit of those who turned against the Empire at the end of the Clone Wars. What remains to be seen, however, is whether it galvanizes Kenobi’s followers by turning him into a martyr or serves as a turning of the page in the war against the Rebel Alliance and gives further impetus to Emperor Palpatine to step up Stormtrooper recruitment.“

After twenty years, we finally got him: Obi-Wan Kenobi is dead. “When the end came for Kenobi, he was found not in the remote uncharted areas of Wild Space and the Unknown Regions, where he has long been presumed to be sheltered, but in a massive compound about an hour’s drive west from the Tatooine capital of Bestine. He had been living under the alias ‘Ben’ Kenobi for some time.“

It’s Not Easy Being Green.


“Park officials initially exposed Lonesome George to random female tortoises, praying for a spark. But he showed little interest in the ladies that spent stints in his hilly, shrub-covered pen. He had a voracious appetite, and for years caretakers fed him generously, which possibly kept him from being more active during what should have been his sexual peak. ‘He was overweight,’ said Flanagan, the vet. ‘He had little or no interest because he was not fit.’“

But has he tried OkCupid? By way of Mother Jones, the Post reports in on the so-far fruitless attempts to get Lonesome George, the last Pinta turtle of his kind, to mate. “‘He’s getting to know them,’ Llerena said. ‘Lately he seems more animated.’ The females spend most of their time on the opposite side of the pen, but Llerena said he hasn’t lost hope.”

The Dogs of War.


“Dogs have been fighting alongside U.S. soldiers for more than 100 years, seeing combat in the Civil War and World War I. But their service was informal; only in 1942 were canines officially inducted into the U.S. Army. Today, they’re a central part of U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan — as of early 2010 the U.S. Army had 2,800 active-duty dogs deployed (the largest canine contingent in the world).“

With word that a canine supertrooper helped to take down Bin Laden, Foreign Policy‘s Rebecca Frankel lets slip the dogs of war. (But don’t believe everything you read about titanium teeth. Also, in the interest of equal time, here are the kittehs.)

Mission Accomplished.


“For over two decades, bin Laden has been al Qaeda’s leader and symbol, and has continued to plot attacks against our country and our friends and allies. The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al Qaeda. Yet his death does not mark the end of our effort. There’s no doubt that al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must — and we will — remain vigilant at home and abroad.“

So, yes, as you may have heard, we finally found Osama Bin Laden, fulfilling a key promise President Obama made during the 2008 campaign. While I would have preferred to see the perpetrator of 9/11 captured alive and brought to trial — cause that’s how we do justice here in the US of A — congrats to the president’s team, the analysts who did the hard work, and the men and women who executed the operation, on finally getting their man.

All that being said, the second half of the president’s statement above is troubling. The death of Bin Laden should mark the beginning of the end of the 9/11 decade. With the splinter finally removed, it is time to take a long hard look not just at our continuing war in Afghanistan — after all, Osama was eventually found in Pakistan, mainly through what the Bunk would call good po-lice work — but at all the questionable and/or extra-constitutional actions we have taken in the name of fighting the terr’ists since September 11th. (Newsflash: Torture had nothing to do with capturing OBL.) If the death of Bin Laden doesn’t move us to this reconsideration, what then ever will?

Unfortunately (and of course), that doesn’t seem to be what’s happening. Instead, Congress is laying the foundation for a wider war: “Contained in the National Defense Authorization Act for 2012 is a new authorization to use military force that would grant the executive branch the power to ‘address the continuing and evolving threat posed by these groups.’ In practice, that means the president could use military force against any suspected terrorist across the globe — indefinitely.“

Indefinite war? No thanks. There’s been an eerie touch of Emmanuel Goldstein in the way Bin Laden was used to justify all manner of extraconstitutional actions and civil liberties violations under Dubya — actions that have been ratified and continued under Obama. Now that the Bogeyman is dead, it’s time to stand down. It’s time to start acting like America again.

A Qward-er Hour of Science.


“The ALPHA team want to keep antimatter intact long enough to study it, so last year they worked out how to hold a cloud of antihydrogen in a magnetic trap. Not for long, though: collisions with trace gases would have either annihilated the anti-atoms or given them the energy to escape, so the team opened the trap after 170 milliseconds and observed the resulting annihilations, verifying that antimatter had been made.“

Building on the LHC’s success last November, scientists in Geneva, Switzerland manage to trap anti-matter for a full sixteen minutes, 10,000 times longer than ever before. “This time around, they used the same method but also cooled the antiprotons used to create the antihydrogen, which lowered the energy of the antimatter,but increased the chance that more could be collected.“