Archive for June, 2007
Volunteers needed for a 17 month mission to Mars (kinda)
Jun 21st
The Russians want to run a simulated trip to Mars in order to assess the physiological and psychological effects of being enclosed with 5 other people for 520 days. They are asking for volunteers willing to take part in the simulation which sounds horrible to me.Highlights from the article:
- Once the doors are closed tight, the volunteers will be cut off from all contact with the outside world except by a delayed radio link.
- Communications with the simulated mission control and loved-ones will take up to 40 minutes, the time that a radio signal takes to cross the void between Earth and a spaceship on Mars
- They will get paid 120 euros (158 dollars) a day.
Another article on the South African economy
Jun 21st
The Economist has another article on the South African economy. Although they say things are going well right now, not everything is looking up in the long run.
- Growth has outpaced infrastructural development:
The country’s infrastructure is creaking—roads are overcrowded, cement and refined fuels are having to be imported, and power outages are a growing problem
- They are also concerned about the current-account deficit:
At present the deficit is being funded comparatively easily, but an emerging-markets sell-off—which many analysts believe to be inevitable over the next year—would hit South Africa hard, putting first the rand and then domestic interest rates under pressure.
- The skills deficit is also mentioned as a serious (and worsening) problem. This is especially true in the public sector at all levels.
According to the country’s largest bank, ABSA, managers are battling to cope with “severe shortages of skilled labour and production capacity constraints”
Several factors are mentioned as contributing to the skills shortage but emigration is specifically talked about.
The South African Institute of Race Relations estimates that some 850,000 whites have left the country since 1995, reducing the white population (which, for historical reasons, is still the most skilled segment) to around 4.3m people from more than 5m a decade ago. ABSA believes that “the vast majority” of those who have left the country—or are contemplating doing so—are skilled people between the ages of 20 and 40. This white exodus is being compounded, according to the bank, by the increasing emigration of mixed-race, Asian and black professionals, especially from the public sector, which is losing medical, technical and engineering skills very rapidly.
Dial 555 for TV/Movies/etc
Jun 21st
Have you ever noticed that whenever they mention a phone number in movies or TV the number starts with 555? According Wikipedia many 555 numbers are reserved specifically for this purpose.
Here is a site dedicated to collecting the 555 phone numbers of different TV and movies characters. It is “mind-numbingly comprehensive”.
Here are some examples:
- Frasier’s Radio Show: 555-KACL
- Ghostbusters: 555-2020
- Jerry Seinfeld: 555-2390
- Homer Simpson (work): 555-7334
Baby jumping
Jun 21st
National Geographic has this short article about a festival during which people line their babies up to have men jump over them.
El Salto del Colacho, Spanish for “the devil’s jump,” is said to cleanse the babies of the “original sin” of conception and protect them from illness. The babies, born in the last twelve months, are dressed in their best clothes and laid on mattresses in the streets. Men dressed as devils, often carrying whips and truncheons, jump over babies by the dozen.
MMOG – massively multiplayer online games
Jun 19th
MMOG‘s are becoming increasingly popular and although I have never played one, I find them extremely interesting.
An MMOG is a game that is always running and can be joined by hundreds (or often thousand) of players at once. The developers create a persistent online world which players can enter. When you subscribe to one of these games you get an online character (an avatar) which represents you in the online world. A lot of people spend a lot of time (and money) developing these avatars – check this one out.
Then any time you want to play, you can move around in the online world, interact with thousands of other players (all represented by real people) and try to achieve whatever the goals of that game are. For instance in World War II Online there are constantly updated front lines as thousands of players do battle in a virtual Europe.
I think this is extremely cool, because whole worlds populated by (mostly) real people exist on the internet. Whole economies (often linked to the real economy) and societies develop. For instance Second Life
“has its own economy and a currency referred to as Linden Dollars (L$). Though the exchange rate fluctuates, as of February 2007 it is reasonably stable at around L$ 270 to one US dollar.”
These companies make a lot of money too. World of Warcraft has more than 8 million subscribers which at $15 a month turns into monthly revenue of $120 million!
There is just so much to say about all this – but not here (I want to go home!).
Here is a link to a NY Times photo collection of real people and their online avatars. Some interesting combos.
Don’t forget about shared links
Jun 19th
When I’m too busy to post (like yesterday and probably today) I still often share posts that I read in Google Reader. You can easily check them out by following the “shared articles” link under blogroll on the right of this page.
Most mornings I scan through articles using Google Reader, and if I see anything interesting I flag it for sharing. This is quick and easy for me, so I do it on most days.
Pics of the work we put in just after moving
Jun 15th
Unpacking all of our stuff was a real mission. All in, the move was a big job that stretched over quite a lot of time. You think you’ll just pack up and move, but it actually takes ages to get done.
Anyway, thank heavens for Ida who really helped a lot. Here are some pics.
Some people waste a lot of time
Jun 15th
You know that game in the arcades where you have to throw the ball through the hoop? Basically a mini-basketball game. You know the one.
Well this guys must be the world champ at that game. He is incredible! I don’t know how he picks the balls up so quickly without looking.
The red tar road
Jun 15th
This is a photo and article about a road in the states that was died red after:
A tractor trailer carrying dye intended for mulch deposited some of its cargo on the highway after the load shifted.
Apparently the dye was easily washed off of the cars (the local car wash made some good money) and came off of the road pretty quickly too.
I can think of two places in Cape Town where paint spills have marked the road for years. I actually quite like coming around the corner and seeing the paint – it reminds me of good times.
Bionic eye
Jun 14th
This Economist article is about a technology being developed which can restore some sight to people who are blind. In a certain type of blindness, the nerve that takes information from the eye to the brain is OK, it’s just the cells on the retina which collect light that are problematic.
The researchers implanted a chip with basically a digital camera in it and connected the chip to the patient’s optical nerve. There are only 1240 sensors on the chip compared to the 120 million in a healthy eye, but results were still exciting:
“Patients reported being able to distinguish between dark walls and a light window, and a dark table and white plates. The image was coarse compared with normal vision because of the small number of pixels, and the patients did not see fully in colour, although they reported being able to distinguish white, grey and yellow tones. Nevertheless, enough sight was restored to make a difference to each of the volunteers’ lives.”
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