Category Archives: Uncategorized

World record Zambezi shark caught in the Brede River

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The front page of the Cape Times today detailed a story about a world record Zambezi shark being caught 5.5km up the Brede River. I did a bit of Googling and found more information and pictures:

  • At over 4m long this is the largest Zambezi shark ever caught anywhere – a world record
  • The researchers were looking for sharks in the river after reports and rumors that they were in the Brede
  • After hooking the shark they were towed 2km further upstream before they could drag her onto the shore for tagging
  • She was tagged and tracked over the next 43 hours. She spent most time in the estuary with only short periods in the surf

Awesome stuff. You can get more information from this article

Brede River Zambezi Shark

Brede River Zambezi Shark

Why people procrastinate

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The Economist has this article reviewing experimental results that suggest people are more likely to procrastinate when given abstract tasks:

  • Concrete tasks = Act on time
  • Abstract tasks = More likely to procrastinate

The experiments
Three individual experiments were used to test the hypothesis. In each experiment test subjects were offered a reward (a few dollars) to complete a task within 3 weeks. Half were given a concrete task and the other half an abstract task.

The results
In all of the experiments the researchers found that those given concrete tasks were:

  1. Quicker to respond
  2. Far more likely to respond at all

Interpretation
The article itself doesn’t include much in the way of interpretation. I would think it quite obvious.

  • Concrete tasks: If you have confidence in what is required and that the task won’t change then it pays to get on with it
  • Abstract tasks: However, if the requirement is unclear and might change then it pays to hold out. If you get going you may do the wrong thing or the requirement might change.

procrastination-payoff

Visualization of the credit crunch eating banks

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UPDATE: A friend pointed out that this illustration is in fact a dishonest misrepresentation of the figures. If it really is from Bloomberg then I am shocked!

He noticed that the illustration uses the diameter of the circles to illustrate the relative market caps. In other words the height of each circle represents the market cap – not the area (size) of the circle.

This is a problem because we naturally compare the sizes (areas) of the circles. However, if you double the height of a circle you actually increase the area of the circle four times!

To see what I mean consider the graph below of the shrink in JP Morgan’s market cap. On the left is the original graph with diameter representing market cap. On the right is the correct graph showing market cap as area.

This shows clearly why the original graph is so shockingly bad. Could be a mistake, but I doubt it.

showing-the-effect

I recently received this graphic view of the massive shrinks in the market caps of major global banks. The source is supposedly J.P. Morgan via Bloomberg, but I can’t vouch for its accuracy.

Click for a larger version.

banks-market-cap-thumb

Economist analysis of the Obama innauguration speech

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There are many analyses of Obama’s inauguration speech out there. Predictably, I like the one from The Economist. You can read the transcript of the speech here.

On the tone of the speech:

  • The speech was sobering rather than celebratory or inspirational
  • “By choosing to talk of hardships and sacrifice, the new president has begun the work of preparing voters for prolonged economic malaise, among other difficulties”
  • The tone of the speech also made sense politically: “it was shrewd to emphasise just how dreadful a mess he is inheriting from his predecessor”

On the environment and energy:

  • He stated the need to make use of renewable/cleaner energy sources
  • He wants to restore science to its rightful place

On foreign policy:

  • He rejected the false choice between safety and democratic ideals. In other words no more torture and dodgy “Bush” business in the name of national security
  • He reached out to the Muslim world: “we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”

We will restore science to its rightful place

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I liked Barack’s inauguration speech. It wasn’t as inspiring as expected, but what he said had real substance and was the kind of stuff that I wanted to hear. From what I’ve seen so far (not much) he is going to be a president I’ll like.

My favorite line?

“We will restore science to its rightful place”

I love it. After 8 years of Bush’s ideological and political meddling in science and science related policy this is something that I really, really wanted to hear.

Great collection of Bushisms

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George W BushGeorge W Bush may or not be a complete idiot. Surely you can’t actually get through Yale and become president if you really are a moron?

But he definitely has said some idiotic things over his 8 years as president. The BBC has this awesome collection of ‘Bushisms’. Very funny.

Here are some of my favorites.

  • “The war on terror involves Saddam Hussein because of the nature of Saddam Hussein, the history of Saddam Hussein, and his willingness to terrorise himself.”
  • “I think war is a dangerous place.”
  • “The vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world. And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice.”
  • “Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”
  • “You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.”
  • “It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it.”
  • “Information is moving. You know, nightly news is one way, of course, but it’s also moving through the blogosphere and through the Internets.”
  • “I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.” – I love this one! I wish it were true… But that’s another blog

Atheist Bus Campaign

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Recently in London an evangelical Christian group ran a campaign of bus adverts for their website which claims that: all non-Christians will burn in hell for eternity.

Don’t be shocked. This is of course what should be believed by those who take the bible literally. (If you don’t then what makes you think you can pick and choose which parts you like!)

In response a British writer (Ariane Sherine) launched a campaign to run a positive ‘atheist’ bus campaign. The public pledged over £140,000 in support and now that campaign is a serious reality.

Buses all over Britain now display this message:

Atheist Bus Campaign

Nice. I like it. Catchy, friendly. Good stuff.

There has been quite a lot of debate about the use of the word “probably”. They went with “probably” because

  1. They wanted to keep the campaign light-hearted.
  2. More importantly atheists shouldn’t say that there is no God – you can’t prove that. They say there is “almost certainly no God” – which isn’t quite as catchy.

You can learn more on the campaign website FAQ or on the Wikipedia article

Wind power: not the solution

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wind-millsThe Economist has a long article on the history and details of wind power over the years. Using the wind to generate electricity is beloved of greens because it produces little or no pollution. However, I have never had a good feeling about wind power as a solution.

Here are some of the reasons that I feel wind isn’t the way to go.

1. Not the final solution
Wind energy on Earth is vast, but not unlimited. According to a study quoted in the article wind-energy potential is only 5 times global energy demand. So even if all wind energy was captured (wind turbines all over Earth) we wouldn’t have a solution to meet substantial energy demand growth.

2. I don’t like wind turbines
Wind turbines are massive, expensive, noisy, and damaging to birds (okay that is a little tenuous). In order to make significant inroads into our energy requirements enormous numbers of the beasts would be required. It doesn’t seem like an elegant solution. They are also too expensive to be economical.

3. Winds are irregular and in the wrong places
Not only do you need to find a location for the turbines, but they need to be where the winds are. That is often not where (and when) the winds are so you need to build huge transmission networks to the middle of nowhere.

Conclusion – wind power isn’t the way to go
I just don’t believe that wind power is going to solve our problems. I really like the idea of personal turbines (especially in windy Vredehoek) but wind power is not the solution to the energy crisis!

I believe that solar power is the ultimate solution, but until then nuclear energy is definitely the way to go. Proven technology, not too dangerous, green, economical. Nuclear is the way to go.

TV can’t represent all visible colors

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gamutDo you know what “the gamut” is? Until I read this article on laser digital-cinema projectors I didn’t either.

Apparently “the gamut” is the range of colors visible to the human eye.

Modern TV sets can only produce about 50% of the colors that we are able to see! Traditional cinema film comes in at 60% of visible colors – a big improvement but with plenty of room for further improvement.

The image alongside shows a representation of the gamut and the subsets of that space that we routinely see. There are plenty of colors that can’t be represented on our screens.

The article discusses an ingenious system using laser film projectors that is able to produce images with up to 90% of the gamut. Very cool – I can’t wait to watch a movie using that system.

Internet traffic statistics

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This is an Economist article about whether the internet can survive rocketing traffic or not. It argues (well) that in fact infrastructure easily keeps up with increasing traffic requirements.

However, there were quite a few cool facts and statistics peppered around the article:

  • YouTube alone generated more traffic in 2006 than the entire internet in 2000! Imagine what it’s like now…
  • It is estimated that 50-60% of all internet traffic today is video. That has already been the case for three years
  • Global internet traffic is between 5 and 8 exabytes. An exabyte is 1 billion (1,000,000,000) gigabytes!

That’s a lot of 1’s and 0’s. It’s going to be fun