Read at Work is a clever website that takes public domain stories, and wraps them in a flash interface that simulates Windows XP and PowerPoint. Want to read at work without opening a book? This is a pretty funny way to do it.
Archive for May, 2008
A new study from a Swedish medical university has found that the death rate for golfers is 40 per cent lower than for other people of the same sex, age and socioeconomic status, which correspond to a 5 year increase in life expectancy. We all know what this means — 5 more years of golf.
Amazon Indians from one of the world’s last uncontacted tribes have been photographed from the air, with images released showing them painted bright red and brandishing bows and arrows.
The photographs, taken by Survival International near the border between Brazil and Peru, are rare evidence that such groups exist. [via Reuters]
Survival International is a group that works toward the protection of tribal people worldwide. They estimate that there are more than 100 uncontacted tribes remaining in the world today (with about half living in Brazil and Peru), but their numbers and safety are constantly under threat from illegal logging in their ancestral lands.
There are numerous islands in New Guinea that have yet to be explored and experts estimate there could be as many as 44 tribes living there. In 1984 a group of Pintupi people who were living a traditional hunter-gatherer desert-dwelling life were tracked down in the Gibson Desert in Western Australia and made contact for the first time with European-Australian society.
The term ‘uncontacted’ is used loosely as few peoples have remained totally uncontacted by modern civilization, but a number have chosen to make contact either exceedingly difficult or dangerous (wikipedia). It’s still an amazing thought to know there are pockets of humanity living with little or no knowledge of our modern world; with all our planes, and cars, and computers, and plumbing, and grocery stores, and any number of gadgets most of us cling to for ‘survival’. Survival International has some interesting articles and video coated in a healthy layer of guilt and alarmist statements.
Wired posts an article that discusses why we still accept signatures by fax for various transactions, despite the ease of forging a signature. It’s pretty easy to cut and paste (with real scissors and glue) a signature onto a document, or electronically on a computer which can in turn fax the document directly.
Colleagues at Stanford, and the Max-Planck Institute Informatik in Saarbrücken, Germany, claim to have made software accurate enough to capture the full 3D movement of a person’s body without markers.
The new method begins the creation of a 3D digital clone of the actor using a laser scanner. Eight cameras then capture their movements from different angles as they act the scene. Their recording of the person’s movement is then analysed to animate the 3D clone.
Looks pretty good to me. This should provide a quantum leap in the quality of motion capture based movies — now if they can only get the animators to make the characters less creepy (ie. The Polar Express).
I hadn’t taken a good daytime look at the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal extension to the Royal Ontario Museum in downtown Toronto. I’m not sure how I feel about it. When you look at only the extension it doesn’t look ugly, and it is definitely unique. When you look at it from a distance it looks like a mysterious growth protruding from a perfectly good building. I’m sure it will grown on me, and perhaps one day the majority of people will grow to like it.
There have been numerous similar extensions of new on old in the city, and around the world, and I think the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal at the ROM rates at the low end. The Allen Lambert Galleria at Brookfield Place (formally BCE Place) is well done, and the Pyramid at The Louvre in Paris is beautiful. I guess only time will tell about the Toronto Crystal.
For the first time scientists have been able to photograph the assembly of a virus, in this case HIV. The technique should be applicable to almost any cell, and provides a whole new set of information for research. Photos of the cell are available at the link above.
140 grams of cannabis was planted in an unknown passengers baggage during a drug-sniffing dog exercise, but the dog couldn’t find the bag, and security lost track of which bag they used. Airport staff has asked anyone who finds the package to please return it. I’m more shocked by the fact that they plant drugs in passenger baggage as part of training dogs. Is that legal?
Recently declassified information indicates that the Titanic was found thanks to money for a classified Navy project. In exchange for finding and examining two sunken nuclear submarines the team was given money to search for the Titanic.
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