Scientists Fix Bugs In Our Understanding Of Evolution

What makes a human different from a chimp? Researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory’s European Bioinformatics Institute [EMBL-EBI] have come one important step closer to answering such evolutionary questions correctly. In the current issue of Science they uncover systematic errors in existing methods that compare genetic sequences of different species to learn about their evolutionary relationships.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080619142102.htm

NBC to provide 2008 Complete Olympics Online – but only for two versions of Vista!

I don’t understand what’s going on at NBC, they are investing in some serious infrastructure to make this happen, but then they limit it so a small percentage of users?

http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=17&artnum=2&issue=20080623

Forgotten Intel Patent Paves the Way for Ultra-Fast Processing

I’ve worked with computers for 28 years, and I’ve spent many years following the trends and staying on top of new developments to keep my home servers and workstations at peak performance.  I found the race less interesting over time, but this article my brother  passed long peaked my interest.  Intel found a way to integrate DRAM onto the L2 cache using only two transistors and no capacitors, and they run with blazingly fast throughput.  Current chip technology uses SRAM which typically uses 6 transistors to store a single bit.  SRAM currently has about 8-20GB/S throughput, whereas the new DRAM method can get up to about 204BG/S throughput. That’s an order of magnitude increase in processing, and could virtually eliminate cache misses, which will revolutionize the efficiency of each CPU clock.   Read more here: http://www.tgdaily.com/html_tmp/content-view-38009-135.html 

Technorati tags: CPU, Intel, DRAM, memory, cool, Technology, Administrator

Key to Optical Illusions Discovered

It takes about a tenth of a second for what we see to register in our brains, and our brains  compensate for this delay by predicting the immediate future.  Optical Illusions allow us to see some of the processing that happens when we are trying to predict the future.  http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/080602-foresee-future.html

New Treatment For Rheumatoid Arthritis Leaves 50 Percent Of Recent Onset Patients Symptom-free Within 36 Weeks

It’s not often you see a clinical study with such impressive results.  This is welcome news for 2.1 million folks in the United States alone.   Read more here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080611135043.htm

New AVG Anti-virus software Hammers Internet with additional Traffic

About two months ago, I upgraded my client to the new version of AVG.  I’ve used this product for several years, mostly because it’s free.  I had some annoying issues with the free version because of an incompatibility with Vista’s new security method where session 0 is no longer available.  The console session in XP was Session 0, but in Vista it is the context only services run under.  The purpose is to isolate the user’s GUI from services that may be malicious.  The user now logs into session 1.  Services that need to pop-up messages to the user would just send the command to draw a pop-up message to the same session that it runs under (service account.)  In Vista with SP1 (yes, the initial release of Vista is sp1), they have “allowed’ services to send messages to console session 0 still, but it causes a pop-up stating there is an application that is trying to display a message.  You have to click on the window, and Vista switches the view to Console 0 session so that you can interact with the service.  AVG pop-ups for virus definition installation summary in 7.5 attempted to display summary and caused these interruptions, which was annoying weekly ritual.  Note that in the next service pack Microsoft has stated they will no longer provide this functionality; we will have to wait and see.  Remote control switches have changed for console sessions as well.

I had hoped V8.x would fix this, and it did. But it also seemed bloated to me.  I noticed that in my searches there were circles spinning as soon as I got results.  I quickly tracked it down to the new AVG link scanner.  It is supposed to check if a link is safe before you click on it.  That was annoying as hell to me because it was taking system resources, and was touching all these sites without my authority.    I went into the AVG control panel and disabled the feature.  I wondered how much additional traffic this was causing, and if it was going to throw off Google’s search / link tracking.  It turns out at least the former is true.  Wired noticed a significant increase in traffic to their site; read more about this here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/13/avg_scanner_skews_web_traffic_numbers/

Technorati tags: AVG, internet traffic, not cool

Probe to be Sent to the closest Star – The Sun

In what I would have guessed would happen 10 years ago, NASA has finally decided to take a closer look at the Sun.  NASA hopes to gather info to help answer at least two mysteries:  Why is the sun’s atmosphere hotter than the surface, and how does solar wind get it’s strength since near the surface there is little to no winds.  Read more here: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/10jun_solarprobe.htm?list1065474

42 – The Answer to Life and Everything AND …

.. it’s how long it would take to travel from one side to another if you could dig a hole between any two points on earth and ride a vehicle powered only by gravity!  Who knew Douglas knew so much?

Varying Impact of Gas Prices

With the rising prices of gas, I am wondering at what point there will be a major change in traveling habits.  I hear lots of folks talking about not driving for vacation, but other than that there doesn’t seem to be much change.   I ran across a website that shows the varying impact of gas prices such as:

• Percentage of income directly spent on gas
• Gas Prices
• Median income

These are shown on a map of the U.S. and they show the hot spots of impact:http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/06/09/business/20080609_GAS_GRAPHIC.html#tab1

 

A twist on Technology to create music

James Houston, a grad student from Glasgow School of Art, used an old Epson LX-86 printer, HP scanjet 4c scanner, hard drives, and computers to recreate Radiohead’s song “Nude.”   Keep in mind the first 70 seconds are simply the old sinclair pc loading the “song.”  Check it out: http://www.vimeo.com/1109226?pg=embed&sec=1109226

Wall-Paint animation

I’ve seen BLU’s work before, and although a little disturbing at first, you have to wonder how much effort goes into these short films.  It’s about 6 minutes long and worth checking out:http://vimeo.com/993998 

Windows Live Writer updated

If you blog, you should check out the new version of Windows Live Writer.  It added several new features and the startup is much quicker.  Read more here: http://blogcastrepository.com/blogs/external_news/archive/2008/06/02/windows-live-writer-technical-preview-released.aspx

Find the Difference : the Sequel

This is art and a game in one and is a Sequel to the original. I really enjoyed both the game play, the moving art, and the music.  The two interactive photos have 6 slight differences.  You test your skill at clicking on each of them before a new puzzle is presented.  

http://www.kongregate.com/games/Ivory/6-differences 

Original Puzzle: (http://presson.wordpress.com/2007/10/28/find-the-differences-game-with-animated-scenes/)