Category: Things that matter

And it shall be called “Mr. Fusion”

Take garbage. Dump it in a big, scary-looking contraption. Ignite it with a high-powered arc of electricity. ???? Profit!!!

Shades of Dr. Emmett Brown’s Mr. Fusion only larger, this plasma convertor created by work done over 2 decades by Joseph Longo promises to turn garbage into plasma. It also generates more power output than it takes in from the power grid. This is no perpetual motion machine – it doesn’t generate greater power from nothing. It burns trash via very high power electrical zaps (that’s a technical term), firing up to around 30,000 degrees fahrenheit, using the heat from burning trash to generate more energy than it takes to burn the trash.

popsci-longo_main_485.jpg It sounds as if someone just dropped a tricycle into a meat grinder. I’m sitting inside a narrow conference room at a research facility in Bristol, Connecticut, chatting with Joseph Longo, the founder and CEO of Startech Environmental Corporation. As we munch on takeout Subway sandwiches, a plate-glass window is the only thing separating us from the adjacent lab, which contains a glowing caldera of plasma three times as hot as the surface of the sun. Every few minutes there��s a horrific clanking noise-grinding followed by a thunderous voomp, like the sound a gas barbecue makes when it first ignites.

“Is it supposed to do that”� I ask Longo nervously. “Yup,” he says. “That’s normal.��

Continue reading “And it shall be called “Mr. Fusion””

Give your Mrs. some games

I’m sure the cause and effect tie in won’t actually work out to reward you for getting that special someone in your life into gaming if she isn’t already, but there is a good reason to seek out the gamer chixx0rz if you are currently unattached.

According to a survey conducted by Gametart, a game rental service in the UK, chicks who game get more lovin’ than those who don’t. Out of a sample of 200 ladies (or should that be “laid-ees”?), the ones who gamed got, erm, fragged 1.1 more times a week than those who didn’t.

. . .

Of our sample of 200 women, those who played video games on average had sex 4.3 times a week while those who didn’t play games only had sex just 3.2 times a week.

Although I have to go on record here as saying I’d be happy with even the 3.2 times a week model. I can wait to upgrade to the 4.3 times a week later. I’m not as young as I used to be. Although I’ll try if I can sample 200 women…

[tags]Gamer chicks get the goods more often, Get a gamer-babe in your life to get more in bed[/tags]

blogHillary is GO!

Now you can keep up to date with all things Hillary through blogHillary.

Welcome to the campaign’s new blog. I’m Crystal Patterson, and I’ll be blogging for the campaign as Hillary travels around the country meeting all of you and sharing her vision for America. I was the one asking your questions during Hillary’s live webcasts (if you missed them, you can watch them here). I look forward to getting to know all of you as the campaign moves forward, and to hearing your ideas, stories, questions, and opinions.

. . .

Let the conversation begin!

I’m working my way through all 100+ comments, but am too early in to say how visitors are settling in. And apologies for the “… is GO!” gaming reference in the title. I just couldn’t think of anything that fit.

[tags]blogHillary is live, Read Hillary Clinton’s new blog[/tags]

Oooops. Crap. Now we might have a cancer cure

A serendipitous moment that was almost missed by the discoverer.

Her carefully cultured cells were dead and Katherine Schaefer was annoyed, but just a few minutes later, the researcher realized she had stumbled onto a potential new cancer treatment.

. . .

Schaefer was looking for drugs to treat the inflammation seen in Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, both of which cause pain and diarrhea.

She was testing a compound called a PPAR-gamma modulator. It would never normally have been thought of as a cancer drug, or in fact a drug of any kind.

“I made a calculation error and used a lot more than I should have. And my cells died,” Schaefer said.

A colleague overheard her complaining. “The co-author on my paper said,’ Did I hear you say you killed some cancer?’ I said ‘Oh’, and took a closer look.”

They ran several tests and found the compound killed ”pretty much every epithelial tumor cell lines we have seen,” Schaefer said. Epithelial cells line organs such as the colon, and also make up skin.

It also killed colon tumors in mice without making the mice sick, they reported in the journal International Cancer Research.

So, let’s see what further research and testing bring out of this.  The article makes it sound like something similar already exists and has limited success, but perhaps further research can make something good happen with this.  Since my father died from cancer, anything that decreases cancer lethality interests me. (via /.)

[tags]Potential cancer treatment found via serendipity[/tags]

Kodak looks to churn up the inkjet printer market with substantially reduced ink prices

Assuming the printers perform as well as Kodak says, this new printer product line from Kodak should drop prices significantly from what current consumer printers offer.

Eastman Kodak Company (NYSE: EK) today entered the consumer inkjet industry with a revolutionary new product line for the home.

KODAK EASYSHARE All-in-One Printers will enable consumers to affordably print crisp, sharp documents and KODAK lab-quality photos at home using premium, pigment-based inks that will save consumers up to 50 percent on everything they print. The three new printers provide ultimate levels of print quality and ease-of-use, while offering low total cost of ownership compared to other leading consumer inkjet printers on the market.

. . .

The KODAK EASYSHARE AiO Printers use Kodak’s premium, pigment-based ink, priced at $9.99 for a cartridge of black ink and $14.99 for a five-ink color cartridge (US MSRP). For every $15 spent on color ink and $10 spent on black ink, consumers can print the same number of pages at half the cost of other consumer inkjet printers.When the KODAK Photo Value Pack is purchased, a 4 x 6-inch photo costs as little as 10 cents per print.

So all that remains is real world testing and reviews to see if the print quality stands up as well as consumables testing to verify similar printable pages/photos per cartridge as compared with competitors. If this is as good as Kodak says, I’m sure HP, Epson, and others will not be happy about legitimate price competition. Fuck ’em, I say. Competition is good for us, and I’m tired of paying $35 for a single color ink cartridge.

[tags]Kodak looking to shake up consumer inkjet market, New printer line from Kodak with low-price ($10) cartridges[/tags]

Amazing news on the cancer research front

If you spend a lot of the time reading news on the web, keep up with the newspaper, or watch the news regularly on television, you have probably already heard some about the potential new cancer treatment via dichloroacetate (DCA). DCA is a long used compound previously known for combating mitochondrial diseases. It also is known to have very few and mild side-effects. This could be huge in treating cancer.

dichloroacetate.jpgDr. Evangelos Michelakis, a professor at the U of A Department of Medicine, has shown that dichloroacetate (DCA) causes regression in several cancers, including lung, breast and brain tumors.

Michelakis and his colleagues, including post-doctoral fellow Dr. Sebastian Bonnet, have published the results of their research in the journal Cancer Cell.

DCA functions by normalizing the behavior of mitochondria. Cancer has been known to alter the effects of mitochondria, and the belief has long been that this damage was permanent. The testing Dr. Michelakis has done shows that at least for some cancers, this is not true.


Continue reading “Amazing news on the cancer research front”

Beware unknown Excel spreadsheets

Microsoft has announced that there is, unfortunately, another currently unpatched exploit in Excel.

In its security bulletin, Microsoft warned that “other Office applications are potentially vulnerable” to the zero-day flaw.

Zero-day refers to a flaw for which there is an exploit but no available fix. The Excel vulnerability is Microsoft’s fifth zero-day exploit since December, and part of an increasingly troubling trend.

The zero-day flaw affects Office versions 2000, XP, 2003 and 2004 for the Mac, but not 2007 or Works 2004, 2005 or 2006.

That means don’t open any Excel spreadsheets that you don’t know and trust the source if you are using any of the vulnerable versions.  In related news – if you aren’t already aware, there is a similarly troublesome exploit available for Microsoft Word.  While it is fun to pick on Microsoft, note that this problem is a nearly unavoidable result of increasingly complex software.  Even some of the best known security software and networking tools have had security vulnerabilities in the past.

[tags]Exploit out for Excel, Microsoft Word vulnerability, Secure software is tough – just ask Microsoft (and others)[/tags]

Border agents shoot Mexican drug runner, face jail time – but should they?

This news is a few weeks old, but I’ve been so busy with some other projects that I’m behind in a lot of postings that I’d like to get out. As the healine indicates, the basic bit of this story is that two border patrol agents shot Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, a Mexican drug runner, in the back, and are now serving time for violating Davila’s civil rights. There is apparently quite a bit of grassroots support for freeing the agents, typically with some variant of a “They should not be imprisoned for doing their job/defending our borders” as the reason. I will admit that I don’t see why these men should be imprisoned for doing their jobs, but there is a bit of murkiness to the affair that makes it not so clear cut.

Compean and Ramos were found guilty in a jury trial of violating the civil rights of Osvaldo Aldrete Davila when they shot him in Fabens, Texas, about 30 miles east of El Paso, then tampering with evidence by picking up shell casings from the shooting.

The ex-agents say Davila had a gun, and that’s why they fired at him, but a gun was never found.

In exchange for his testimony against the two agents, Davila was granted immunity from prosecution by the U.S. government for attempting to smuggle nearly 750 pounds of marijuana – which had a street value of over $1 million – into the United States on the day he was shot.

. . .

“They also had received arms training the day before; that said, if you have an incident like this, you must preserve the evidence and you must report it promptly. Instead, according to court documents, they went around and picked up the shell casings. Furthermore, they asked one of their colleagues also to help pick up shell casings. They disposed of them.”

Ramos and Compean were convicted on 11 of 12 counts.

“The facts of this case are such that I would invite everybody to take a full look at the documented record,” Snow said. “This is not the case of the United States saying, ‘We are not going to support people who go after drug dealers.’ Of course, we are. We think it’s incumbent to go after drug dealers, and we also think that it’s vitally important to make sure that we provide border security so our people are secure.

“We also believe that the people who are working to secure that border themselves obey the law.”

He added: “I do think that there’s been a characterization that somehow the government is turning a blind eye toward the law in enforcing the law.”

I’m not big on granting Davila immunity from prosecution, but there is the smell of some kind of cover-up by the agents, and thosebehind the investigation and decision to prosecute may have just been looking for a way to get more information on what happened. Picking up shell casings and not reporting the shooting sounds fishy, even if it is totally innocuous. Without a lot more information on what happened, what is known, what was found in the investigation, and so on, this seems too hard to judge by outside observers. Maybe I’m wrong on that, though. Should these men be serving prison time? There has been an appeal to President Bush to pardon the two men. Should that be done?

If you want to find out more to help form an opinion, naturally Google news is a good source. From Google, I found a good source of extra information at NewsMax, as well as some good recent updates from Fox News. The basic information I’m seeing certainly makes the shooting in self-defense claims of the agents believable, but the clean-up and delayed reporting still muddies things up.

[tags]Border agents jailed for shooting drug runner, Should the border patrol agents be released after suspicious shooting?[/tags]

An easy way to steal identities online

Catching up with my online reading a bit tonight, I found a link to a site which will check if your social security number is in their database of known stolen SSNs. I’ll not link to the site directly, because I want to save any of the less intelligent web users who accidentally find me site from doing something not-very-bright (I know both the regular readers of my site are so astonishingly above average intellect that not only would they not fall for this, they can actually read the mind of criminals attempting to steal their SSNs). All you have to do to see if you are in this stolen SSN database is enter your SSN into the handy-dandy search field. This news is a couple of days old already from the DownloadSquad folks, and thankfully there are a number of commenters there who have already pointed out the problem with this service.

So where did they get their data from? Well from the FAQ on their site, here is their response. “The information that powers StolenID Search is found online, by looking in places where fraudsters typically trade or store this kind of information. All information behind StolenID search is publicly available, but not in places where search engines such as Yahoo and Google would look. TrustedID abides by all state and federal laws in the collection and provision of this compromised information. The information behind StolenID Search comes from collection efforts led by TrustedID directly and also from other reputable companies that assist us in finding this information on our behalf. One of those companies is Cyvellience.”

Note that I am not saying StolenID Search is a web site operated by evil ub3r hackers. I am not saying you can’t trust the folks holding this information to protect the information you enter or the information they already have. I’m not even saying you will be exposed to any actual risk of identity theft if you use the site. I’m pointing this site out and warning against using it because giving out this information online just isn’t something you should ever do when you can avoid it. If you ever see something like this, please think carefully about what risk you are taking sending this information to people unknown. The site seems to have the recommendation of some seemingly trustworthy security and privacy resources. The site may be run by the most trustworthy people in the universe, and a chorus of angels may accompany everyone associated with the site to protect them from ever suffering ill. That still doesn’t make me feel I should send them my SSN.

[tags]Brilliant way to steal identities online, How to dupe trusting people[/tags]

John Kerry, revisionist historian

Since I know it seems I only bash on President Bush (OK, I almost exclusively bash President Bush – I think he’s a horrible President), I wanted to be sure to share this wonderful display of, ummm, I don’t know what, by John Kerry that a friend sent me recently.

In a recent talk Kerry gave, he spent time covering a lot of the shortcomings we Americans suffer from in regards to our possibly failing to engage in sufficient diplomatic talks with Iran prior to Iran’s current president getting elected. With all the things we’ve done wrong, Kerry makes sure to point out:

“When we walk away from global warming, Kyoto, when we are irresponsibly slow in moving toward AIDS in Africa, when we don’t advance and live up to our own rhetoric and standards, we set a terrible message of duplicity and hypocrisy,” Kerry said.

But there is a little, teensy weensy problem with griping about President Bush bailing on the Kyoto treaty:

On July 25, 1997, before the Kyoto Protocol was finalized (although it had been fully negotiated, and a penultimate draft was finished), the U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95-0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98), which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or “would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States”. On November 12, 1998, Vice President Al Gore symbolically signed the protocol. Both Gore and Senator Joseph Lieberman indicated that the protocol would not be acted upon in the Senate until there was participation by the developing nations. The Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol to the Senate for ratification. . . .

Yeah, you read that right. Clinton was the one who walked away from the Kyoto treaty (based in part on a resolution which Kerry voted for). President Bush just never went back to it, what with the lack of timetables and targets for waste producers like China. And I agree with President Bush. Signing the Kyoto treaty as it was presented penalizes us while leaving other large pollutors off the hook.

And one other thing in the linked post I have to agree with:

Why should we believe anything that comes out of this guy’s mouth? It’s bad enough that he’s sitting next to one of America’s enemies bad mouthing his own country, but he’s flat-out lying in what he’s saying as well.

So yes, why listen to him? If you want to see me bashing more politicians besides President Bush, Mr. Kerry is a good target to direct me toward. And my dislike of him grows often.

[tags]John Kerry creates fictional American history, Kerry lies and tells the bad guys (um – Iran) what bad guys we are[/tags]

Bill stops game and geek talk, tells us about the housing market

You know I like Bill. I put more value in his views and reviews of games and the gaming industry than any of the supposed major gaming sites. He doesn’t say a lot, really, but what he says is usually dead on. So when he skipped the gaming talk one day last week and decided to talk work, numbers, and the housing market, I figured it was worth the 5 minutes it would take to read. Turns out that was well spent time, in my not so humble opinion.

Probably the most-disputed segment of the economy right now is housing. There was a massive housing boom in this country that lasted for years. It created so much additional liquidity in the economy, both from people selling their homes for a profit or taking out home equity loans, that it took on a life of its own. And like most booms, toward the end it was being sustained by all kinds of dubious tactics–most notably, the gigantic increase in sub-prime and “alternative” loans.

. . .

So as the housing market slows, people are still in severe denial that any of this is really a problem, and they’re desperately wanting to claim that the bottom has already been reached (short version: it hasn’t). Here’s what came out this morning:

Sales of existing homes fell in December, closing out a year in which demand for homes slumped by the largest amount in 17 years… For the year, sales fell by 8.4 percent, the biggest annual decline since 1989…

There has been data coming out in this vein for almost a year now, and every time it does, realtors immediately claim that the market has bottomed. I read some of the most bizarre, amazing explanations from the realty industry. Here’s today’s gem from the realtor’s “chief economist”:

David Lereah, chief economist for the Realtors, said that even with the December setback, he still believes that sales of existing homes have hit bottom and will start to gradually improve.

And I’ll leave it to either of my readers to go read the rest. I’m also sending this to my brother. He’s been talking about buying a house for a couple of years now, but has held off because he’s not sure the market will keep improving. Now it looks like he may have been right.

So, does that make any of you reconsider your near future housing plans?

[tags]Bill talks on housing, The improbable numbers the realty experts share[/tags]

Protect your right to record radio

One of the early tasks of the new congressional session is work to prevent consumers from recording radio broadcasts. Work with the EFF and help prevent this bad law.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has re-introduced the PERFORM Act, a backdoor assault on your right to record off the radio. Satellite and digital radio stations as well as Internet webcasters would have to adopt digital rights management (DRM) restrictions or lose the statutory license for broadcasting music.

. . .

This bill aims to hobble TiVo-like devices for satellite and digital radio. Such devices would be able to include “reasonable recording” features, but that excludes choosing and playing back selections based on song title, artist, or genre. Want to freely move recordings around your home network or copy them to the portable player of your choice? You’ll be out of luck if PERFORM passes.

This would also mess up streaming radio, as well as breaking any tools for recording streamed mp3 broadcasts.

[tags]Congress working to screw up fair-use again[tags/]