[Awesome. IIRC when I lived in Norway, in the late ’70s, there was only one channel, run by the government, and it only broadcast for a few hours a day. -egg]
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Norway enjoys 12-hour TV special of a fireplace, with commetary:
Reuters’ Balazs Koranyi:

Norwegian public television plans to broadcast a burning fireplace for 12 straight hours from Friday evening, with firewood specialists providing color commentary, expert advice and a bit of cultural tutoring.

“It will be very slow but noble television,” said Rune Moeklebust, a producer for state broadcaster NRK, before its commencement.

Frozen Trees on the Shores of Lake Ontario:

Landscape photographer Timothy Corbin recently captured some stunning photos of ice-laden tress on the shore of Lake Ontario. It’s amazing is to see the evidence of what must have been hours of violent waves creating layers of ice that now hover over water or ice that’s now perfectly serene. You can see a couple more shots over on his Flickr stream.

[“The technology could someday lead to improved neuroprosthetics to help blind people see.” Yeah, that veneer is getting thinner every year, huh? -egg]
 – – 
Lab rats with brain implants sense invisible infrared light:

Duke University researchers implanted lab rats with a device enabling them to perceive invisible infrared light. Miguel Nicolelis and his colleagues jacked a head-mounted infrared sensor into the rat’s brain. It’s wired into a region of the brain that processes touch, providing the rodents with a “sixth sense” for infrared. They published their research in the science journal Nature Communications. The possibilities aren’t limited to infrared spectrum either. “We could create devices sensitive to any physical energy,” Nicolelis says. “It could be magnetic fields, radio waves, or ultrasound. We chose infrared initially because it didn’t interfere with our electrophysiological recordings.” The technology could someday lead to improved neuroprosthetics to help blind people see.

“Neuroprosthesis Gives Rats the Ability to ‘Touch’ Infrared Light” (Nicolelis Lab)
“Lab rats ‘acquire sixth sense‘” (BBC News)

Robert Sheckley nailed the problem with drones in 1953:

Don sends us, “the Gutenberg Project’s copy of Robert
Sheckley’s 1953 story Watchbird from Galaxy Magazine about one nightmare
scenario arising from the use of armed drones to solve all our
problems. Also made into TV and radio episodes.”

“I have an objection.” Gelsen stood up. His colleagues were glaring coldly at him. Obviously he was delaying the advent of the golden age.

“What is your objection?” the representative asked.

“First, let me say that I am one hundred per cent in favor of a machine to stop murder. It’s been needed for a long time. I object only to the watchbird’s learning circuits. They serve, in effect, to animate the machine and give it a pseudo-consciousness. I can’t approve of that.”

“But, Mr. Gelsen, you yourself testified that the watchbird would not be completely efficient unless such circuits were introduced. Without them, the watchbirds could stop only an estimated seventy per cent of murders.”

“I know that,” Gelsen said, feeling extremely uncomfortable. “I believe there might be a moral danger in allowing a machine to make decisions that are rightfully Man’s,” he declared doggedly.

“Oh, come now, Gelsen,” one of the corporation presidents said. “It’s nothing of the sort. The watchbird will only reinforce the decisions made by honest men from the beginning of time.”

“I think that is true,” the representative agreed. “But I can understand how Mr. Gelsen feels. It is sad that we must put a human problem into the hands of a machine, sadder still that we must have a machine enforce our laws. But I ask you to remember, Mr. Gelsen, that there is no other possible way of stopping a murderer before he strikes. It would be unfair to the many innocent people killed every year if we were to restrict watchbird on philosophical grounds. Don’t you agree that I’m right?”

Watchbird by Robert Sheckley

[This is oddly soothing to watch. -egg]
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Coin rolls on treadmill for an hour:

This dime rolls for a little more than 58 minutes at 3.4 miles an hour. It traveled a little over five miles in that time. Check out 38:30 when the experimenter sticks his head in frame and stick around for the analysis at the end.

Coin rolling on treadmill via burritojustice

mehreenkasana:

Our Pakistani trucks already rule when it comes…:

mehreenkasana:

Our Pakistani trucks already rule when it comes to indigenous art but this Pakistani scooter just won all the awards in the world. You can see Jinnah, a peacock, a duck, a mosque, smokin’ eyes and what not. So random, so Pakistani.
I need this.

Westerners believe a lot of dumb shit about Pakistan, but at least the ornate trucks are pretty famous!

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2012/04/16/120416crbo_books_heller?currentPage=all

Musical Physics, Baby! A 3D AV Sequencer Box, Physics Resources for Max:

The Box from Mike Todd on Vimeo.
Knobs and faders, we love you on hardware. But when it comes to the unlimited possibilities of the computer, we know how to get the party on:
“Add some physics bodies.”
(See below; that’s really a quote.)
Mike Todd, whose work we’ve seen before on CDMotion, sends us a physics-based sequencer/synth built in Max/MSP and Jitter. It’s a quivering, humming three-dimensional world of sound, in which visuals and noise are entangled in a single design. (Ableton Live acts as a sound engine.) As Todd says, he’s “not sure which CDM site this would go on (a good thing, right?).” Good, indeed.
Lots of tools now let you add physics easily, but Max 6 is uniquely well-equipped – and a set of tutorials get you started.

Find a whole mess of tutorials – with “patch-a-long” video how-tos – here:
http://cycling74.com/physics/
And yes, unlike the abysmal track record I had with physics labs in high school, here even mistakes can be fun.
I’d love to see more of these experiments, so do send your work our way.

[Oooof. That’s pretty damned ugly. -egg]
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Economic recovery in the US actually made 99% of Americans poorer, top 1% captured 121% of gains:
“Striking it Richer,” a paper by Emmanuel Saez (an economist at UC Berkeley) looks at the way that the dividends of the slow US “economic recovery” have been distributed. Saez finds that 121% of the economic gains since 2009 have been captured by the richest 1% of Americans — in other words, despite economic growth, the poorest 99% of Americans actually got poorer through the “recovery.”

This confirms a pattern that Matt Stoller highlighted: that income inequality increased more under Obama than under Bush. And the new Saez paper also describes how it came about. In short form, income to the top 1% is significantly influenced by capital gains. Remember, the tax reporting is not clean here: rising equity and bond markets help all those private equity and hedge fund professionals, who are able to get capital gains treatment for what ought to be labor income. But the paper also stresses that the lower orders were hit hard in the aftermath of the global financial crisis than in the dot-bomb era, which also saw a big drop in capital gains. That isn’t as hard to understand. The collapse of the dot-com mania didn’t impair the real economy overmuch because it was not fueled in a meaningful way by borrowings. By contrast, the housing bubble, and more important (in terms of damage to the financial system) the much housing exposure created synthetically by CDOs that consisted entirely or mainly of credit default swaps was highly geared, hence when it collapsed, it took credit providers down with it.

Yes, Virginia, the Rich Continue to Get Richer: the Top 1% Got 121% of Income Gains Since 2009 [Yves Smith/Naked Capitalism]

Steroids: