APC has a great article up on the top 10 reasons to hate the new iPhone 3g.  As much as I kind of want to, I really don’t hate the new iPhone.  In fact, I’d love to have one.

My favorite reason cited: No Adobe Flash support. Ugh.

Undeniably, the iPhone has the best web browser of any phone on the market. But when you hit a web page with Adobe Flash in it, you’ll just get an empty space with a ‘missing plugin’ icon. Apple says Flash would run too slowly on the iPhone, but in reality, it’s probably more to do with Apple wanting to promote its competing web app development technology, Sproutcore.

Apple realises the ‘mobile web’ is at a tipping point… if it can get enough momentum behind developers coding sites specifically for the iPhone, it will help sales of the iPhone along in the long term. (That said, unlike Flash, Sproutcore is an open standard that theoretically works in any web browser that supports Javascript, so it could be widely supported by all handset makers if their phone web browsers got better.)

Who the hell uses Sproutcore?

Technorati Tags: iphone, hating, hate, 3g, apple, technology, gadgets

Nick’s got a linked table of contents, a metric tonne of information and the patience of a really patient person to have done this.  Thanks Nick!

Technorati Tags: diablo 3, everything we know, games, video, computer, geek, blizzard, gnarly

It’s a fairly simple idea which can I think have pretty far reaching effects.  It lets you chat in IM style directly over a television broadcast by laying two lines of text at the bottom of the image.  Simple, right?  But ground breaking at the same time.   In this demo video, there’s a chat going on over one of President Bush’s addresses.

You can see where this could lead.  Imagine many different chat channels, some populated by well know and respected commentators, some by you or me or anyone else.  You could be watching your favorite sports match and reading comments from fans, ESPN commentators or even the moms of some of the players involved.

Think of a standard CNN broadcast with a chat channel featuring some of the writers from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  Or the unfolding of a natural disaster with relief being coordinated real time on several chat channels.

This is I think a first step, but an important one in user generated television content.  Will there come a time when the comments are as important as the show being broadcasted?

The instructions are available here and they are fairly simple but do require you to telnet to your Neuros.  Did I mention that I love this little gadget?  As does everyone I’ve introduced it to so far.

Technorati Tags: Neuros, hacks, open source, technology, geeks,   television, chat, coolness

Here’s the full article:

At least one of Britain’s birds appears to be coping well as climate change alters the availability of a key food.

Researchers found that great tits are laying eggs earlier in the spring than they used to, keeping step with the earlier emergence of caterpillars.

Writing in the journal Science, they point out that the same birds in the Netherlands have not managed to adjust.

Understanding why some species in some places are affected more than others by climatic shifts is vital, they say.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) commented that other species are likely to fare much worse than great tits as temperatures rise.

Perfect timing

The research uses a long record of great tits in a breeding site at Wytham Woods near Oxford, where observations began in 1947.

The finding is surprising in that the birds are using the same old rules, but the rules still work
Professor Marcel Visser

“We think it’s the longest running population study of wild animals anywhere in the world where animals are marked (ringed),” said Ben Sheldon of Oxford University, who led the new research.

“The population contains about 400 breeding pairs, and they produce between them 2,000 or more offspring each year - so over the course of the study about 80,000 birds have been ringed and studied,” he told BBC News.

The current work used records going back only to 1961, when a standard methodology was adopted.

The great tits are laying eggs now about two weeks earlier in the year than they were 47 years ago.

The timing is crucial, because for the two-week period after they hatch, the chicks have to gobble down huge quantities of winter moth caterpillars which only emerge for a short period.

“Winter moth larvae can make up up to 90% of the biomass of insects on oak trees at that time,” said Professor Sheldon.

“Great tits have eight or nine babies in a brood, and each of them will eat about 70 caterpillars a day.

The chicks hatch and are fully grown within two weeks, so they need something that’s really abundant - that’s why they synchonise their breeding so hatching co-incides with the emergence of the caterpillars.”

The caterpillars’ appearance is triggered by ambient temperature - that has been shown in the laboratory - and it is believed that great tits also begin their breeding cycle in response to temperatures.

Their movement to an earlier breeding time does not involve an evolutionary change, the scientists believe - it is simply that individual birds are able to change their behaviour, in the same way that they have presumably adapted to warmer or cooler phases before the era of human-induced global warming.

Different strokes

In Wytham, the behaviour of the two species is changing in step; but other situations are very different.

Three years ago, Marcel Visser from the Netherlands Institute of Ecology in Heteren collated a number of these cases.

The North American wood warbler has not adapted its migration pattern to the earlier emergence of caterpillars in its breeding ground, and the Dutch honey buzzard is also failing to adapt to the earlier appearance of wasps, which it eats.

The red admiral butterfly is arriving on the UK’s shores earlier from its winter grounds in north Africa; but the staple food of its larvae, the common nettle, continues to flower at the same time each year.

The Wytham site. Image: TA Wilkin
Wytham Woods are home to about 400 breeding pairs of great tits

Just across the North Sea in Holland, Professor Visser has also found that great tits are faring very differently from their British cousins; the breeding time is advancing each year, but the emergence of caterpillars is advancing three times faster.

“The UK finding is to some extent surprising in that the birds are using the same old rules, but the rules still work,” he told BBC News.

“In our study population, the same old rules don’t work any more; so it’s an interesting question as to which situation is the normal one and which is the exception.”

The RSPB and other conservation bodies have regularly warned that climate shifts could have a devastating impact on some species; and they believe the new research does not change that picture.

“It’s great to hear that the great tit is able to keep pace with the rapid rate of climate change, but then it’s probably in the best place to do that,” observed RSPB spokesman Grahame Madge.

“They’re abundant birds, they can live in gardens, woodland and open country, and they churn out large numbers of young in a short space of time, so they’re better able to learn changes in behaviour.”

The organisation believes - as do others - that climate change is one of the main cuplrits for the abrupt declines in some seabird populations around UK coasts in recent years.

The Oxford and Heteren groups are now planning to collaborate on a study to elucidate why some populations apparently adapt well to climate change, and others do not.

“Our study shows that sometimes individuals can be very flexible in their behaviour,” said Ben Sheldon.

“What we want to do is to try and understand why some species are flexible and others aren’t - it’s the ones that aren’t flexible that are going to be at risk.”

Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Technorati Tags: tits, great, warm, weather, bbc, animals, nature, global warming

So why the heck is it called Chicken?  Why not a nice name, like nearby Eagle.  Eagle always did better in school, was on the track team and lets face it, Mom liked Eagle better than Chicken.  And why can’t Chicken count?  17?  37?

Back in the 1800’s when Alaska was much heavier as it was full of gold, lots of people went up there to deal with this mineral obesity.   While gold is nice to spend and shiny, its pretty tough on folks trying to eat it.  So the locals turned to the (now state) bird the Ptargna. . . the patarma. . .  the Ptarmigan.  This cute fella right here.

By closely watching the habits of this plucky little birds, the miners were able to track down fresh supplies of grain, fruit and other bits of nature’s bounty thereby assuring that they were the first of Alaska’s sandal wearing, whole food eating vegan hippie residents.  Nah, just kidding.  They ate the little suckers.

Eventually 1902 rolled around and they filled the spot to capacity (somewhere between 17 and 37 people?) and had to make it into a town.  They decided on the spot to name it after their favorite foodstuff.  Problem was, no one really knew how to spell  Ptarmigan.  Hell, I can’t spell Ptarmigan and every time you see the word Ptarmigan you can rest assured that it’s a cut/paste from Wikipedia.  Fearing ridicule from the rest of the world, they put between 34 and 74 pairs of eyes to searching for a good name for the place.

When that failed, I’m sure someone half-jokingly said “let’s just call the damned place Chicken and get back to rolling in our gold.”  And that is how Chicken, Alaska came to be a town.

You can visit it today.  In fact, if you’re driving from say. . .  Hell’s Kitchen in New York to Chicken, Alaska - a trip of 4,099 miles, you can use these directions as provided by Google maps.  They’ve got a cafe, a salmon bake and of course, a bar.

Despite my earlier mental picture of the place, the streets ain’t paved with gold.  Or Ptarmigan bones, but rather packed gravel.  And you’ll have to bring your own phones, electricity, internet and bathrooms as Chicken Alaska has none of these things.

Chicken has been thrust squarely into the modern age however, as they have their own website, hosted out side of the town, of course.   Just how squarely into the modern age have they thrusted?  Well, they seem to have landed somewhere between Lynx and the Animated Gif era.  Regardless, I’ve officially added Chicken, Alaska to my list of places I’d like to see before I die.

Technorati Tags: chicken, Alaska, tidbit, factoid, facts, strange, drumsticks

I’ve long tinkered with 3D art, landscapes and figures.  I don’t consider myself an artist but with programs such as Bryce 5.5 I was able to make this:

Not a masterwork by any means, but not bad for someone who’s just tinkering.  A while back I actually shelled out the money for Bryce 5.5 because it was alot of fun to work with. I had a smallish render farm (2 virtual servers at work, 3 laptops and two Lenovo desktops) for building my images.

Now you can enjoy both Bryce 5.5 and DAZ Studio for free!  Go ahead and grab ‘em for Windows.

Technorati Tags: free 3d art software, daz, bryce, computers, artists, technology

Here’s the press release.

For the first time in FileFront history, the Ziff Davis site is offering a full copy of a released game: SAGA, the world’s first collectible MMO RTS. Players have until May 11th to secure one of 50,000 Retail Keys available at http://www.filefront.com. SAGA can normally be purchased for $19.95 from the official SAGA website and at many hobby stores across America.

SAGA uses an innovative collectible revenue model first implemented by the THQ studio Genetic Anomalies in 1997 and now seen in over 120 online collectible games, such as the upcoming EA collectible RTS BattleForge.

SAGA has no subscription fees. Players pay as little or as much as they decide, by purchasing ‘booster packs’ of random troops and spells, which are traded and customized to create the strategic army of choice for each player.

SAGA can be played for free; however, the unregistered free version disables many of the features that players find most attractive in a collectible game. Using the Retail Key from http://www.filefront.com unlocks trading, guilds, espionage and PvP combat.

Technorati Tags: RTS, MMO, CCG er, video game, press release, saga

Those aren’t your childhood memories?  Well I’ll bet you have the ATF to thank for that!  The Bureau of Alchohol, Tobacco Firearms and now, Explosives (ATFE) has launched their kids page!  Enjoy pictures of old time ATF agents and  the POISON that was popular long before guys were growing their hair out and smearing makeup on themselves.

Technorati Tags: atf, kids, firearms, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, wholesome family fun

Also the server edition is good until 2013.  And by good, I mean supported.  I’ve been using the beta now since it’s initial release and it’s a lot of fun.  Every release just gets better.

Technorati Tags: linux, ubuntu, hardy heron, geek, gives you wings

Enter Elementeo - a collectible card game featuring magic, combat and 121 cards based on the elements. Chemistry folks, chemistry. This game was created by an 8th grader with an eye for games and entrepreneurship.

He expects to sell the game for $25 a pop and is currently taking pre-orders for the late April release.   Sheesh.  I’m way out of 8th grade and all I’ve got is this blog!

Technorati Tags: games, card game, elementeo, science, chemistry, geeks, business, young dude with chutzpah

What is it? It’s a self replicating 3D printer. Yeah, that doesn’t sound as high and mighty as an autobalancing transportation device that Presidents and mall security have been falling off of but it’s much, much more important.

RepRap is short for Replicating Rapid Prototyper. It’s got two purposes in it’s existence. The first is to be able to manufacture inexpensive, solid parts made out of various types of plastic. Think about that for a second - most 3D printers available today are very expensive to purchase, maintain and operate. A cheap 3D printer however opens up all kinds of doors. Put a few of these in the poorer parts of the world and you can manufacture parts to fix, build or keep up lots and lots of things, improving the quality of life for everyone and reducing their reliance on third parties.

It’s second purpose is to be able to replicate itself. Give a community one RepRap and soon they can have dozens. Self replication is a wonderful concept - one that we should all be paying attention to. Combine these two aspects and you’ve got yourself a real breakthrough.

Look at the implications. You’ve got a machine that can produce itself endlessly given an adequate supply of raw materials. And each machine that is made can then produce other objects, from drinking glasses, tools, small construction materials to sex toys. It’s mind bogglingly simple and elegant and a real way to make a difference where such parts may be scarce. It’s also completely open source, from the software used to design 3D objects to the electronics used in building a RepRap.

They haven’t announced complete replication yet but they hope to this year. Here’s what the Darwin 1.0 RepRap can build of itself as of now.

While it’s not completely self replicating like a cornucopia machine (a machine that can create anything from the atomic level, including ice cream, weapons, robots and itself) it’s a good start, created by people not looking to profit off of it. It’s certainly got some limitations as well, such as it’s reliance on plastics as a building material, it’s need of basic electronics and it’s inability to create a working prototype from scratch - i.e. some assembly required.

Those limitations will be overcome eventually and for now it’s good to see a working, self replicating machine out in the wild. In fact, you can check this Google map to see just where all the reported RepRaps are, or get the plans to build your own Darwin 1.0 model and join the community.

In the SF world, Cornucopia machines (known also as molecular assemblers) are construction devices you feed raw materials into and get stuff out of. Often, they’ll break down anything you put into it to the molecular or atomic level, and then build on demand what you ask of it. They often come with their own store of hard to find things like radioactive materials or rare elements. They can spit out anything from coffee to a working spaceship with all the appropriate electronics and moving parts. It sounds very futuristic but may not be all that far off, particularly as we get more practice at manipulating really small things.

Self replicating machines have another interesting place in our future as well. Exploration of the Universe. Launch a self replicating probe with some basic intelligence at a nearby star system. That probe arrives, completes a survey, sends its information back to us and then builds two copies of itself. The original probe remains and updates our information while the two copies find two nearby star systems and head off to do their thing. What you have here is exponential expansion. One probe becomes two, become four, become 8, become 16 . . . until you start hitting really big numbers, really fast. As your numbers increase, your time to see every star system in the Galaxy decreases. In a relatively short amount of time we could have eyes and ears just about everywhere.

Seem pretty far fetched? Well some serious people with real science degrees are talking a lot about this. NASA type folks, in fact. This isn’t just the realm of Science Fiction authors. I’ll leave the implications of shadow projects to you conspiracy minded folks.

Of course, there are cons to such things as well. Would the probes introduce glitches to their self replication, causing evolution? Think rise of the machines.

Thinking even further, would it be possible to upload our conscious selves - who we are - in the form of data to a probe, and have it start colonizing? Stopping at each star system, replicating with our data, until it found a suitable planet to sustain life and then simply replicating us? Hundreds of copies of ourselves on distant worlds.

Then the ideas start getting funky. All this from a little 3D printer that can make it’s own parts.

Technorati Tags: sf, printer, reprap, self replication, change the world, geek, technology, mechanics, plastics, third world, second world, wealth without money

ABC is running a story about a woman who’s lived in the same apartment for 15 years being sued by a neighboring apartment for smoking. They neighbors moved in about 5 years ago. They allege that her smoke is escaping her apartment and floating about in the building’s common areas, causing, according to the court documents:

“willfully, intentionally, recklessly and/or negligently endangering the health of plaintiffs and their 4-year-old son. … As evidenced by her refusal to address the grave danger posed to the health of a small child, despite repeated requests and warnings, defendant’s conduct is actuated by evil and/or reprehensible motives. “

Big surprise here, but the couple who are suing are . . . lawyers! Jonathon Selbin, who works for Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein and his wife are taking matters to court while stating:

“We are both lawyers, and both litigators, for whom the usual barriers to litigation are minimal.”

They allege revenge on the part of Ms. Huff via her dog:

“Such motives are also evidenced by the fact that after plaintiffs complained about the smoke, defendant encouraged her dog to urinate on plaintiffs’ property and in front of their doorway.”

I’m not a fan of smoking at all, I think it’s a vile habit and that the companies who manufacture tobacco products are essentially profiting off of addiction to a harmful substance. But that doesn’t mean people should lose their rights.

You have a right to smoke, just like I do. You may not have the right to smoke in a bar anymore, or in someone’s building, but in your own home? Even if that home is an apartment? The people bringing the suit to bear (and Ms. Huff. And her dog) live in New York City, where just looking around you’re sure to see lots of sources of pollution. Can someone be sued for idling their car below their windows for a few minutes every day if they’re dropping someone off? Would they even consider it?

I guess it’s not new that lawyers can be sharks, nor is it new that they’ll use their familiarity with the law to bully folks into a course of action that they want them to take. Ms. Huff has since acquiesced and is meeting a new list of demands in a settlement handed down to her from the lawyer plaintiffs. Is this too much?

Personally I consider it something of an abuse of the law. You move into an apartment and you should reasonably expect to be living near and literaly on top of other people. And other people sometimes do things you don’t like. It doesn’t mean you should sue them though. If you’re a big fancy lawyer, why not just buy a house in the suburbs where your life won’t be disrupted by ‘evil’ people and their dogs.

Photo courtesy of Pingnews, Flickr and CC.

Technorati Tags: law, sharks, lawyers, smoking, huff, dog, abc, give me a break

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