Science and Technology

Benefits of Wood Ash

2012-02-01T05:05:00.000-08:00

If you have a wood fire then the benefits are many. Not only do they smell great, keep your toes warm and mean that you have more than the average number of visitors (in Winter at least). You can also use the ash on the vegetable plot.

At this time of year when I’m busy deciding what should go where for the coming season I normally scatter some wood ash on the proposed onion bed and around fruit trees and canes. They seem to love it.

The ash is washed away quite quickly so I’ll probably keep re-applying as the season gets underway. You can scatter it around onions, garlic, shallots etc and it will discourage root maggots. The slugs don’t like it either.

Be careful not to use it near any acid loving plants though (like Blueberries and Potatoes) as it tends to make your soil more alkaline.

You don’t have to use your ash up immediately either. You can store wood ash and use it later, so long as it stays dry. And you can also put it in the compost bin. It’s a very versatile fertiliser.

Get Screwed with C programming

2012-01-30T05:13:00.000-08:00

Non-terminated comment, "accidentally" terminated bysomesubsequent comment, with the code in between swallowed.


        a=b; /* this is a bug


        c=d; /* c=d will never happen */

Accidental assignment/Accidental Booleans

        if(a=b) c;      /* a always equals b, but c will be executed if b!=0 */

Depending on your viewpoint, the bug in the language is that theassignment operator is too easy to confuse with the equality operator;or maybe the bug is that C doesn't much care what constitutes a booleanexpression: (a=b) is not a boolean expression! (but C doesn'tcare).

Closely related to this lack of rigor in booleans, consider thisconstruction:

        if( 0 < a < 5) c;      /* this "boolean" is always true! */

Always true because (0

Or consider this:

if( a =! b)c; /* this is compiled as (a = !b), anassignment, rather than (a != b) or (a == !b) */

Unhygienic macros


        #define assign(a,b) a=(char)b


        assign(x,y>>8)

becomes

x=(char)y>>8 /*probablynot what you want */

Mismatched header files

Suppose foo.h contains:


        struct foo { BOOL a};





  file F1.c  contains


        #define BOOL char


        #include "foo.h"





  file F2.c contains 


        #define BOOL int


        #include "foo.h"

now, F1. and F2 disagree about the fundamental attributes of structure"foo". If they talk to each other, You Lose!

Phantom returned values

Suppose you write this


    int foo (a)


    { if (a) return(1); } /* buggy, because sometimes no value is returned  */

Generally speaking, C compilers, and C runtimes either can't or don'ttell you there is anything wrong. What actually happens depends on theparticular C compiler and what trash happened to be left lying aroundwherever the caller is going to look for the returned value. Dependingon how unlucky you are, the program may even appear to work for awhile.

Now, imagine the havoc that can ensue if "foo" was thought toreturn a pointer!

Unpredictable struct construction

Consider this bit packing struct:


    struct eeh_type


    {


            uint16 size:          10;   /* 10 bits */


            uint16 code:           6;   /* 6 bits */


    };

Depending on which C compiler, and which "endian" flavor of machine youare on, this might actually be implemented as

        <10-bits><6-bits>

or as


        <6-bits><10-bits>





Also, again depending on the C compiler, machine architecture, and various mysterious preference settings,


the items might be aligned to the nearest 8, 16, 32, or 64 bits.





So what matters? If you are trying to match bits with a real world file,


everything!








Need another way to lose big?  How about this:





Rect foo = {0,1,2,3};		// assign numbers to the first four slots





You may think you know what those four slots are, but there's at least an


even chance you'll have to discover the hard way if the structure ever


changes.

Indefinite order of evaluation (contributed by Xavier @triple-i.com)

        foo(pointer->member, pointer = &buffer[0]);

Works with gcc (and other compilers I used until I tried acc) and doesnot with acc. The reason is that gcc evaluates function arguments fromleft to right, while acc evaluates arguments from right to left.

K&R and ANSI/ISO C specifications do not define the order ofevaluation for function arguments. It can be left-to-right,right-to-left or anything else and is "unspecified". Thus any codewhich relies on this order of evaluation is doomed to be non portable,even across compilers on the same platform.

This isn't an entirely non controversial point of view.

Easily changed block scope (Suggested by Marcel van derPeijl )


    if( ... ) 


        foo(); 


    else 


        bar();

which, when adding debugging statements, becomes


    if( ... ) 


        foo();          /* the importance of this semicolon can't be overstated */


    else 


        printf( "Calling bar()" );      /* oops! the else stops here */


        bar();                          /* oops! bar is always executed */

There is a large class of similar errors, involving misplacedsemicolons and brackets.

Permissive compilation (suggested by James M.Stern)

I once modified some code that called a function via a macro:

        CALLIT(functionName,(arg1,arg2,arg3));

CALLIT did more than just call the function. I didn't want to do theextra stuff so I removed the macro invocation, yielding:

        functionName,(arg1,arg2,arg3);

Oops. This does not call the function. It's a comma expression that:

Evaluates and then discards the address of functionName
Evaluates the parenthesized comma expression (arg1,arg2,arg3)

C's motto: who cares what it means? I just compile it!My own favorite in this vein is this:


        switch (a) {


        int var = 1;    /* This initialization typically does not happen. */


                        /* The compiler doesn't complain, but it sure screws things up! */


        case A: ...


        case B: ...


        }

Still not convinced? Try this one (suggested by Mark Scarbrough ):


#define DEVICE_COUNT 4 


uint8 *szDevNames[DEVICE_COUNT] = {


        "SelectSet 5000",


        "SelectSet 7000"}; /* table has two entries of junk */

Unsafe returned values (suggested by Bill Davis s@dw3f.ess.harris.com>)

char *f() {

char result[80];

sprintf(result,"anything will do");

return(result); /* Oops! resultis allocated on the stack. */

}

int g()

{

char *p;

p = f();

printf("f() returns: %s\n",p);

}

The "wonderful" thing about this bug is that it sometimes seems to be acorrect program; As long as nothing has reused the particular piece ofstack occupied by result.

Undefined order of side effects. (suggested by michaelg@owl.WPI.EDUandothers)

Even within a single expression, even with only strictly manifestside effects, C doesn't define the order of the side effects.Therefore, depending on your compiler, I/++I might be either 0 or 1.Try this:


#include 





int foo(int n) {printf("Foo got %d\n", n); return(0);}





int bar(int n) {printf("Bar got %d\n", n); return(0);}





int main(int argc, char *argv[]) 


{


  int m = 0;


  int (*(fun_array[3]))();





  int i = 1;


  int ii = i/++i;





  printf("\ni/++i = %d, ",ii);





  fun_array[1] = foo; fun_array[2] = bar;





  (fun_array[++m])(++m);        


}





Prints either i/++i = 1 or i/++i=0;

Prints either "Foo got 2", or "Bar got 2"

Uninitialized local variables

Actually, this bug is so well known, it didn't even make the list!That doesn't make it less deadly when it strikes. Consider the simplestcase:


void foo(a)


{ int b;


  if(b) {/* bug! b is not initialized! */ }


}

and in truth, modern compilers will usually flag an error as blatant asthe above. However, you just have to be a little more clever tooutsmartthe compiler. Consider:


void foo(int a) 


{ BYTE *B;


   if(a) B=Malloc(a);


          if(B) { /* BUG! B may or may not be initialized */ *b=a; } 


}

Cluttered compile time environment

The compile-time environment of a typical compilation is clutteredwith hundreds (or thousands!) of things that you typically have littleor no awareness of. These things sometimes have dangerouslycommon names, leading to accidents that can be virtually impossible tospot.

#include

#define BUFFSIZE 2048

longfoo[BUFSIZ]; //notespellingofBUFSIZ != BUFFSIZE

This compiles without error, but will fail in predictably awfuland mysterious ways, because BUFSIZ is a symbol defined bystdio.h. A typo/braino like this can be virtually impossible tofind if the distance between the the #define and the error is greaterthan in this trivial example.

Under constrained fundamental types

I've been seriously burned because different compilers, or evendifferent options of the same compiler, define the fundamental type int aseither 16 or 32 bits.. In the same vein, name any other languagein which boolean might be defined or undefined, or might bedefined by a compiler option, a runtime pragma (yes! we havebooleans!), or just about any way the user decided would work ok.

Utterly unsafe arrays

This is so obvious it didn't even make the list for the first 5years, but C's arrays and associated memory management are completely,utterly unsafe, and even obvious cases of error are not detected.

int thisIsNuts[4]; int i;

for ( i = 0; i < 10; ++i )

{

thisIsNuts[ i ] = 0; /*Isn't it great ? I can use elements 1-10 of a 4 element array,andno one cares */

}

Of course, there are infinitely many ways to do things like thisin C.

Comet vaporized in Sun

2012-01-23T06:56:00.000-08:00

For the first time, technology has allowed NASA to observe a comet being vaporized as it approached the sun. Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded Comet C/2011 N3 nearing the sun and burning to nothing over a 20-minute span in July.

NASA describes the event as "Comet corpses in the solar wind." Almost daily, comets are vaporized by the sun, but this was the first time technology allowed for it to be recorded.

The comet was about the size of an aircraft carrier and was part of the Kreutz family of comets believed to be remnants of a giant parent comet that broke apart some 2,500 years ago.

Mutant Microbes converting into Biofuel

2012-01-23T06:54:00.000-08:00

A promising new system can convert fronds of brown seaweed into biofuel, opening up a new possible source of energy that could help replace fossil fuels, like gasoline. The secret: bacteria genetically engineered to break down a previously inaccessible sugar in seaweed, called alginate. The researchers who developed this new system used it to generate ethanol, a biofuel that is added to gasoline; however, it has the potential to produce not just ethanol but other biofuels, they and others say. The new system is like a Lego platform. With changes to the components in the process, the same microbe-based system could be used to produce a variety of products.

For instance, the system could be used to turn seaweed into a source (also called a feedstock) for other biofuels, which could include butanol — an alcohol, like ethanol, that is blended into gas — or chemicals used in biodiesel, which has properties similar to conventional, petroleum-based diesel.

Two questions remain :

Is it economically feasible to use seaweed to produce biofuel?

And is it environmentally attractive?

Seaweed now joins the cadre of plants — from corn to single-celled algae — that offer tantalizingly renewable and domestically produced alternatives to fossil fuels. In the United States, ethanol made from corn is added to gasoline; in Brazil, cars are powered largely, sometimes completely, by ethanol made from sugar cane. But converting corn and sugar cane into fuel can be problematic, since both are also food crops.

Even other potential biofuel sources, like switchgrass, can compete for land in a world whose population is growing and seeking a more resource-intensive diet. Seaweed — a relatively unexploited source of nutrition, is high in sugars, which are precursors for most biofuels. Seaweed also lacks lignin, a compound that makes cell walls rigid in land plants and that must be removed before such plants can be turned into fuel. Even so, until now, seaweed appeared to have limited potential as a feedstock for biofuel, since one of its primary sugars, alginate, couldn't be broken down efficiently enough to produce biofuel on an industrial scale. The bug Marine microbes already have the ability to break down alginate, transport the products and metabolize them. E. coli do something similar, spitting out ethanol at the end of a multi-step process. The last of the steps could be replaced to produce other biofuels, or even chemicals such as plastics and polymer building blocks. This system also takes advantage of other sugars in the seaweed, mannitol and glucan, since the E. coli already possessed the ability to break down mannitol, and commericially available enzymes can easily break glucan down into a more accessible form, glucose. This system could be used in any brown seaweed (seaweeds also come in green and red).

Cultivating seaweed along three percent of the world's coastlines, where kelp already grows, could produce 60 billion gallons of ethanol.

Seaweed's advantages, its high sugar content and lack of lignin, make it a viable source for biofuel from a cost perspective. Looking ahead There is also the environmental question. One challenge will likely be seaweed's demand for nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, which are not naturally abundant in the oceans.

Moore’s Law broken

2012-01-18T03:32:00.000-08:00

IBM announced that after five years of work, its researchers have been able to reduce from about one million to 12 the number of atoms required to create a bit of data. The breakthrough may someday allow data storage hardware manufacturers to produce products with capacities that are orders of magnitude greater than today’s hard disk and flash drives.

Looking at this conservatively...instead of 1TB on a device you’d have 100TB to 150TB. Instead of being able to store all your songs on a drive, you’d be able to have all your videos on the device. Today, storage devices use ferromagnetic materials where the spin of atoms are aligned or in the same direction.

The IBM researchers used an unconventional form of magnetism called antiferromagnetism, where atoms spin in opposite directions, allowing scientists to create an experimental atomic-scale magnet memory that is at least 100 times denser than today’s hard disk drives and solid-state memory chips.

While the science behind what IBM researchers accomplished is complex, the results are quite simple: They put a spin on the old adage that “opposites attract.” Instead today’s method for magnetic storage where iron atoms are lined up with the same magnetic polarization, requiring greater distance between them, IBM created atoms with opposite magnetization, pulling them more tightly together.

“Moore’s Law is basically the drive of the industry to shrink components down little by little and then solve the engineering challenges that go along with that but keeping the basic concepts the same. The basic concepts of magnetic data storage or even transistors haven’t really changed over the past 20 years,”.

Miniaturized information storage in atomic-scale antiferromagnets. The binary representation of the letter 'S' (01010011) was stored in the Neel states of eight iron atom arrays. The researchers started with one iron atom and used the tip of scanning tunneling microscope to switch magnetic information in successive atoms. They worked their way up until eventually they succeeded in storing one bit of magnetic information reliably in 12 atoms. The tip of the scanning tunneling microscope was then used to switch the magnetic information in the bits from a zero to a one and back again, allowing researchers to store information.

IBM used iron atoms on copper nitrate to perform its experiments, but other materials could theoretically require even fewer atoms to store a bit of data. The researchers then combined 86 bits make one byte of data, such as a letter or number. IBM then put many of the bytes together to create information. The first word they spelled using the new technique: T-H-I-N-K, which required five bytes of information or 400 magnetized atoms.

Antiferromagnets is not the only data storage project that IBM is working on. Last year, the company produced its first Racetrack Memory circuit, which could also lead to silicon chips with the capacity of today’s hard drives, but the durability and performance of flash drives. “In the technology world, hopefully this will gather some momentum to allow them to use antiferromagnetic structures as active elements and then solve the all the technological problems around that,”.

50 Open Source Computer Learning Class

2012-01-15T03:48:00.001-08:00

Learn the basics of computer science, and get a foundation in how computer science works.

Introduction to Computer Science: Learn about the history of computing, as well as the development of computer languages. A great basic course on introductory computer science.
Introduction to Computer Science and Programming: A series of video lectures from MIT about computer science, and the basics of programming.
Introduction to Computers: UC Berkeley offers a course on the basics of computing and science.
Artificial Intelligence: Learn about the basics of artificial intelligence and how it has been developed for computer applications.
Breadth Topics in Computing Science: This class from Capilano University offers a wide view of computer science. Learn about design, programming and more for different opportunities in computer science.
The Anthropology of Computing: This MIT course offers an interesting look into the development of computers and their impact on human society.
Human Computer Interaction: Basic information on how humans interact with computers, and how to better design usability, from the University of Washington.

Comprehensive Computer Science Collections

If you are interested in courses that are a little more comprehensive in nature, you can get a good feel for computer science from the following collections:

Computer and Computer Systems: An overall view of computers and how they are organized into systems.
Science and Technology: Connexions, from Rice University, offers a comprehensive course on different types of computer science.
Information and Technology: Many of the courses offered by the University of Tokyo include English translations, so you can get a good grasp of information and technology.
Electrical and Computer Engineering: Choose from a variety of courses that can give you a good grasp of the principles behind computer engineering.
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science: Learn about electrical engineering and computer science can be combined to create amazing technology.
Science and Technology: Choose from a variety of courses on technology and computers, as well as science, from OER Commons.

Programming and Languages

Get a handle on computer programming, and learn about different computer languages used in programming.

Building Programming Experience: Helpful hints for building up your programming capabilities.
Computer Language Engineering: Overview of how computer languages are developed, and how to program them.
Programming Languages: Provides a basic overview of programming languages, offering special insight into Scheme +.
AJAX: Land of Code offers this tutorial related to programming with AJAX.
C Programming: The University of Strathclyde provides this course on using the C programming language.
Fundamentals of C++: This course is offered at free-ed.net, and provides insight and helpful hints on programming with C++.
Java Programming: This course is written by a computer science professor at Orange Coast College, and is provided through the Sofia Open Content Initiative.
Perl Lessons: Learn about Perl, and how to use it, especially with CGI.
PHP Tutorial for Beginners: Get an overview of PHP, and how it can be used in a variety of circumstances.
Ruby Programming: Learn about Ruby, and learn how to use it for your projects.

Computer Software

Learn about software development, and the importance of software in computer programming.

Designing the user interface: This software design course from The Open University helps you learn the principles of usability.
Modelling object-oriented software: Learn about object-oriented software, and how it can be used to structure systems.
Software development for enterprise systems: An overview of how to design software meant for business.
Software Engineering for Web Applications: Learn about how to design software for web apps.
Elements of Software Construction: MIT takes you through the basics of constructing software.
Software Engineering Concepts: Learn the fundamental concepts behind engineering and developing software.

Computer Systems and Information Technology

Learn how to construct computer systems, and get the basic outlines of information technology.

Systems Design and Administration: Learn how to design and administer computer systems from Dixie State College.
Applied Parallel Computing: Learn about how you can use parallel computing systems.
Machine Structures: UC Berkeley offers a course on the structure of computers, and how they can interact in systems.
Operating Systems and System Programming: Get a handle on operating systems, how they work, and how to program them properly.
Information Technology and the Labor Market: Learn about IT, the demand for it, and how IT is reshaping the way things are done.
Global Issues in Information Technology: Weber State University introduces different issues in IT.
Finding information in information technology and computing: An overview of how information is arranged, and how to look for what you need.

Computer Processes and Data

Learn more about computer processing and data management.

An introduction to data and information: The Open University offers a helpful course on data and how it works in a computer environment.
The database development life cycle: A basic overview of how data development takes place.
Introduction to Algorithms: Algorithms are necessary for processing information. This MIT course introduces you to them.
Introduction to Communication, Control, and Signal Processing: Learn how computers process information and data.
Data Structures: Learn how data is structured, and how you can create your own structures.
Data and processes in computing: Follow data and processes development as part of computer science.
Representing and manipulating data in computers: A course in how you can use data for specific purposes.

Web Development

Part of computer science is being able to develop programs, applications and systems for the Internet.

Understanding Computers and the Internet: A look at computers and their importance to the Internet.
Digital Typography: Get an understanding of how to design typography for the Internet.
Information Visualization: Learn how to visualize information, and present it in a way that others can relate to.
User Interface Design and Implementation: A course from MIT about how you can design a usable interface, and implement it.
Communicating in Cyberspace: Learn how to communicate effectively using computers.
Search Engines: Technology, Society and Business: Get a handle on how search engines work, and how important they have become to society and to business.
Communications and Information Policy: Learn about different policies involved with communicating online.

Concentrated solar power systems

2012-01-15T00:44:00.001-08:00

From Science

One could only hope that our entire energy future will look as whimsical as the solar power station in Sanlúcar la Mayor near Seville.

This power plant consists of a pair of "concentrated solar power systems," which function in an unusual way. A mirror array on the ground consisting of 624 mirrors moves throughout the day, tracking the sun and focusing its beams onto the tip of a 160-meter-tall tower. The focused light heats up a tank of water at the tip of the tower, which in turn powers the steam turbine of an electrical generator. This simple process can generate up to 20 megawatts of energy.

The first of the pair of solar towers in the Sanlúcar la Mayor plant, the PS-10, began operation in the spring of 2007. When the entire complex is completed in the 2013, the plant will produce enough energy for 180,000 homes, equivalent to the needs of the city of Seville. The tower will prevent the emission of more than 600,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases each year.

Unfortunately, the price of electricity produced by this power station is still three times higher than energy produced by conventional means.

British English Vs American English

2012-01-15T00:10:00.000-08:00

British English	American English
1st year undergraduate	freshman (undergraduate)
2nd year (school)	sophomore (undergraduate)
3rd year (school)	junior (undergraduate)
4th year (school)	senior (undergraduate)
999 (help)	911 (help)
aerial (radio/TV)	antenna
allotment	community garden
alsation	German shepherd/ police dog
angry	mad/angry
anorak	parka
articulated lorry	trailer truck
aubergine	eggplant
autumn	fall
bank holiday	legal holiday
banknote	bill
bap	hamburger bun
bat	ping pong paddle
bath (noun)	bathtub
bath (verb)	bathe (verb)
bespoke/made to measure	custom made
big dipper	roller coaster
bill	check (restaurant)
bill/account	account
billion = million million	billion = thousand million
biscuit (sweet)	cookie
biscuit (unsweetened)	cracker
black or white?	with or without? (milk/cream in coffee)
black or white? (in coffee/tea)	cream or sugar? (in coffee/tea)
black treacle	molasses
blackleg	scab
blind (window)	shade (window)
block of flats	apartment house
blue jeans	dungarees/jeans
bomb (success)	bomb (disaster)
bonnet (car)	hood (car)
book	make reservation
boot (car)	trunk (car)
bootlace/shoelace	shoestring
bottom drawer	hope chest
bowler/hard hat	derby
box room	lumber room
braces	suspenders
brainstorm	muddled (mind)
break (school)	recess
bridge roll	hotdog bun
briefs	shorts/jockey shorts
brilliant	nice
brilliant idea	brainstorm (noun)
broad bean	lima bean
butter muslin/cheese cloth	cheese cloth
candy floss	cotton candy
car park	parking lot
caravan	trailer/camper/mobile home/recreation vehicle
caretaker/porter	janitor
catapult	slingshot
cattle grid	Texas gate
central reservation	median strip/divider (road)
centre (city/business)	down town
chairman	president (business)
chemist	druggist
chemist's shop	drugstore/pharmacy
chest of drawers	bureau/dresser
chicory	endive
chintzy	chintz-sprigged material
chips	French fries
chocolate/sweets	candy
cinema	movie house/theatre
cloakroom	coat check/hat check
cloakroom attendant	hat check attendant
clothes peg	clothes pin
collar stiffener	collar stay
collar stud	collar button
conscription	draft
contraceptive	rubber
convoy	caravan
cooker	stove
cornflour	corn starch
corporation	city/municipal government
cot/crib	baby bed/crib
cotton	thread
cotton reel	spool
cotton wool	cotton balls/absorbent cotton
courgettes	zucchini
courtshoe	pump
cow gum	rubber cement
cream cracker	soda cracker
crisps	chips (potato)
cul-de-sac	dead-end
cupboard	closet
curtains	drapes
desiccated (as iin coconut)	shredded (as in coconut)
detached (housing)	one-family house
diamante'	rhinestone
directory enquiries	information/directory assistance
district	precinct
diversion	detour
drain (indoor)	sewer pipe/soil pipe
draper	drygoods store
draught excluder	weather stripping
draughts	checkers
drawing pin	thumbtack
dress circle	mezzanine/loge
dressing gown	bathrobe
dual carriageway	divided highway
dummy	pacifier
dungarees	overalls
dustbin/bin	garbage can/ash can/ trash can
dynamo	generator
earth wire/earth	ground wire
eiderdown	comforter
endive	chicory
Esq./Mr	Mr.
estate agent	Realtor/real estate agent
estate car	station wagon
face flannel	washcloth
fair (fun)	carnival
fete	fair (fun)
fiddly	tricky (to do)
filling station	gas station
film	movie
first floor	second floor
fish slice	spatula/pancake turner
fitted carpet/wall to wall	wall to wall
flat	apartment/unit
flex	electric cord/wire
fly-over	overpass
football/soccer	soccer
fortnight	two weeks
foyer	lobby/foyer
full-stop	period (punctuation)
gallery	balcony (theater)
gangway	aisle
gaol	jail
garden	yard
gear lever	gear shift
geyser	water heater (gas)
gobsmacked	dumbstruck/amazed
goods truck (railway)	freight truck (railway)
goose pimples	goose bumps
gramophone/record player	phonograph/record player
green fingers	green thumb
green pepper	bell pepper
grill (verb)	broil
ground floor	first floor
guard (railway)	conductor
gym shoes/plimsolls/ tennis shoes/trainers	sneakers/tennis shoes
haberdashery	notions
hair grip/kirby grip	bobbie pin
hairslide	barette
handbag	purse/pocket book
hardware	housewares
headmaster/mistress	principal
hire purchase	time payment/instalment plan
holiday	vacation
homely-pleasant	homely-ugly
hoover (noun)	vacuum cleaner
hoover (verb)	vacuum (verb)
housing estate	sub-division
ice/sorbet	sherbet
iced lolly	popsicle
icing sugar	powdered sugar/ confectioner's sugar
identification parade	line-up
immersion heater (electric)	water heater (electric)
interval	intermission
ironmonger	hardware store
jab	shot (injection)
jeans	dungarees
joint (meat)	roast
jug	pitcher
jumper/sweater/pullover	sweater/pullover
kiosk (telephone/cigarette)	booth (telephone)
kipper	smoked herring
knock up (tennis)	warm up (tennis)
knock up (verb)	wake up (verb)
label	tag
larder	pantry
lavatory/toilet/w.c./loo	toilet/john/bathroom/rest room
lay-by	rest area/pull-off (road)
leader: (1) leading article in newspaper/ (2)1st violin in orchestra	(1) editorial (2) concert master
leader (1st violinist)	concert master
leader (newspaper)	editorial
left luggage office	baggage room
let	lease/rent
lift	elevator
limited (company)	incorporated
liver sausage	liverwurst
lodger	roomer
loo	rest room
lorry	truck
lost property	lost and found
lounge suite	business suit
mackintosh	raincoat
mad	crazy
make pregnant/put in the family way	knock up
marrow (similar)	squash (similar)
methylated spirits	denatured alcohol
mileometer	odometer
mince	hamburger meat
mincer	meat grinder
moped	motorbike
motorbike/motorcycle	motorcycle
motorway	freeway/super highway
nappy	diaper
neat (drink)	straight (drink)
newsagent	newsdealer/news stand
nought	zero
noughts and crosses	tic-tac-toe
number plate	licence plate
off licence/wine merchant	liquor store
shoddy/cheap	chintzy
oven gloves/cloth	pot holders/gloves
overtake/pass (vehicle)	pass (vehicle, etc.)
pack	deck (cards)
pantechnicon/removal van	moving van
pants	shorts (underwear)
paraffin	kerosene
parcel	package
pavement/footpath	sidewalk
pelmet	valence
personal call	person-to-person
petrol	gas
pillar box	mail box/mail drop
plus-fours	knickers
point/power point	outlet/socket
post (noun and verb)	mail (noun and verb)
postal code	zip code
postman	mail carrier
postponement	raincheck
pram (perambulator)	baby carriage/baby buggy
press studs	snaps
prison	penitentiary
public convenience (outdoors)	rest room/toilet/ comfort station/ladies or men’s room
public school/private school	private schoo/
pudding/dessert	dessert
purse	change purse
pushchair	stroller
put down/entered (goods bought)	charged (goods bought)
put through (telephone)	connect (telephone)
quay	wharf/pier
queue (noun)	line (noun)
queue (verb)	stand in line/line up
rasher (bacon)	slice (bacon)
reception (hotel)	front desk (hotel)
receptionist	desk clerk
removal van	moving van
return ticket	round trip ticket
reverse charges	call collect
reversing lights	back-up lights
ring up/phone	call/phone
road	pavement
robin (small red-breasted bird, symbol of Christmas)	robin (large red-breastedbird, symbol of 1st day of spring)
roof/hood	top (car)
roundabout/island (road)	traffic circle
rubber/india rubber	eraser
rubbish	garbage/trash
saloon car	sedan
scribbling pad/block	scratch pad
sellotape	scotch tape/cellophane
semi-detached	duplex
semolina	cream of wheat
service flats	apartment hotel
settee	love seat
settle up	pay
shop assistant	sales clerk
shopwalker	floorwalker
sideboard	buffet
sideboards	sideburns
silencer	muffler
single ticket	one way ticket
sitting room/lounge/ drawing room/living room	living room
skipping rope	jump rope
skirting board	baseboard
sledge/toboggan	sled
sleeping car	pullman/sleeper
smalls (washing)	underwear (washing)
sofa	davenport/couch
solicitor	lawyer/attorney
spanner	monkeywrench/wrench
spirits (drink)	liquor
spring onion (similar)	scallion
staff (academic)	faculty
stalls (theatre)	orchestra seats
stand (for public office)	run (for public office)
standard lamp	floor lamp
state school	public school
sticking plaster	adhesive tape
stone (fruit)	pit (fruit)
sultana	raisin
sump (car)	oilpan (car)
surgery (doctor’s/dentist’s)	office (doctor's/dentist's)
surgical spirit	rubbing alcohol
suspender belt	garter belt
suspenders	garters
swede	rutabaga/turnip
sweets/chocolate	candy
sweetshop/confectioner	candy store
Swiss roll	jelly roll
tadpole	pollywog
tap	faucet
tea trolley	teacart
teat (baby’s bottle)	nipple (baby’s bottle)
telegram	wire
term (academic -three in a year)	semester (school-two in a year)
tights	pantie hose
time-table	schedule
tin	can
tip (noun and verb)	dump (noun & verb)
toilet/cloakroom (indoors)	restroom
torch/flashlight	flashlight
traffic lights	stop lights/traffic signals/stop signals
trolley (shopping)	shopping cart
trousers/slacks	pants/slacks
truncheon	nightstick
trunk call	long distance
tube/underground	subway
turn-ups (trousers)	cuffs (pants)
unit trust	mutual fund
upper cirle	first balcony
valve (radio)	tube
van	delivery truck
vest	undershirt
visually position	eyeball (verb)
waistcoat	vest
wallet	billfold
wardrobe	closet (hanging clothes)
wash up	dishes, do the
wash your hands	wash up
washing up liquid	dish detergent
washing up powder	laundry detergent
wellies	boots
Welsh dresser	hutch
windcheater	windbreaker
windscreen	windshield
wing mirror	rearview mirror
wing/mudguard	fender
winker/indicator	blinker (car)
wonky	broken/twisted
Woolworths	dime store/five and ten
zebra crossing	crosswalk
zed (letter z)	zee (letter z)

IBM : Lithium-Air Battery that can run electric car for 500 Miles

2012-01-14T21:13:00.000-08:00

Electric-vehicles can be much better for the environment--and they're geekier--because you’re driving with pure energy. The biggest downside right now is that energy does not last very long with the smallish capacitance of lithium-ion car batteries that you have to charge overnight.

IBM is onto what it thinks is a breakthrough lithium-air battery that can theoretically store 1,000 times more energy than today’s lithium ion battery. The huge jump in energy density could effectively quintuple your electric vehicle's range from 100 miles to 500 miles. Imagine a Nissan Leaf that can go 500 miles instead of 100 miles, or a Tesla Roadster that can go 125 miles per hour for more than 600 miles.

Unlike the batteries we have used in the past (lead acid, nickel metal hydride, and so on), Li-air batteries don’t use metal to conduct a charge. Instead, the energy flow is created from the air reacting with lithium ions and a carbon matrix. So while you drive, the battery literally breathes in air to produce more energy, which extends the range of a single charge.

This research on lithium-air batteries has been on going since 2009 when IBM first started the Battery 500 project.

The reason we are not using these magical, breathing batteries right now is because they are also chemically unstable, and as of right now, frequent recharges completely destroy the battery life. The researchers discovered that the oxygen is also reacting with in-turn depletes the electrolytic solvent, a conducting solution that moves Li-ions between the electrodes and regulates the chemical reaction.

Now researchers collaborating between IBM's Almaden laboratories and Zurich research labs in Switzerland think they have found an alternative electrolytes that won’t react to the air. If everything turns out as promising as it seems, the scientists predict they will have a working prototype by 2013 and a commercial battery by 2020.

Of course, we really wouldn’t mind having longer lasting batteries in some of our everyday devices and laptops too.

Musical frequencies are based on Fibonacci ratios

2012-01-14T20:15:00.000-08:00

Fibonacci Ratio	Calculated Frequency	Tempered Frequency	Note in Scale	Musical Relationship	When A=432 *	Octave below	Octave above
1/1	440	440.00	A	Root	432	216	864
2/1	880	880.00	A	Octave	864	432	1728
2/3	293.33	293.66	D	Fourth	288	144	576
2/5	176	174.62	F	Aug Fifth	172.8	86.4	345.6
3/2	660	659.26	E	Fifth	648	324	1296
3/5	264	261.63	C	Minor Third	259.2	129.6	518.4
3/8	165	164.82	E	Fifth	162 (Phi)	81	324
5/2	1,100.00	1,108.72	C#	Third	1080	540	2160
5/3	733.33	740.00	F#	Sixth	720	360	1440
5/8	275	277.18	C#	Third	270	135	540
8/3	1,173.33	1,174.64	D	Fourth	1152	576	2304
8/5	704	698.46	F	Aug. Fifth	691.2	345.6	1382.4

How to edit caption background color of Image in Blogger ?

2012-01-13T02:52:00.001-08:00

How to edit caption background color of Image in Blogger ?　

Open your Template code and find :

.post img

It would be look like something below mentioned code :

.post img {

padding:4px;
background:#eee;
border:1px solid $bordercolor;
max-width: 808px;

}

Change the above code with below mentioned code :

.post img, table.tr-caption-container {
padding:2px;
height:auto;
border:0.5px solid #CCCCCC;
background: #CCCCCC;
}
.tr-caption-container img {
border: none;
padding: 0;
}

You can change the caption background color in red part code.

#CCCCCC color here is ■

Open Blogger post , paste image and write caption :

How to edit caption background color of Image in Blogger ?

Phobos-Grunt interplanetary probe expected to fall

2012-01-12T06:07:00.001-08:00

Top Programming Quotes of all time

2012-01-04T22:37:00.000-08:00

50. "Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to build bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning."

- Rick Cook

49. "Lisp isn't a language, it's a building material."

- Alan Kay.

48. "Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen."

- Edward V Berard

47. "They don't make bugs like Bunny anymore."

- Olav Mjelde.

46. "A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant."

- Alan J. Perlis.

45. "A C program is like a fast dance on a newly waxed dance floor by people carrying razors."

- Waldi Ravens.

44. "I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone."

- Bjarne Stroustrup

43. “Computer science education cannot make anybody an expert programmer any more than studying brushes and pigment can make somebody an expert painter.”

- Eric S. Raymond

42. “Don’t worry if it doesn’t work right. If everything did, you’d be out of a job.”

- Mosher’s Law of Software Engineering

41. “I think Microsoft named .Net so it wouldn’t show up in a Unix directory listing.”

- Oktal

40. “Fine, Java MIGHT be a good example of what a programming language should be like. But Java applications are good examples of what applications SHOULDN’T be like.”

- pixadel

39. “Considering the current sad state of our computer programs, software development is clearly still a black art, and cannot yet be called an engineering discipline.”

- Bill Clinton

38. "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should therefore be regarded as a criminal offense."

- E.W. Dijkstra

37. "In the one and only true way. The object-oriented version of 'Spaghetti code' is, of course, 'Lasagna code'. (Too many layers)."

- Roberto Waltman.

36. "FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed — it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer."

- Alan J. Perlis.

35. “For a long time it puzzled me how something so expensive, so leading edge, could be so useless. And then it occurred to me that a computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things. They are, in short, a perfect match.”

- Bill Bryson

34. "In My Egotistical Opinion, most people's C programs should be indented six feet downward and covered with dirt."

- Blair P. Houghton.

33. "When someone says: 'I want a programming language in which I need only say what I wish done', give him a lollipop."

- Alan J. Perlis

32. "The evolution of languages: FORTRAN is a non-typed language. C is a weakly typed language. Ada is a strongly typed language. C++ is a strongly hyped language."

- Ron Sercely

31. "Good design adds value faster than it adds cost."

- Thomas C. Gale

30. "Python's a drop-in replacement for BASIC in the sense that Optimus Prime is a drop-in replacement for a truck."

- Cory Dodt

29. "Talk is cheap. Show me the code."

- Linus Torvalds

28. "Perfection [in design] is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

27. "C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success."

- Dennis M. Ritchie.

26. "In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they’re not."

- Yoggi Berra

25. “You can’t have great software without a great team, and most software teams behave like dysfunctional families.”

- Jim McCarthy

24. "PHP is a minor evil perpetrated and created by incompetent amateurs, whereas Perl is a great and insidious evil, perpetrated by skilled but perverted professionals."

- Jon Ribbens

23. "Programming is like kicking yourself in the face, sooner or later your nose will bleed."

- Kyle Woodbury

22. "Perl – The only language that looks the same before and after RSA encryption."

- Keith Bostic

21. "It is easier to port a shell than a shell script."

- Larry Wall

20. "I invented the term 'Object-Oriented', and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind."

- Alan Kay

19. "Learning to program has no more to do with designing interactive software than learning to touch type has to do with writing poetry"

- Ted Nelson

18. “The best programmers are not marginally better than merely good ones. They are an order-of-magnitude better, measured by whatever standard: conceptual creativity, speed, ingenuity of design, or problem-solving ability.”

- Randall E. Stross

17. “If McDonalds were run like a software company, one out of every hundred Big Macs would give you food poisoning, and the response would be, ‘We’re sorry, here’s a coupon for two more.’ “

- Mark Minasi

16. "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."

- Donald E. Knuth.

15. "Computer system analysis is like child-rearing; you can do grievous damage, but you cannot ensure success."

- Tom DeMarco

14. "I don't care if it works on your machine! We are not shipping your machine!"

- Vidiu Platon.

13. "Sometimes it pays to stay in bed on Monday, rather than spending the rest of the week debugging Monday's code."

- Christopher Thompson

12. "Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight."

- Bill Gates

11. "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it."

- Brian W. Kernighan.

10. "People think that computer science is the art of geniuses but the actual reality is the opposite, just many people doing things that build on each other, like a wall of mini stones."

- Donald Knuth

9. “First learn computer science and all the theory. Next develop a programming style. Then forget all that and just hack.”

- George Carrette

8. “Most of you are familiar with the virtues of a programmer. There are three, of course: laziness, impatience, and hubris.”

- Larry Wall

7. “Most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves.”

- Alan Kay

6. “The trouble with programmers is that you can never tell what a programmer is doing until it’s too late.”

- Seymour Cray

5. “To iterate is human, to recurse divine.”

- L. Peter Deutsch

4. "On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."

- Charles Babbage

3. "Most good programmers do programming not because they expect to get paid or get adulation by the public, but because it is fun to program."

- Linus Torvalds

2. "Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live."

- Martin Golding

1. “There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.”

- C.A.R. Hoare

How to grow Herbs in Indoor ?

2012-01-03T02:12:00.000-08:00

Watching your garden-fresh herb supply go from healthy bunches to picked-over, withering stalks can be one of the most depressing parts of autumn. Sure, you can preserve them by drying or freezing them, or by whipping up (and freezing) a healthy herb pesto. But sometimes, there's nothing like a few leaves of fresh basil or a sprig of mint to really liven up a pasta dish or cup of hot tea. The solution? Grow your herbs indoors for the winter!

Re-pot your outdoor herbs

In most cases, growing herbs indoors is as easy as digging up the roots of your garden herbs and putting them in a pot you can set on a sunny windowsill for the duration of the winter. You'll not only get fresh herbs in the cold season, but you'll also save money in the spring: Rather than buying a new herb seedling from a nursery, you can just replant your potted herbs back in the garden.

My rosemary thrives in pots that spend the summer outside and the winter in a sunny spare room that we don't heat.

Lemon verbena is way too tender to live through my Pennsylvania winters, but tends to grow too big each summer to bring inside in the winter. So I cut the stems back to a few inches tall (drying the leaves that have been cut off), pot up the roots, and keep it in a cool room until the weather is warm enough to plant back in the ground the following spring.

Stevia can also be cut back and brought inside.

And it isn't just tender herbs that are worth bringing in. Hardy perennial herbs may survive cold winters quite easily, but I don't always want to go shovel snow to get to my herb patch for a few sprigs.

The onion-family herbs, chives and garlic chives, sprout dozens of tiny bulbs, about a quarter to a half-inch in size, in the soil. It's easy to dig up a chunk of the soil that contains the tiny bulbs and pop the chunk into a small pot to put on the windowsill. You can use the soil straight out of the ground and fill in with regular potting soil once it's in the pot.

Thyme, oregano, mint, and sage often grow roots where a stem rests on the soil during the growing season — rather than growing straight up, some of the stems lean over, and the tiny portion that rests on the ground before the stem grows upward again sprouts new roots. Cut the stem that connects these new rooted stems to the main portion of the plant, dig up the new roots, and you have a new plant that can be potted and brought indoors.

Grow herbs in water

No access to potted or ready-to-be-potted plants? Never fear: The easiest way to bring living herbs into your kitchen is to put a few cut stems, a.k.a. "cuttings," in water. You can use either stems cut from your own garden or some bought in a bunch from your local farmer's market. Even the fresh herbs you buy in the produce section of the supermarket can be fresh enough to thrive and grow for weeks or months in a jar of water. (This technique is also good for turning many types of outdoor plants into instant houseplants to perk up your winter digs.)

Basil, mints, pineapple sage, oregano, sage, stevia, thyme, lemon balm, and many other herb cuttings will thrive in a jar of water on your windowsill for months. The only herbs that don't grow well in water are annual herbs, such as dill and cilantro, which live just long enough to flower and then go to seed.

To grow herb cuttings in water, select young, healthy, actively growing herbs with stems about six inches long. Cut them off the plant with a very sharp pair of scissors or pruners (for purchased herbs, cut off the bottom of the stem to leave a fresh, clean cut). Strip off all of the leaves from the lower two-thirds of the stem (saving them for cooking, too).

Fill a clean jar that is deep enough to cover the stripped portion of the cuttings with water. Avoid distilled water, as it doesn't have the traces of minerals your growing plants will need. Add water as needed to keep the water level in the jar up. Once roots form, the water will usually stay pretty clean. Put the jar in a sunny, warm place, keeping an eye out for roots. Once roots appear, you'll start to see new growth on the shoots. Harvest individual leaves, or cut off the shoot tips as needed (they will regrow below the cut). If you don't see any roots within a couple of weeks, toss out any cuttings that are rotting (or use willow water, below). Hey, it happens to the best of us, sometimes.

Bonus tip: Willow twigs contain high concentrations of rooting hormones, which can help revive cuttings that aren't growing roots. These same hormones are sold at nurseries, but you can get them for free by strolling through a local park or your backyard. All you need is a couple of feet of living willow twigs. Cut them up into short lengths, cover the bits with boiling water, and let them steep overnight. The next morning, strain out the twig bits and use the "willow water" instead of plain water in the jar with your recalcitrant cuttings.

How to grow Garlic ?

2012-01-02T04:26:00.000-08:00

1. Choosing Types of Garlic

If you look in a specialist catalog like the one at Gourmet Garlic Gardens, you'll find dozens of varieties of garlic listed. The folks at Filaree Farm, who offer a hundred, divide them into seven groups: Rocambole, Purple Stripe, Porcelain, Artichoke, Silverskin, Asiatic Turban and Creole. Gourmet GG says it's 10 groups because they divide Asiatic from Turban and add Marbled Purple Stripe and Glazed Purple Stripe to the list.

You see where this is going – and you can see a lot more types of garlic on either of those websites, but for general purposes the most important difference is the one between softneck and hardneck.

Softnecks are so called because the whole green plant dies down to pliancy, leaving nothing but the bulb and flexible stems that are easy to braid.

Hardnecks have a stiff stem in the center that terminates in a beautiful flower – or cluster of little bulbs – then dries to a rigid stick that makes braiding impossible.

Softnecks, the standard garlics of commerce, are the easiest to grow in regions where the weather is mild. They keep longer than hardnecks, but they are less hardy and more prone to make small, very strong-flavored cloves. Hardnecks do best where there is a real winter and are more vulnerable to splitting – or simply refusing to produce – when grown in warm climates.

Gardeners in most of the U.S. can try some of both. Southerners should probably stick to softnecks and northerners to the hard ones, but microclimates matter. Specialty sellers will suggest best bets based on your climate and tastes, and of course it's wise to get some seed stock from your local farmers' market: whatever it is, it's growing where you are.

2. Planting Garlic

Growing garlic starts with knowing when to plant it. But planting itself is incredibly easy:

In mid-fall (around October 10 here in the Hudson Valley), plant garlic bulbs in loose, very fertile soil that's as weed-free as possible. Insert cloves root side down about 8 inches apart in all directions (if space is limited, you can squeeze by with 6), burying the tips about two inches down. Green shoots will come up; mulch around them with straw. Hard freeze will come and kill the shoots. Draw the mulch over the whole bed.

In spring, pull the mulch back when the new shoots emerge. Give them a shot of mixed fish emulsion and liquid seaweed. Keep them weeded. Water only if the soil is dry two or more inches down, being sure to avoid pouring water into the crowns of the plants.

3. Cutting Garlic Scapes

Both of us spent most of our gardening lives knowing it was important to cut off the flowering scapes of hardneck garlic so they wouldn't draw energy that should be spent making bulbs. Then I read a story about some garlic growing guru on Long Island who said it didn't matter a whit and he never bothered.

Well, it isn't really much bother; tender young scapes are delicious and older ones that have made pretty curls look wonderful in the vase. But still...

So we set up an experiment, easy because we always plant a long narrow raised bed with two parallel rows. We allotted 30 spaces in each row and planted the same variety – our saved household special – in both of them.

When they were about half grown, no longer super tender but not yet curly and tough, we set about cutting garlic scapes, but only from one row of the plants. At harvest, after trimming,

The cut row yielded: 15 jumbo heads, 14 medium, 1 small, with 9 cracked and 1 half-rotted.

The uncut row yielded 12 jumbo, 16 medium and 2 small, with 3 that were cracked and 1 that was half-cracked.

So, very close to a tie except for one thing: we got 5 pounds out of the cut row, 6.5 pounds out of the one we left alone.

Tips for cutting garlic scapes:

1. No harm in taking a few to eat, but don't wait until they're large. Most of the scapes I see for sale are bigger than the four-to-six inches long they should be for best flavor and texture.

2. No harm in cutting some for the vase, either, but don't take them too soon. If you wait until the tops are well developed you'll get, depending on variety, either:

a head of tiny garlic grains that can be used whole and unpeeled in place of minced garlic (for a week or two, after which the skins toughen), or

a clump of small round bulbs, called topsets, that can be stored all winter long and then planted close together in early spring to produce the garlic equivalent of scallions.

4. Harvesting Garlic

When to harvest garlic depends on the type. Garlic varieties are divided into early, midseason and late, but what that means depends not only on your climate zone but also on your climate in the growing year. Heat speeds 'em up, cold slows 'em down, and although the harvest window is wide if you plan to eat the garlic fresh, it's narrow if you want to ensure maximum storage life.

The bulbs are ready when most of the lower leaves have browned. The upper ones will still be green. If you've ever grown onions, it's easy to assume garlic is the same and you should wait until all the leaves have fallen over. Bad idea. By the time all the leaves are dead the bulbs will have split; they won't have the leaf sheathes they need to form wrappers and it's likely fungus disease will have found a way in.

"Lift the bulbs" is usually used to describe moving things like daffodils, but it's also a good way to think about harvesting garlic. Those heads are more delicate than they seem and any cut or bruise will shorten storage life.

Try to choose an overcast day when the soil is dry. Loosen the soil with a digging fork, inserting it well away from the heads, then lift them out of the row and place them in a flat carrier.

5. Curing Garlic

Let the whole plants dry in a single layer somewhere out of the sun where it's warm but not hot. When the outer skin is papery, brush off as much dirt as possible and clip the roots. Rush this a bit if you're braiding garlic stems; if you wait until they're completely dry they tend to crack and break.

The finished garlic will still be on the dirty side compared to anything commercial. We leave it that way until we want to use it because further cleanup can shorten storage life. If you can't bear the way it looks, try removing the outer layer of wrapper. You can wash the bulbs if you must and should be ok as long as they dry quickly and thoroughly, but if you ask me you're asking for trouble by pushing it this way.

6. Storing Garlic

How to store garlic? The at-home ideal for storing garlic is between 55 and 70 degrees, with moderate humidity and good air circulation, in the light but out of the sun. We keep our garlic stored in baskets in the cold closet (a.k.a. the inner cold room, an insulated section of the unheated sunporch next to Bill's office). Those less fortunate in the storage department can punt as necessary with good results as long as they avoid the refrigerator (excess cold leads to sprouting) and plastic bags (no air = high humidity = rot).

Vacuum Metastability Event : Earth Killer

2011-12-31T21:43:00.000-08:00

Quantum physics, the study of "dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interaction of matter and energy," is science-talk for "a bunch of far-out shit, man." The field has sprouted some of the more mind-blowing theories of life, the universe and everything. One of the more disconcerting ones is the suggestion that we (as in "we, everyone and everything in the universe") may exist in a false vacuum state. A lot of abstract terms such as "bubbles" and "vacuum levels" are involved, but in layman's terms, this means the universe was built from dodgy parts and ended up with an energy level too low for more than temporary sustenance. Therefore, at any given moment, it could call it quits and succumb to the pressure, only to be replaced by higher energy levels.

It's called a vacuum metastability event, which is what happens when the energy levels of our particular universe's vacuum go sour. Should this happen, the ensuing collapse would level Earth with a light-speed blast before any of us even had time to blink. It's probably a good thing that we don't survive long, because after that, things get really bad. All the laws of physics will go psychedelic on your poor, obliterated ass, until they eventually mutate into a completely new, improved set. There will still be a universe, just not the universe. In time, there may even be life -- just not the sort we'd be able to comprehend, even if our brains hadn't been smashed into inverted color parties riding the crest of an infinite mathwave.

It's kind of like surfing, only your entire body is slowly dissolving into ether, and everything tastes mauve.

In other words, quantum physics is basically telling us that Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones could come knocking at any minute now. That's right: Lovecraft was a scientist all along, just coldly documenting the facts as he saw them.

Rogue Black Holes : Earth Killer

2011-12-31T21:42:00.000-08:00

It's not just stars that take apocalyptic joyrides randomly throughout the universe. Science has found out that black holes can move about at terrible velocities, too! Oh yeah, great. We don't have enough shit to deal with.

Wait, what? Black holes? The great big space-whirlpool crushy things? The ones that you can't escape from, and you can't even see?

Yeppers! Those are the ones. If you thought that black holes were abstractly frightening but that you were safe as long as you didn't go gallivanting about space like some kind of space-asshole, think again. They can -- and do -- move, which of course means they're coming directly for you.

When it comes to sneaking up on us unnoticed, hypervelocity stars up there have the minor drawback of, well, being giant balls of nuclear fire. They're pretty noticeable. Rogue black holes, however, get a +4 stealth bonus for being notoriously difficult to spot in the vast darkness of space. There could be one coming at us right now -- screaming your name followed immediately by "I COME FOR YOUUUU!" -- and we might never notice it. Well, until it rips the Earth apart, sucks us down and purees us before finally, mercifully adding us to the mass of its singularity. We'd probably notice that part.

Fortified bunkers can't save you from space.

And of course there are hundreds of rogue black holes roaming our galaxy alone. We don't know why you even bothered asking.

Hypervelocity Stars : Earth Killer

2011-12-31T21:40:00.000-08:00

What we tend to call shooting stars are really just meteoroids burning in the Earth's atmosphere. But actual shooting stars do exist. Yes, there are very real stars -- as in "great balls of nuclear fire a million miles across" -- with a velocity so great that they can actually escape the gravitational pull of their galaxies and roam free throughout the universe. These freewheeling stars are the Hells Angels of the cosmos: They're big, scary and notoriously difficult to stop, and if they move into your neighborhood, your property values are going straight to hell. Yep, there are sun-size balls of nuclear energy zooming wherever they want at speeds of up to 4,000 kilometers per second, burning everything they come across and fucking up every orbit they pass by. We just thought you should know that, in case you were running low on nebulous dread or something.

But it's probably OK: We've only found like 16 of these things zipping about. When you take into account the fact that our solar system is but a speck of fecal matter in the giant toilet that is the universe, the chances of one of those ever managing to impact us are roughly the same as the chances of you ever managing to gather up enough courage to talk to that cute girl next door from atop your solid-gold BattleMech.

If you ever meet a woman who's impressed with your bat'leth skills, it's probably time to start worrying. But the thing with the universe is that it's kind of a largish place. However sophisticated our current equipment may seem, it's still the equivalent of shining a cereal-box flashlight into the ocean to try to spot the bottom. So whenever new technology enters the game, new data enters the equation, and we have to revise our appropriate terror levels for it. For instance, the new Pan-STARRS telescope system has, within the past five months alone, found no less than 19 completely unknown asteroids that pose a potential danger to Earth. And these have been buzzing around a mere 7.5 million kilometers away. Universally speaking, that's not on our doorstep -- that's right in our goddamn living room, ransacking our drinks cabinet and making offhand remarks about our place looking really flammable and how "It would be a shame if anything bad happened to it."

"How about Earth? They're loaded. Send over a couple of asteroids to rough up the joint."

And we're not exaggerating that "hypervelocity" part, either -- an average HV star moves at a staggering 1.6 million kilometers an hour. So while there might not be any hypervelocity stars with trajectories directly threatening Earth that we know of, one could come hauling ass up into our business in a cosmic heartbeat. Plus, the aforementioned 16 are just those that humanity has found and is able to monitor. You know how many are estimated to be bouncing playfully around our galaxy alone? At least a thousand.

The whole universe is basically a grab bag filled with medical waste. There's still precious little chance of hypervelocity stars ever being an immediate threat, though: "Cosmic heartbeat" is still kind of a long-ass time for humanity. If we geared up a new telescope tomorrow only to find one coming in from a previous blind spot as close as, say, one light-year away, we'd still have a few centuries before it would fry us, cause a cataclysmic collision within the solar system, and inflict some pretty intense gravitational disruptions. You're not going to be alive in a few centuries, though; that's the future's problem. And really, fuck those guys. All flying around in their precious jetpacks like they're better than you. They deserve what they get.

X-43 : Fastest Passenger Plane

2011-12-30T21:14:00.000-08:00

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IME) believes that commercial jets could be flying at five times the speed of sound by 2075. The trip from New York To London would be less than an hour. While this may seem like a long time the engineering required to create passenger plans traveling over 4,000 mph is no small feat.

The talks involve creating passenger scramjet planes. Scramjets, aka supersonic combustion ramjet, use an air-breathing jet engine that burns combustible fuel while decelerating incoming air to produce it’s thrust.

Currently the fastest scramjet is the X-43 designed by NASA, which has a velocity of Mach 8 or approximately 6,000 mph. However this plane is currently incapable of carrying passengers.

To save power these commercial aircrafts would fly in a V-shaped formation taking advantage of the airflow generated by the plane in front, similar to migrating birds.

Chief executive of IME Stephen Tetlow believes, “There is great potential for new UK aerospace technologies, but in order to compete with emerging nation, we need to set up a strategic vision for UK aerospace, establish a new dedicated aerospace research body and restore research and development funding to pre-recession levels.”

Size of Earth During Massive solar Flame

2011-12-29T03:14:00.000-08:00

2005 YU55 approach

2011-12-29T03:12:00.000-08:00

2013 : Massive Solar Storm Coming

2011-12-29T03:07:00.000-08:00

As you may or may not be aware, our sun is ramping up its solar activity right about now. The sun’s antics ebb and flow over an 11 year cycle, and the most recent peak is going to be sometime around 2013. What this means for those of us residing on planet Earth is an increase in solar flare and coronal mass ejection (CME) activity.

Solar flares and CMEs are both a large energy release of radiation and burning gasses exploding from the surface of the sun, enveloping the earth as they pass by. As the earth swims in the Sun’s ejected radiation, solar particles are caught up in Earth’s magnetic field and the gas is excited, causing bursts of light that are commonly known as the Northern Lights. These lights aren’t just cool waves of multicolored light in the sky, though; the same solar effect can cause magnetic storms that can damage electronics and knock out GPS and cell signals.

The Earth will be riding through multiple CMEs between December 28 and 31, as noted by the Daily Mail, and minor radio blackouts are expected, including disruptions to devices like GPS units, radios, and mobile phones.

The magnetic storms over the next few days won’t be powerful enough to damage electronics except in the most unlikely of cases, but you should go about your business with the expectation that you may have trouble with the above-stated systems until the end of the year. Soloar activity like this will become more and more common as we head into the Sun’s active cycle, though many ejections and flares will more than likely miss us (we hope!).

Larger flares and CMEs tend to push the Northern Lights further south, allowing them to be viewed by a much larger audience, which is a blessing in disguise of these ejections.

How do you feel about this phenomenon?

Extraterrestrial Life in the Universe?

2011-12-29T02:31:00.000-08:00

Alien life

From 1 photo

One of the most fascinating questions that occurs when contemplating the universe is whether there other life exists, equally or more intelligent than we. Are there alien eyes looking at our star or our galaxy and do these creatures ask the same cosmological questions we ask? Nobody knows, although the straightforward application of the Copernican Principle suggests that we cannot be unique in the universe.

Is there other life in the universe? How can we begin to answer that question, in the absence of direct evidence to answer the question in the affirmative? One way is through something known as the Drake equation, named after the astronomer Frank Drake. It is not really an equation to be solved, so much as it is a way of systematizing the unknowns. Here is how it works. Let us say we wish to estimate the quantity N, the number of technological civilizations in the galaxy. Of the n stars in the galaxy, only some fraction fp of them will have planets. Only some average number of planets per star, (H), will be potentially habitable. Of the habitable planets, there is a fraction fl that will develop life. Now of the planets that develop life, how many will develop intelligent life? Use fi for that fraction. Only some fraction of intelligent species ft will develop technology. So given all these things, we can write

N = n × fp × H × fl × fi × ft

Some of these factors are easier to estimate than others. There are about 100 billion stars in the Milky Way so we will use that for n. There now seems to be some direct evidence for planets around other stars, but as yet we still don't know what fraction of stars would have planets. If we are optimistic, then we would take a fraction near one, essentially saying that all stars have planets. What number of planets per star would be habitable? The planets would have to be located at a distance from their star that is neither too hot nor too cold. In our solar system there are three that are potentially habitable, Venus, Mars, and the Earth. Some stars would support fewer, or possibly no, habitable planets. Let's say that, on average, only one in 10 stars with planets has one planet that could support life. What have we got so far?

N = 100,000,000,000 × 1 × 0.1 × fl × fi × ft

This still leaves a lot of potentially life-bearing planets!

The next three fractions are the especially tricky ones. If life can develop, does it? Opinions differ widely on this topic. This is where the issue of whether or not there is life on Mars or on some other body in the solar system has some application. If life developed on both Mars and the Earth and it becomes much more problematic to say that life is incredibly difficult to get started on any given planet. If you believe life is inevitable, given habitable conditions, then make fl =1.

Now, if life forms, does it become intelligent? A difficult question. Life has been around on Earth for billions of years and we (modern humans) came on the scene only in the last 100,000 or so years. And any life on Mars that may have once existed (if it did) died out completely. For purposes of an estimate, let's take the ratio of 100,000 years of humans to 1 billion years of life, giving us 1 in 10,000 planets with life that develop intelligence.

Does intelligent life inevitably develop technology? Good arguments can be made either way. There doesn't seem to be anything particularly inevitable about humanity's rise to technological prowess. Although it happened rapidly once it got going, did it have to happen? Could an intelligent creature stay as a hunter/gatherer or simple tool-user for the entire length of its existence? Who knows? Let's adopt the attitude that intelligence necessarily leads to technology and say that ft = 1. So we have

N = 100,000,000,000 × 1 × 0.1 × 1 × 0.0001 × 1 = 1,000,000

One million planets with technologies!

OK, we stacked the deck by choosing all the optimistic numbers. Go back and put in some numbers of your own. You only have to insert one pessimistic number to drop the number of planets in the Milky Way down to around 1, which would be the Earth. For example, humanity has been technological for only 100 out of its 100,000 years of existence. If you find the thought of a low number of life-bearing planets depressing, that we might be alone in the Milky Way, bear in mind that there are more galaxies in the visible universe, than there are stars in our galaxy. So if there were only one life bearing planet in each galaxy there would still be trillions of life bearing planets. But we will never communicate with or visit other galaxies.

And how likely are life-bearing planets that can lead to intelligent life? Do they require a large moon, such as the Earth has? Such double planets may well be rare, particularly if the Moon formed as the result of a huge impact early in the history of the solar system. Does intelligent life require dry land as well as oceans? What are the odds that the Earth would end up with both oceans and dry land (as opposed to all oceans or all dry land)? We don't really know, but once you start thinking about it, things become rather tricky quite rapidly.

So who knows? But it does tend to make you want treat our planet and its unique inhabitants with some respect.

Super Earth

2011-12-25T03:00:00.000-08:00

From Science

In another step toward finding Earth-like planets that may hold life, the U.S. space agency said Monday the Kepler space telescope has confirmed its first planet in a habitable zone outside our solar system. Spinning around its star some 600 light years away, Kepler-22b is 2.4 times the size of the Earth, putting it in a class known as "super-Earths," and orbits its Sun-like star every 290 days. Its near-surface temperature is presumed to be about 22C. Scientists do not know, however, whether the planet is rocky, gaseous or liquid. Astronomers also don't know whether life actually exists there, simply that the conditions are right.

Habital zone

Kepler-22b sits squarely in its star's "habitable zone," the region where liquid water could exist on the surface. Follow-up studies are underway to determine if the planet is solid, like Earth, or more gaseous, like Neptune. "We don't know anything about the planets between Earth-size and Neptune-size because in our solar system we have no examples of such planets. We don't know what fraction are going to be rocky, what fraction are going to be water worlds, what fraction are ice worlds. We have no idea until we measure one and see," said Natalie Batalha, an astronomer at San Jose State University in California and deputy science team leader for the space telescope.

There are others

The latest confirmed exoplanet that could support life brings to three the total number confirmed by global astronomers. In addition to French astronomers' confirmed finding of Gliese 581d in May, Swiss astronomers reported in August that another planet, HD 85512 b, about 36 light years away seemed to be in the habitable zone of its star. However, those two planets are "orbiting stars smaller and cooler than our Sun," the National Aeronautics & Space Agency said in a statement, noting that Kepler-22b "is the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star similar to our Sun." Confirmation for astronomers means they have seen it crossing in front of its star three times.

Aliend pond slime

All this has brought to the fore a question long debated by geologists, chemists, paleontologists and cosmologists turned astrobiologists, namely: What does life really need to get going, flourish and evolve on some alien rock? What we are most likely to find, a growing number of scientists say, is alien pond slime. "If you reran Earth's history, how many times would you get animals?" asked Donald Brownlee, an astronomer at the University of Wash-ington. He and a colleague, the paleontologist Peter Ward, made a case that we live on a lucky planet in their 1999 book, Rare Earth. Even warm and wet is a rare condition, however, occurring now on only one of the eight official planets in our solar system and three of the several dozen moons. Mars was once wet, but is now a desert. And after billions of dollars spent exploring Mars and the remains of space probes littering the planet, we still do not know if a single microbe ever lived there.

The search goes on

Kepler is NASA's first mission in search of Earth-like planets orbiting suns similar to ours, and cost the U.S space agency about US$600-million. It is equipped with the largest camera ever sent into space - a 95-megapixel array of charge-coupled devices - and is expected to continue sending information back to Earth until at least November 2012. Kepler is searching for planets as small as Earth.

Biggest scientific breakthroughs of 2011

2011-12-25T02:48:00.000-08:00

1. Upending the laws of physics

Researchers at the CERN laboratory in Geneva announced in September that they'd clocked subatomic particles called neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light. That finding directly contradicts Albert Einstein's 1905 special theory of relativity, which holds that nothing can outrun light. If neutrinos can, they could arrive at a destination before they even left, opening the prospect of time travel. Or could it be that neutrinos move through an undiscovered fifth dimension, separate from the three dimensions of space and one of time that we know about? Those ideas are so shocking that even the CERN team "wanted to find a mistake" in their data, says team leader Antonio Ereditato. But they didn't. And so far, further testing has failed to dismiss the finding, says theoretical physicist Matthew Strassler, as "a doorway into something fundamental and deep we don't know about nature."

2. Reasons to listen to your gut

Bacteria in our intestines may play a major role in the health of our minds and bodies. German researchers have discovered that just as each human being has a specific blood type, each of us also has one of three separate families of bacteria residing in our guts. A person's "enterotype" likely establishes itself in infancy and appears to affect everything from how well food is digested to how drugs are absorbed. The discovery of the three distinct gut ecosystems "was a surprise, and it's good news," says researcher Peer Bork. The finding could help physicians diagnose and treat serious digestive disorders, and also help explain why the effects of medicines and nutrients vary widely from person to person. Further studies have shown that ingesting a bacteria species found in certain yogurts and cheeses calms stressed-out mice — pointing to the prospect of treating psychiatric disorders with microbes instead of drugs.

3. Closing in on alien life

A galaxy-wide search for Earth-like planets has returned a startling number of candidates. Using NASA's Kepler space telescope, astronomers this year announced they'd spotted 2,326 new worlds and counting. Ten of those planets are close in size to our own and orbit their suns in the "habitable zone," where temperatures could be balmy enough to support liquid water — and potentially life. The best contender yet, Kepler-22b, looks to be a hospitable 72 degrees and circles a star very similar to our sun. The data pouring in from the spacecraft, launched in March 2009, are "game-changing," says Kepler principal investigator William Borucki. "It's just a tremendous amount of new knowledge." Already, other researchers are scanning the most promising Kepler finds for signs of alien life.

4. A new weapon against aging

The fountain of youth might one day flow within our own cells. Scientists working with mice have discovered that if they remove a special kind of cell that promotes aging, a host of age-related conditions disappear: The genetically modified rodents didn't develop cataracts, their skin didn't wrinkle, and they maintained high levels of energy throughout their lives. The so-called senescent cells have lost the ability to divide, and as they build up in aging tissue, they release toxins that destroy robust neighboring cells. Scientists devised a way of killing off those senescent cells, and the procedure "suggests therapies that might work in real patients," says Norman E. Sharpless, an expert on aging. If purging the cells works in people as it does in mice, the treatment could ward off a host of age-related diseases, from cancer to dementia, and keep us vigorous longer.

We’re 99% certain this is the most beautiful footage of Earth’s auroras yet recorded

2011-12-25T02:43:00.000-08:00

From Science

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

Flywheel Energy Storage - 2011

2011-12-25T02:34:00.000-08:00

From Science

If we are going to retool our electric grid to incorporate more renewable energy sources, we need to find better ways of storing energy. One solution that has been talked about for decades is the use of flywheels: large, heavy wheels that store energy by spinning rapidly and release it through a generator that converts it back into electricity. The upshot: A utility can swiftly ramp up supply or taper it off to meet demand. After years of false starts, the first large-scale flywheel plant is set to open in 2011. Beacon Power’s 20-Mw plant in Stephentown, New York, features 200 flywheels, each with a magnetically levitated rotor that spins at up to 16,000 rpm.

Space junk facts

2011-12-25T02:18:00.001-08:00

From Science