20101229

Russia's latest five-year plan calls for switch to Linux

hurray for the russians :D

20101223

CIA's WTF to investigate impact of WikiLeaks

LOL CIA WTF FFS GTP (the last one is greeklish) :D

by the way, if the CIA would have assessed the impact earlier, after wikileaks' asked the US ambassador to examine the leaks before publishing the "leakage" (here and here), all these problems would not exist now.

via Engadget by Donald Melanson on 12/22/10

UN on the wikileaks

cidh.oas.org/relatoria/showarticle.asp?artID=829&lID=1

IMHO, this article condemns the US stance and considers it as a violation of the free speech :D

20101222

Ancient humans interbred with us

how did the homo sapiens sapiens prevail? It must have been either interbreeding or simple racism and marginalization :P

Also, as can be seen on the diagram that shows the human family tree, Neanderthal DNA traces can be found in all the human lineages that can be viewed in the diagram, except the African.

via BBC News - Home on 12/22/10

Cyberdyne HAL Exoskeleton to Be Shown Off at CES 2011

The coolest part is that the exoskeleton moves on its own, based on what you want it to do. Thus, it's a movement amplifier. :P Imagine having an involuntary muscle contraction. This thing will just amplify it ;)

via SlashGear by Evan Selleck on 12/22/10

Secret Soviet-era laser tank pops up in the Ivanovo Oblast

a laser tank. when others were jumping from pole to pole in the Olympic games of Barcelona, the Russians were building laser tanks :P

via Engadget by Joseph L. Flatley on 12/22/10

20101221

Kinect admits itself to hospital, treated for gesture control of medical images

A truly awesome application of the kinect! A gloveless minority report style interface is closer in the mainstream than we imagine (and it is actually put to good use) :D
via Engadget by Darren Murph on 12/21/10

Heart Spark pendant blinks with your heart

how nice, a perfect gift for the Valentine's day for your geeky sweetheart :D

20101218

The woman who cannot experience fear

via BBC News - Home on 12/17/10

A woman who is unable to feel fear may help scientists find treatments for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and create the brutal unstoppable army of really angry ladies :P

Seriously though, by removing a part of one's brain, he/she is unable to experience fear. By extending this pattern to other emotions, one can argue that the very soul of a human being is partitioned in a number of distinct "hardware" (would flesh and blood be more appropriate maybe?) components. Each component is dedicated to a certain function (e.g. risk management, graphics processing, audio processing, social processor, reasoning unit, anxiety control, arithmetic unit, e.t.c..).

This hardware component paradigm is very familiar to us (by "us", I mean people familiar with the general principles of simple machine design; btw, most of us are familiar with these concepts [by the latter "us", I mean everyone]). But I digress.

So, one could choose to believe that since people have been thusly built, someone must have designed them. But I digress.

Finally, a rather intriguing (and, IMHO very awesome) argument would be that essentially we are a conglomeration (a swarm, if you will) of organisms that chose to cooperate in order to survive through the hardships of the world that surrounded them and after millions of years have evolved to the specialized organs that constitute our bodies. This isn't anything new or radical, as it can be deduced intuitively by the fact that life began from a single cell organism.

The point is that, since even the most tightly woven to the human "soul" emotions are being controlled by different parts of the brain, the personality and thoughts of each human must conversely be defined by the signals exchanged between the "organisms" in the human's brain. Ergo, a single soul might not exist. What it does exist is a collection of hardware components that accept certain input (e.g. images) and produce certain output (e.g. fear).

20101217

Self-Powered House Generates Income for You

My next house :D :P


Midday sunshine 'benefits health'

The sunshine! Let's go out and play and climb trees and stuff! In the sunshine! Weeeeeee :D

This reminds me of the iconic hair song:
Leeeeeeeeeeet the sunshine, leeeeeeeeeeet the sunshine in. The suuuuuuunshine in...

Gay hippie happiness :D

via BBC News - Home on 12/16/10

New health advice on vitamin D recommends short spells in the sun - without sunscreen and in the middle of the day.

20101201

Mercury 'turns birds homosexual'

This shows that homosexuality in animals that function without advanced operating systems might be a disease.

Will mercury have the same effects on the hominidae family? Imagine the possibilities on overpopulation!

The population will be controlled by planes and helicopters that will spray cities with a mercuric chloride (HgCl2) solution. This will kill many many people and turn many to gay :P objective achieved ;)

via BBC News - Home on 12/1/10

PlayStation Phone espied in Greece, said to have Gingerbread and 4-inch screen (video)

http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/01/playstation-phone-espied-in-greece-said-to-have-gingerbread-and/

For real? :p