2 April 2012
I can hardly believe it: the Claymore headed back to Polynesia and I got left behind here on Pitcairn for 10 days. How cool is that? 10 whole days on the home of the Bounty buccaneers.
More…
Due to the cool rainy weather in London, beach volleyball players will likey swap out their bikinis for long sleeves and leggings. In an unrelated developement, NBC announced it’s reducing scheduled beach volleyball coverage from 26 hours to 43 seconds.
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| — | Brad Dickson |
A vision of crimes in the future. By Marc Goodman
TALKS
The world is becoming increasingly open, and that has implications both bright and dangerous. Marc Goodman paints a portrait of a grave future, in which technology’s rapid development could allow crime to take a turn for the worse.
Marc Goodman works to prevent future crimes and acts of terrorism, even those security threats not yet invented. Full bio »
The Man With The Iron Fists is an over-the-top kung fu flick starring Lucy Liu. What more needs to be said?
Fine — here’s the plot, as if it matters: In feudal China, a blacksmith who makes weapons for a small village is put in the position where he must defend himself and his fellow villagers.
Produced by Quentin Tarantino, RZA’s directorial debut also stars Russell Crowe. Out October 26.
(Not Safe For Work — red band.)
Genes reveal grain of truth to Queen of Sheba story. By Hannah Krakauer
The genomes of Ethiopian people hold echoes of the meeting between a legendary king and queen.
About 3000 years ago, the Queen of Sheba purportedly travelled from what is now Ethiopia to meet King Solomon in Israel. Ethiopian folklore even tells of a child between the pair. But that’s just a story, right?
Perhaps not entirely. Luca Pagani of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, UK, examined samples of Ethiopian genomes and noticed that some individuals had components of both African and non-African lineages. Delving deeper, Pagani and his colleagues discovered that the non-African genetic components had much more in common with people living in Syria and around the eastern Mediterranean than in the nearer Arabian peninsula. What’s more, the gene flow probably took place around 3000 years ago.
The finding is backed by linguistic research, which shows that one of the four language families of Ethiopia migrated from the same region about 3000 years ago. “Middle Eastern language came to Ethiopia along with Middle Eastern genes,” Pagani says. “And that is when the Queen of Sheba legend is supposed to have happened.”
The meeting between the queen and Solomon remains a story, but the populations they came from did meet around that time, says Pagani.
Journal reference: The American Journal of Human Genetics, DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2012.05.015
- From issue 2871 of New Scientist magazine, page 15.
![Software developer and Ray Bradbury fan Tim Bray has proposed a new HTTP status code inspired by Fahrenheit 451 that would reflect Internet censorship.
Bray’s recommendation is that when access to a website is denied for legal reasons, the user is given the status code 451:
We can never do away entirely with legal restrictions on freedom of speech. On the other hand, I feel that when such restrictions are imposed, they should be done so transparently; for example, most civilized people find Britain’s system of superinjunctions loathsome and terrifying.
While we may agree on the existence of certain restrictions, we should be nervous whenever we do it; thus the reference to the dystopian vision of Fahrenheit 451 may be helpful. Also, since the Internet exists in several of the many futures imagined by Bradbury, it would be nice for a tip of the hat in his direction from the net, in the year of his death.
The proposal will be considered in July by the Internet Engineering Task Force, the body that makes such decisions.
[guardian]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6521pJjF61qzpwi0o1_500.jpg)
Software developer and Ray Bradbury fan Tim Bray has proposed a new HTTP status code inspired by Fahrenheit 451 that would reflect Internet censorship.
Bray’s recommendation is that when access to a website is denied for legal reasons, the user is given the status code 451:
We can never do away entirely with legal restrictions on freedom of speech. On the other hand, I feel that when such restrictions are imposed, they should be done so transparently; for example, most civilized people find Britain’s system of superinjunctions loathsome and terrifying.
While we may agree on the existence of certain restrictions, we should be nervous whenever we do it; thus the reference to the dystopian vision of Fahrenheit 451 may be helpful. Also, since the Internet exists in several of the many futures imagined by Bradbury, it would be nice for a tip of the hat in his direction from the net, in the year of his death.
The proposal will be considered in July by the Internet Engineering Task Force, the body that makes such decisions.
[guardian]
No Math: Michael Boatman, Julie Bowen, Simon Helberg, and John Oliver are seriously funny in “A World Without Math,” part of a Save the Children campaign for math education programs in Bangladesh and Malawi.
“We do not want to create a situation like that which exists in South Africa, where the whites are the owners and rulers, and the blacks are the workers. If we do not do all kinds of work, easy and hard, skilled and unskilled, if we become merely landlords, then this will not be our homeland.”
— David Ben Gurion (Shabtai Teveth, Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs:
From Peace to War, London: Oxford University Press, 1985, p. 140)
Colombian downhill mountain biker Marcelo Gutierrez is back, this time taking us on a Red Bull Downhill time trial that descends some 2,000 meters and includes more than 1,000 stone steps.
[gizmodo]
Job titles on LinkedIn
- Digital Overlord
- Creator of Happiness
- Retail Jedi
- Wizard of Light Bulb Moments
- Dream Alchemist
- Chief Chatter
- Change Magician
- Accounting Ninja
- Chief Biscuit Dunker
- Direct Mail Demi-God
Creation in the South Pacific
Originally posted in 2006.
Source: http://yacht-maiken.blogspot.com/2006/08/stone-sea-and-volcano.html
Verification: http://www.hoax-slayer.com/new-pacific-island.shtml
A yacht was traveling in the south Pacific when the crew came across a weird sight. Look at these photos and try to imagine the thrill of experiencing this phenomenon.
A beach?
No: this is not a beach.
It is volcanic stones floating on the water.
But where is the volcano?
Unbelievable site, so take pictures to prove it is true else no one would believe it.
The wake of my ship
Stay on the edge of the water then this was spotted: ash and steam rising from the ocean.
And, while we were watching…
…a plume of black ash…huge cloud, covering red even this far away.
Then the sky turns black with ash and the ocean gold with suns reflection.
Out of the ocean mountain peaks arise.
More eruptions ash and clouds.
The mountain peaks rise higher within minutes.
A brand new island formed.
Creation of mountains.
Can you imagine the thrill of being the first and only people to see a new island being created where there was nothing before?
TALKS
Billy Collins: Everyday moments, caught in time
Combining dry wit with artistic depth, Billy Collins shares a project in which several of his poems were turned into delightful animated films in a collaboration with Sundance Channel. Five of them are included in this wonderfully entertaining and moving talk — and don’t miss the hilarious final poem!
A two-term U.S. Poet Laureate, Billy Collins captures readers with his understated wit, profound insight — and a sense of being “hospitable.” Full bio »
