Fun tidbits

A brief jaunt into random websites while frantically trying to assemble my experiments, which happen to be unexpectedly soon, is always a dangerous proposition. Here are a few science-y/tech-y funbits...

- The Apollo 11 - rockstar awesome, yes? Well, check out this funky little guidance computer simulator. All systems are go... for fun! (info, and the site.)

- From the DonationCoder forums, bookTome helps you organize your book collection. A better option, though, might be Calibre (though more for the ebook crowd). More alternatives can be found in the forum comments on DC.

- Hodgman vs Obama - sweet nerdcore coolness!

Font trivia

Filling out grant stuff, and I thought it would make sense to match the font in Word 2007 to the PDF I'm filling out. So I go to check for Helvetica in Word, and... it isn't there!?!? Hel-friggin-vetica? Okay, okay, maybe a bug or something. Let's see if I can download it... $300!?!?!

Needless to say, this mystery just sucked down about an hour of my time. I briefly explored the seedy underworld of typeface worship, following the twisted lies of stroke terminators and outfoxing the glyphs of despair. All I can say is that I can never look at Ariel again. *shudder*

I did find this ancient, sacred text, though.

Oh, and no, Office 2007 does not have Helvetica, no matter how many movies they make about the damn font. And yes, barring the usual alternatives, you have to pay out the nose for a 52 year old typeface.

Monday break for the weird

Monday afternoon. Meh. Everyone needs a distraction, he here you go...
(btw-I will post some SfN wrapup when I get a chance later this week)

UFO sighting or prophecy of the XBox 360? You decide.

Cortex has a whole issue devoted to the paranormal. Not the totally crazy paranormal, but the more legit stuff, like taking MRIs while 'abductees' recount their abduction experience. Even better, when you read these in the lab, it will look like you are being responsible and checking out literature. Thanks, Heida, for the link.

Alright. Back to work!

Robjork

Ah yes. Combine robots and Icelandic women. Happy happy.

Turn on, tune in, hit play

I thought I would throw in my $.02 on the whole binaural beat craze that swept through last week.

Binaural beats are being touted as a new way to 'get high'. Oooo.... scary. Keep the kids away from headphones!

The idea is that by presenting different, altering, oscillating white-noise-esque sounds to each ear, you kind of naturally drift your attention to the common periodicity between the two. Before you wave your hands and say "phooey!" this stuff is kinda interesting. There are two things to note. First, the attentional shift is interesting. Perhaps the repetition is discarded as inconsequential noise after a while. Second, like the vision, there is a desensitization that occurs after a while, and the proper 'beat' transitions are supposed to play off that and tonotopic organization of auditory areas (cortex, subcortical, cochlear, etc). This is the more interesting topic to think about, since sound localization also plays into the whole scheme as well.

I've played with binaural beats on and off since high school, mostly out of curiosity the first few times, and afterwards because they can induce a semi-hypnotic state and give me an excuse to stop thinking (plays into the whole sleep craziness I have).

Anyhow, try it. Worst case scenario is you waste 30 minutes.

Damn GraphJam

Whatever you do - DON'T HIT THE RANDOM BUTTON AT THE TOP OF GRAPHJAM! I think I just lost an hour of my life to childish giggling. (Note that if you don't understand a graph, there is usually a Youtube clip right below with the topic is it referring to.) (Also note, the comments on each graph are usually pretty hilarious as well, like this one.)

Edit: nooooo it gets worse. LOLCats and the Fail Blog are affiliates. Oh dear. This isn't good...

Do want

Robot arm + Utility that I can justify = Awesome

(Robot Arm used to show time - aka RoboArmClockThingy from DVice)

RIAA doomed

I know I'm getting off the BCI track a little, but this was too cool to not post.

A new compression format for audio could compress music down the 1/1000th the size of current mp3s. That's not the interesting part. The interesting par tis how they do it: they model every instrument used in the recording and then decode the saved music by essentially replaying it through the encoded. So, there is an encoder for the saxophone, the movement of fingers on the violin string, etc. The linked article on Gizmodo went so far as to suggest modeling the vocal cords of, say, Frank Sinatra, so that old artists could release new music. I'd bet the Elvis estate would be alllll over this.

The two obvious cases where this wouldn't work well would be a) many, many many, layers/tracks/simultaneous sounds (though that would probably have to be in the tens of thousands range), and b) many, many, many instruments/sound producing items coupled with (a). The way the article describes it, each instrument is an individual class, but there are some hints that the decomposition is not related to any 'real' entity, but some type of waveform classification. I tried to think about how this could be done, and really, there are probably about at least a half dozen ways that I could think of off the top of my head, and I'm not an engineer.

Really cool stuff. Also, it is theoretically capable of 1:1 quality matching. Also, and album would be 200kB. And broadband speeds are increasing everywhere*. Night, night RIAA.

*-Verizon FiOS is now available in my area! As soon as I find a real work around for the obnoxiously bad router they provide, which is uber specialized (MOCA and Cat5), I am all over that. I hate my current cable/internet provider (Cox Comm).

Original article

In the meantime...

... go get yourself a brainlamp! Made with a 3D printer and MRI of the creator. No price listed.

NSFW or L(ab)

Okay, not safe for lab, but I had to put this somewhere (gratuitous use of the M-F word). Hilarious!

Buy stuff!

Some more from the consumer in me.

You like tea. BUT, there's something missing. Something you can't describe... It can only be one thing: the delicate touch of a monkey's poop covered fingers! That's right! Monkey-picked tea is now available at Think Geek. Get this snazzy teapot to go with it!



Tea too wussy for ya? Nothing but a good cup o' Joe will do, eh? Prove that you really mean it with the MUG!. via Gizmodo.


So, you like to build life, instead of destroy it. Say it loud, say it proud, with the Genome TShirt from AAAS. Again via Gizmodo.

But you can't suppress those savage urges to kill all the time. So next time you sit down to belt out a few frags on your favorite shooter, strap on your FPS Vest. (Since people ENJOY dying during video games, according to a new study, does this make the whole experience even better?!?! Does that idea bother anyone else?)

Most viewed YouTube clip of 2007

If you haven't seen this, you MUST watch it. All the way to the end.

Posts coming

I know I haven't posted in a while, but this time of year is always a mixed bag. More reviews needed for Digital Trends, and that feeling that I'm not making any progress (always happens this time of year) have kept me from keeping up with DNI. But I got a bunch of material piling up, so I gotta post some of it soon.

To make up for it, here's a puppy nibbling on a cat's ear. Enjoy!

Puppy Vs Cat - Funny videos are here

Excel opens to black screen

So, I thought I would post a quick note for anyone that might one day have this problem.

Symptoms: My spiffy Performance Analysis spreadsheet suddenly decided it did not want to open. Yeah, 1 week to SfN and not good. Excel would open with a blank screen. I could click stuff and it was responsive, but the center was completely blank, regardless of whether it was opened with a document or just launched with a 'blank worksheet'. Nuttin there.

System specs: Vista (32-bit), Office 2007, all updates etc installed.

Resolution: I don't know what caused this, but launching Excel as Administrator clears it up. Just navigate to your Office folder (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\), right click on excel.exe, and choose "Runs as Administrator". Voila! Yer welcome. I don't know if it resolves it entirely (that one launch clears up all future launches), but it works well enough to allow you to use the program.

Random bits/bytes/boutons

* If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me where to get a gold brain mouse, I would have no money. But, if that day ever comes, I now have an answer: Here.

* Dr. Richard Wiseman's crazy strange psych studies are highlighted on PsyBlog. Really worth a read/giggle.

* Mind Hacks has a brief mention of Leary's Eight Circuits. Though of little practical use, these types of mental exercises might help you to think outside the box. Other Leary news? His Neurocomics are scanned and online. And... a very interesting debate between G. Gordon Liddy and Leary on "the future". Of particular interest might be this famous quote:

"Computers will be THE drug of the future."

And a mention of Neo-Paganism and technology. (Not that I'm a huge Leary fan, but his ideas are fun to think abut from time to time. He always has that twinkle in his eye that says, "I know know something you don't, but one day you'll figure it out." Either that or, "I'm tripping balls right now.")

* Mmmmm... Clown Brains...

* Many of life's problems could be solved by really considering the Monkeysphere. Yes, you must read this. It offers such gems as:

First, picture a monkey. A monkey dressed like a little pirate, if that helps you. We'll call him Slappy.

It gets better from there...

* And finally, whether they were killing us, or humping us, robots made for big news this last week.