A World Without The Internet

Management Game from Japan Simulates Actual Business Experiences

Cats...

Cool New Autonomous Robot

Frog That Gives Birth Through Mouth to be Brought Back From Extinction

The team recovered cell nuclei from tissues collected in 1970 that were kept in a freezer, according to the university. Researchers took donor eggs from the distantly related great barred frog, and replaced their nuclei with dead nuclei from the gastric-brooding frog.
The embryos only lived for a few days, but researchers were able to confirm that the cells contain the gastric-brooding frog’s genetic material. Archer said that he is confident that the hurdles the Lararus Project team faces are “technological and not biological.”
“Importantly, we’ve demonstrated already the great promise this technology has as a conservation tool when hundreds of the world’s amphibian species are in catastrophic decline,” he said.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2013/03/frog-that-gives-birth-through-mouth-to-be-brought-back-from-extinction/ 

Google Glass can identify friends by their clothing

InSight is designed to identify a person based on their “fashion fingerprint” that can help you recognize someone if they’re too far away for facial recognition cameras or have their back turned to you. The fingerprint is constructed with the help of a smartphone app that takes a series of photos of a person and then creates a file known as a “spatiogram” that identifies the colors, textures and patterns of the clothes they are wearing. The information is then used by Google Glass to identify the person. Best of all, the fingerprint changes every time the person changes their clothes, meaning you can go back to being anonymous after a single outing.
Early tests have indicated that the software is extremely accurate and with the help of 15 volunteers it was able to identify a person 93% of the time, even if their backs were turned.

 http://bgr.com/2013/03/08/google-glass-features-identify-364281/

Prototype Quadrotor with Machine Gun

German insurance company held orgy ‘to reward salesmen’

One of its divisions, Ergo, has admitted an orgy in a Budapest spa was organised in 2007 to reward particularly successful salesmen, with guests able to take prostitutes to bed and ‘do whatever they like.’
But a participant in the orgy has revealed that far from being a chaotic free-for-all, the occasion was extremely well organised, with prostitutes wearing colour-coded armbands and receiving stamps after rendering their services...

http://metro.co.uk/2011/05/20/german-insurance-company-held-orgy-to-reward-salesmen-17328/ 

Scopolamine - Experience

Subject orally ingested 7mg of racemically-pure scopolamine HBr in aqueous vehicle. No other psychoactive substances were combined with the scopolamine. The quantity of scopolamine is decided upon because it is 1/50 of a lethal murine dose; subject figures that this is a sufficient safety factor.
 
+30 minutes: Onset of peripheral anti-cholinergic symptoms, e.g. dry mouth, blurred vision, dilated pupils, hyperpyrexia, red hands and eet and flushed face. Some noticeable ataxia and poor sentence construction.
 
+1 hour: Definite delirium setting in. Substantial decrease of muscle tone, resulting in clumsy walking. Much banging into walls and stumbling over nothing whatsoever. Heartrate is very fast.
 
+2 hours: Muscles almost completely relaxed, so that walking is now impossible (can barely crawl, however). Foreheard feels feverish. Hearing is impaired. Pupils are monstrously dilated. Colors are very rich and bright, as with Cannabis intoxication. Visual perceptual resolution is poor; text appears blurry no matter how hard subject squints or concentrates. Depth perception is severely impaired, making it impossible to appropriately reach for even nearby objects without over- or under-reaching.
 
+3 hours: The walls are breathing, objects are swirling about and taking on living forms, making for a generally nightmarish scenario. Subject has NO INSIGHT WHATSOEVER; these are REAL HALLUCINATIONS, unlike the fanciful visions and distortions that one obtains on indoleamine psychelic drugs. Terrifying.

 

+4 hours and onwards: Muscles are so weak that even lifting a finger seems to take superhuman strength. Subject feels an oppressive force pinning him down on the bed, paralyzing him. Visual field is completely obscured by various living forms and blurry splotches. Throat is parched; tongue feels sandy. Subject does not know where he is; does not know whether he is even awake or dreaming, does not konw who he is; does not know why he feels so shitty; etc. Subject pledges his soul to the demon who is sittig on him in exchange for a refreshing drink of water. The demon takes his soul, doesn't provide the agreed-upon water. Subject resigns himself to eternal damnation.
 
+16 hours: Subject finds himself at work, utterly perplexed. He realizes that he is in the middle of a conversation with someone, asks for that person to repeat what was just said. Somehow manages to handle everything at work without stirring too much suspicion. Vaguely recalls waking up in the morning midway down the basement stairs. Luckily, no injuries other than bruises. Concludes that he must fallen down the stairs while sleepwalking. Later that day, subject is shocked to discover that he had completed a sizeable amount of rather demanding paperwork earlier in the workday, with no recollection of even being delegated this task. Because of blurry vision, reading is somewhat difficult.
 
+20 hours: Subject comes home, sees a bowl of cooked rice sitting in the refrigerator - does not recall ever cooking rice. Also finds a toothbrush and some floss (most of it pulled out and then wrapped around the dispenser) on his nightstand, and a remote control in the bathroom. Pupils are still fucking hugely dilated. Subject has paranoid ideation about various entities lurking throughout his house, sees fleeting creatures in his peripheral vision.
 
+48 hours: Subject's memory and santiy are more or less back to normal, but he is deeply shaken and full of regret for ever thinking of experimenting with an anticholinergic deliriant.
Moral of the story: Don't do scopolamine. It is NOT a psychedelic (mind-opening) drug. Instead, it will make you a zombie.4

http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=16448 

Germany Demands Obama Explain "American-Style Stasi Methods"

When even Zee Germans are staring open-mouthed at what they call "American-style Stasi methods" you know things have got a little out of hand. As Reuters reports, German outrage over a U.S. Internet spying program has broken out ahead of a visit by Barack Obama, with ministers demanding the president provide a full explanation when he lands in Berlin next week and one official likening the tactics to those of the East German Stasi. "The more a society monitors, controls and observes its citizens, the less free it is," Merkel's Justice Minister exclaimed, adding, "the suspicion of excessive surveillance of communication is so alarming that it cannot be ignored." While Obama has defended it as a "modest encroachment" on privacy and reassured Americans that no one is listening to their phone calls, the Germans reflect "I thought this era had ended when the DDR fell."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-11/germany-demands-obama-explain-american-style-stasi-methods

Chuck Jones Quotes

Human beings will line up for miles to buy a bucket of catastrophes, but don't try selling sunshine and light - you'll go broke.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/chuck_jones.html

Dad Had Babies With His 3 Daughters to Keep His Bloodline 'Pure'

He apparently did all of this because he thought the world was going to end -- and all that would be left would be him and his "pure" offspring. That excuse ain't gonna fly, sicko.
Ayinde had six daughters and has been accused of repeatedly raping five of them. DNA tests proved he had children with three daughters. One of them had four of his children. Ayinde has already been sentenced to 40 years for raping another daughter with whom he had a child. Ayinde was apparently getting his daughters pregnant -- and delivering the babies himself at home -- in an effort to preserve his "pure bloodline."

http://thestir.cafemom.com/in_the_news/152318/dad_had_babies_with_his

Hundreds of dead pigs fished from Shanghai river

Hong Kong (CNN) -- At least 2,800 dead pigs have been fished from a Shanghai river since Friday, but authorities insist that tap water in the city is still safe to drink.

State news agency Xinhua said labels tagged to the pigs' ears indicated they came from the upper waters of the Huangpu River, which flows through the center of Shanghai and is a source of the city's drinking water.

It's not clear why the pigs had been dumped in the river, though local media reported earlier this month that a disease had killed thousands of pigs in a village south of Shanghai.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/11/world/asia/china-pigs-river/index.html?c=world. 

Exodus 21:20-21 (New International Version)

²⁰ “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, ²¹ but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.

Fairway sinkhole swallows golfer at Waterloo course

WATERLOO • It sure wasn’t the hole-in-one Mark Mihal had in mind.
While golfing with friends at the Annbriar Golf Course near here Friday, Mihal, 43, a mortgage broker from Creve Coeur, abruptly dropped into the ground on the fairway of the 14th hole. It was the first time a person — and not a ball — has disappeared beneath the turf in the course’s 20-year history.
It also was the first time in the memory of folks who study sinkholes in Illinois that a person has fallen into one.
“I was standing in the middle of the fairway,” Mihal said Monday. “Then, all of a sudden, before I knew it, I was underground.”

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/illinois/fairway-sinkhole-swallows-golfer-at-annbriar/article_1e0035d1-6ac2-59b4-ad5f-66a28c631e36.html

3/11/2011 Japan earthquake video from various POV

Great Firewall Of China

Wild Russia - The secret forest

North Korea vows nuclear strike against U.S.

SEOUL, South Korea North Korea on Thursday vowed to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States, amplifying its threatening rhetoric hours ahead of a scheduled vote by U.N. diplomats on whether to level new sanctions against Pyongyang for its recent nuclear test.
An unidentified spokesman for Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry said the North will exercise its right for "a preemptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds of the aggressors" because Washington is pushing to start a nuclear war against the North.

Netherlands advises retailers to replace ‘Made in Israel’ labels

Netherlands has advised business owners not to label products from the Syria’s occupied Golan Heights, West Bank and East Jerusalem al Quds as made in Israel.

The Dutch Foreign Ministry said in a circular earlier this week that it would be better for retailers to replace “Made in Israel” labels with a label reading as “Product from Israeli settlement (West Bank/Golan Height /East Jerusalem)."

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/03/08/292532/holland-to-replace-made-in-israel-tags/ 

Concrete Tent

Gene Identified That Causes Obesity in Mice: Deleting Gene Eliminates Obesity, Could Work for Humans

Mar. 5, 2013 — Researchers have discovered that deleting a specific gene in mice prevents them from becoming obese even on a high fat diet, a finding they believe may be replicated in humans.

"When fed a diet that induces obesity these mice don't get fat," said Prof. James McManaman, Ph.D., lead author of the study and vice-chairman of research for Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. "It may be possible to duplicate this in humans using existing technology that targets this specific gene."
The two-year study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was published last month in the Journal of Lipid Research.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130305131304.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29

Taser Sword

A New Large-scale Bitcoin Merchant Sets Out to Teach Amazon A Lesson

BitcoinStore, an online electronics mega-store that deals exclusively in bitcoins went live this last week. It's not the first company to trade electronics for bitcoins; BitElectronics opened just a couple of weeks ago. But BitcoinStore is doing it at cutthroat prices on an inventory of 500,000 items, ranging from laptops to motion sensors to binoculars.
Company representatives claim that by not having to pay credit card fees, they will be able to keep prices 1 to 10 percent lower than the top competitors. And by doing so, they are hoping the company will be so successful that it eventually fails. 
You see, profit is not the main goal of the project. Roger Ver, the founder of the site, launched it to serve as a high-level demonstration for companies like Amazon and NewEgg, a lesson in the benefits of Bitcoin. If any of these companies begin taking payments in Bitcoin, representatives at BitcoinStore say they will close shop in triumph.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/networks/bitcoin-gives-an-edge-to-amazon-competitors 

Brown University creates first wireless, implanted brain-computer interface

Researchers at Brown University have succeeded in creating the first wireless, implantable, rechargeable, long-term brain-computer interface. The wireless BCIs have been implanted in pigs and monkeys for over 13 months without issue, and human subjects are next.
We’ve covered BCIs extensively here on ExtremeTech, but historically they’ve been bulky and tethered to a computer. A tether limits the mobility of the patient, and also the real-world testing that can be performed by the researchers. Brown’s wireless BCI allows the subject to move freely, dramatically increasing the quantity and quality of data that can be gathered — instead of watching what happens when a monkey moves its arm, scientists can now analyze its brain activity during complex activity, such as foraging or social interaction. Obviously, once the wireless implant is approved for human testing, being able to move freely — rather than strapped to a chair in the lab — would be rather empowering.



http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/149879-brown-university-creates-first-wireless-implanted-brain-computer-interface

Pessimists May Live Longer

Low expectations for a happy future might actually propel you into old age.
Compared with their counterparts with a sunnier outlook, older Germans who are more pessimistic tend to live longer, healthier lives, a group of researchers found.
"Our findings revealed that being overly optimistic in predicting a better future was associated with a greater risk of disability and death within the following decade," researcher Frieder R. Lang, of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany, said in a statement. "Pessimism about the future may encourage people to live more carefully, taking health and safety precautions."

 http://www.livescience.com/27554-pessimism-might-help-you-live-longer.html

"Everything Beautiful Is Far Away"

 

 

 

Dynamic Robot Manipulation

BigDog handles heavy objects. The goal is to use the strength of the legs and torso to help power motions of the arm. This sort of dynamic, whole-body approach to manipulation is used routinely by human athletes and will enhance the performance of advanced robots. Boston Dynamics is developing the control and actuation techniques needed for dynamic manipulation with funding from the Army Research Laboratory's RCTA program.

Pentagon's DARPA researchers learn to control rat's brain over Internet

Government mind control may not be as farfetched as it sounds: after 15 years of research, scientists have found a way to transmit information from one brain to another, thereby controlling the thoughts of its test subject.
Scientists have successfully captured the thoughts of a rat in Brazil and electronically transmitted them through the Internet to the brain of a rat in the US. The Brazilian rat had been energetically running around in a lab. When the American rat received the brain waves of its South American counterpart, it immediately began to mimic the behavior – despite the thousands of miles between them, Reuters reports.
Scientists refer to the technique as a “brain link”. The $26 million study of brain-machine interfaces was funded by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which ultimately hopes to have this technology available to humans.

http://rt.com/usa/rat-brain-darpa-pentagon-645/ 

 

Scientists Uncover Invisible Motion in Video

A 30-second video of a newborn baby shows the infant silently snoozing in its crib, his breathing barely perceptible. But when the video is run through an algorithm that can amplify both movement and color, the baby’s face blinks crimson with each tiny heartbeat.
The amplification process is called Eulerian Video Magnification, and is the brainchild of a team of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
The team originally developed the program to monitor neonatal babies without making physical contact. But they quickly learned that the algorithm can be applied to other videos to reveal changes imperceptible to the naked eye. Prof. William T. Freeman, a leader on the team, imagines its use in search and rescue, so that rescuers could tell from a distance if someone trapped on a ledge, say, is still breathing.
“Once we amplify these small motions, there’s like a whole new world you can look at,” he said.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/scientists-uncover-invisible-motion-in-video/ 

Hugging Lions

Natascha Kampusch 3096 dagen in kelder 1