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Sunday, November 30, 2008

Want Sustainable Fishing? Keep Only Small Fish, And Let The Big Ones Go

Scientists at the University of Toronto analysed Canadian fisheries data to determine the effect of the "keep the large ones" policy that is typical of fisheries. What they found is that the effect of this policy is an unsustainable fishery. In fact, the opposite policy (keep the small young ones and throw back the large old ones) would result in a more sustainable fishery. In short -- a big fish in the water is worth two in the net. Put simply, a fish population will produce more young -- and therefore sustain more fishing -- if it is made up of big, old fish.

Bio-inspired Wing Design To Revolutionize Aircraft Flight


It's a bird, it's a plane, it's ... both!  While aircraft have always borne a resemblance to their feathered counterparts in the sky, new research at U of T is bringing the two even closer together. Inspired by nature, mechanical engineering profess Shaker Meguid is currently developing aircraft wing designs that imitate the amazing flight of birds by altering the planform of the wings in order to optimize the aerodynamics for a given flight stage. "When you observe eagles in flight, you would notice that when they are high in the sky they soar and their wings are fully extended. They are gliding, attempting to increase lift and reduce drag. This helps them to glide effortlessly and navigate for long durations in their search for a prey. However, they fold their wings and go on a fast attack when they dive to catch a prey," Meguid explained.  After studying research on birds, in particular the Apus apus (common swift), a bird whose wing-morphing ability makes it an especially versatile flyer and allows it to eat, sleep and mate in the air, Meguid began plans to develop a more effective alternative to the traditional fixed-wing aircraft. "Morphing implies large seamless shape change. Right now we have aircraft control surfaces that allow discrete morphing such as ailerons and flaps. What we want to do is undergo changes in a seamless fashion, resulting in increased efficiency," he said. To achieve these seamlessBio-inspired Wing Design To Revolutionize Aircraft Flight transitions in wing shape, Meguid and his research team are combining two types of advanced materials. The first is shape memory alloy (SMA), which contracts when heated above a certain temperature. The second are piezoelectrics, which compress or extend when an electric field is applied to them. They plan on using these materials to allow the wing to change shape and respond to an aircraft's changing mission with an overall reduced system complexity.












Saturday Noon: 1910


November 1910. Huntsville, Alabama. "Closing hour, Saturday noon, at Dallas Mill. Every child in photo, so far as I was able to ascertain, works in that mill. When I questioned some of the youngest boys as to their ages, they said they were 12, and then other boys said they were lying. (Which sentiment I agreed with.)" Photograph and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine.

500 workers protest at Chinese toy factory

Pooch Dog is monitoring 4 or 5 Chinese news sites.  Over the last month there have been many reports of work unrest, demonstrations, and protests.  Often violence of varying degrees is involved.  I have not blogged any of the reports as I recall.  However, the frequency of these reports of worker unrest has certainly grabbed my attention.  If I remember correctly, one report said 50% of China's toy factories have shut down.  But, I might be incorrect on the %, but am certain that the number is very high.

I am blogging one report of Chinese worker unrest below.  However, you should realize that their problems are severe, and the incident mentioned below is only a small part of their bigger picture.                     Pooch Dog

About 500 protesters rioted at a toy factory in southern China, flipping over a police car, storming the plant's gates and trashing computers over a pay dispute, an official said Wednesday. The violence in Dongguan on Tuesday came as many companies in the once-booming city are shutting down or cutting staff amid rising costs, global economic woes and government plans to relocate low-end manufacturers. Local officials are worried about the plant closures and have endorsed the central government's multibillion-dollar stimulus plan. They have also been urging factories to avoid large layoffs to prevent social upheaval. The riot was triggered by a disagreement over severance payments to 80 migrant workers among a group of 596 who were laid off this month when their contracts expired, said a local propaganda office spokesman. He would only give his surname, Cai. The 80 laborers claimed they were senior employees who deserved more severance from the Kai Da toy factory in Dongguan's Zhongtang township, Cai said.

Penny-Pitchers: 1912


November 1912. "Pitching Pennies. Providence, Rhode Island. For Child Welfare Exhibit." Photograph by Lewis Wickes Hine.

Late workers, students get notes blaming NY subway

NEW YORK – People late for school or work because of New York City subway delays can get notes from the transit agency to give to their teachers or bosses. The New York City Transit division says it gives passengers the notes so they can prove they're not lying about being delayed while riding the subway. Passengers request the delay verification letters over the phone. NYC Transit verifies the date and time of the delay and sends an official note in the mail in one or two weeks. It mails 34,000 notes a year. Each letter shows the subway line taken and the durations of the trip and the delay. NYC Transit is working on an online system so it can accept Internet requests and e-mail the excuse letters.

Bud and Dick: 1915


1915. "Baker and O'Brien, transcontinental motorcyclists, at north of Ellipse below White House." Dick O'Brien and Bud Baker were two "Washington high school boys" who made a five-month, 10,000-mile round-trip to California to see the expositions there. Said Dick: "Our experiences will prove mighty interesting when we start to tell them." Harris & Ewing glass negative.






“A nation which makes great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.”  - THUCYDIDES, 460 B.C.

Chicago couple wait for first kiss at the altar

CHICAGO – Won't kiss on the first date? How about waiting until marriage? Chicagoans Melody LaLuz and Claudaniel Fabien shared their first kiss Saturday at the altar. The two teach abstinence at the city's public schools and practiced what they preached to their teenage students. The Chicago Tribune reports that the couple had never kissed and that they had never been alone together in a house. A friend of LaLuz says wedding guests cheered and stomped during the two-minute smooch between the 28-year-old bride and the 30-year-old groom. LaLuz and Fabien say they have no worries about how they will spend their honeymoon in the Bahamas.

This is one of the saddest stories I've ever blogged or read.  I guess I can understand the sex deferment, (even though I know this opens me up to the charge of inconsistency.)  But, never kissed before they got married?  Folks, Pooch Dog says this is more than sad.  It's stupid!  Seriously, it's dumb.  Let's see, I am dating a girl and I tell her, "I am not going to give you a smile.  I'm going to save it for marriage so you will treasure it more."  I'm embarrassed for these Chicagoans.  And, I'm embarrassed for the segment of Christianity that tries to crush natural human expression out of existence.  

And, forgive me if the impetus for these abstinence only folk didn't come from Christian elements.  (I'm a Christian, and go to church every week, and teach an adult study group, and "have been saved."  Don't accuse me of being a secular loser!)

Go back to the Mayflower!  

(I think you know what I think by the picture I've selected to accompany this blog.)

After 55 days, contest ends for 2 living in truck

MADISON, Wis. – A Wisconsin radio station had to make two contestants an offer they couldn't refuse in order to get them to quit a game to win a new car. Tommy Kempfer, 26, of Sun Prairie, and Lisa Thompson, 40, of Westfield, had been living in a truck, hoping to outlast the other to win a new $30,000 vehicle from WMAD-FM in Madison. After 55 days, the station became concerned that the contest would never end. "We sensed these two were not going to back down," said John Flint, a co-host on the station's morning show. "There was no way we expected this to go 55 days. If it was not for the deal, it's possible they could have gone on until New Year's." On Tuesday, the station offered the two a compromise: End the contest and receive $10,000 toward the purchase of a car, among other prizes, or continue with the runner-up receiving nothing. Within 15 minutes, both agreed to the deal. "Both of us were ready to go home," Kempfer said, "but we didn't want to leave with nothing after you put in that much time." Thompson called the contest a "very good experience" but said she wouldn't do it again.

I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq

Prisoner interrogation methods in the military and security agencies is a well-worn national issue.  But, with President-elect Obama assuming office soon, the topic will be revisited.  Here's an interesting article by the interrogation leader whose team was responsible for the location, targeting and killing (by bomb strike) al-Zarqawi.

Matthew Alexander led an interrogations team assigned to a Special Operations task force in Iraq in 2006. He is the author of "How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq." He is writing under a pseudonym for security reasons.

Here's a few excerpts...

I should have felt triumphant when I returned from Iraq in August 2006. Instead, I was worried and exhausted. My team of interrogators had successfully hunted down one of the most notorious mass murderers of our generation, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the mastermind of the campaign of suicide bombings that had helped plunge Iraq into civil war. But instead of celebrating our success, my mind was consumed with the unfinished business of our mission: fixing the deeply flawed, ineffective and un-American way the U.S. military conducts interrogations in Iraq. 

I'm still alarmed about that today I'm not some ivory-tower type; I served for 14 years in the U.S. Air Force, began my career as a Special Operations pilot flying helicopters, saw combat in Bosnia and Kosovo, became an Air Force counterintelligence agent, then volunteered to go to Iraq to work as a senior interrogator. What I saw in Iraq still rattles me -- both because it betrays our traditions and because it just doesn't work. Interrogators were nominally using the methods outlined in the U.S. Army Field Manual, the interrogators' bible, but they were pushing in every way possible to bend the rules -- and often break them. I don't have to belabor the point; dozens of newspaper articles and books have been written about the misconduct that resulted. These interrogations were based on fear and control; they often resulted in torture and abuse. 

I refused to participate in such practices, and a month later, I extended that prohibition to the team of interrogators I was assigned to lead. I taught the members of my unit a new methodology -- one based on building rapport with suspects, showing cultural understanding and using good old-fashioned brainpower to tease out information. I personally conducted more than 300 interrogations, and I supervised more than 1,000. The methods my team used are not classified (they're listed in the unclassified Field Manual), but the way we used them was, I like to think, unique. We got to know our enemies, we learned to negotiate with them, and we adapted criminal investigative techniques to our work (something that the Field Manual permits, under the concept of "ruses and trickery"). It worked. Our efforts started a chain of successes that ultimately led to Zarqawi. Over the course of this renaissance in interrogation tactics, our attitudes changed. We no longer saw our prisoners as the stereotypical al-Qaeda evildoers we had been repeatedly briefed to expect; we saw them as Sunni Iraqis, often family men protecting themselves from Shiite militias and trying to ensure that their fellow Sunnis would still have some access to wealth and power in the new Iraq. Most surprisingly, they turned out to despise al-Qaeda in Iraq as much as they despised us, but Zarqawi and his thugs were willing to provide them with arms and money.

Torture and abuse are against my moral fabric. The cliche still bears repeating: Such outrages are inconsistent with American principles. And then there's the pragmatic side: Torture and abuse cost American lives.

I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. It's no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. 

How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me -- unless you don't count American soldiers as Americans.















Yannarthus Bertrand Photograph

Yannarthus Bertrand Photograph

Yannarthus Bertrand Photograph

Yannarthus Bertrand Photographs


Everyone, just discovered a few thousand wonderful photographs at www.yannarthusbertrand.rog!  Here's their opening page.  The next few blogs will hold some sample pictures.  My advice to you is to jump over to their site and waste an hour!  Pooch Dog...

The Evolutionary Times

I am enjoying a recently discovered blog by a Pau Tillich fan.  For a pooch dog, there are some non-canine things I enjoy as well.  Like Tillich here's a teaser...

I wonder if religion, at its core, is something more along the lines of a psychological state of mind - an orientation towards the meaning of our being that uses symbols which don't have to correspond to literal truths about anything to be effective.

But, read the entire blog

Saturday, November 29, 2008

YouTube Usage Decoded

Why are certain videos on YouTube watched millions of times while 90 percent of the contributions find only the odd viewer? A new study reveals that increased attention in social systems like the YouTube community follows particular, recurrent patterns that can be represented using mathematical models. The Internet platform YouTube is a stomping ground for scientists looking to investigate the fine mechanism of the attention spiral in social systems. How is it possible, for example, that one YouTube video of a previously unknown comedian from Ohio can be viewed over ten million times in the space of two weeks and 103 million times during its total two-year running time? The video was aired on the most popular television networks in America and the comedian Judson Laipply has meanwhile become a YouTube star. Social scientists, economists, mathematicians and even physicists are fascinated by this "herding", as the herdlike behavior in social networks is often termed, on YouTube.

Read the rest of the article for details...

A Surgeon You Can Swallow

In the future, tablet-shaped robots could perform some surgical operations without injuring the body. A new publication by the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems of ETH Zurich shows how such surgical bio-microrobots might function. Surgical operations with open wounds are increasingly being replaced by non-invasive techniques extending even to systems that enable operations without a single scar. Although pill-shaped micro-cameras have existed for seven years now and are currently being used successfully in surgery to study the gastro-intestinal tract, these systems are passive. The camera takes thousands of pictures as it passes through the gastro-intestinal tract, but its position during this time cannot be controlled. This should soon change, because the ARES scientists are currently developing micro-robots with controllable insect-like legs with which the "robot pills" would be able to move around in the stomach. Other groups are working on special devices for tissue biopsy. In the future, such instruments could be used to make a precise examination of damaged regions in the gastro-intestinal tract while at the same time taking tissue samples for subsequent investigation.

Exercise And Rest Reduce Cancer Risk

Exercise is good for more than just your waistline. A recent study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research's Seventh Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research suggests that regular physical activity can lower a woman's overall risk of cancer – but only if she gets a good night's sleep. Otherwise, lack of sleep can undermine exercise's cancer prevention benefits.

Big 4 Candy: 1926


1926. "Semmes Motor Co., Schrafft's truck." A Dodge truck in Big 4 Candy livery at 608 E Street N.W., Washington. National Photo glass negative.
http://www.shorpy.com/node/4997

No. 1 Atlantic Ocean: 1910


Atlantic City, New Jersey, circa 1910. "Young's residence on Million Dollar Pier." The marble-encrusted Venetian "villa" at No. 1 Atlantic Ocean of showman and real-estate developer Captain John Young. Detroit Publishing Co.
http://www.shorpy.com/node/4996

Time-Lapse Wonders -- Mother Nature

Mother Nature has quite the abundance of artistic works, too, and I can't possibly capture that all in one post. This post of videos, though, is quite the collection of time-lapses.....videos taken of a specific spot and then fast forwarded so you can see how the day/event/etc occurred rather quickly. Here are a couple examples at the link below...

After 40 Years, Marine Gets His Medal

ORLANDO, Fla. - A Florida man has been honored for his service during the Vietnam War about 40 years after everyone in his 15-man patrol was wounded in a firefight. Marine veteran Frank Ambrose, whose patrol was wounded after they stumbled upon two battalions of the North Vietnamese Army, was recently awarded the Silver Star, the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel reported Friday. "If they had known we were coming, they would have set up a better ambush for us," he said. Soon after the incident, Ambrose arrived at a hospital for treatment for injuries, a one-star general and a gunnery sergeant showed up with a tape recorder to ask him about the firefight. They told him he had been recommended for a medal, but the award never came. About four years ago, Ambrose said he attended a military reunion and ran into one of the Marines he helped save during the firefight. The man asked what medal Ambrose received, and Ambrose told him he didn't get one. "The next thing I know, the colonel was talking to me," Ambrose said. Earlier this year, Ambrose received a phone call telling him the president had given him the award.

torquoise, ki

Sisters Waiting Severe Winter


Photographer Ludvík Höfer (1858-1923) in Námešt nad Oslavou (Moravia, Czechia). CDV circa 1905.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/josefnovak33/3067762910/

Crayon Destruction


Bullet rips thru crayons!  How cool...






Quirki Jessi Blog

I just ran into another blog that seems to have the same focus, or lack of focus, as my blog.  A just for fun place, with a mix of pictures and humor and information.  I shouldn't point you towards a competitor for your attention.  But, my canine better nature constrains me to do so...

Here's Quirki Jessi's introduction...

This is a place for my odd thoughts, quirky ramblings, and random pictures. Nothing more, nothing less. Unlike my previous blogs, this one is not aimed at any one particular group and is being kept completely public. With that in mind, if it would cause a lot of needed explanations to my mother if she ran across it, then I'm not posting it here.

And the link to his site...

Women In Film

A completely cool video showing dozens of the most famous actresses of all time.  The video moves from one actress to another, one face morphing into the next face!  Spooky, in a good way.

Man decorates basement with $10 worth of Sharpie

When Charlie Kratzer started on the basement art project in his south Lexington home, he was surrounded by walls painted a classic cream. Ten dollars of Magic Marker and Sharpie later, the place was black and cream and drawn all over. There are fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes, Winston Churchill lounging with George Bernard Shaw — and the TV squirrel Rocky and his less adroit moose pal Bullwinkle.  Says Kratzer of his cartoon of a cartoon: "You appreciate the cleverness more as an adult."

Tillich and the Courage to Be: Spinoza

A few years ago, my son introduced me to Paul Tillich.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Tillich.  From the wikipedia article, 

"...he developed his 'method of correlation': an approach of exploring the symbols of Christian revelation as answers to the problems of human existence raised by contemporary existential philosophical analysis."

Here's an interesting blog I just ran into with a good entry about Tillich...


Here's an excerpt...

In a famous response to a Rabbi's inquiry about whether he believed in God, Einstein wrote: I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings. In my teens, let's just say "if it was good enough for Einstein…" Of course in later life hero worship wanes buts formative interests developed by them doesn't necessarily.

If this sounds interesting, check it out

2,700-year-old marijuana found in Chinese tomb

Researchers say they have located the world's oldest stash of marijuana, in a tomb in a remote part of China. The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly ``cultivated for psychoactive purposes," rather than as fibre for clothing or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany. The 789 grams of dried cannabis was buried alongside a light-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian man, likely a shaman of the Gushi culture, near Turpan in northwestern China. The extremely dry conditions and alkaline soil acted as preservatives, allowing a team of scientists to carefully analyze the stash, which still looked green though it had lost its distinctive odour. "To our knowledge, these investigations provide the oldest documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically active agent," says the newly published paper, whose lead author was American neurologist Dr. Ethan B. Russo. Remnants of cannabis have been found in ancient Egypt and other sites, and the substance has been referred to by authors such as the Greek historian Herodotus. But the tomb stash is the oldest so far that could be thoroughly tested for its properties. The 18 researchers, most of them based in China, subjected the cannabis to a battery of tests, including carbon dating and genetic analysis. Scientists also tried to germinate 100 of the seeds found in the cache, without success.

My contacts in the academic world assure me the attempt to germinate the seeds was performed only for scientific reasons.  
Pooch Dog.

Friday, November 28, 2008

The Empress: 1915

Washington, D.C. "Dog Show, 1915. Mrs. Blanche Strebeigh Bonaparte." Dog owner Mrs. B. (this girl's mother) was married to Jerome Bonaparte, great-grandnephew of Napoleon. Harris & Ewing glass negative.

Splunger: Died November 29, 2007 @ 11:10am

Splunger: Died November 29, 2007 @ 11:10am


Transparence Lost

Tomorrow, November 29 at 11:10am, is when my trusty fellow dog Splunger died.  Or, rather was put to sleep.  He had stomach cancer.  

My parents are dead, as are all my aunts and uncles and many of Seraphina's relatives.  Her father passed away about 10 years ago.  And, we grieved.  But, why was the death of that dog, who couldn't even read a word... he had only learned his alphabet thru "M"... harder on me, (both of us, I think), than the deaths of our humanoid (OK, I'm only a dog wannabe) loved ones?

Go figure!

Splunger came to us from my son, who sometimes blogs on The Prairie Pooch Hole.  S.P.Lunger.  get it?  S.P. has had his own heartache as one of their pets passed away a few days ago.  Only thing is he has youngsters who are asking questions.  Imcluding an excerpt from his blog below.  Check out his blog, and especially the last entry.  


My four year-old has learned that dreams receive special attention at our house. So now he periodically regales us with morning tails of nighttime adventures in Tel'aran'rhiod. His most recent dream was quite disturbing (to me) and included images of Godzilla and something being skinned; this was juxtaposed alongside images of our pet dog, recently deceased, returning to life.

My wife's dog, Benji, passed in the night last week. Our boys helped us bury him and then the questions began:

"Why do bodies break?"
"Will we see Benji again?"

or this one:

Him: "When will I die?" 
Me: "Not until you're much older.
Him: "Like when I'm seven?"

Sad world...


Seraphina Says Get That Damn Pooch Doggy Dog Off The Air Or I Swear I Will Twist His Stubby Tail Until He Squeels Like a Pig Rooting For Berries!


[Los Angeles, California, USA]  Left for California to visit our daughter.  Been gone only two weeks, and Pooch Doggy Dog has filled the internet with pictures of these loose *$*&@!!! women from Flickr.com!  

When I get home I'm going to whup his sorry ass and put him in bed!!

Seraphina

Pooch Dog "Apology"


I pride myself on eclecticism. My "apology" for dumping so many pictures of pretty women on you, soldier! They were backing up.

I will post one more grab-bag special image immediately after this one. Then, I've saved back two stunners for the rest of the weekend.

Cheerio! Ta Ta! 

Having Fun!



http://www.flickr.com/photos/shiroibasketshoes/3064287411/

The Modern Way to Shop: 1950


June 6, 1950. "Vis-O-Matic department store." A Vis-O-Matic spokesmodel, or perhaps even the queen of Vis-O-Matic, the Canadian catalog store whose slide-projection system of displaying merchandise was like a Buck Rogers premonition of online shopping. The Vis-O-Matic phenomenon seems to have been short-lived, with hardly any documentation online aside from these photos in the Life archive, and no word of its fate. Photo by Bernard Hoffman.

Red, White and Blue: 1956


South Carolina, 1956. Another entry from Margaret Bourke-White's photoessay on segregation and civil rights in South. Will someone pass the salt? Color transparency from the Life magazine photo archive.

DMP-D477 RUSSIAN SOLDIERS

Russian soldiers in a trench, WWII.

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