August 2010 Archives

A Peregrine soliton is a special type of soliton that is very large and isolated compared to its surroundings. Researchers have long thought of the Peregrine soliton as, among other things, a model for rogue waves in the ocean, huge towers of water that come seemingly out of nowhere (though often during storms) and knock over things like cruise ships.

In collaboration with other academic researchers of sustainable public transport alternatives for Dublin, a network of Bus Rapid Transit connections was developed. These routes are distributed throughout the city. Furthermore, these measures allowed for simplifications and cost effective upgrades to the network. As part of my MA I created a set of new public transport maps that match international high standards. A city centre public transport map with this level of clarity and detail has never existed in Dublin.

Learn the ropes for building crispy, chewy, flavor-packed fresh pizza. Remon Karian starts with an Easy Pizza Dough, then convinces us that, yes, maybe we could give it a few tosses in the air. After that, add his vibrant Pizza Sauce and bake. Oven temperatures vary, so whether using a pizza stone or a baking sheet, keep a close eye on your prize. It's ready when beautifully golden brown.

As I wrote yesterday, it's a mistake to overthink this. This crapola is about bigotry, racism, intolerance and hate. The euphemism "liberal" isn't enough to contain the emotion anymore so they have reverted to primitive bigotry. obviously this email is only representative of a minority, but the various strings of racism and xenophobia and religious intolerance that are binding the right together are all tied up so neatly that I thought it was worth sharing. It illustrates well the primitive impulses that characterize the far right in the Obama era.

Last month, a senior user experience researcher at Google, Paul Adams, gave a presentation entitled "The Real Life Social Network." The 224 slides, embedded below, describe some of the problems and common user behavior on existing social web sites, and suggest how to better design that experience. While the presentation is targeted towards businesses who want to use social media to get their message out, it also serves as a roadmap for what Google will attempt to do with Google Me.

Time lapse is an important part of my work on Human Planet. Many of the sequences in the film will contain fantastic visual feasts revealing unusual events not normally visible to the naked eye. So I thought I’d give you a little time lapse tutorial which might help you make some of your own.

If we accept all the Star Wars films as the same canon, then a lot that happens in the original films has to be reinterpreted in the light of the prequels. As we now know, the rebel Alliance was founded by Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Bail Organa. What can readily be deduced is that their first recruit, who soon became their top field agent, was R2-D2.

Scotland’s Roman Catholic leader attacked America’s “culture of vengeance” today as he defended the release of the Lockerbie bomber. Writing in Scotland on Sunday , Cardinal Keith O’Brien said despite the “gratuitous barbarity” of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi- who the Scottish Government freed last year on compassionate grounds - were right “to affirm our own humanity”. He accused the American justice system of being based on “vengeance and retribution” and said he was glad to live in a country where “justice is tempered with mercy”.

Then there was the 2000 case of Godfrey Nguyen Gia Huy, the youngest son of Peter Nguyen, who was then a High Court judge. The young Nguyen was caught with Ecstasy at a disco and charged with drug possession. Several months later, the Department of Justice decided not to prosecute him after getting advice that it was not in the public interest to do so. Nguyen, 21 at the time and a student at Boston University, was bound over for the sum of HK$2,000 for two years. The department was pressured to explain prosecution policy.

Rights advocate David Webb yesterday drew attention to inconsistencies in sentencing for assaults on police officers. He pointed to the case of Yiu Chi-shing, a first offender who was sentenced to 14 days in jail last year by a Kwun Tong Court magistrate. Yiu, of previous good character, pleaded guilty to assaulting a police officer. He admitted slapping a constable's face while being questioned at a police station. In June the sentence was upheld. Dismissing Yiu's appeal, Madam Justice Verina Bokhary - Amina Bokhary's aunt - said:

Absolutely fascinating talk about motivation and what drives people.

(or why libertarianism as a political view is moronic.)