Cartoons: sour drops for Halloween

For today, here are some cartoons playing on the Halloween theme and some that caught my attention.

The GOP base may be alive, but is it aware?

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John Cole, The Week

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According to the Wikipedia article on low information voters:

Some low-information voters' views are more moderate than those of high-information voters, they are less likely to vote, and are looking for a candidate they find personally appealing. They tend to be swing voters, and they tend to vote split-ticket more than well-informed voters do, researchers say because they lack a coherent ideology.

Seems to me this Wikipedia article sounds biased. Voting a split-ticket may be a good thing; it might help to break up some of the partisanship in Washington.

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David Fitzsimmons, The Week

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A hazmat suit is a costume, too, just a hopefully well-functioning one.

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RJ Matson, The Week

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Creationists aren't going to like this one.

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Chan Lowe, The Week

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This cartoon depicts its environment beautifully well. But it begs the question: does anyone have faith in the reality television genre?

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Rick McKee, The Week

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--Marge

Science: Grasping reality through illusion

Think Second Life, OpenSimulator, and even World of Warcraft.

Grasping reality through illusion: Interactive graphics serving science is the catchy title of a paper written by Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. in 1988.  The link given here points to a marked-up PDF found at http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/, "Provider of DoD Technical Information to Support the Warfighter." A similar paper, Task-Oriented Collaboration with Embodied Agents in Virtual Worlds, by Jeff Rickel and W. Lewis Johnson is an excerpt from an book published by MIT (Embodied Conversational Agents, 2000).

These publications were likely precursors to applications such as DI-Guy (now a part of VT MÄK) for team-building and ECOSim for modelling community ecology. Below is an introductory video showing how simulations work in DI-Guy.

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Another video shows how crowd scenarios can be set up in the software.

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Another function of virtual world training applies to medical teams. This abstract from the paper, Simulation for team training and assessment: case studies of online training with virtual worlds, explains:

Individuals in clinical training programs concerned with critical medical care must learn to manage clinical cases effectively as a member of a team. However, practice on live patients is often unpredictable and frequently repetitive. The widely substituted alternative for real patients-high-fidelity, manikin-based simulators (human patient simulator)-are expensive and require trainees to be in the same place at the same time, whereas online computer-based simulations, or virtual worlds, allow simultaneous participation from different locations. Here we present three virtual world studies for team training and assessment in acute-care medicine: (1) training emergency department (ED) teams to manage individual trauma cases; (2) prehospital and in-hospital disaster preparedness training; (3) training ED and hospital staff to manage mass casualties after chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or explosive incidents. The research team created realistic virtual victims of trauma (6 cases), nerve toxin exposure (10 cases), and blast trauma (10 cases); the latter two groups were supported by rules-based, pathophysiologic models of asphyxia and hypovolemia. Evaluation of these virtual world simulation exercises shows that trainees find them to be adequately realistic to "suspend disbelief," and they quickly learn to use Internet voice communication and user interface to navigate their online character/avatar to work effectively in a critical care team. Our findings demonstrate that these virtual ED environments fulfill their promise of providing repeated practice opportunities in dispersed locations with uncommon, life-threatening trauma cases in a safe, reproducible, flexible setting.

Here are two samples of training videos posted on YouTube by Designing Digitally.

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While the video samples above are not real-time, live interactions, they do give an idea of how virtual worlds can be used in real world applications.

-- Marge

Cartoons: Operation inherent reluctance

Today's cartoons are ones that struck my fancy. I especially like the phrase "operation inherent reluctance"--it seems to capture the moment. While the half-measures being taken to control ISIS are better than 'boots on the ground', these half-measures could be a measure or two more effective, IMHO.

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Nate Beeler, The Week

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When you vote on November 4th, remember that a Republican Senate could vote in a ladder.

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Tom Toles, The Week

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Even Democrats are avoiding Obama now. Julian Zelizer, writing for CNN Opinion, poses the question, "Obama: One very successful president?"

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David Fitzsimmons, The Week

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While the next cartoon is pretty funny, again IMHO, it addresses a serious situation--the recall of faulty airbags.

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Dana Summers, The Week

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-- Marge

DIY: Synth

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To be up front, music is not my forte (pun intended). And synth, aka synthesizer, is a complex topic with a number of different approaches. The approach I'm taking today is using your computer to synthesize digital music, not necessarily for performing it. To see some of the options for music synthesis, take a look at Wikipedia's Comparison of audio synthesis environments.

My original idea was to find a way to generate music for use as background in videos and games.  I may have bitten off more than I can chew. But I did finally find what I was looking for--Wikipedia calls it a software Digital Audio Workstation.

The reason for producing music locally, that is on my computer, is the difficulty in knowing what can be used legally from the music sites found online, such as SoundCloud, Jamendo, and ccMixter. There are more such sites listed at Hongkiat. While these sites offer music with specified fair use rights, sometimes it's unclear whether a specific piece is open for use or not. For more info on fair use, here's a link to the FAQ at Creative Commons.

Using the right term--software DAW--for the task at hand, I found this article, "The 19 best DAW software apps in the world today." If you have a Mac, Apple's GarageBand would fill the bill; Apple says it's built into every Mac. Mutools' MuLab looks good. The others are well worth checking out as well.

I downloaded and installed a demo of Renoise, which is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux and in 32- and 64-bit versions. The full version is EUR 65, USD 89.

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screenshot of Renoise desktop, Renoise

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The application  is impressive, to say the least, and well-documented. There are a number of sample songs and tutorials. And it appears that I'll be able to open and play with files generated in other file formats. Think mixing. Exploring this app will take some time.

Also found today was Tonematrix, an Audiotool online.

Which brings us back to the original question--what to do about using pre-recorded music from music sites online? The results are still out, but now I have more options.

-- Marge
   

Science: combing the universe for planets

David A Aguilar (CfA), hypothetical world with 2 moons, UniverseToday

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That's right, literally combing with an astro-comb to find planets outside our solar system. Currently scientists are just looking for Venus to test the technology and make sure it works (Gizmag: Astronomers use astro-comb to seek Earth-like exoplanets).

The Walsworth Group reports:

We have developed a new technique using laser frequency combs to improve the accuracy and stability of wavelength calibration of astrophysical spectrographs by up to two orders of magnitude. This "astro-comb" will provide a key advance in the resolution of changes in astrophysical Doppler shifts and redshifts, and thus may allow the discovery of Earth-like planets and new measurements of astrophysical dynamics relevant to cosmology.

Both of the leading techniques to find exoplanets rely on the planet's very small effect on its star. The radial velocity technique measures the star's "wobble" (and hence Doppler shift) due to the planet's gravitational pull as it circles; while the transit technique measures the dimming of a star's light as a planet passes in front of it. With current technology, both of these techniques can identify relatively large planets that have a noticeable effect on their star. Detection of the very small Doppler shifts (<10 cm/s) induced by smaller, rocky planets, like Earth and Mars, will require improved wavelength calibration that can only be provided by astro-combs.

For Physics.org's report on the topic, take a look at this article.

Another group, Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG), has published images of their setup and reports on the TNG+Harps-N system.

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astro-comb laser setup, TNG

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-- Marge

Cartoons: Deals and tradeoffs

Because the news is full of public outcry and fear about Ebola, here's my one cartoon about it. (BTW, WHO declared the Ebola Outbreak In Senegal Over.)

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David Horsey, The Week

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Meanwhile, cartoonist Walt Hanelsman talks about Louisiana's lucrative prison work-release deals with an insider.

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Walt Handelsman, The Week

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Did you notice that the stock market went a little crazy on Wednesday? Curiously, so did my day.

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Steve Kelley, The Week

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Admittedly I know little about sports, but I do know greed when I see it. And the NCAA fills the bill. Recently it's been the NCAA vs. Todd Gurley.

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Mike Luckovich, The Week

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One has to admire the umbrella revolution in Hong Kong (photo essay). Unfortunately, the democracy being sought may not materialize.

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Daryl Cagle, The Week

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-- Marge

DIY: learning English

Phil Selby, the rut, English

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Earlier this week I stumbled across NPR's Goats and Soda, a blog with the byline "stories of life in a changing world." In the New Stuff section there are titles like "Help Wanted: Unlikely Geniuses To Solve Public Health Problems," "A $1 Microscope Folds From Paper With A Drop Of Glue," and "Don't Pop That Bubble Wrap! Scientists Turn Trash Into Test Tubes." All of them are about innovation and well worth reading.

But the one that really caught my attention was one about learning English: Take A New Test Aimed At The World's English-Language Learners. In an increasingly global world communication is more and more important, and English, in many cases, is becoming the default language.

Why English, you may ask. This excerpt from Wikipedia's article on world language touches on the reason why English is so widely spoken and approximates how many people speak it:

A world language is a language spoken internationally and which is learned by many people as a second language. A world language is not only characterized by the number of speakers (native or second language speakers), but also by its geographical distribution, international organizations and in diplomatic relations. In this respect, major world languages are dominated by languages of European origin. The historical reason for this is the period of expansionist European imperialism and colonialism.

The world's most widely used language is English which has over 1.8 billion users world wide...

The test NPR writes about is sponsored by Education First. You can access the test is at EF Standard English Test. It's free, can be taken over and over to assess your progress, is standardized, gives you an official score on the EF scale, and you can "post your EFSET results on your online profile as proof of your English skills to school admission officers, employers and friends." There are two types of EF tests: the quick one that take about an hour and the comprehensive one that takes about 2 hours. Both are free.


-- Marge

So what's so special about a blue LED?

Steve Woodward, Child studying by solar light, ABC.net.au

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One of this year's Nobel prizes was awarded to the Japanese inventors of the blue light-emitting diode (LED). NobelPrize.org explains that

by using blue LEDs, white light can be created in a new way. With the advent of LED lamps we now have more long-lasting and more efficient alternatives to older light sources.

Popular Science asked the same question I did--"Why A Blue LED Is Worth A Nobel Prize"--and went on to say:

LEDs are basically semiconductors that have been built so they emit light when they're activated. Different chemicals give different LEDs their colors. Engineers made the first LEDs in the 1950s and 60s. Early iterations included laser-emitting devices that worked only when bathed in liquid nitrogen. At the time, scientists developed LEDs that emitted everything from infrared light to green light… but they couldn't quite get to blue. That required chemicals, including carefully-created crystals, that they weren't yet able to make in the lab.

Once they did figure it out, however, the results were remarkable. A modern white LED lightblub converts more than 50 percent of the electricity it uses into light. Compare that to the 4 percent conversion rate for incandescent bulbs, and you have one efficient bulb. Besides saving money and electricity for all users, white LEDs' efficiency makes them appealing for getting lighting to folks living in regions without electricity supply. A solar installation can charge an LED lamp to last a long time, allowing kids to do homework at night and small businesses to continue working after dark.

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LEDs! 

PiccoloNamek on Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

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This NPR blog, Goats and Soda, calls LED lights a 'transformative technology' in the developing world, replacing kerosene with solar power. Lighting Global supports a burgeoning market for off-grid lighting.

Problem solved...mostly.

But what about the times and places when and where the sun doesn't shine so much? Researchers are working on it: "Artificial Photosynthesis: Saving Solar Energy for a Rainy Day." If you're interested in the topic of photovoltaics, you can sign up at The Optical Society (OSA) to get current and reliable information.

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Artificial photosynthesis graphic, OSA

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-- Marge

Cartoons: know your enemy

On average I'm currently receiving daily 2 to 4 spam emails from the Democratic Party, 2 to 3 spam emails from my state Senator Mark Begich, and the odd spam email from candidates in other states (Sheldon Whitehouse, really?). Most of them because I subscribed to Obama's Organizing for America, his grassroots campaign. Begich got my email address from a petition. If I contributed the minimum at each email, I'd be spending somewhere near $1000.00 a month. None of these organizations allow you to unsubscribe. Needless to say all of these emails go to the trash on arrival.

But the Democrats, in my view, are still preferable to the Republicans. Here are some cartoons poking fun at both.

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Tom Toles, The Week

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Dan Wasserman, The Week

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Tom Toles, The Week

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And then there's Fox News pushing Ebola fear.

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John Cole, The Week

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It's enough to make one want to opt out completely.

-- Marge

DIY: Halloween costumes using ideas from costume designers

Flowing fabric holds an inexplicable appeal for me. For examples see Getty Images Flowing Fabric page.

So when considering what types of Halloween costumes to suggest today, my thinking came round to focusing on how designers use fabric and what shapes and silhouettes they present. Also, local theaters, as opposed to well-endowed big-city ones, often costume the actors on a shoestring. Materials to consider for your own Halloween creation are cheesecloth, muslin, cotton lawn, light canvas, drapery lining, and such.  Nick of Time Textiles discusses costume and dancewear fabrics and has a nice selection. Five yards of 60-inch wide fabric will go a long way and at $4.50 a yard costs, uhm, $22.50 (example is Aqua Pongee Woven Fabric).

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Draped Fabric Costume, Belle Clara

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Some designers to draw ideas from are Belle Clara and Gwen van den Eijnde. The FIDM Museum in Los Angeles has an interesting exhibition of Outstanding Art of Television Costume Design.

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Gwen van den Eijnde, Unusual Costume Design, Culture Vixen

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In my search of costume design I came across this excellent DIY article for a Cheesecloth Ghost Costume, posted by Cathi at her blog scratchandstitch.

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Ghost Costume, scratchandstitch

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Also you might consider incorporating unusual materials like newspaper, cardboard, and bubble wrap. Above all, have fun.

-- Marge

Science: A warp bubble drive for interstellar travel

USS Enterprise at warp (Paramount Pictures/CBS Studios), Universe Today

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To travel beyond our solar system and flyby the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri (4.3 light years distant), is a journey estimated to take 40 years one way, depending on the mode of propulsion used. That's a road trip with possibly no return. Wikipedia's article on interstellar travel is truly an eye-opener.

It's known that we cannot travel faster than light in spacetime, as explained on NASA's Status of "Warp Drive" page. After a reference to special relativity, the NASA author says:

One of the consequences of this Special Relativity is the light speed barrier [compared to the sound barrier earlier in the article]. Here’s another way to look at it. To move faster, you add energy. But when you get going near the speed of light, the amount of energy you need to go faster balloons to infinity! To move a mass at the speed of light would take infinite energy. It appears that there is a distinct barrier here.

Note that this barrier is an effect of being in the spacetime matrix. But what if we consider altering the matrix itself? Then we are looking at ideas like the warp bubble drive (Alcubierre drive) and wormhole transportation.

Since first coming across the idea of warp bubble drive, I've been intrigued by it.  Here's a diagram that might help.

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Warp drive bubble (NASA), Gizmag

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According to an article in Gizmag, "Warp drive looks more promising than ever in recent NASA studies:"

The warp drive broke away from being a wholly fictional concept in 1994, when physicist Miguel Alcubierre suggested that faster-than-light (FTL) travel was possible if you remained still on a flat piece of spacetime inside a warp bubble that was made to move at superluminal velocity. Rather like a magic carpet. The main idea here is that, although no material objects can travel faster than light, there is no known upper speed to the ability of spacetime itself to expand and contract. The only real hint we have is that the minimum velocity of spacetime expansion during the period of cosmological inflation was about 30 million billion times the speed of light.

In describing how the warp bubble would work, author Brian Dodson says:

The warp effect uses gravitational effects to compress the spacetime in front of a spacecraft, then expand the spacetime behind it. The bit of spacetime within the warp bubble is flat, so that the spacecraft would float at zero-g along the wave of compressed and expanded spacetime. The net effect is rather like surfing, where you are nearly stationary with respect to the wave, but are traveling with the speed of the wave. Whereas many of the theoretical studies consider a warp bubble moving at ten times the speed of light, there is no known limit to the potential speed.

All is not rosy with this shiny new idea, though. Universe Today warns:

Planning a little space travel to see some friends on Kepler 22b? Thinking of trying out your newly-installed FTL3000 Alcubierre Warp Drive to get you there in no time? Better not make it a surprise visit — your arrival may end up disintegrating anyone there when you show up.

In closing Wikipedia's article on the Alcubierre Warp Drive includes a snapshot of the math.

-- Marge

Cartoons: Ebola and politics

Ebola and politics--they just seem to go together, don't they? No further comments today, just five cartoons from The Week.

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Dana Summers, The Week

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Mike Luckovich, The Week

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Rick McKee, The Week

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Drew Sheneman, The Week

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David Horsey, The Week

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-- Marge

DIY: mindfulness

5 Mindfulness Exercises by Thich Nhat Hanh, Mind Fuel Daily

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We're fast approaching the holiday season, and then a national election, so this is likely a good time to set up anti-stress measures. Mindfulness is easy to start, takes a lifetime to master, if ever. Praises of its benefits are sung by many. Dr. Russ Harris at The Happiness Trap says this about mindfulness:

‘Mindfulness’ is a hot topic in Western psychology: increasingly recognised as an effective way to reduce stress, increase self-awareness, enhance emotional intelligence, and effectively handle painful thoughts and feelings.

Although mindfulness has only recently been embraced by Western psychology, it is an ancient practice found in a wide range of Eastern philosophies, including Buddhism, Taoism and Yoga. Mindfulness involves consciously bringing awareness to your here-and-now experience with openness, interest, and receptiveness. Jon Kabat-Zinn, a world authority on the use of mindfulness training in the management of clinical problems, defines it as:  "Paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally."

Mindfulness is about waking up, connecting with ourselves, and appreciating the fullness of each moment of life. Kabat-Zinn calls it, "The art of conscious living."  It is a profound way to enhance psychological and emotional resilience, and increase life satisfaction.

One article that I found particularly informative is CNN's "Destress your life in 10 easy steps." Day 5: The intensely frustrating line meditation promises to be helpful, although my favorite thing to do in line is people watch.

Berkley's Greater Good site features a talk by Jon Kabat-Zinn you may find interesting.

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One last reference today is an article at Fast Company, titled "Meditation techniques for people who hate meditation." In it there's a sweet story about Miss Dunn's teaching technique.

-- Marge