Month: November 2016

NYC ATM microbes

Microorganisms associated with mollusks and bony fish predominated in Asian neighborhoods in Flushing and Manhattan’s Chinatown. Traces of microbes linked with chicken appeared more in a largely black community in Harlem. And ATMs in predominantly white neighborhoods were festooned with Xeromyces bisporus, a mold associated with the “spoilage of high-sugar foods such as cakes and confectionaries

Meridian Reconciliation

A cooperation to make sure Easter is celebrated at the liturgically correct date.

Bologna’s Basilica of San Petronio is not the only example of a meridian line, although it was considered to be the most accurate. Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome has a beautifully realized and particularly grandiose example cutting through its nave; Saint-Sulpice in Paris hosts its own, as does Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence; a church tightly nestled in the packed streets of Fossombrone, Italy, bears a meridian line; the heavily worn remains of a line are still visible in the cloisters of England’s Durham Cathedral; and the duomos of Milan and Palermo also contain their own meridian lines. To determine exactly when the equinox would be, in the future—and, thus, when Easter should properly be celebrated—a more subtle and astronomically precise tool of measurement was required. A meridian line. The Catholic Church supported astronomy for more than 600 years, from medieval times to the Enlightenment. This sponsorship continues into the 21st century

The Monkey and the Apple

It has been waaaay more work than I expected. Starting with a more-or-less working game, and tweaking it to work on Cloud and mobile — I mean, come on, how hard can it be, really? Turns out, yeah, yep, very hard. Stupidly hard. Especially since out of brand loyalty I chose Google’s cloud platform, which 3 or 4 years ago was pretty raw. And let’s face it, iOS APIs have evolved a ton in that timeframe as well. So even as “recently” as 2013 I was working with some pretty immature technology stacks, all of which have come leaps and bounds since then.

Is Physical Law an Alien Intelligence?

Or to take this a step further, perhaps the behavior of normal cosmic matter that we attribute to dark matter is brought on by something else altogether: a living state that manipulates luminous matter for its own purposes. Consider that at present we have neither identified the dark-matter particles nor come up with a compelling alternative to our laws of physics that would account for the behavior of galaxies and clusters of galaxies. Would an explanation in terms of life be any less plausible than a failure of established laws?

Inflatable ISS module

this is cool, i missed it, the first inflatable module from bigelow has been installed at ISS

Bigelow Aerospace and Axiom Space — plan to launch habitat modules to orbit in 2020, with the aim of making some money off Earth. If all goes to plan, private space stations will eventually form the backbone of commercial facilities that replace the International Space Station (ISS), which is currently funded through 2024.

Cooperating with 1 Belt 1 Road?

The United States and Japan are the only G7 countries that have not signed up to be Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) members, a move viewed by Beijing as a sign of Washington’s mistrust of the Chinese government and its ambition to exert bigger regional influence. US membership of the AIIB and endorsing China’s efforts to revive trade routes along the ancient Silk Road, would be a big sign of goodwill from Washington to Beijing to pave the way for future agreements.

India’s Demonetization

85% of all currency in circulation has just been turned into coupons that can only be exchanged in specific places. Only 1% of India’s population pays income tax. India’s dilemma is that its high productivity sectors are taxed while its low-productivity sectors aren’t so valuable resources are trapped in low productivity sectors.