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Saturday, November 24, 2012

Femtophotography - Seeing the world at the speed of light

Want to see what a millimetre worth of laser light looks like?

Want to see how it will be possible to see around corners in the future?


1,000,000,000,000 Frames/Second Photography - Ramesh Raskar 


More info on this amazing technology is at the femtophotography website.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

How to identify a terrorist #1


US drone strikes target rescuers in Pakistan - and the west stays silent
In the 20 August 2012 edition of The Guardian Glenn Greenwald gives more information on the drone strikes that are targetting rescuers:

"The US government has long maintained, reasonably enough, that a defining tactic of terrorism is to launch a follow-up attack aimed at those who go to the scene of the original attack to rescue the wounded and remove the dead. Morally, such methods have also been widely condemned by the west as a hallmark of savagery. Yet, as was demonstrated yet again this weekend in Pakistan, this has become one of the favorite tactics of the very same US government."

Thursday, September 13, 2012

The iPhone 5's most unsung feature - Mass produced precision engineering

In the Apple iPhone video (5 minutes in) they discuss the exacting engineering tolerances required to produce the iPhone 5. The variances are now measured in microns! 

One stand out example is to get the logo inlay incredibly flush they assess 725 cut iPhone cases for the best match.

This level of precision is something that I see in sci-fi as indicative of advanced species (e.g. When the door to the ship is such a close fit that it is almost imperceptible). That humanity is now getting to this tolerance on a mass produced scale is possibly indicative of a marker that will be used by future historians.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Borneo War Story

At the recent funeral of my partner's uncle I heard the following story in the eulogy by one of his children:

Geoff was the leader of a group of soldiers in the jungle of Borneo during WW II. As they went through the jungle there were many cross roads of tracks. At each track he would stop his troops, stick his head around the corner and look left and right for danger.

On one patrol he got to a cross road, looked right, looked left and looked right again. He was about to move forward when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye and immediately stopped still. At the next intersection up there was something moving. He looked closely and saw a large male orangutan.

The orangutan looked right, looked left then looked right again.Seeing that all appeared safe it walked across the track followed by a female and two small orangutans.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Audi Q3 augmented reality advertising

 A friend of mine pointed me to a new iPhone app by Audi Australia - "Virtual Q3" which uses a picture as a trigger to project a 3D image of the new Audi Q3 onto whatever your camera sees.
You can zoom in and out by moving closer and further away from the picture, even to the level of looking inside the car. While it is not a particularly useful app for me it gives an informative glimpse into the furture of mobile devices augmenting our reality. This will also include articles like Google specs.
This is quite a smooth app and as you can see from the screen shots below it really does augment reality. I printed out the pdf mentioned in the app description and placed it on my willing(?) dog. In reality I see just a piece of paper, while through the camera I a 3D Audi on her fur. As you will notice the perspective of the Q3 changes with my angle to the printout.
The last picture shows the piece of paper without the app (i.e. just a regular photo).
All up it was an interesting glimpse into the present.
I suffer for art

... and I'm spent.




Friday, May 18, 2012

Australian government kidnaps pregnant mother.

Michael Gordon published this story in The Age - "Wife, mother ... security threat" about a Sri Lankan refugee given an "adverse security assessment" by ASIO.

This is secret police, state sanctioned kidnapping by the Australian government. It is heartless and immoral. It scares me.
I don't know how else to describe the Immigration Department: tricking a pregnant mother (legally deemed a refugee) into their offices; taking her and her two young children away to indefinite detention; giving her husband only 5 minutes to say goodbye; and here's the kicker - refusing to say what she has done wrong and giving her no right to appeal.
Ranjini has had an ASIO "adverse security assessment" raised against her. Under Australian law this can't be questioned, appealled or detailed by her family and friends.
Sorry Ranjini, you and your two boys just have to rot in Villawood until the men with guns deign to loosen your shackles.

Here's the link to the GetUp! petition - No detention without appeal

Here's the ABC Lateline story on the subject - Refugee family torn apart by ASIO

Friday, May 04, 2012

Feral Pig sub-species

In the outback the wily feral pig, sus scrofa, has spawned several ultimately elusive sub-species: sus scrofa eucalyptus stumpus, the 5pm pig bush, the woolly shadow boar and sus scrofa acacia branchia.

Monday, April 02, 2012

Germaine Greer saves Australia from Global Warming

 

Here's the link to Germaine on ABC Q&A 

At 10:17 in is "the arse comment":

GERMAINE GREER: ... What I want her to do is get rid of those bloody jackets!

TONY JONES: She should go to him for political advice and you for fashion advice?

GERMAINE GREER: No, it's not even fashion. They don't fit. Every time she turns around, you've got that strange horizontal crease which means they're cut too narrow in the hips. You've got a big arse, Julia, just get on with it.  Test text

Monday, March 19, 2012

Autonomous flying robots

An interesting glimpse into what the very near future offers in terms of autonomous flying robots.

Interesting is the wrong adjective, freaking amazing is more appropriate.

The presentation is is from Ted.com by Vijay Kumar.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Obama smokes Maher

 
It amazes me (I know it shouldn't) that an avowed dope smoker so publicly supports an ex dope smoker who continues to jail people for choosing what to do with their own body.
I think both of them should be ashamed of their deliberate blindness to the life ruining interference of government force.

Monday, January 23, 2012

SOPA and PIPA explanations

If The Empire passes SOPA or PIPA it will ruin the internet and create one of the greatest infringements of freedom in history.


The Khan Academy does a great job of simply explaining how disgusting these proposed bills in the U.S.A are and why they will literally impact on the rest of the world.

Notice that Salman Khan point out that this is a Shoot first, ask questions later approach with no legal ramifications for the accuser.



Clay Shirky gives a talk for Ted that shows just how insidious these potential laws can be.

Notice where Clay points out that it is a copyright violation for a cake shop to print a child's drawing of Mickey Mouse on that child's own birthday cake.





Information on protests against SOPA (including the Internet Blackout of Jan 18 2012) can be found in this Wikipedia article.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Real BUP



Real BUP. I wanted to make an animation for my short piece of music ...
This is free to use however you want. Attribution is appreciated but not required.
ardeet.blogspot.com
Created with Animation Creator HD and Garageband for iPad

Saturday, January 07, 2012

Lobbying - a very profitable investment

Here's a great clip from The Young Turks who cover a report on the financial benefits of lobbying. If you wonder why companies spend so much money on politicians and other governments the amounts that they do on lobbying The Empire then this will start to give us an idea:


Monday, January 02, 2012

Iran attacks the United States of America


When the U.S.A et al finally attack Iran, listen carefully to the reasons that "no-one could have seen this coming" and why "regrettably this had to be done." It's just the same game with different pieces and the sheeple unquestioningly lap it up every time.