Monday, November 26, 2007

He Is Coming…

The new Joker is slowly being revealed. Check back for more. 

Future Interfaces

I’m going to be playing with some of these at my new company. Should be cool. 

3D X-Rays

A new kind of X-Ray scanner provides three dimensional images of organs and bones.

Two 70s Babes in One Commerical

Starring Farrah (Charlies Angels) Fawcett and Angela (Lost in Space) Cartwright

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Peak Oil is a Myth part 3

This Forbes article from last year explains the confusion when people think we’re running out of oil. When you hear about oil reserves, they are referring to known oil fields. And the simple fact is, there hasn’t been a lot of oil prospecting outside of the US and Canada.

During the last 25 years more than 70% of exploration has taken place in the United States and Canada, mature areas that probably hold only 3% of the world’s reserves of crude. The Middle East, on the other hand, has been the scene of only 3% of global exploration, even though it harbors 70% of the earth’s reserves. In the Persian Gulf, holding 65% of the region’s reserves, fewer than 100 exploration wells were drilled between 1995 and 2004. During the same period, 15,700 such wells were drilled in the U.S.

Looking back over a longer time frame, you find the same lopsided ratios. In Saudi Arabia only 300 oil and gas wells (including developmental wells) have ever been drilled, as opposed to several hundred thousand in the U.S. The contrast is even more striking with respect to Iran and Iraq, and Russia is still paying the price for the technological backwardness and poor management of its fields during the Soviet era. Even today it is scarcely expanding its productive base, although its recent groping toward Western capital and expertise may change that picture ( click here to see story).

Venezuela could double its production of crude in ten years with the help of foreign capital and technology, but political considerations drive it in the opposite direction, and its production is falling.

In fact, the vast majority of prime producing countries get their oil from old fields, most of which have been in production since their discovery in the first half of the last century. And in many instances they are operated with 50- and 60-year-old technology and equipment.

There is little that the small or large Western oil companies can do to alter this situation. They control only 8% of global reserves of crude, while more than 90% of the world’s reserves are in countries that do not allow foreign access and are unwilling or unable to develop new reserves on their own.

There is undoubtedly more than enough oil in the world to last us another century at the very least. Probably two century’s worth. In 50 years, we won’t even need it (except maybe for plastics). The race is on to replace oil as an energy source, and human beings are very resourceful. As Bjørn Lomborg said: “We didn’t leave the stone age for lack of rocks.”

[ht: Will Brown and Al Fin]

BS of the Day

Supporters of the Kyoto Protocol were gleeful on Saturday after Australian elections left the United States in the wilderness as the only major economy to boycott the UN’s climate pact.

The ouster of Prime Minister John Howard stripped President George W. Bush of a key ally barely a week before a conference in Bali, Indonesia, on the world’s response to climate change beyond 2012, they said.

“It’s great news for the Kyoto Protocol,” Shane Rattenburg, Greenpeace’s political director, told AFP.

“It’s a very important event in the international climate debate, and for Bali. It will leave Bush and the United States more isolated.”

Physog.com

Except that isn’t true. Canada is planning to back out of the treaty. Of course, they’re phrasing it in such a way as to suggest other non-treaty nations must join for Canada to stay. But he knows that’s not going to happen.

The treaty is worthless. Even the IPCC agrees it would have a negligible impact at best. But its effect on the economies of signatory nations is something else all together, which is why many of them have failed to meet their goals and have, instead used the hilarious “carbon offsets” argument.

So what’s the point? It seems to be yet another anti-capitalist scam designed to force rich nations to downscale their economies, which means, hindering corporate growth. And that means less jobs. Less revenue for everyone. What a deal!

Nature has a way of raining on parades. Record ice in Antarctica caused a cruise ship to sink the other day. I thought the ice was melting. Next thing you know, we’ll find out they lied about the sea levels rising.

A Hole in the Universe?

My personal theory of the cat question in physics is that it answers itself. The more we observe the universe, the more we discover that it’s way stranger than we thought, and it constantly surprises us. Here’s another example.

IN AUGUST, radio astronomers announced that they had found an enormous hole in the universe. Nearly a billion light years across, the void lies in the constellation Eridanus and has far fewer stars, gas and galaxies than usual. It is bigger than anyone imagined possible and is beyond the present understanding of cosmology. What could cause such a gaping hole? One team of physicists has a breathtaking explanation: “It is the unmistakable imprint of another universe beyond the edge of our own,” says Laura Mersini-Houghton of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

It is a staggering claim. If Mersini-Houghton’s team is right, the giant void is the first experimental evidence for another universe. It would also vindicate string theory, our most promising understanding of how the universe works at its most fundamental level.

That’s a big if, but it’s certainly interesting. Personally, I love the ideas of other realities. However, this could be nothing more than an anomaly. The universe has to be full of them. It’s a big place. 

The Day The Music Died

American Pie, translated

8 Great Obscure 80s Music Videos

Playing around with Songza got me looking for all these songs from the 80s I liked, which are rarely shown on music video channels anymore. Thanks to Youtube, you can find them. Here’s a few favorites of mine from back in the day.

Digging Your Scene by the Blow Monkeys. Blow Monkeys is a term for Saxophone players. The song has a nice jazzy feel.

Right on Track by the Breakfast Club. This band is fronted by an ex-Madonna boyfriend who worked with her in her early career. I like the groove of this song. It’s cool, even though the video is 80s silly.

It’s a Fine Fine Day by Tony Carey. Love this song about a man whose Uncle just got out of prison. Unfortunately, the quality of the video isn’t that good.

Fade to Gray by Visage. One of those odd New Wave songs that have a great haunting quality. I was and am a big New Wave fan.

Einstein A-Go-Go by Landscape. Another oddball new Wave act from the early 80s. I was living there at the time so I saw this on Brit TV. It never made it big here, so this is a real rarity in the states.

I Want to be a Cowboy by Boys Don’t Cry. This song cracks me up.
Gold by Spandau Ballet. For some reason this is less known than their one hit, True. But I actually like this better.

One Night in Bangkok by Murray Head. This song is less obscure than the others. It was actually a big hit in 1985. But it’s another favorite of mine from that era. 

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Lupin III

Listening to the Lupin theme got me in the mood to revisit the material. It’s a fun anime from the late 70s, early 80s based on a comics series in Japan. It’s about the grandson of Maurice Leblanc’s fictional gentleman-burglar Arsne Lupin. Lupin was a famous and popular fictional character in Victorian times. The modern Lupin runs around with his pals, trying to steal the world’s most precious loot and he’s being chased by an Interpol Agent named Zenigata. 

The cartoon is so unlike anything I had every seen when I ws first exposed to it in 1981. Then I saw the Lupin movie The Castle of Cagliostro. You can rent it in English here. I can’t recommend it enough. It changed my life in that it got me into promoting Japanese anime and comics and that led me into comics as a career. It was so goo it did the same thing to Toren Smith when I showed it to him in 1984. He moved to Japan and Japanese Comics, or Manga, became his livelihood.

It has that great music I link to in the previous post. And the film was written and directed by the great Hayao Miyazaki whose work I am a great admirer of.

If you are unfamiliar with any of this and like a good romp, you should check it out. It’s a lot of fun. The above animation is from the TV series, not the movie. Lupin has a huge international fan base. He’s one of my favorite characters.

This is a European the trailer to the Castle of Cagliostro/