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Sunday, December 31, 2000
Face Blind
One mans story about living with face blindness. This is a very rare condition where one cannot recognize people's faces.
Face Blind! Bill's Face Blindness (Prosopagnosia) Pages
"I was born with a condition that makes it difficult for me to recognize faces. There is a small part of the brain that is dedicated to that job, and though it is small, when it comes to recognizing faces, it is very very good. In me, that part doesn't work, making me blind to all but the most familiar of faces."
"People who are "tone deaf" are not deaf to tones. They can hear tones, they just can't tell them apart. People who are "color blind" can see things that are in color. They just can't tell colors apart. Similarly, I can see faces. I just can't tell them apart. "
posted at 12/31/2000 04:43:48 PM
Saturday, December 30, 2000
An interesting site investigating flight characteristics of maple seeds using several different origami models.
Exploring Science and Design with a Maple Seed
"... we will analyze and experiment with variations of an origami maple seed. Our search to understand how maple seeds work will introduce us to some of the principles of science and examples of art and technology in today's world.."
posted at 12/30/2000 03:40:26 PM
Wednesday, December 20, 2000
Here are some excellent shots of Popocatepetl erupting, including a couple taken at night showing red hot lava and a nice one that appears to have been taken from a helicopter.
Volcano
posted at 12/20/2000 10:30:43 PM
Tuesday, December 19, 2000
Disturbing news from those on the climate change front. The site has a link to a 14 minute RealPlayer video, showing interviews with the native Canadian Inuit of Sachs Harbour in northern Canada, and their first hand accounts of the effect of climate change on their lives.
Inuit Observations on Climate Change Project - CASL - IISDnet
"This 14-minute video documents the changes being witnessed by the Inuvialuit of Sachs Harbour who have lived on the land and have learned its patterns for generations. The changes they are seeing are dramatic: exotic insects and animals have arrived on their island; the sea ice is thinner and further from the community, carrying with it the seals and polar bears upon which the people depend for food; and permafrost melting has caused an inland lake to drain into the ocean and foundations of the communitys buildings to shift and crumble. Life for the people of Sachs Harbour has become increasingly difficult and unpredictable - a dire warning of the negative impacts of climate change predicted to occur elsewhere in the world."
posted at 12/19/2000 03:26:28 PM
Monday, December 18, 2000
The normally minor Ursid meteor shower on Dec 22 may in fact be very active this year. Instead of an average of 6 meteors per hour, bundled up watchers may see over 100 meteors per hour, since the earth is heading into a very dense part of the debris stream from comet Tuttle.
A Meteor Surprise
"It hardly seems worth the trouble to spend a frigid winter night outdoors just to see a meager half-dozen or so meteors. But this year could be different."
"...our planet is now heading directly for a dusty debris stream shed by periodic comet Tuttle, the parent of the Ursids. Meteor rates could soar to more than 100 per hour next Thursday night and Friday morning when Earth plows through the stream of meteoroids."
posted at 12/18/2000 05:00:54 PM
This site provides instructions on making your own flutes. An interesting addition is a section on modifying the sound by adding a kazoo like membrane to the flute. There is also an section on decorating your flute using xerographic toner.
Rick Miller's Flute Pages
"The Dizi (pronounced, "DEE-tzeh", sometimes spelled "ditz") is a Chinese flute with a unique sound. No western instrument sounds quite like it; something like a flute, an oboe, and a violin all at once. It's made just like the simple flutes I've described on my other flute pages, except for one thing. There is an extra hole between the finger holes and the embouchure, covered with a very thin membrane... just like a kazoo."
posted at 12/18/2000 03:19:22 PM
Friday, December 15, 2000
The Mexican volcano Popocatepetl, 40 miles from Mexisco City, is acting up again. Here is a link to a webcam with a great view of the eruption. It updates every few minutes.
CENAPRED Popocatepetl Cam (Small Image)
CENAPRED Popocatepetl Cam (Large Image)
posted at 12/15/2000 12:19:14 PM
Wednesday, December 13, 2000
Murphy's law in action. This news item discusses in some detail the unforeseen problems encountered on the ISS (International Space Station).
IEEE Spectrum Online Weekly Feature
"...even optimists admit the development of space station software has been difficult. Software glitches in the hundreds have cropped up, so much so that pessimists believe delaying the NASA missions should be considered. If NASA presses on, a source told IEEE Spectrum, "we may very well spend a lot of time putting our fingers in an ever-increasing number of holes in the dike."
"Since the power system was grounded to the structure, the outer skin of the station developed a relative potential of 100160 V and up with the surrounding plasma. According to a NASA training manual on the station's power system, "40 to 60 Vdc has been observed to be the minimum required for arcing." With its outer skin at 100160V, the station would be way over that threshold. Such a high voltage would have resulted in continuous "mini-arcing" across the skin of the station. It would damage the station's thermal coating as well as viewing ports, and would degrade the solar cells. More dangerously, it would be a shock hazard to crewmen on space walks."
via the Risks Digest
posted at 12/13/2000 11:30:46 AM
Cooperation, defection and competition in NASCAR racing. If you do not cooperate you lose, if you do not defect you will not win. There is more to racing than just driving. It is a complex psychological game. This is an engrossing read.
Social Science at 190 MPH on NASCAR's Biggest Superspeedways
"In aerodynamically intense stock-car races like the Daytona 500, the drivers form into multi-car draft lines to gain extra speed. A driver who does not enter a draft line (slipstream) will lose. Once in a line, a driver must attract a drafting partner in order to break out and try to get further ahead. Thus the effort to win leads to ever-shifting patterns of cooperation and competition among rivals."
posted at 12/13/2000 12:31:27 AM
I'm an American who has been living in Canada for over 30 years, and even I found this site interesting. A must read for Americans and Canadians both.
An American's Guide to Canada
"Most Americans know next to nothing about their neighbo(u)r to the north, except that Canadians play a lot of hockey, drink beer, and end sentences with "eh?"
"These pages, written by an American who has been living in Canada since 1992, are intended to give Americans a better idea just what goes on in the Great White North."
posted at 12/13/2000 12:18:11 AM
Monday, December 11, 2000
This site has what appear to be sounds recorded both from within submarines and sounds heard on sonar. Hear the sounds of torpedoes being fired, of ships being hit, whales, dolphins and sonar pinging. There are sounds from WWII up to current submarines.
Steel in the Deep:Submarine Sounds and Voices
posted at 12/11/2000 04:34:48 PM
Friday, December 08, 2000
Here is something interesting to do on Christmas Day. This site includes times ( in UTC / GMT ) for various locales in Canada, along with some maps.
Partial Solar Eclipse 2000
"The final eclipse of the Second Millennium is a partial solar eclipse on Christmas day. Fortunately, the event will be well placed for observers throughout most of North America."
posted at 12/8/2000 10:26:31 AM
Thursday, December 07, 2000
It appears to be fairly simple to collect micrometeorites. These have the appearance of small rounded magnetic particles, and can probably be found just about anywhere with a bit of work.
Micrometeorites
"Some meteors are so tiny that they fall through the atmosphere without burning up. They are so small in fact that they float around in the atmosphere, eventually reaching the ground with rain droplets or heavier dust particles. The best times to collect micrometeorites are after meteor showers."
Also see:
Educator's Guide to Micrometeorites
Collected Micrometeorites
posted at 12/7/2000 05:06:10 PM
Tuesday, December 05, 2000
An interesting site, and a good introduction into what exactly makes a language. It covers the use of sounds, stress, pitch, alphabet, and grammar. There are lots of examples from current languages.
How to create a language
"These pages are intended for people interested in creating languages for fictional purposes (or just for fun) and in linguistics in general."
"The pages are divided into two main fields: sounds (phonology) and structure (grammar). These pages will cover both fields, in that order, and many others which are somewhere in the middle. It will explain linguistic technical terms when used. "
posted at 12/5/2000 12:49:04 PM
Sunday, December 03, 2000
Here are some uncommon uses for a flatbed scanner. There are complete instructions for scanning 35mm slides, and an interesting section on creating regular and stereoscopic scans of solid objects. I'll be trying both of these experiments asap.
Scanning Experiments
"Over a year ago I began trying to work out a cheap and easy way to scan 35 mm slides on an ordinary flatbed scanner--to avoid buying the Transparent Media Adapter for several hundred dollars. "
"...if you scan an object twice, once with it placed to the right of the lens and again with it to the left, you get two different images--because of the parallax. When you look at one of the scanned images with the right eye and the other with the left eye, you see the object in three dimensions--stereoscopically!"
posted at 12/3/2000 01:12:32 PM
Friday, December 01, 2000
This looks like a fairly simple project. You can build a 120V AC Generator from an old lawnmower, an alternator, an inverter and one or two car batteries. Everything is bolted onto the lawnmower chassis, so you can wheel it around.
How to build a generator and be prepared for y2k, black-outs, storms and emergencies.
"Here's an easy and inexpensive way to build your own personal power generator. It's a handy little back up system to protect your family from black outs, storms, Y2K, etc. Or, maybe you simply want to get away from it all for a while. It's always nice to know that you can generate your own power whenever and wherever you are.
The following is a step by step tutorial. It shows you the parts you will need, the cost and the best places to get them. We then assemble the whole unit and wire it up, yes, we even include the wiring diagrams. The nice part about this unit is that the generator is built right into the lawn mower deck. You can even strap 2 or 3 batteries on the deck and steer the whole thing wherever you want to go."
posted at 12/1/2000 01:04:41 PM
