Amazing!!

Ancient Machines (Machines Of Ancient China)

Alright!!!

My Alma Mater gets world wide recognition:

University of Saskatchewan Space Design Team beats 37 other teams to win 2015 European Rover Challenge

ERC 2015 results out; University of Saskatchewan team lands top spot

U of S, McGill University teams rank first and third in ERC 2015

U of S Team Surprises Competition, Themselves in International Rover Challenge Victory

ERC 2015 results out; University of Saskatchewan team lands top spot

University of Saskatchewan team wins Mars rover challenge

University of Saskatchewan team wins Mars rover challenge

Mars rover challenge University of Saskatchewan is Mars rover challenge champion

Sask. students take top prize in Mars rover design challenge

European Rover Challenge 2015 sees USST land top spot

Not only that, but they get recognition from as far away as Northern California and Budapest!!!!

Well done, folks!!!

Yay!!!

I've been redeemed:

Reading Books Instead of Kindles Can Improve Your Memory, Concentration and Good Looks

I need all the help I can get in those fields.

Handwriting vs typing: is the pen still mightier than the keyboard?

Your paper brain and your Kindle brain aren't the same thing

Why you should take notes by hand — not on a laptop

Remember How Global Warming, or...

...whatever it's called at 2:52 CST on February 27, 2015, was going to produce droughts everywhere. Well, thanks to fossil fuels it ain't happening:

How To Solve The Water Crisis: Use More Fossil Fuels

"...thanks in part to increasing fossil fuel use, we are bringing about a world where our bodies and our crops have more of the water they need, not less."

[---]

"Droughts are historically the most common form of climate-related death; a lack of rainfall can affect the supply of the two most basic essentials of life, food and water. Drought is also supposed to be one of the most devastating consequences of CO2 emissions, so let’s see how they match up."

[---]

"Clearly, CO2 emissions have not had a significant effect on droughts, but expanded human ability to fight drought, powered by fossil fuels, has: from better agriculture (more crops for more people), to rapid transportation to drought-affected areas, to modern irrigation that makes farmers less dependent on rainfall. Shouldn’t fossil fuel energy get some credit here?

To give you one particularly astonishing data point, the International Disaster Database reports that the United States has had zero deaths from drought in the last eight years. This doesn’t mean there are actually zero, as the database only covers incidents involving ten or more deaths, but it means pretty near zero. Historically, drought is the number-one climate-related cause of death. Worldwide it has gone down by 99.98% in the last eighty years, for many energy-related reasons: oil-powered drought-relief convoys, more food in general because of more prolific, fossil fuel-based agriculture, and irrigation systems. And yet we constantly hear reports that fossil fuels are making droughts worse. These reports give credibility to climate-prediction models that can’t predict climate, but no credibility to the plain facts about how important more energy is to countering drought."

[---]

"Most of Earth’s surface is covered with water—but not nearly enough of it is usable for our high standards and purposes.

Most of the water is saltwater in the oceans. Most of the fresh water is trapped in massive ice sheets in places like Antarctica or Greenland. Some is part of a large water cycle of clouds and precipitation. Some portion is naturally “poisoned” brackish water of low quality in soil layers deep below the surface, containing too much salt and too many metals and other chemicals to be of any use without energy-intensive treatment. Nature does not deliberately or consistently produce “drinking water” able to meet a rigorous set of human health specifications."

My Sentiments, Exactly

Perhaps All Is Not Lost...

...Burn Isis Flag Challenge' Goes Viral in Arab World

"A social media viral campaign has sprung up in the Arab world that involves burning the Isis flag.

The trend started after three Lebanese youths posted pictures of them burning the flag associated with the militant group, also known as Islamic State, in the middle of Sassine Square in Beirut.

Soon afterwards, a Lebanese YouTube user uploaded a video of himself burning a flag. Similar to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in which people choose others to their do own videos, the user nominated "the whole world " to take part in the #BurnISISFlagChallenge.

The campaign soon went viral, especially in Lebanon following the beheading of one of the country's soldiers by IS."

I hope this virus spreads.

Faster, Please!

The Role of the CBC

"Technological change is challenging traditional broadcasters, including the CBC. The status quo just will not fly. It is always difficult to start talking about changes to the CBC because of the political dynamic around the institution. In this case, technology is driving change, not government budget cuts or political interference."

Yup!

China, Before Communism

Ancient Chinese Inventions

Absolutely fascinating!

Yup

What's Up In Islamofascistland?

Saudi Arabia declares Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group

"Saudi Arabia formally designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization Friday, putting it on the same footing under Saudi law as al Qaida and shaking what until recent months had been considered one of the Muslim world’s most established mainstream organizations."

Trying to get on the good side of their customers?

Seeking Israel's protection?

"Members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood have been a mainstay of the movement to topple the government of President Bashar Assad, and the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey is closely allied with the Brotherhood.

The designation is also likely to have ramifications for Hamas, the Brotherhood-affiliated group that rules the Gaza Strip and which both the United States and Israel have designated a terrorist organization."

And The One Is Not Pleased:

"The U.S. State Department said it did not share Saudi Arabia’s view that the Brotherhood was a terrorist organization. But with the United States increasingly dependent on Saudi Arabia to pursue its stated goal of toppling Assad in Syria, U.S. policy _ and its selection of partners _ in that country seemed likely to be affected by the Saudi action."

RTWT It's almost like an earthquake has hit the Middle East. But there's more...

Or are they afraid of a coup? Saudis: Muslim Brotherhood a terror group

"Authorities worry that hundreds of young, radicalized Islamist fighters will return home and try to topple the royal regimes."

[---]

"The Brotherhood condemned the Saudi action.

"It is one of the founding principles of the group not to interfere in matters of other states, and this new position from the kingdom is a complete departure from the past relationship with the group, since the reign of the founding king until now," the group said in a statement."

The world's still in spin, the Middle East is falling apart

"Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani has called for the expansion of relations with on Oman in a move apparently meant to undermine Saudi Arabia’s efforts to dominate the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council and exercise greater influence in the Arab world.

In a phone call made by the Qatari ruler to Oman’s Sultan Qaboos bin Said on Thursday, the two influential Arab rulers reviewed means of boosting and developing ties in addition to the latest regional developments.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates recalled their envoys from Doha this week in what many said was a response to Qatar's support for the Muslim Brotherhood of deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, who was overthrown by the military in July.

Egypt has welcomed the decision of the three Persian Gulf states to withdraw their envoys to Qatar and said its own ambassador "will not return" to the emirate."

...and I'm getting dizzy.

In the meantime, the Ottoman Empire strikes back: Erdogan show of strength fails to eradicate his weak spots

"When an Ankara court ruled this week against Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s construction of a new TL650m ($295m) prime ministerial complex, the Turkish leader insisted the building would go on.

The court said the site was on protected land in the forests outside the capital city. In reply, the prime minister suggested the court’s decision was probably the work of a “parallel state” within Turkish institutions.[Emphasis mine] “No one can stop the construction of this building and no one can demolish it,” he proclaimed".

He's getting desperate: Turkey warns YouTube and Facebook could be banned

Have I ever told you I think technological advances are a primary catalyst of change, frequently in directions that were unanticipated. The invention of the printing press, is a major example. The internet is another. It's also true that history is just one damn thing after another.

Got Ten Hours?

Interested in ancient history? Wanna see a piano hurled through the air?

Here's a series of ten videos, each a little less than a hour long, showing ancient technology and inventions that will fascinate and inform, from Stonehenge to Egyptian obelisks to the trebuchet. Modern experts assemble teams of men and try to recreate/discover the methods used to construct and erect these monuments using technologies of the era when the originals were built. How did they do it?

Secrets of the lost empires

Creak. Groan.

Some things make me feel so old:


Please insert more coins: Payphone’s future is on the line

"Already a quaint relic in many parts of Canada, the old-fashioned payphone could become even harder to find after the country’s telecommunications regulator rejected Bell Canada’s request to double the cost of a call to $1.

The phone company asked for the price hike because it’s getting harder to make a profit from payphones as more consumers carry cellphones in their pockets and communicate via texts and instant messages. An average payphone took in $1,000 only five years ago; that number is closer to $700 a year now."

I grew up with an massive old wooden box attached to the wall, with a mouth piece to speak into and an ear piece resting on a cradle on the side. There was a hand operated crank on the side of the box. The phone was on a party-line with four or five households on the line. To dial someone else on the line, one used the crank to ring a code of long and short rings - for example 2 long and 1 short. I don't remember what our code was, but I do remember that you could hear anyone's phone ringing, if they were on the same line, and were only supposed to lift up the receiver if your code was ringing. You could lift up the receiver (ear piece) and listen in on your neighbours' conversations, or, if need be, interrupt them and tell them to hang up because you needed to make some sort of urgent call. I don't remember when  that changed, but the next big innovation was a rotary dial and then push-button. Ooooo. Progress!!

I also remember when payphones needed only 10 cents to operate.

But there are some things older than I am:

50 million year old fossils found under Brisbane roadworks

The Assault Continues

Why the CBC has outlived its usefulness

"The frozen North is on a near-enough-equal footing with downtown Toronto when it comes to digital access, and children are no longer plunked down thoughtlessly in front of a cathode-ray tube for hours at a stretch. In this environment, the CBC is not proving to be much good at specifying exactly why it is needed."

[---]

"In this environment, the CBC is not proving to be much good at specifying exactly why it is needed.

That helps to explain the brief furor last week over the corporation’s decision to drop a handful of ads purchased on the English-language TV network for Postmedia’s newly paywalled digital properties. A CBC employee raised a stink about “advertising for assets that we compete with”—“we” in this case referring to the CBC’s website. The brass agreed that the CBC is now officially a “competitor” with newspapers, at least insofar as they have websites.

The gesture looks for all the world like a gratuitous, specific cheap shot at Postmedia, whose various owners in recent times have all shared a passionate devotion to trashing the corp. As Postmedia and other newspaper empires pull paywalls down over their digital incarnations, CBC minions on Twitter have been caught crowing about their “no paywall” status, purchased by the taxpayer at the sensational bargain price of $1.2 billion a year."

[---]

"It may be hard for readers to feel bad for the cartelizing Paywall Gang, but it is surely a tactical error for the CBC to call attention to its incredibly expensive “free” nature. The Broadcasting Act says the Corporation shall operate “radio and television” services; it doesn’t say anything about a website, much less a website that functions as a telegraphic gazette. Of course, times change and new media paradigms develop and blah blah blah, but the distinction here is crucial: The original pretext for the creation of the CBC was the limited, theoretically public nature of broadcast spectrum. To the degree that the CBC is now just one digital content provider among many, with a hypothesized mandate that puts it in a position to compete with newspapers, it can rightly be privatized, or destroyed, or handed over to its own employees, in order to unburden the public treasury.

Polls always demonstrate high levels of purported political support for the CBC. The public subsidy to the CBC is a forced transfer of wealth from people who don’t like it to people who do, and the “dos,” unsurprisingly, like the set-up just fine. In the U.S., donor-funded, non-profit “public” radio is equally adored by fans; the only difference is that they’re asked to chip in for their preferred electronic smarm or go without. No social or economic arguments against privatization of the CBC are possible. It’s nothing but a zombie, slowly sucking up a dwindling fund of goodwill and nostalgia. Mr. Dressup is dead, folks."

Ladies and gentlemen, I think it's only a matter of time.

Oh Brother!!

There goes the peace and quiet in my life:

Cell phone numbers now in telemarketers’ hands

My last name is very common in India and other parts of Asia. I used to get calls all the freakin' time from people trying to sell me a special long distance plan for calls to India. I'll betcha that will start up again. I don't know a single soul who lives in India, but my name suggests that I should. Cripes!!

Yup!!

Are our household appliances getting too complicated?

"Who needs a kettle with four heat settings? A washing machine with a 'freshen up' function? A toaster with six browning modes? What happened to the good old days of the on/off switch?

The modern washing machine has a dozen or more cycles that no one has ever used. The "baby cycle", for example, aimed, presumably, at parents too lazy to wash their babies in the bath. Or, quoting now from a variety of machines, the "duvet", "sports", "bed and bath", "reduced creases", "allergy" and "freshen up" cycles. As in "I'm just going to hop in the washing machine and freshen up.""

Yup. And the more useless components there are, the more likely one will go "pstttt" on you and the whole damn thing won't work any more...and it costs more to fix it than it does to buy the "next generation", "new and improved" model.

Grrrrrrrr. /old fart speak

Excellent, Excellent Idea

I agree that a lot of little museums have some great stuff in them. I've visited many small town museums and, although I found their collections to be fascinating, it was a bit distressing to see stuff that my parents used as I was growing up presented as historical artefacts. As if I needed to be reminded of how old I'm getting.

On the other hand, it kinda shows how much and how quickly technology has changed. My life was in many of those museums -- but I'd like to see the Last Spike or Champlain's astrolabe. That guy's been dead for 377 years. Although I've been in the Canadian Museum of Civilization, not everyone has the opportunity to visit the Capital Region and see the treasures in that museum.

Oh Yeah!!

But sometimes I spend too much time reading books, and the rest of the time I'm sitting in front of this small boob tube.

I Hereby Would Like to Announce...

...that the concept of customer service is dead as a doornail.

I've been trying to book a two-way flight from Regina to Edmonton and back again, so I can visit certain grandchildren. But, noooo.

I wanted to used Westjet, because they have provided excellent service in the past, so I called their toll-free number. And guess what I got. A machine asking me to respond to various questions. The voice on the machine gave a range of options for answering each question, and, apparently it used voice recognition software.

To make a long story short, I gave up and was steaming mad by the time I did, so I called another number and booked the flights by speaking to a real human being. (Poor guy had to deal with one very-unset-mad-as-hell-and-not-going-to-take-it-anymore customer.) Turns out they charge an arm and a leg for every little thing under the sun they can think of to exploit and further anger the customer.

I was sorely tempted to hurl my cell phone across the room, but I constrained myself.

It would have been far simpler to just drive, but that's a very long way from here and I'm not crazy about driving long distances much of which is empty roads.  I'm too old and so is my car.

But I'm too old for this shit, too. Long ago I quit using Air Canada because their service was so lousy. There seems to be very little in the way of other options, other than one or two American airlines, which, if there is a next time, is what I think I will do. American Airlines and Delta used to service both cities. I hope they still do.  I prefer to use Canadian airlines out of loyalty and patriotism, but if you suck, it ain't my fault.

And Westjet. You suck!!

A Very Interesting Take...

...on the Arab Spring and the difference between Libya and Egypt:

6 Reasons Why Islamists Lost, Liberals Prevailed in Libya Vote


I especially like numbers 2:

"It is likely that the behavior and performance of Islamists in post-revolution Egypt – which have been viewed by many as disgraceful and a prime reason for their ultimate drop in popularity – has made many Libyans think twice whether to vote in support of Islamic parties.

Social media, the Internet in general, and satellite TV helped spread the negative image of Egyptian Islamists to several Arab countries, including Libya."

and 6:

"It was U.S.-led multi-national forces – not Islamic organizations – that helped the Libyan people remove Gadhafi and end their humiliating suffering. Gadhafi soldiers were known to rape Libyan women in front of their husbands. The notion that mostly Western countries, not their Islamic counterparts, came to the aid of Libyans, could have been another factor in the meager showing of Islamists in the Libyan vote."

Only time will tell. But the power of new media cannot be underestimated. Throughout history, inventions and advances in science have always spurred social movements that have changed the course of events, sometimes very drastically. Consider the impact of the introduction of paper to the West or the invention of the printing press along with paper. New media is of the same order of magnitude.

And speaking as an old fart, I remember the role played by ham radio in communications with people trapped behind the Iron Curtain. Same thing.

Now you know why I'm Pollyannish.