Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Evolution Or Just Smart?

Evolution is the change in the inherited characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. Its a 'hot potato discussion' in some countries, on the school syllabus in others and dismissed out of hand in even more.
Green Heron
Green Heron (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So explain this:


Give a bird some bread and he'll eat for a day, teach a bird to fish and he'll end up on YouTube. 

This Green Heron shows some real learning behavior. It actually lures fish with bread. The method works. The most interesting part for me is, it seems to be hungry but does not eat the bread, unlike the surrounding Ibises do.


kthanxbai!

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Friday, August 31, 2012

Bathroom To Bedroom?


An intrepid architect in London has decided to transform a disused public convenience into a residence, The Telegraph reports;
Clark first spotted the loos – with their chained gates and boarded-up stairwells – in 2005, when she moved to London, having completed her degree at the Glasgow School of Art. It was exactly the sort of challenge that the young architect was looking for. ‘I’ve always loved the idea of micro-regeneration,’ she explains. 



‘For me that’s about saving sites with an interesting history, but which have been abandoned and forgotten.’ Her initial plan was to transform the two adjacent ex-lavatories (men’s and women’s) into a bar or tiny cinema. ‘I pictured it as something quirky and fun that would breathe life back into a neglected part of the local landscape,’ she says.
In the middle of 2011 Clark found herself the proud owner of the underground public conveniences, built in 1929, last used some time in the 1980s and now filled thigh-high with rubbish. She lost no time in getting stuck in, working alongside builders and labourers in order to transform the dank and frankly creepy space into a bright and airy home. ‘I ended up doing a lot of the labouring work myself, because it was such horrid, hard work that I struggled to keep people on the job,’ she says. ‘And filling skips is character-building.’
Remarkably, the entire project cost only £65,000. ‘But in fairness, I did have many years to work it all out,’ she says.



Today it is hard to imagine that the light-filled one-bedroom flat, with its streamlined shelves, glamorous gold-leaf bathroom and subterranean garden, was once a derelict public convenience. There are clues though. The tiles that form the splashback in the kitchen were reclaimed from the site’s original use, as was a mirror in the living-room. And propped on a kitchen shelf is a small public health poster warning of the perils of VD. But still, for Clark, this is home.
Enormous hat tip to Peter

kthanxbai!

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Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Dumbass Mofo

Wirecutter over at Knuckledraggin My Life Away had a a post about the report below.

I just don't know what to say about this idiot, who, after admitting texting whilst driving, should have his licence taken away for a year or two - or until he grows up anyway!


HUNTSVILLE, AL (WAFF) - A college student from Texas believes he is lucky to be alive after a terrible crash. He was texting and driving when his truck flew off of a cliff. 
Chance Bothe's truck plunged off of a bridge and into a ravine. One of the last things he typed indicated what almost happened to him.
He wrote, "I need to quit texting, because I could die in a car accident."

English: A sign that states "No Texting W...

After the crash, Chance had a broken neck, a crushed face, a fractured skull, and traumatic brain injuries. Doctors had to bring him back to life three times . Now, 6 months later, he's finally able to talk about what happened. 
"They just need to understand, don't do it. Don't do it. It's not worth losing your life," he said. "I went to my grandmother's funeral not long ago, and I kept thinking, it kept jumping into my head, I'm surprised that's not me up in that casket. I came very close to that, to being gone forever." 
Person using cell phone while driving.
Person using cell phone while driving. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Chance's father said, if he had a child just learning to drive, he would disable texting and Internet on their phone. 
As of August 1st, drivers in Alabama will face a $25 fine the first time they are caught texting behind the wheel.





 kthanxbai!http://jumblerant.blogspot.com
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Sunday, August 5, 2012

The Olympic Cost to the Athlete

Old NFO came up with these interesting stats. I say 'interesting', but I really mean 'mind-blowing'.

Tax
After reading the below I had to wonder what the taxes on guide dogs and wheelchairs are...


Interesting...

Because conservatives are scrooges, the good folks atAmericans for Tax Reform have gone through the fine print to find out what our Olympians will have to cough up to the IRS should they be lucky enough to win any medals in London.

Even by the standards of our government, the numbers are insane.

For instance: Americans who win bronze will pay a $2 tax on the medal itself. But the bronze comes with a modest prize—$10,000 as an honorarium for devoting your entire life to being the third best athlete on the planet in your chosen discipline. And the IRS will take $3,500 of that, thank you very much.

There are also prizes that accompany each medal: $25,000 for gold, $15,000 for silver, and $10,000 for bronze.

Silver medalists will owe $5,385. You win a gold? Timothy Geithner will be standing there with his hand out for $8,986.


It gets even worse. Not only do our Olympic athletes have to pay taxes on their medals and prizes – chances are their competitors on the field will face no such taxation when they get home. Because the U.S. is virtually the only developed nation that taxes “worldwide”income earned overseas by its taxpayers, our Olympic athletes face a competitive disadvantage that has nothing to do with sports.

I can only wonder if there is any way the athletes can deduct the cost of their training???

Personally, I think this is just beyond stupid!!!  At least Rubio has sponsored a bill to relieve the taxes for Olympic winners!


kthanxbai! http://jumblerant.blogspot.com
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Friday, July 6, 2012

The Future Looks Good

In a world where everyone has their phone, iPod, laptop, and every other personal toy out there, Joe decided to see if the people out there still gave a hoot about their neighbour.

And he made a film about it. It looks pretty inspiring to me, not that I would ever take on such an endeavour!



It's nice to know that we're all still human underneath it all.

kthanxbai!

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Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Happy 4th of July



Happy Independence (from the British) Day!

kthanxbai!

Hat tip to His Most Majestic Wirecutter

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Sunday, July 1, 2012

How Not To Get Hacked


I just received a direct message on twitter from a chap I've known for 25 years. I know it wasn't from him. He's in a different time zone so I haven't called hi yet, but I KNOW his account has been hacked.

It is not nice, it is somewhat scary, so here are the main ways that will protect you from getting hacked;

1. Use A Strong Password

No, 'password' is no longer the most prevalent password out there, but apparently '123456' is. Quite sad really.

A very strong password should ideally include random upper and lowercase numbers and symbols but the latest articles I read about this state that the best password must have a 4 word based password. Quite complex to create but once done, is basically impossible to break.

In order to create an unforgettable password it is suggested that you look around your workplace for inspiration.

An example might be ‘telephoneWhiteOutiPhonemouse’ or in the case of the chap in the cubicle above, 'filefileboxpen'

A memorable phrase

Take a memorable phrase and use the first letter of every word varying he cases. I would use something such as “Do you feel lucky punk?” and convert it into “DyFlP?”

I would consider adding numbers at the end to further confuse hackers thus creating the best password ever on the planet “DyFlP2012”. So please don’t tell anyone…


2. Upgrade Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X
Older software simply means that the hacker has had a longer time to work out where the ‘backdoors’ are in the software. Updated software has patches for these issues.

3. Install Modern Wed Browsers
Que? What you talking about Willis? What the puck is a web browser? In simple talk, a web browser is what you use to visit Facebook, Gmail and Boobies.
I use Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer, each of them fights hard to ensure secure systems.

4. Use a password manager software such as RoboForm or kaspersky or you can look at a review of 10 different password manager software platforms here

5.  Write down your passwords! A colleague of mine just lost access to his Gmail account. The account he uses for accessing google Analytics. Its not the end of the world and only data can be stolen, nothing can be changed, but the hoops he (and I ) are going through to get it sorted out are quite time consuming



kthanxbai!


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