Colorful speech requires more brainpower

When speaking is a mere recitation of data, it's mostly your left brain hemisphere doing the work: That's where your speech centers are.

But once you start speaking in idioms-- and by extension, metaphors or other colorful variations--- your right hemipshere kicks in, too, along with your limbic system (the root of emotion).

One might say the craft of speech resides in the left brain, but the art of speech involves both sides.

Interesting study:
http://www.physorg.com/news172177545.html

Stars like holiday lights...

Ask most people what color stars are and they'll say "white." And indeed, most naked-eyes stars are white or blue-white.

Amateur astronomers can tell you that you can also see yellow, blue, orange and red stars, if you know where to look. With binoculars or a small telescope, you can also see green stars.

But it takes Hubble to see something like this:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1465.html

What does it cost to reach 93000 feet altitude?

A group of MIT students cobbled together off-the-shelf parts, spending just $150 in the process, and managed to send a camera to near-space at 93,000 feet (28,000+ meters).

Earth from 93,000 feet:

Click the image for larger version, or click this:
http://space.1337arts.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/thumb.jpg

The launch was from Massachusetts; the above view is looking south. You can see Long Island and the Connecticut shoreline.

An amazing project with an amazingly low budget:
http://space.1337arts.com/

Robot "toddler" learns as human kids do

(PhysOrg.com) -- A little humanoid robot called iCub is learning how to think for itself, bringing the world of science fiction to reality. The major goal of the "RobotCub" project is to study how humans learn and think, using a robot with the size and brain of a toddler, but the study is also expected to have practical applications in the near future.

Pics, videos, more:
http://www.physorg.com/news171703166.html

Even I could have these 6-pack abs!

Martian meteorite, up close

The two plucky rovers are still operating on the Martian surface, long after their design lifetime, and are also still doing good science.

"Spirit" is, alas, stuck in sandy soil, possibly hung up on a rock beneath it. It's doing observations in place while earthbound scientists try to figure out how to extricate it from its predicament.
http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/newsroom/free-spirit.html

"Opportunity" is still mobile, and recently found and circumnavigated a meteorite, the largest ever found on Mars. The photos are here; click on "view full size" to see detail: http://twitpic.com/hhfdi

More on Opportunity's and general mission activities:
http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/mission/status.html

Unexpected Windows reactivation requests

Out of the blue, you get a reactivation warning. Why?

Windows Product Activation isn't the "Big Brother" app some think it is, but it sure can be annoying — especially when a previously-activated system demands reactivation. The hows and whys of unexpected reactivation warnings are the top topic in my current weekly WindowsSecrets.com column.

The other items this week include:

• XP volume controls reset themselves
• Virus scanners and temp files
• Eliminate the Recycle Bin?

Access to these items is by a kind of honor-system principle: You decide what the content is worth, and whatever you decide to pay lets you in to *all* the paid-edition content (not just my column) for a full year.

Full info (you start by signing up for the spam-proof free version) here:
http://windowssecrets.com/

The Five Stages of Life (ouch!)

click to enlarge to readable size:

Meet "Deep Green," the robot pool shark

"Deep Blue" was the purpose-built IBM computer that vanquished a human Grand Master at chess.

Now there's "Deep Green," a pool-playing robot that never, ever misses a shot:



http://www.deepgreenrobot.org/

Once again, reality overtakes fiction...

Here's the fiction in a fun clip from 1986; Star Trek's imaginary "Transparent Aluminum:"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzRziK-kZtQ

Here's the reality, today:

(PhysOrg.com) -- Oxford scientists have created a transparent form of aluminium by bombarding the metal with the world’s most powerful soft X-ray laser. 'Transparent aluminium' previously only existed in science fiction, featuring in the movie Star Trek IV, but the real material is an exotic new state of matter with implications for planetary science and nuclear fusion.

http://www.physorg.com/news167925273.html/

Extreme eye-candy!

A Flickr slide-show of extraordinary photos taken by and shared among amateur astronomers:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/victorvonsalza/sets/72157606739068495/show/with/2867227704/

World's Biggest Crater Field

Earth has been pounded from space by asteroids and comets across its history. Were it not for erosion and the oceans, Earth's surface would look much like the moon's.

It's only in the last 100 years or so that impact craters could be reliably differentiated from other types of craters (eg volcanoes), and new discoveries are still occurring.

For example this is new: "Argentina site of world's biggest crater field"

A deep-geek version of the information appears here: http://tinyurl.com/m6p3rs

It's so new it not yet plotted on Google Earth, but I found a section of it by scrolling around. Here's the Google Maps version: http://tinyurl.com/nftdzd

The world 100 years from now

New Scientist guest editor Kim Stanley Robinson challenged eight leading British SF authors to write flash fiction about the world 100 years from now. See the results:

http://www.newscientist.com/special/sci-fi-the-fiction-of-now

Clean multiple user accounts at once

A reader calling himself "Net Star" asked a savvy question about PCs with several user accounts:

What's the best way to clean a computer with multiple accounts? Should you install and run software on each account? If you install the software on one account, will it clean the entire computer including each account?

For example, some programs like CCleaner will install only on one account and not offer the option for all users (accounts). Does this mean the program will clean the entire computer including other accounts or do I have to install CCleaner on each account to clean up each user's account?

PC cleanup tools take various approaches to removing junk from every account — from standard to administrator — without damaging or deleting files a user may require, and "System-wide cleanup help for multiuser PCs" is the main topic of my column this week in the Windows Secrets newsletter.

I also include a specific type-and-run example of automating CCleaner (http://www.ccleaner.com/), a popular free junk-file remover, for fully-automated operation across all users accounts.

I also discuss three other topics:

• More on "Tracking down unknown devices"
  
  
• Locked out of his own encrypted music files!
  
  
• Which is better: Play movies from hard drive or DVD?

Access to these items is by a kind of honor-system principle: You decide what the content is worth, and whatever you decide to pay lets you in to *all* the paid-edition content (not just my columns) for a full year.

Full info (you start by signing up for the spam-proof free version) here:
http://windowssecrets.com/

Outstanding science animation

Simple, accurate, succinct--- a great example of excellent science illustration:

http://www.valdosta.edu/~cbarnbau/astro_demos/stellar_evol/evol_2.html

23 Badly Placed Internet Ads

These are all real, all accidental, and all funny, if--- big "if"--- you're not the thin-skinned sort:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/24-badly-placed-internet-ads

Martian eye-candy

A new gallery of high-resolution photos of Mars is now abailable. Gorgeous stuff!

One example:



This is what you're looking at, shown in infrared from Google Mars:


Check out the site!
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/nea.php

And you thought *you* had a bad day...

Unbelieveably, yes, there's an app for that....

Improve Your Marksmanship at the Urinal With New iPhone App:

http://www.switched.com/2009/09/06/improve-your-marksmanship-at-the-urinal-with-new-iphone-app/

A motherlode of optical illusions!

For example, the only thing moving in this still image is your perception:



Tons more!
http://www.switched.com/search/?q=optical+illusion

Working around a dead keyboard

It's Thursday, so there's a new "LangaList Plus" column posted at WindowsSecrets.Com.

Reader George Molzahn is caught in a Catch-22 situation that turned his PC into the world's largest paperweight:

"I have Vista Home Premium on an Intel-based system. All of a sudden, my PS/2 keyboard stopped working, period. I checked connections, rebooted, etc., but my keyboard still won't work. I figured it had died, so I bought an inexpensive USB keyboard, hooked it up, and it operated just fine — except it was dead during boot-up.

"As the boot proceeded and Vista started, the keyboard came alive and worked great. Hmmmm …. I got a USB-PS/2 adapter and plugged the new keyboard into the PS/2 port in the back of the computer and guess what? The keyboard is 'dead,' just like before."

George has two simultaneous problems going on, but they're easily sorted out and 2-minute fix will most likely get his USB keyboard working at boot, just as it should. That's the top item in my column this week.

Also in this column:

• Why won't my PC open the .cda files on a DVD?
  
  
• "Cannot display" Microsoft Outlook inbox; why?
  
  
• Recover a lost Windows key
  

Access to the above content is almost free: You pay only what you think the WindowsSecrets newsletter is worth (there's no set fee--- you decide); whatever you pay that once gets you access to all the paid content, including my columns, for an entire year.

Want to have a question answered in that column? Use the "contact" info at the end of the column to send in questions you might like me to try answering. And you can also rate the content to let me know how I'm doing.

More info: https://windowssecrets.com/

Thanks for your support!

It would have been fun to witness this, this past week:

Britain’s Oldest Working Computer Roars to Life



The oldest original working computer in the U.K., which has been in storage for nearly 30 years, is getting restored to its former glory.

The Harwell computer, also known as WITCH, is getting a second lease on life at the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park. The machine is the oldest surviving computer whose programs, as well as data, are stored electronically, according to the museum.

The Harwell WITCH is a relay-based machine that used 900 Dekatron gas-filled tubes, each of which could hold a single digit in memory. It has paper tape for both data input and program storage. The computer was used in the design of Britain’s first nuclear reactors....

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/09/britan-oldest-computer/

What does that engraving say?

An online jeweler posts a list of all the various things people have inscribed into wedding rings.

Many are what you'd expect. "I love you." "Eternally yours." "Think of me when you see this." And so on.

But "I love you more than toast?" "You wore me down?" "My noose?" "Lover of my behind?"

Some strange people out there:
http://www.e-weddingbands.com/store/engravefav.html

Jurassic Ink Found (really!)

Time was when "fossil" meant only bone, shell, or some similarly hard thing. But in the last few years, there's been a veritable flood of fossils of soft body parts--- muscles, skin, even some internal organs.

And in one spectacular instance: An intact, 150 million year old black ink sac from an early squid: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/wiltshire/8208838.stm

Note the pen-and-ink drawing on that page: the drawing was made with the 150 million year old ink!

Mutsugoto

"Mutsugoto is an interactive installation that invites couples to experience an intimate communication over a distance. Instead of exchanging e-mail or SMS messages using generic interfaces in business-like venues, Mutsugoto allows distant partners to communicate through the language of touch as expressed on the canvas of the human body."

Hmmmm. Yes, it's definitely strange.

http://mutsugoto.com/concept.html

Where the sinners live

Clever idea and a cool infographic:

A team at Kansas State generated maps of the prevalence of the seven deadly sins across the US. They used indirect measures; for example, a high incidence of STDs in an area is indicative that the sin of "Lust" is rampant there.

So, what's going on in your area?

http://www.wired.com/culture/education/magazine/17-09/st_sinmaps

What a view!

The US's newest, state-of-the-art weather satellite, GOES 14, went live just last month.

This was its first image:
http://www.osei.noaa.gov/Events/Current/GOES14_firstvis_med090727__G14.gif

More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOES_14

Nicely done 404

Geek humor tends to be the kind that leaks out in unexpected places. Consider, for example, the long history on the web of inventive and funny "404: page not found error" web pages. There's a whole collection of them here: http://everything2.com/title/error+404

Funny and inventive is one thing, but the 404 page at NPR also adds an element of serendipitous utility as well (scroll down a bit): http://tinyurl.com/mpjtl7

Nicely done!

Giant Figures Seen from Google Earth

Yes, it's real: a gigantic pink bunny.



Giant Figures Seen from Google Earth:
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/giant-figures-google-earth/3100

Info specifically on the megabunny:
http://www.gelitin.net/mambo/index.php?set_albumName=album14&option=com_gallery_proj144&Itemid=91&include=view_album.php

Sighted: The furthest away object of any kind, ever

It may not look like much, but "GRB 090423" is the most distant object ever imaged.



General-interest write up:
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/08/the-universes-furthest-object-ever-a-galaxy-insight.html

More geeky/scientific write-up:
http://www.tng.iac.es/news/2009/04/24/grb/