This week's panel
Tom Bukowski, Eureka Dejavu, Spiral Walcher, Mykal Skall.
Quotes
A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a person. Kites rise against, not with, the wind.
Lewis Mumford
Life is like a ten speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.
Charles M. Schulz
Word-UP of the week - “Imagination Age.” - The Imagination Age is the time in which people are learning to envision the most innovative uses for technology and creativity to connect with each other for fun and meaningful work.
Eureka Dejavu
Maybe, but will they be able to decipher the contents of Hydra's brain?
Skye Vanistok - Audience Quote of the week
Questions
For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv
1) The Defining Issues Test measures ethical reasoning in five areas: Seminarians and philosophers are the runaway winners . After that come medical students, physicians, journalists, dental students, and nurses. Then this group of people follow them. Who surprisingly scores higher than orthopedic surgeons, business professionals, and accounting students?
2) A French philosopher, he is responsible for introducing the term altruism. The motto Ordem e Progresso ("Order and Progress") in ("Love as a principle and order as the basis; Progress as the goal" His law of three stages was one of the first describing social evolutionism. His emphasis on a quantitative, mathematical basis for decision-making remains with us today and begat the modern notion of Positivism, modern quantitative statistical analysis, and business decision-making. Who was he?
3) “Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eye are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light- So begins this novel with an epigraph from Plato. The titular hero a lab animal, & has undergone surgery to increase his intelligence by artificial means. The story is told by the first human test subject for the surgery who has an IQ of 68, and touches upon many different themes for treatment of the mentally disabled. The surgery is a success and his IQ triples but it doesn’t last forever. What is the name of this book which made Pooky cry?
4) The "Father of American Anthropology, like many pioneers, began elsewhere- he received his doctorate in physics,- He is famed for applying the scientific method to the study of human cultures and societies, his interest led him to "psychophysics," He said that “all service, therefore, which a man can perform for humanity must serve to promote truth.”. He lived for a while among the Inuit too. He extolled a method of science that begins with questions, not with answers, least of all with value judgments. Who was this great man who valued truth so highly?
5) This was apparently built entirely by Wu Zhongyuan in China. He used about $1,600 in assorted parts (like a motorcycle engine) and steel pipes for reinforcement. He figured out how to do it with "relevant knowledge found while surfing the Internet via his mobile phone." Wu claims that this has the ability to fly as high as 2,600 feet - but the Chinese government has grounded him for the time being, due to safety considerations. What did he build?
6) He was an American engineer with a political role in the development of the atomic bomb, he told Harry to drop it. He believed in a democratic technocracy. He introduced the concept of what he called the memex in the 1930s, a microfilm-based mechanized device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, Ted Nelson and Douglas Engelbart, were influenced by him in what became hypertext. Who was he that had a pioneering vision for the World Wide Web.?
7) He was a North African polymath born in present-day Tunisia. He is considered a forerunner of social sciences and modern economics, and for anticipating many elements of these disciplines centuries before they were founded in the West. He is best known for his Muqaddimah (known as Prolegomenon in the West), the first book on universal history. He developed the concept of a "generation," Some say he anticipated Marx’s theory of value as he asserts that all value (profit) comes from labour. Who was this man?
8) She was an American fashion designer and socialite, who traveled to China in 1936 and brought back the first live giant panda to the United States - not in a cage, or on a leash, but wrapped in her arms. With the help of a Chinese-American explorer she captured a nine-week-old panda cub. The panda was bottle-fed baby formula on the journey back to the United States and caused a great sensation in the American press. She also stayed at the Chelsea hotel upon her return to the US. Who was she?
9) It is an anthropomimetic robot under development by European roboticists. Their focus is to create robotics that accurately mimics the internal structure - & mechanisms - of humans. They are limited to using polymer for bones, screwdriver motors, shock cord for muscle, and kite line for tendons. Its human-like hand can easily grasp and handle objects, and has a handshake for its humans. At some point, it will be built out of materials that are much closer to human bone and sinew - which gets closer to building an android from scratch. What is this robot?
10) Here the natural replaces the manmade –branches supplant concrete and steel, marking a clear balance between natural and artificial architecture. The architecture becomes landscape itself, and waste materials both during and after construction is eliminated. As the branches of the pavilion it makes take root and grow, they mutate the structure and transform the architecture. What is this environmentally desirable build called?
11) This was sort of tastefully demonstrated by Doctor Emilio Lizardo in the 1984 cult classic The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai. This is a device that takes information gathered by the sensors in a pair of glasses and sends them to a "lollipop" electrode array that sits on your tongue. What is this non-surgical assistive visual prosthetic for the blind that translates information from a digital video camera to your tongue, through gentle electrical stimulation?
12) A fantasy written by Johannes Kepler in which a student is transported to the Moon by occult forces. It presents a detailed imaginative description of how the earth might look, and is considered the first serious scientific work on lunar astronomy, also the first science fiction. It began as a student dissertation in which Kepler defended the Copernican doctrine. The book was published posthumously in 1634. What is this book whose name is Latin for The Dream?
13) Although King James VI inherited the English crown after Elizabeth 1for the Kingdom of crowns, Great Britain and Scotland were not a single body till The Acts of Union joined them in 1707. Many Scots were opposed, though it was claimed that union would enable Scotland to recover from this financial disaster The Company of Scotland became involved with an ambitious plan to establish a colony on the Isthmus of Panama in the hope of establishing trade with the Far East — the same principle which, much later, would lead to the construction of the Panama Canal. Settling in South America proved fatal for most The English Government, was opposed, since it was at war with France and did not want to offend Spain, which claimed the territory. In July 1699, after barely eight months, the colony was abandoned. What was this ruinous failed attempt called?
14) Pooky’s crush of the week was a Scottish physician, physicist, and founder of thermochemistry also part of the Scottish Enlightenment. He studied properties of carbon dioxide and was the first person to isolate it in a perfectly pure state. This was an important step as it helped people to realize that air was not an element, but rather composed of many different things. Then In 1761 his theory of latent heat proved important to abstract science and in the development of the steam engine. Who was James Watt’s close friend and mentor?
15) The statistics paint a grim picture - an estimated 2.0 million people, including over a quarter million children, died of AIDS in 2007 & two thirds of the 33 million who live with HIV do so in sub-Saharan Africa. New advancements in microbicides may help to improve this horrific scenario with researchers undertaking trials for a ‘molecular condom’ to prevent its spread in women. This is important because it "can enable women to protect themselves particularly in resource-poor areas of the world like sub-Sahara Africa and south Asia where…women are often not empowered to force their partners to wear a condom." Where is this life saving research taking place?
16) She was born in New York City, and graduated Vassar College in 1909. She taught at Columbia as an anthropologist. Margaret Mead wrote the intro to her book “Patterns of Culture” which had as its essential idea the view of human cultures are “personality writ large.'" She also battled racial profiling, saying "The best scientists cannot tell from examining a brain to what group of people its owner belonged... She wrote “The Chrysanthemum & The Sword” & influenced Roosevelt’s wise decision to let the Emperor of Japan remain as part of the negotiations of surrender. & she is on a postage stamp. Who was she?
Monday, 31 August 2009
Saturday, 15 August 2009
The 1st Question 62 - 11 Aug 09
This week's panel
Farqot Gustafson, Abbey Zenith, Pb Recreant, Dirk McKeenan
Quotes
Every human being is interested in two kinds of worlds: the Primary, everyday world which he knows through his senses, and a Secondary world or worlds which he not only can create in his imagination, but which he cannot stop himself creating.
W.H. Auden
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.
Albert Einstein
Why we prefer Einstein for relativity & Newton for gravity
Falling in love is not at all the most stupid thing that people do — but gravitation cannot be held responsible for it.
Albert Einstein
I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.
Sir Isaac Newton
(I believe he was citing his old Aunt Minnie)
Word-UP of the week - “Lagbarassed” - clothes that fail to rez, leaving you embarassed (and bare-a****.)
Abbey Zenith
I’m getting a pair of bagpipes if it has this effect on her
Portent Mavendorf - Audience Quote of the week
Questions
For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv
1) 3 sets of gamers are portrayed who represent the 25 million players worldwide who consider themselves addicted to MMO's. This movie, the first movie about virtual worlds which we know has changed the way human beings interact is just released - what is the film called?
2) This Refers to interfaces that work via the sense of touch by forces, vibrations, and/or motions . This mechanical kind of stimulation has made it possible to investigate in detail how the human sense of touch works. In the future, expert surgeons with machine setup will use this kind of technology using telepresence. The word itself comes from the Greek verb meaning to “contact” or “touch” What kind of technology is it?
3) In the Fifties a Labour party activist visited this country and saw how it was using radio broadcasting to educate remote communities. He fed the idea to Labor party leader Harold Wilson, who thought up a system of long-distance learning available to all regardless of qualifications, and take advantage of the fact that 14 million UK households had TV. In 1963 Wilson made a speech outlining what he then called “the University of the Air”. From whom did he get the idea of open universities from?
4) The U.S. Mint had been producing one-cent coins since its founding in 1792, but the 1909 penny (which replaced the Indian-head coin) was the first coin on which a President's likeness appeared. While most people applauded the new design, former Confederate soldiers were upset at the prospect of carrying the image of Lincoln in their pockets. Which president commissioned the penny to celebrate the 100th birthday of Lincoln?
5) In 1975 a 50-year-old bricklayer from England, literally died laughing while watching this show. According to his wife, who was a witness, the man was unable to stop laughing whilst watching a sketch in the episode "Kung Fu Kapers" in which one of the comedians dressed as a kilted Scotsman, used a set of bagpipes to defend himself from a psychopathic black pudding in a demonstration of the Scottish martial art of "Hoots-Toot-ochaye". After twenty-five minutes of continuous laughter the man expired from heart failure. To what show did his widow send a letter thanking them for making her husbands final moments so pleasant.?
6) This major American corporation was founded in 1908 by a man whose middle name was "Crapo." Amazingly Billy Durant began this company with only $2,000 in capital. It also was the target of strikes by workers who labored under dangerous conditions. Two weeks after thousands of striking workers occupied the factory; police raided the plant, firing tear gas. The strikers inside fought back by opening the fire hoses and hurling two-pound hinges and other auto parts at them. The police ran away. What company agreed to grant sole bargaining right to the United Auto Workers, and therefore became responsible for the rise of this union?
7) Hitler was a practical joker and one of his favorite targets was his foreign minister.. One prank famously backfired, when he sent him into Spain on a plane full of Gestapo, and made him think he was being set up for a suicide mission. Instead the man took an opportunity while refueling to board a train to Switzerland, and before anyone could let him in on the joke, he turned himself over. He studied at Harvard and described the cheerleaders to Adolf, who became obsessed with the idea of stirring blind enthusiasm in this way. "'Rah, rah, sis boom bah' became "Sig Heil, Heil Hitler," Who was this man who became an invaluable source of information for the allies?
8)It is a relaxation beverage produced by a Canadian company & dubbed an "anti-energy" drink It was actually created to "help people slow down" and parodied Red Bull by using similar packaging. The main ingredient is L-Theanine which according to the manufacturer, "produces a feeling of relaxation, creates a feeling of well-being and increases mental awareness, cognition, and concentration. What is it?
9) The Himawari is a robotic sunflower that does not grow towards the sun, like a biological sunflower. That would be heliotropism. This robotic sunflower is homotropic, in the sense defined by Philip K. Dick; it turns toward people. Created in Japan, its Servomotors follow the motion of a person's hand using an infrared camera in its head. Philip K. Dick introduced the idea of robots that find, then follow human beings in his 1963 novel called, what?
10) As an efficient, natural means of capturing solar energy, photosynthesis is hard to beat. But it’s also proving extremely difficult to duplicate. The best light-capturers in nature are the chlorosomes of bacteria, which can harvest light particles in even the worst conditions, such as at the bottom of the ocean. A bacterial light antenna was built copying the exact molecular and supramolecular structure using the chlorophyll of the alga Spirulina: In what country was this worked out?
11) Helping you negotiate a better price when buying goods and services on the net, they act as an intermediary after asking you about how much you want and under what circumstances less would be accepted. Rather than the fixed price model, a relatively recent development in history, the site negotiates a different deal with every sale, using a series of simple rules - known as heuristics. "Computer agents don't get bored, they have a lot of time, and they don't get embarrassed," are some reasons for its success – from what company do these intelligent software "agents" come?
12) A touchable holography display prototype has been built and adds tactile feedback to a hovering three-dimensional image. The tactile sensation is provided using this. In laymen's terms, it pushes against your hand. Hand position is determined using the Wiimote tracking system; What is actually pushing your hands so you can feel virtual raindrops on the palm?
13) Can a tough and weedy shrub solve all of our energy problems and stop runaway climate change? Don’t be ridiculous—of course it can't. But that, briefly, was the hype surrounding this poisonous plant that grows wild in tropical climates. It’s seeds are saturated with oil that can be easily processed into biofuel, and it was thought to grow on : wasteland that's sandy, rocky, dry, or nutrient-poor. However it needs fertile soil and significant amounts of water, like most other crops to produce enough & Just last week, the oil company BP withdrew from a partnership to produce 1 million hecates of what?
14) The cyber-attack that temporarily disabled Twitter for 2 hours recently was probably politically motivated and directed at a pro-Georgian blogger in a distributed denial of service attack. It seems Twitter, a relatively new service with a U.S.-based infrastructure, couldn’t handle the surge in traffic. It has not been confirmed who perpetrated the attack, but it is believed to have been an attempt by the Russian government to squelch criticism over it's conduct in the war over the disputed South Ossetia region, which began a year ago. How is the attacked blogger called?
15) When Paris hosted the Exposition Universelle in 1900, it unveiled its vision for the future of transport. Below ground, the city's stylish new Metro made its debut, while above ground was something more avant garde .Nearly 7 million visitors hopped onto the trottoir roulant and one woman gave birth in transit. But, the idea of high-speed walkways had been established in New York longer than anywhere else. Back in 1871, a local wine merchant patented the first "endless-traveling sidewalk", and promptly proposed an ambitious elevated 18 mph moving walkway along Broadway. Despite building a working model and lobbying state and city politicians for a decade, He discovered his invention was simply too visionary. Who was this man?
16) Generally, the worst spinal cord damage doesn't happen at the scene of the injury - it's the swelling and the crazy firing and burning out of otherwise healthy neurons in the hours and days following the incident that turns a bad situation permanently worse. Much of this is because of a chemical called adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. ATP is used as a kind of cellular battery to deliver energy to cells around the body in normal life. In effect, a patient might receive a spinal injury of low or medium severity - but the actions of ATP in the hours and days after the trauma can completely destroy the function of the spinal cord, leaving patients paralyzed. What is it that can be administered intravenously effectively blocking the action of the ATP at the injury site, but makes you turn blue in the process?
17) Besides dabbling in science fiction, he also patented several inventions, including a vibratory disintegrator used to produce gas from peat moss and a pneumatic road-improver. John Jacob Astor IV died on the Titanic, an opponent of the federal reserve system. He wrote a science fiction novel that offered an account of life in the year 2000.Which included descriptions of a worldwide telephone network, solar & wind power, air travel, electric cars, space travel to the planets Saturn and Jupiter, and terraforming engineering projects — damming the Arctic Ocean, and adjusting the Earth's axial tilt (by the Terrestrial Axis Straightening Company) what is the name of this book?
18) Produced by Sega Toys, the Uchiage Hanabi is a projector that lets users display this on their walls and ceilings complete with realistic sound effects. The device uses five customizable projection lenses to display movement and even tracks them from launch to explosion to mimic the appearance of the real thing. The compact unit incorporates a speaker for the various bangs and whistles, but you’ll have to generate the oohs and ahhhs on your own. What does it project into your living room?
19) It’s tiny, it’s bioengineered and has been successfully created and implanted in an adult mouse by Tokyo University researchers. Taking cells from a mouse embryo and cultivated them in a collagen-based medium this was made, implanted and grew to be fully functioning. Hopefully this technology is a model for future replacement therapies. This was able to perform as if the mouse had been born to use it - what part of the mouse was replaced?
20) A free-standing bell tower, often adjacent to a church or cathedral. The most famous one is probably the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Other notable examples include the one in St Mark's Square, Venice. Those outside of Italy are often modeled after St Mark's. and a modern one would be the Frankfurt Messeturm. Modern campaniles often contain carillons, a musical instrument traditionally composed of at least 23 large bells which are sounded by cables, chains, or cords connected to a keyboard. What are these kind of structures called?
Farqot Gustafson, Abbey Zenith, Pb Recreant, Dirk McKeenan
Quotes
Every human being is interested in two kinds of worlds: the Primary, everyday world which he knows through his senses, and a Secondary world or worlds which he not only can create in his imagination, but which he cannot stop himself creating.
W.H. Auden
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.
Albert Einstein
Why we prefer Einstein for relativity & Newton for gravity
Falling in love is not at all the most stupid thing that people do — but gravitation cannot be held responsible for it.
Albert Einstein
I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.
Sir Isaac Newton
(I believe he was citing his old Aunt Minnie)
Word-UP of the week - “Lagbarassed” - clothes that fail to rez, leaving you embarassed (and bare-a****.)
Abbey Zenith
I’m getting a pair of bagpipes if it has this effect on her
Portent Mavendorf - Audience Quote of the week
Questions
For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv
1) 3 sets of gamers are portrayed who represent the 25 million players worldwide who consider themselves addicted to MMO's. This movie, the first movie about virtual worlds which we know has changed the way human beings interact is just released - what is the film called?
2) This Refers to interfaces that work via the sense of touch by forces, vibrations, and/or motions . This mechanical kind of stimulation has made it possible to investigate in detail how the human sense of touch works. In the future, expert surgeons with machine setup will use this kind of technology using telepresence. The word itself comes from the Greek verb meaning to “contact” or “touch” What kind of technology is it?
3) In the Fifties a Labour party activist visited this country and saw how it was using radio broadcasting to educate remote communities. He fed the idea to Labor party leader Harold Wilson, who thought up a system of long-distance learning available to all regardless of qualifications, and take advantage of the fact that 14 million UK households had TV. In 1963 Wilson made a speech outlining what he then called “the University of the Air”. From whom did he get the idea of open universities from?
4) The U.S. Mint had been producing one-cent coins since its founding in 1792, but the 1909 penny (which replaced the Indian-head coin) was the first coin on which a President's likeness appeared. While most people applauded the new design, former Confederate soldiers were upset at the prospect of carrying the image of Lincoln in their pockets. Which president commissioned the penny to celebrate the 100th birthday of Lincoln?
5) In 1975 a 50-year-old bricklayer from England, literally died laughing while watching this show. According to his wife, who was a witness, the man was unable to stop laughing whilst watching a sketch in the episode "Kung Fu Kapers" in which one of the comedians dressed as a kilted Scotsman, used a set of bagpipes to defend himself from a psychopathic black pudding in a demonstration of the Scottish martial art of "Hoots-Toot-ochaye". After twenty-five minutes of continuous laughter the man expired from heart failure. To what show did his widow send a letter thanking them for making her husbands final moments so pleasant.?
6) This major American corporation was founded in 1908 by a man whose middle name was "Crapo." Amazingly Billy Durant began this company with only $2,000 in capital. It also was the target of strikes by workers who labored under dangerous conditions. Two weeks after thousands of striking workers occupied the factory; police raided the plant, firing tear gas. The strikers inside fought back by opening the fire hoses and hurling two-pound hinges and other auto parts at them. The police ran away. What company agreed to grant sole bargaining right to the United Auto Workers, and therefore became responsible for the rise of this union?
7) Hitler was a practical joker and one of his favorite targets was his foreign minister.. One prank famously backfired, when he sent him into Spain on a plane full of Gestapo, and made him think he was being set up for a suicide mission. Instead the man took an opportunity while refueling to board a train to Switzerland, and before anyone could let him in on the joke, he turned himself over. He studied at Harvard and described the cheerleaders to Adolf, who became obsessed with the idea of stirring blind enthusiasm in this way. "'Rah, rah, sis boom bah' became "Sig Heil, Heil Hitler," Who was this man who became an invaluable source of information for the allies?
8)It is a relaxation beverage produced by a Canadian company & dubbed an "anti-energy" drink It was actually created to "help people slow down" and parodied Red Bull by using similar packaging. The main ingredient is L-Theanine which according to the manufacturer, "produces a feeling of relaxation, creates a feeling of well-being and increases mental awareness, cognition, and concentration. What is it?
9) The Himawari is a robotic sunflower that does not grow towards the sun, like a biological sunflower. That would be heliotropism. This robotic sunflower is homotropic, in the sense defined by Philip K. Dick; it turns toward people. Created in Japan, its Servomotors follow the motion of a person's hand using an infrared camera in its head. Philip K. Dick introduced the idea of robots that find, then follow human beings in his 1963 novel called, what?
10) As an efficient, natural means of capturing solar energy, photosynthesis is hard to beat. But it’s also proving extremely difficult to duplicate. The best light-capturers in nature are the chlorosomes of bacteria, which can harvest light particles in even the worst conditions, such as at the bottom of the ocean. A bacterial light antenna was built copying the exact molecular and supramolecular structure using the chlorophyll of the alga Spirulina: In what country was this worked out?
11) Helping you negotiate a better price when buying goods and services on the net, they act as an intermediary after asking you about how much you want and under what circumstances less would be accepted. Rather than the fixed price model, a relatively recent development in history, the site negotiates a different deal with every sale, using a series of simple rules - known as heuristics. "Computer agents don't get bored, they have a lot of time, and they don't get embarrassed," are some reasons for its success – from what company do these intelligent software "agents" come?
12) A touchable holography display prototype has been built and adds tactile feedback to a hovering three-dimensional image. The tactile sensation is provided using this. In laymen's terms, it pushes against your hand. Hand position is determined using the Wiimote tracking system; What is actually pushing your hands so you can feel virtual raindrops on the palm?
13) Can a tough and weedy shrub solve all of our energy problems and stop runaway climate change? Don’t be ridiculous—of course it can't. But that, briefly, was the hype surrounding this poisonous plant that grows wild in tropical climates. It’s seeds are saturated with oil that can be easily processed into biofuel, and it was thought to grow on : wasteland that's sandy, rocky, dry, or nutrient-poor. However it needs fertile soil and significant amounts of water, like most other crops to produce enough & Just last week, the oil company BP withdrew from a partnership to produce 1 million hecates of what?
14) The cyber-attack that temporarily disabled Twitter for 2 hours recently was probably politically motivated and directed at a pro-Georgian blogger in a distributed denial of service attack. It seems Twitter, a relatively new service with a U.S.-based infrastructure, couldn’t handle the surge in traffic. It has not been confirmed who perpetrated the attack, but it is believed to have been an attempt by the Russian government to squelch criticism over it's conduct in the war over the disputed South Ossetia region, which began a year ago. How is the attacked blogger called?
15) When Paris hosted the Exposition Universelle in 1900, it unveiled its vision for the future of transport. Below ground, the city's stylish new Metro made its debut, while above ground was something more avant garde .Nearly 7 million visitors hopped onto the trottoir roulant and one woman gave birth in transit. But, the idea of high-speed walkways had been established in New York longer than anywhere else. Back in 1871, a local wine merchant patented the first "endless-traveling sidewalk", and promptly proposed an ambitious elevated 18 mph moving walkway along Broadway. Despite building a working model and lobbying state and city politicians for a decade, He discovered his invention was simply too visionary. Who was this man?
16) Generally, the worst spinal cord damage doesn't happen at the scene of the injury - it's the swelling and the crazy firing and burning out of otherwise healthy neurons in the hours and days following the incident that turns a bad situation permanently worse. Much of this is because of a chemical called adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. ATP is used as a kind of cellular battery to deliver energy to cells around the body in normal life. In effect, a patient might receive a spinal injury of low or medium severity - but the actions of ATP in the hours and days after the trauma can completely destroy the function of the spinal cord, leaving patients paralyzed. What is it that can be administered intravenously effectively blocking the action of the ATP at the injury site, but makes you turn blue in the process?
17) Besides dabbling in science fiction, he also patented several inventions, including a vibratory disintegrator used to produce gas from peat moss and a pneumatic road-improver. John Jacob Astor IV died on the Titanic, an opponent of the federal reserve system. He wrote a science fiction novel that offered an account of life in the year 2000.Which included descriptions of a worldwide telephone network, solar & wind power, air travel, electric cars, space travel to the planets Saturn and Jupiter, and terraforming engineering projects — damming the Arctic Ocean, and adjusting the Earth's axial tilt (by the Terrestrial Axis Straightening Company) what is the name of this book?
18) Produced by Sega Toys, the Uchiage Hanabi is a projector that lets users display this on their walls and ceilings complete with realistic sound effects. The device uses five customizable projection lenses to display movement and even tracks them from launch to explosion to mimic the appearance of the real thing. The compact unit incorporates a speaker for the various bangs and whistles, but you’ll have to generate the oohs and ahhhs on your own. What does it project into your living room?
19) It’s tiny, it’s bioengineered and has been successfully created and implanted in an adult mouse by Tokyo University researchers. Taking cells from a mouse embryo and cultivated them in a collagen-based medium this was made, implanted and grew to be fully functioning. Hopefully this technology is a model for future replacement therapies. This was able to perform as if the mouse had been born to use it - what part of the mouse was replaced?
20) A free-standing bell tower, often adjacent to a church or cathedral. The most famous one is probably the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Other notable examples include the one in St Mark's Square, Venice. Those outside of Italy are often modeled after St Mark's. and a modern one would be the Frankfurt Messeturm. Modern campaniles often contain carillons, a musical instrument traditionally composed of at least 23 large bells which are sounded by cables, chains, or cords connected to a keyboard. What are these kind of structures called?
Friday, 7 August 2009
The 1st Question 61 - 4 Aug 09
This week's panel
Ronnie Rhode, Mike Burleigh, Gentle Heron and Lowri Mills
Quotes
Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.
Harriet Tubman
It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.
Erma Bombeck
Word-UP of the week - “ Lindenary” - having a clever future vision though presently somewhat disorganized.
Gentle Heron
Audience Quote of the week – “I’d believe Mousezilla before I’d believe Inferno”
Fearchar Enoch
Questions
For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv
1) You play for 16 hours a day. You’ve lost your job, your friends, and you hardly eat or bathe anymore. Obviously, you need help but you’re unwilling to tear yourself away from your PC and see a counselor. Well, if you’re not going to them, maybe they can come to you - Dr. Richard Graham, a consultant psychiatrist in London, would like therapists to join in order to treat addicted gamers right where they’re spending all their time. The project is scheduled to be launched by year’s end by which time Graham hopes to convince the makers to waive costs for psychiatrists. This is not the next episode of shrink-wrapped - but Where will this take place?
2) When this company bought Skype from Joltid in 2005, the whopping US$2.6 billion price tag didn't include the Global Index peer-to-peer software that the world's biggest Internet Telephony system is based on. And now, Joltid is trying to cancel Skype's license on the Global Index technology in a move that threatens to shut Skype down once and for all. Is it just a canny commercial chess move to force the owner to sell Skype back to Joltid at a huge discount - or is it the end of Skype as we know it? Who bought Skype from Joltid in 2005?
3) Psychohistory, according to Isaac Asimov's , says that "while one cannot foresee the actions of a particular individual, the laws of statistics as applied to large groups of people could predict the general flow of future events., Bluetooth, GPS and WiFi leave behind detailed traces of our lives, sensors and tags generating data at micro levels give a wealth of data to examine & help accurately forecast the effects of phenomena like catastrophic events, mass population movements or invasions of new organisms into ecosystems This capability will be possible thanks to the collection of information from machine-sensed sources to provide knowledge about aggregated human behavior. What is this term called?
4) This could provide a cheap, renewable fuel source for vehicles. It’s abundance makes large-scale production of hydrogen as fuel a more viable prospect. And, most importantly, it’s actually a lot easier and cheaper to extract hydrogen from this than water. The hydrogen atoms in it– are less tightly bonded than those in water. So much less power is needed to break the molecule apart. –its biggest drawback is that it hydrolyses into ammonia very quickly. Aztec physicians used it to clean wounds. It’s been used in the manufacture of saltpeter for gunpowder. And, most famously, German alchemist Hennig Brand discovered phosphorous while trying to create the Philosopher’s Stone from it - what is the world’s most abundant waste product?
5) He was a six-year-old child who disappeared in lower Manhattan in 1979. After convincing his mom he wanted to walk the 2 blocks to the school bus alone, she never saw him again. He most likely met, was abducted by and then killed by his baby-sitters friend. At the time, news coverage of his disappearance was made into a media circus. He is arguably the most famous missing child of New York City. His disappearance helped spark the missing children's movement, including new legislation, new awareness, and various methods for tracking down missing children. Who was this boy whose face was on the cover of countless milk cartons?
6) Ever wonder how an insect with such a tiny brain can thwart your attempts to catch it nearly every time? Apparently scientists do, too. To find out how the common blowfly manages to process visual images more than four times faster than humans, researchers have built the bug a flight simulator. After immobilizing each insect with a fly-sized harness and attaching electrodes to its brain, biologists from the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology placed blowflies in front of a semicircular LED screen displaying various moving patterns. The German scientists hope what they discover about insect vision will help build better flying robots. And they’re not the only ones studying flies in a flight simulator —what is the California Institute of Technology using to learn about muscle coordination and visual processing in fruit flies?
7) In 1769, Hungarian inventor Wolfgang von Kempelen saw a magic show at the Imperial court, proclaimed he could create a more compelling spectacle and did. He called it the Automaton Chess Player. It resembled a robed man sitting at a table in front of a chessboard, smoking a pipe, one movable arm extended over the board, ready to play. The display had various panels which could be slid open to reveal impressive looking machinery. The device, like its creator, showed a sophisticated understanding of science, showmanship and the public mood. When Kempelen announced that his mechanical man could beat any person at chess, he was capitalizing on the perceptions of an audience living at the cusp of the Industrial revolution.. A fast, aggressive player, it beat most people within half an hour. Its victims included Ben Franklin and, in a dramatic showdown, Napoléon Bonaparte. In particular, it captured the imagination and the king of Charles Babbage, who was, at the time, contemplating the possibility of mechanical calculation. He built the Difference Engine, after playing it. What was this automon more commonly known as, the possible great grand daddy of IBM's Deep Blue?
8) In 1926, Westinghouse created the first robot, Mr. Televox, a cardboard cutout of a humanoid figure which was connected to various devices via phone lines, and allowed users to turn equipment off and on using voice commands. Televox was followed by Rastus, a “mechanical slave” However the most famous robot Westinghouse created was this. On debut at the 1939 New York World’s Fair the seven-foot, 265 pound golden giant walked, talked, and smoked cigarettes. Like the Turk, it captured a surging public sentiment that the future would contain technological marvels which it did. Alas, The robot was last seen in the 1960 film “Sex Kittens go to College” where it starred as “Thinko”, a funk machine accompanied by an entourage of four strippers and a monkey. Following Sex Kittens, it was decapitated and his body sold for scrap. Its legacy lives on, what was its name?
9) A remote-sensing mechanism that examines the content of blogs to measure the emotional levels of millions of people purports to give an indication of happiness. The system works by searching new blog entries for occurrences of the phrases “I feel” and “I am feeling.” It records the full sentence and identifies the “feeling” expressed in that sentence. Each sentence then receives a happiness score based on a standardized “psychological valence’ For example, “triumphant” scores 8.87 on the happiness-unhappy scale, while “suicide” scores 1.25. What is this site which contributes to the Journal of Happiness Studies?
10) The iPhone has many different applications, some are useful, some are hilarious, this one might be both, or neither.. This application rates your sexual performance based on duration, power (as measured by the iPhone's built-in accelerometer) and loudness of orgasm, giving you a score out of 10 for your efforts. You can then compare "high scores" with other couples (or singles) around the world.. Turn the app on, stick it on the bed, explain to your partner that you're looking for an empirical ranking of your boudoir skills, and go to town - if they're still interested. And all this for only $4.99! What is this app called?
11) They have no interest in actively pursuing women, are nonchalant about career and find cars a bore. They call themselves by the anonymity of their online handles. A growing group of men rejecting traditional masculinity when it comes to romance, jobs and consumption is an apparent reaction to the tougher economy. Forget being a workaholic, corporate salary-man. These men, raised as the economic bubble burst, are turning their backs on Japan's stereotypical male roles in what is seen as a symptom of growing disillusionment in their country's troubled economy. What have the media dubbed them?
12) ) The name means Primeval God of Hell, and the place of ultimate punishment. One of the first Gods to arise from the void of Creation, , like his siblings NYX and CHAOS, he personifies ultimate formless gloom. Little is known of his personality but as the first God of Hell we assume he had to be depressing. Presumably HADES rents the Underworld from him on favorable terms. If he was in Second Life he might charge double for tier. Who gives his name to the dark places of punishment for those that have been judged guilty of unspeakableness?
13) According to the company, Allen Stoltzfus had learned German through immersion while living in Germany, and found it relatively easy. In the 1980s, Stoltzfus began learning Russian in a classroom setting, but discovered it to be much more difficult. He wanted to simulate the German experience, and he decided to use computing technology to create a similar learning experience. By 1992, CD-ROM’s made the project possible. Its title and its logo is an allusion to this artifact inscribed in multiple languages that helped Jean-François Champollion to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics –what is the name of this popular learning tool?
14) Mankind seems to have a compulsion to get off the ground. America went crazy for the pogo stick in the 1920’s, where even chorus girls in NY performed on them, and marriage vows were exchanged on them. And, in the 60’s, trampolining took off as a competitive sport, with the first world championships held in 1964. These however, are a cross between stilts and a pogo stick that harnesses energy in the same way as a trampoline. A German aerospace engineer apparently studied the movements of kangaroos in order to develop his original prototype –what is it called?
15) It is non invasive surgery, on a specific point in the brain--that absorbs the energy and converts it to heat. The entire system is integrated with a magnetic resonance scanner, which allows neurosurgeons to make sure they target the correct piece of brain tissue. Performed successfully on nine human patients, in Switzerland, the groundbreaking finding here is that you can make lesions deep in the brain--through the intact skull and skin--with extreme precision, accuracy and safety, How has recent non invasive surgery been performed?
16) She was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. She was a writer and a renowned lecturer on women's rights, and social issues, attracting crowds of thousands. She planned to assassinate Henry Clay Frick and failed. Spending years in prison for conspiring to "induce persons not to register", and for handing out birth control as well as being blamed for influencing McKinleys assassination, she eventually founded the anarchist journal Mother Earth. Who was this legend who died in Toronto?
17) Recently, as the world celebrated the first lunar landing, Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins both called for NASA to make Mars its next goal. But the chemical propulsion system that took them to the moon would take six months, at least, to get a man to Mars and cost hundreds of billions of dollars. However, a new ion plasma rocket being developed by another former astronaut, could potentially reach Mars in just 39 days using a fraction of the fuel. This astronauts prototype promises specific impulses extremely high Well, his rocket doesn’t achieve propulsion by combusting fuel but, rather, by superheating atoms to create and expel a plasma plume. Who is he?
18) In the broad sense pluripotent refers to "having more than one potential outcome." News last month has spread about research out of China. Two teams used mouse fibroblasts, a kind of cell found in this connective tissues, which were then used to create living mice. Their breakthrough research suggests that cloning full animals from these cells are a current reality. To be able to create those which act like embryonic stem cells, without the embryo part, opens to door to a fascinating and less-controversial field of medical research, including organ repair or even full organ replacements that are guaranteed to match the host's body. What kind of cell was taken from the mice?
Ronnie Rhode, Mike Burleigh, Gentle Heron and Lowri Mills
Quotes
Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.
Harriet Tubman
It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.
Erma Bombeck
Word-UP of the week - “ Lindenary” - having a clever future vision though presently somewhat disorganized.
Gentle Heron
Audience Quote of the week – “I’d believe Mousezilla before I’d believe Inferno”
Fearchar Enoch
Questions
For the answers go to The 1st Question blog at treet.tv
1) You play for 16 hours a day. You’ve lost your job, your friends, and you hardly eat or bathe anymore. Obviously, you need help but you’re unwilling to tear yourself away from your PC and see a counselor. Well, if you’re not going to them, maybe they can come to you - Dr. Richard Graham, a consultant psychiatrist in London, would like therapists to join in order to treat addicted gamers right where they’re spending all their time. The project is scheduled to be launched by year’s end by which time Graham hopes to convince the makers to waive costs for psychiatrists. This is not the next episode of shrink-wrapped - but Where will this take place?
2) When this company bought Skype from Joltid in 2005, the whopping US$2.6 billion price tag didn't include the Global Index peer-to-peer software that the world's biggest Internet Telephony system is based on. And now, Joltid is trying to cancel Skype's license on the Global Index technology in a move that threatens to shut Skype down once and for all. Is it just a canny commercial chess move to force the owner to sell Skype back to Joltid at a huge discount - or is it the end of Skype as we know it? Who bought Skype from Joltid in 2005?
3) Psychohistory, according to Isaac Asimov's , says that "while one cannot foresee the actions of a particular individual, the laws of statistics as applied to large groups of people could predict the general flow of future events., Bluetooth, GPS and WiFi leave behind detailed traces of our lives, sensors and tags generating data at micro levels give a wealth of data to examine & help accurately forecast the effects of phenomena like catastrophic events, mass population movements or invasions of new organisms into ecosystems This capability will be possible thanks to the collection of information from machine-sensed sources to provide knowledge about aggregated human behavior. What is this term called?
4) This could provide a cheap, renewable fuel source for vehicles. It’s abundance makes large-scale production of hydrogen as fuel a more viable prospect. And, most importantly, it’s actually a lot easier and cheaper to extract hydrogen from this than water. The hydrogen atoms in it– are less tightly bonded than those in water. So much less power is needed to break the molecule apart. –its biggest drawback is that it hydrolyses into ammonia very quickly. Aztec physicians used it to clean wounds. It’s been used in the manufacture of saltpeter for gunpowder. And, most famously, German alchemist Hennig Brand discovered phosphorous while trying to create the Philosopher’s Stone from it - what is the world’s most abundant waste product?
5) He was a six-year-old child who disappeared in lower Manhattan in 1979. After convincing his mom he wanted to walk the 2 blocks to the school bus alone, she never saw him again. He most likely met, was abducted by and then killed by his baby-sitters friend. At the time, news coverage of his disappearance was made into a media circus. He is arguably the most famous missing child of New York City. His disappearance helped spark the missing children's movement, including new legislation, new awareness, and various methods for tracking down missing children. Who was this boy whose face was on the cover of countless milk cartons?
6) Ever wonder how an insect with such a tiny brain can thwart your attempts to catch it nearly every time? Apparently scientists do, too. To find out how the common blowfly manages to process visual images more than four times faster than humans, researchers have built the bug a flight simulator. After immobilizing each insect with a fly-sized harness and attaching electrodes to its brain, biologists from the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology placed blowflies in front of a semicircular LED screen displaying various moving patterns. The German scientists hope what they discover about insect vision will help build better flying robots. And they’re not the only ones studying flies in a flight simulator —what is the California Institute of Technology using to learn about muscle coordination and visual processing in fruit flies?
7) In 1769, Hungarian inventor Wolfgang von Kempelen saw a magic show at the Imperial court, proclaimed he could create a more compelling spectacle and did. He called it the Automaton Chess Player. It resembled a robed man sitting at a table in front of a chessboard, smoking a pipe, one movable arm extended over the board, ready to play. The display had various panels which could be slid open to reveal impressive looking machinery. The device, like its creator, showed a sophisticated understanding of science, showmanship and the public mood. When Kempelen announced that his mechanical man could beat any person at chess, he was capitalizing on the perceptions of an audience living at the cusp of the Industrial revolution.. A fast, aggressive player, it beat most people within half an hour. Its victims included Ben Franklin and, in a dramatic showdown, Napoléon Bonaparte. In particular, it captured the imagination and the king of Charles Babbage, who was, at the time, contemplating the possibility of mechanical calculation. He built the Difference Engine, after playing it. What was this automon more commonly known as, the possible great grand daddy of IBM's Deep Blue?
8) In 1926, Westinghouse created the first robot, Mr. Televox, a cardboard cutout of a humanoid figure which was connected to various devices via phone lines, and allowed users to turn equipment off and on using voice commands. Televox was followed by Rastus, a “mechanical slave” However the most famous robot Westinghouse created was this. On debut at the 1939 New York World’s Fair the seven-foot, 265 pound golden giant walked, talked, and smoked cigarettes. Like the Turk, it captured a surging public sentiment that the future would contain technological marvels which it did. Alas, The robot was last seen in the 1960 film “Sex Kittens go to College” where it starred as “Thinko”, a funk machine accompanied by an entourage of four strippers and a monkey. Following Sex Kittens, it was decapitated and his body sold for scrap. Its legacy lives on, what was its name?
9) A remote-sensing mechanism that examines the content of blogs to measure the emotional levels of millions of people purports to give an indication of happiness. The system works by searching new blog entries for occurrences of the phrases “I feel” and “I am feeling.” It records the full sentence and identifies the “feeling” expressed in that sentence. Each sentence then receives a happiness score based on a standardized “psychological valence’ For example, “triumphant” scores 8.87 on the happiness-unhappy scale, while “suicide” scores 1.25. What is this site which contributes to the Journal of Happiness Studies?
10) The iPhone has many different applications, some are useful, some are hilarious, this one might be both, or neither.. This application rates your sexual performance based on duration, power (as measured by the iPhone's built-in accelerometer) and loudness of orgasm, giving you a score out of 10 for your efforts. You can then compare "high scores" with other couples (or singles) around the world.. Turn the app on, stick it on the bed, explain to your partner that you're looking for an empirical ranking of your boudoir skills, and go to town - if they're still interested. And all this for only $4.99! What is this app called?
11) They have no interest in actively pursuing women, are nonchalant about career and find cars a bore. They call themselves by the anonymity of their online handles. A growing group of men rejecting traditional masculinity when it comes to romance, jobs and consumption is an apparent reaction to the tougher economy. Forget being a workaholic, corporate salary-man. These men, raised as the economic bubble burst, are turning their backs on Japan's stereotypical male roles in what is seen as a symptom of growing disillusionment in their country's troubled economy. What have the media dubbed them?
12) ) The name means Primeval God of Hell, and the place of ultimate punishment. One of the first Gods to arise from the void of Creation, , like his siblings NYX and CHAOS, he personifies ultimate formless gloom. Little is known of his personality but as the first God of Hell we assume he had to be depressing. Presumably HADES rents the Underworld from him on favorable terms. If he was in Second Life he might charge double for tier. Who gives his name to the dark places of punishment for those that have been judged guilty of unspeakableness?
13) According to the company, Allen Stoltzfus had learned German through immersion while living in Germany, and found it relatively easy. In the 1980s, Stoltzfus began learning Russian in a classroom setting, but discovered it to be much more difficult. He wanted to simulate the German experience, and he decided to use computing technology to create a similar learning experience. By 1992, CD-ROM’s made the project possible. Its title and its logo is an allusion to this artifact inscribed in multiple languages that helped Jean-François Champollion to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics –what is the name of this popular learning tool?
14) Mankind seems to have a compulsion to get off the ground. America went crazy for the pogo stick in the 1920’s, where even chorus girls in NY performed on them, and marriage vows were exchanged on them. And, in the 60’s, trampolining took off as a competitive sport, with the first world championships held in 1964. These however, are a cross between stilts and a pogo stick that harnesses energy in the same way as a trampoline. A German aerospace engineer apparently studied the movements of kangaroos in order to develop his original prototype –what is it called?
15) It is non invasive surgery, on a specific point in the brain--that absorbs the energy and converts it to heat. The entire system is integrated with a magnetic resonance scanner, which allows neurosurgeons to make sure they target the correct piece of brain tissue. Performed successfully on nine human patients, in Switzerland, the groundbreaking finding here is that you can make lesions deep in the brain--through the intact skull and skin--with extreme precision, accuracy and safety, How has recent non invasive surgery been performed?
16) She was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. She was a writer and a renowned lecturer on women's rights, and social issues, attracting crowds of thousands. She planned to assassinate Henry Clay Frick and failed. Spending years in prison for conspiring to "induce persons not to register", and for handing out birth control as well as being blamed for influencing McKinleys assassination, she eventually founded the anarchist journal Mother Earth. Who was this legend who died in Toronto?
17) Recently, as the world celebrated the first lunar landing, Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins both called for NASA to make Mars its next goal. But the chemical propulsion system that took them to the moon would take six months, at least, to get a man to Mars and cost hundreds of billions of dollars. However, a new ion plasma rocket being developed by another former astronaut, could potentially reach Mars in just 39 days using a fraction of the fuel. This astronauts prototype promises specific impulses extremely high Well, his rocket doesn’t achieve propulsion by combusting fuel but, rather, by superheating atoms to create and expel a plasma plume. Who is he?
18) In the broad sense pluripotent refers to "having more than one potential outcome." News last month has spread about research out of China. Two teams used mouse fibroblasts, a kind of cell found in this connective tissues, which were then used to create living mice. Their breakthrough research suggests that cloning full animals from these cells are a current reality. To be able to create those which act like embryonic stem cells, without the embryo part, opens to door to a fascinating and less-controversial field of medical research, including organ repair or even full organ replacements that are guaranteed to match the host's body. What kind of cell was taken from the mice?
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