Category: politics

Science PR – good luck getting the Manhattan Project going today

history politics technology

Yesterday two ‘science stories’ ‘broke’: “Neutrinos traveling faster than light” and “Computers can read images out of the brain”. I am borderline clueless on matters of physics, so I leave that one alone. The fMRI mashup by Nishimoto et al is borderline in my view. The presentation of their findings makes it way to easy to drum up headlines like “Brain Imaging Reveals What You’re Watching” or “Scientists Reconstruct Brains’ Visions Into Digital Video ”

Only spending little time with the setup it seems that the experiement pretty much reveals that 5,000 hours of youtube video are so stereotypical that even a fMRI of the v1 can match some patterns back. For a given individual, after hours of learning. To suggest that the video shown on the right as ‘coming out’ of the brain is extremely misleading.

Having two of those studies in one day means nothing of course. But one can go off on a tangent and wonder why – I am sure wonderful – people and scientists drop science in exchange for head lines and eyeball. Maybe it is time to decide over the 2012 budget? And I am sure that given realities of today it is much to get money for “we can go back in time” or “we can film your dreams”.

I have doubts that the Manhattan Project would have a chance today. Rewind to 1940: Some professors had drawn some numbers on chalk board. Up this day only very few
people understood what they were talking about. I certainly have no clue. They had no computer simulated films. They had no precedence. The bomb they were talking about
was by multiple magnitudes bigger than anything that had done before. There was nothing in reality to show for. Just scribblings on a chalkboard. And some common consensus among a few people. One could see this happening if they would have asked to disappear into the desert to do a bit of thinking. But they needed a bit more: Factories bigger than anything else that had been built. And 10% of all electricity in the entire US to run them. To make a handful of matter that -according to science- might make one big boom.
All based on science. And politicians and military people did go with it. And they built different models that both worked after five years.

747-8 Intercontinental

history politics

So, you think you are super cool, since you ordered a gulfstream private jet?

Well, unfortunately there are still a couple of people that 1-up you. By a long shot.

Boeing builts 747s since the late sixties. What meant to be used for cargo, since all long passenger flight would go super sonic soon anyway, became the largest passenger plane. Until recently: Airbus finally trumped those huge 747 jumbos with their dead ugly A380 a few years ago.

One of those 43 sold A380s will actually be converted into a flying palace.

Boeing revealed their new 747-8i yesterday:

Turns out that 7 out of the 28 ordered 787-8i will be sold to “VIP clients” as well. The super rich certainly got allot richer in the last years.

Usually that kind of wealth can afford to remain invisible. Having the worlds largest passenger jet converted to your liking gives a glimpse how a billionaire rolls in 2011.

how to spend 685,100,000,000 dollars

economy politics

real easy: just get allot of burocrats

forecasts

economy history politics

And they keep doing them:
Very nice visualization by the times

the skinny kid with the funny name

politics

glad that there are good signs

politics


Booming global demand for new business jets is expected to continue through the end of 2009

from the wsj

glad the bailout worked.

glad we bailed them out

economy politics

Goldman Sachs employs 30,522 people. On average they make $600,000 a year. Glad we bailed them out.

president palin speaks

history politics


"We have trade missions back and forth, we do" said Palin. "It's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia. As Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there, they are right next to our state. "

So the current one could not talk straight. But people wanted him anyway. twice. Or maybe 1.5 times. Turns out that running the country on stupidity got us in the biggest bubble ever. The US / Russian relationship is still the one with the most potential for danger. Hearing this women talk like this about it is scary. With the dumb president people thought / hoped that the VP would take care of things. He might even have. Who knows. This women could technically run the show.

That is scary.
Bush running things was scary. And we see now how much they let things slide in the wrong direction. This bubble is Bush made. It got created by turning the interest rate screw in the wrong direction for to long. Simple as that. A more intelligent administration could have avoided this problem quiet easily from building. Just don’t let the housing prices inflate that much. Interest rates are controlled by the fed. Carefully raising them would have cost a couple of fractions in growth. Maybe. But it would kept the system in the healthy zone, not where we are right now.

one in four not clued in.

politics


In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey out Monday afternoon, 47 percent of registered voters questioned said Republicans are more responsible for the problems currently facing financial institutions and the stock market; only 24 percent said Democrats are more responsible.

via http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/22/cnn.poll/

That means that 47% of all registered voters actually know which party ran the country in the last 8 years. Only one in four people is confused about that. Amazing.

I wonder how many would answer “Clinton” or “Carter” if asked who was President on September 11 2001.

three party system?

politics

Listening to Mr McCain it seems that the US got a 3 party system overnight: There are the democrats, his party, and then the one that is in power now and that is responsible for all that mess that he can not deny either.

I am amazed to no extend that this kind of orwellian reality bending has a realistic chance of maybe even working out.

At least they spare us with the orange alerts in this election cycle. Those were are big deal in 2004. At least in the media they took allot of room.