Video - Dolphin Stampede

This is a remarkable video clip someone sent to me, looks like it might have taken place off the tip of Baja, California.

Why do you cry when you cut onions?

And more importantly, how can you prevent it from happening . . . if you can.

Onions contain a lot of sulfur. When you cut them, the cells burst and release enzymes. These enzymes turn sulfur into a gas. The gas into your eyes and forms sulfuric acid. One way to prevent the tears is to rub a cut lemon on the knife. Watch the Mythbusters prove it here on YouTube

Sports Trivia Question

Who was one of the most famous athlete's of all time to play a role in a movie and not play himself?






Wilt Chamberlain in Conan the Barbarian

learned this from the movie "Shotgun Solutions"

The insignificance of wine ratings

In 1978, a lawyer turned self-proclaimed wine critic, Rober M. Parker Jr. decided that, in addition to his reviews, he would rate wines numerically on a 100 point scale. Over the years most other wine publicaitons followed suit. From the theoretical view point, there are many reasons to quesiton the significance of wine ratings. For one thing, taste perception depends on a complex interaction between taste and ofactory stimululation. Strictly speakig, the sense of taste comes from 5 types of receptor cells on the tongue: salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami. But if that were all there was to taste perception, one could mimic everything, fortunately there is more to gluttony than that and that is where the sense of smell comes in. The perceived taste of wine arises from the effects of a stew of between 600 and 800 volatile organice compounds on both the tongue and the nose. That's a problem, given that studies have shown that even flavor trained professionals can rarely reliably identify more than three of four components in a mixture.

Let's just say that the quality of a wine's taste is pretty complex. Skeptical of the numbering system yet? OK, scientists have designed ways to measure wine experts taste descrimination directly using a wine triangle (each tastor is given 3 wines, two of which are idnentical). The mission is to choose the odd sample. In many studies over the years, experts could only do it only 2/3 of the time. "On many levels the ratings system is nonsensical," says the editor of Wine and Spirits Magazine. But why does the system endure? Because people are attracted to and have faith more in numbers than other systems of rating.

Ockham's Razor

There is a time-honored principle called Ockham's Razor, which states that the explanation for any phenomenon should focus only on the essential and relevant elements, avoiding as many unnecessary “second-order” factors as possible. Albert Einstein put it this way: “A theory should be a simple as possible, but no simpler.” From the standpoint of economic stimulus, Ockham's Razor suggests that we will fail as a nation to address the current economic crisis if we fail to address the source of that crisis. Again, this means focusing first on bank capital and mortgage foreclosures.

In short, the essential problem is not “insufficient aggregate demand” but rather risk-aversion and anticipatory saving triggered by fear of financial instability. Ockham's razor cuts straight to bank capital and foreclosure risk. We can address a much wider range of interests in the cause of economic stimulus, but if we fail to address the central cause of the present economic crisis, the attempt to increase “aggregate demand” will predictably fail.

Liz atop Arthur's Seat

Arthur's Seat is the main peak of the group of hills which form most of Holyrood Park, a remarkably wild piece of highland landscape in the center of the city of Edinburgh, about a mile to the east of Edinburgh Castle. Here's a photo of my niece atop the peak. Click here to learn more.

Playing for Change - a new way to create and collaborate

The ability to collaborate on music today is amazing. Musicians around the world don't need to be in the same place to make music together. Click here to watch the video "Playing For Change"

Human Perception

Perception requires imagination because the data people encounter in their lives are never complete and always equivocal. Human perception, according to Michael Faraday (inventor of the electronic motor and one of the greatest of experimental scientists) is not a direct consequence of reality but rather an act of imagination.

Video - Extras Favorite clip

Ricky Gervais created Extras and this is my favorite clip

Clan Kincaid

Here's a little family history click here

Agnotology

Agnotology: Culturally constructed ignorance, purposefully created by special interest groups working hard to create confusion and suppress the truth. What's going on? Normally, we expect society to progress, amassing deeper scientific understanding and basic facts every year. Knowledge only increases, right?

Robert Proctor doesn't think so. A historian of science at Stanford, Proctor points out that when it comes to many contentious subjects, our usual relationship to information is reversed: Ignorance increases. He has developed a word inspired by this trend: agnotology. Derived from the Greek root agnosis, it is "the study of culturally constructed ignorance." We need to fashion information tools that are designed to combat agnotological rot. Wikipedia is one of the solutions: It encourages users to build real knowledge through consensus, and the result manages to (mostly) satisfy even people who hate each other's guts. Because the most important thing these days might just be knowing what we know.

Read the full story on how this word came into being and it's impact on all of us click here

Mike Doyles says this too

Mike Doyles says

Geithner, the incoming Treasury Secretary ooooops

Treasury Secretary Geithner may be in some trouble, as he failed to pay taxes on his income from his stint at the IMF. This is not an "Oops, I forgot!" The IMF does not withhold income taxes from its employees. However, he was given a memo about the taxes he owed. And he did pay them for two years when he was audited and caught. He clearly knew the nature of the taxes due the two prior years, yet did not come clean on those years. Dumb move for someone on a fast-track career and who clearly has an impressive intellect. He has got to be kicking himself.

The creepy spider

Click here to go to a cool website where you can play around with spiders. Poke and prod the spider with your mouse, also 'grab' one of its legs with your mouse and drag it around the screen. Tell me it's not alive!

Put the cursor anywhere on the map and then hit the space bar and it leaves little bugs. Watch the spider go after them and when she catches them they disappear; this is totally crazy but fun to play!

How did golf get it's name?

In Scotland, a new game was invented. It was entitled Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden.... and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.

The beautiful Ash Tree

In the late 1990s, a pretty, iridescent green species of beetle, now known as the emerald ash borer, hitched a ride to North America with ash wood products imported from eastern Asia. In less than a decade, its larvae have killed millions of trees in the Midwest, and continue to spread. They've killed more than 30 million ash trees in southeastern Michigan alone, with tens of millions more lost in Ohio and Indiana. More than 7.5 billion ash trees are currently at risk. During 1960's Ash was the predominant choice for kitchen cabinets. Click here and learn more about Fraxinus spp.

Don't believe every measurement you read about

like a particular vintage of Cabernet Sauvingnon Napa Valley wine whose grade is called out as 94. When we perform an assessment or measurement, our brains do not rely solely on direct perceptional input. They also integrate other sources of information - such as our expectation!

Video - from the Godfather - drugs are a dirty business

Don Corleone has to say no to a request.

Talk about scams . . . how about this one?

Nothing helps a fraudster more than a big name. Edward Chancellor, in his fine history of financial speculation Devil Take The Hindmost, records how His Highness Gregor, cacique of Poyais, a small territory on the border of present-day Nicaragua, arrived in London to encourage emigration and float a £600,000 loan. The issue was a great success, thanks in part to the services of the notable financier Sir John Perring, a former lord mayor of London.

Yet the country was fictitious and the emigrants found on arrival that the “capital” was a collection of mud huts surrounded by swamps and threatening Indians. For his part, the cacique – whose real name was Sir Gregor MacGregor, a Scottish adventurer and renegade general from Simón Bolívar’s army – fled to France with the bond issue proceeds.