harmonicminer

The previous post in this series is here.

It would seem that a Shrimp’s eye points way to better DVDs.

The amazing eyes of a giant shrimp living on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef could hold the key to developing a new type of super high-quality DVD player, British scientists said on Sunday.

Mantis shrimps, dubbed “thumb splitters” by divers because of their vicious claws, have the most complex eyes in the animal kingdom.

They can see in 12 primary colors, four times as many as humans, and can also detect different kinds of light polarization — the direction of oscillation in light waves.

Now a team at the University of Bristol have shown how the shrimps do it, using remarkable light-sensitive cells that rotate the plane of polarization in light as it travels through the eye.

Manmade devices do a similar thing in DVD and CD players but they only work well for one color, while the shrimp’s eye operates almost perfectly across the whole visible spectrum from near ultra-violet to infra-red.

Transferring the same multi-color ability into a DVD player would result in a machine capable of handling far more information than a conventional one.

“The mechanism we have found in this eye is unknown to human synthetic devices. It works much, much better than any attempts that we’ve made to construct a device,” researcher Nicholas Roberts told Reuters.

He believes the “beautifully simple” eye system, comprising cell membranes rolled into tubes, could be mimicked in the lab using liquid crystals.

Details of the mantis shrimp research were published in the journal Nature Photonics.

Just why the mantis shrimp needs such a rarefied level of vision is unclear, although researchers suspect it is to do with food and sex.

That could be said of every single feature of every single organism, or course.  Personally, I think maybe God just likes to make things.  Living things.  With really, really incredible designs that are lurking underwater for millions of years so that eventually His creatures with souls and intelligence will find them and marvel.

The non-explanation that such incredible design “has to do with food and sex” is risible, of course.  What’s that supposed to mean, that all the rest of the denizens of the sea are lonely and hungry?  Besides….  if you were a shrimp, you might just find that your libido was improved by not seeing all that well.

Is a few million years really enough time for something like that particular eye design to happen by accident?

The next post in this series is here.

I’m not convinced there will be music in Hell, but if there is, it will presumably be ugly.

Which is what makes the following review of a piece by Rachmaninoff seem so unfair, since his music is usually quite beautiful….  but not everyone agreed.  From the music critic Cesar Cui, in the St. Petersburg News, March 16, 1897:  (from Slonimsky’s Lexicon of Music Invective)

If there were a conservatory in Hell, and if one of its talented students was to compose a symphony based on the story of the Seven Plagues of Egypt, and if he had written one similar to Rachmaninoff’s, he would have brilliantly accomplished his task and would have delighted the inhabitants of Hell.

This is surely hyperbole.  First off, one presumes that those in Hell do not enjoy their suffering, which means they would not actually LIKE ugly music.  And in any case, the really ugly music coming down the pike in the next century was much worse than whatever mild harmonies the great Russian pianist might have used.

I’m guessing that if Rachmaninoff was disturbing to Mr. Cui, then the music of Stravinsky (not the ugly music i was talking about) less than 20 years later must have caused him to spill his borscht and vodka.  And I’m willing to bet that Pierrot Lunaire made him choke on it.

Press freedom and the internet

THIS week a national newspaper ran a fascinating story about absolutely nothing. The Guardian reported on its front page on October 13th that a question had been tabled by an MP in Parliament, but that the newspaper could not reveal “who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found”. The reason, it explained no less cryptically, was that “legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret”.

In other words, you can’t talk about what you can’t talk about, and if you even mention that you are not going to discuss the existence of something you aren’t supposed to talk about, you’re in big trouble, buddy.

These guys would be right at home in the modern university.

A report from Russia that Karl Marx Predicted Collapse of US Dollar in 1857

The great October fall of the US dollar is turning into an avalanche. On Tuesday, the American currency lost nine kopeks in Russia and reached a new minimum mark this year – 29.5 rubles per dollar. Within six months (April through September) the dollar lost over 10 percent at the world foreign exchange trading, which marked the sharpest decline since 1991. Some experts believe that the American currency is close to collapse, which may lead to a new financial crisis.

The tendency of the US dollar devaluation has been observed for a few years, but the current rate of decline is unprecedented. Some jokesters even rushed to re-read the letters of Karl Marx to Friedrich Engels written during the US financial panic of 1857 discussing the collapse of America. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so serious.

The chief economist of HSBC Bank Stephen King believes that if the US officials fail to stop the fall of American currency, it may provoke another financial crisis. “A dollar collapse would be a disaster all round… It would leave the international monetary system short of stability and long of fear. It would unleash economic upheavals on a similar scale to those seen in the 1970,” King wrote for The Independent.

American officials don’t seem to be overly concerned since nothing is being done about it. The US hasn’t done anything to support the currency since 1955. But is a collapse inevitable? From the viewpoint of macroeconomic indicators, the US state of affairs is, indeed, scary: record budget deficit of $1.4 trillion, record state debt that now exceeds $11.9 trillion, high unemployment and weak currency. Huge inflows of capital into the economy that Obama is proud of haven’t yet shown results.

But on the other hand, weak currency may be good for the US.

“The economy is supported by industrial orders based on the current weak dollar and higher prices in the future. Key players in the market are ready to support their manufacturers by weakening the currency,” says Alexander Kuptsikevich, FxPro financial analyst.

If the state debt is growing, it means that the US continues to obtain loans.

“Market participants prefer to borrow money in dollars, and dollar loans are relatively affordable. They invest into more active instruments denominated in currencies of developing countries,’ explains Yevgeny Nadorshin, chief economist of Trust Investment Bank.

This causes growth of stock index. For example, Russian Trading System increased by 34 percent within two and a half months.

World center banks, who used to be trusted American partners, also turn their backs to dollar. They reduced investments into assets denominated in American currency. According to Barclays Capital , in April, May, and June, the banks invested 63% of their gains in euro or yen. If it continues, this may lead to further devaluation of dollar.

However, central banks of the countries that depend on export try not to let it happen. For example, last week a group of Asian central banks carried out unprecedented intervention in the financial markets by actively buying American currency. Bank of Russia was not a passive observer either. According to experts’ evaluations, the bank purchased over three billion dollars.

The good thing about it is that it helped Russian manufacturers to maintain competitiveness and bank reserves. The question is whether we would have to spend much more when investors change their minds and flee the Russian market changing their rubles into dollars. Last year we paid a high price for it.

“I’m not afraid that the events of the last year will repeat. The circumstances now are different. The world touched the bottom of the crisis and revival began, so there won’t be sharp moves,” says profile manager of Pilgrim Asset Management Olga Izyumova.

Yevgeniy Nadorshin agrees with her. He also thinks that dollar will continue weakening. But many experts think that as soon as the US announces the raise of interest rates, American currency will stop falling and even start growing. When is it going to happen?

Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the United States Federal Reserve evades the answer. All he says is that this will happen when the US is sure of stable growth. On Tuesday investors discussed information obtained from the US official sources that the Federal Reserve will start raising interest rates no earlier than the second half of the next year.

The USA may soon literally be more socialistic than Russia… if it isn’t already.

In the Jerusalem post, The I’s have it

About one thing, at least, the world seems to be in agreement: Israel is the primary culprit in the Middle East conflict, the cause of relentless Palestinian suffering and the primary obstacle blocking the way to regional peace.

The international chorus of opprobrium is growing by the day. The Hollywood crowd lashes out at the Toronto International Film Festival for its (oh, so sinful) focus on Tel Aviv. The Swedish press breathes new life into the old blood libel.

The Norwegians divest from an Israeli firm because it supplies technology to the separation fence. The Turks refuse to participate in joint air exercises with Israel. The Americans peddle the notion that at its core, the Mideast conflict is really about the settlements.

It’s relentless, this ganging up, but it’s also not terribly new. The momentum has been building for years, and though we may not like it, we cannot honestly claim to be surprised.

What is surprising, however, is a recent – and possibly more ominous – addition to this chorus. A growing segment of the American Jewish community is abandoning Israel.

Here, too, examples abound: Two American Jewish sociologists, Steven Cohen and Ari Kelman, wrote that among American Jews aged 35 and younger, a full 50% said that the destruction of the State of Israel would not be a personal tragedy for them.

In San Francisco, Jewish communal funds were used to support the SF Jewish Film Festival’s screening of Rachel, an Israel-bashing “documentary” about Rachel Corrie of International Solidarity Movement fame.

Noting that the SFJFF was now effectively in partnership with Jewish Voices for Peace, a well known anti-Israel, pro-boycott organization, many prominent Jews vehemently protested. But the film was shown, anyway.

There’s Fast For Gaza, that group of rabbis encouraging us to fast in protest against the injustices in Gaza. But if you search their Web site (www.fastforgaza.net) for mention of Sderot or Gilad Schalit, your search will be in vain. Those issues, apparently, are irrelevant to justice for Gaza.

Finally, for now, there’s Jay Michaelson’s column in The Forward, entitled “How I’m Losing My Love for Israel” (September 25).

Michaelson, a spokesman for much of the generation that Cohen and Kelman described, wrote that “I understand why many Israelis feel fed up with the Palestinian problem…. But as an outsider, I no longer want to feel entangled by their decisions and implicated in their consequences. B’seder: It’s your choice to make… but count me out.”

“Count me out” is pretty strong stuff. But if Michaelson is different from most American Jews of his generation, it’s mostly because he’s more articulate. Which leads to the real issue: Why are American Jews abandoning Israel?

That question is the title of a recent column in Ha’aretz by Prof. Jonathan Sarna, perhaps the greatest living analyst of American Jewish life. The problem, suggests Sarna, is that American Jews have been raised on an idealized image of Israel, and that “in place of the utopia that we had hoped Israel might become, young Jews today often view Israel through the eyes of contemporary media: They fixate upon its unloveliest warts.”

But that, says Sarna, is actually good news, for the “fix” is clear.

“By focusing upon all that they nevertheless share in common, and all that they might yet accomplish together in the future, American Jews and Israelis can move past this crisis in their relationship and settle in, as partners, for the long haul ahead.”

I wish I were convinced, but I’m not. The loss of American Jewish love for Israel, I fear, is actually much more deeply rooted. The issue isn’t Israel, or utopia. It’s America, and the “I” at the core of American sensibilities.

Another profound observer of American Jewish life, Rabbi Morris Allen of Mendota Heights, Minnesota, recently wrote with sadness that for contemporary American Jews, life-cycle rituals have become infinitely more significant than the holiday cycle.

Both Sarna and Allen are actually pointing to a shared challenge.Most American Jews are first and foremost Americans. And today’s America is about the celebration of individuality and a future unfettered by ethnic loyalties.

In America, the narratives of immigrant groups are eroded, year by year, generation after generation. In America, we are oriented to the future, not to the past, and if we cling to some larger grouping, it is to a human collective whole rather than to some “narrow” ethnic clan.
That’s the cause for what Rabbi Allen has observed. Because Jewish holidays celebrate peoplehood, a collective embrace of a shared mythical past, they are less compelling for typical American Jews than are life-cycle ceremonies, which focus on the future, my family – and me.
Similarly, the recreation of the State of Israel is truly powerful only against a backdrop of centuries of Jewish experience, and is spine-tingling only if my sense of self is inseparable from my belonging to a nation with a past and a people with a purpose.

In today’s individualistic America, the drama of the rebirth of the Jewish people creates no goose bumps and evokes no sense of duty or obligation. Add the issue of Palestinian suffering, and Israel seems worse than irrelevant – it’s actually a source of shame.

We’re not terribly alarmed, but we should be. These young American Jews, after all, will soon control the coffers of the federations, and will sit on the boards of synagogues. Their generation will either strengthen or abandon AIPAC, the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), and the American Jewish Committee (AJC). They will be the ones allocating funding to schools, setting curricula and communal priorities.

“Who is wise?” asks the Talmud. “He who can see what is about to happen.” Deep down, we know what’s about to happen. A gaping chasm threatens the American-Israeli relationship, and we’re basically doing nothing. Try to list the serious Jewish educational enterprises addressing this challenge, asking how American Jewish education can counter America’s unfettered individualism, or what Israel could do to help.

Can you name even one? Neither can I.

I believe I see some parallels to the problem of American “Christian” young adults abandoning the church and historic Christian teaching.

Investigators find flaws in Army body armor tests

The Army made critical mistakes in tests of a new body armor design, according to congressional investigators who recommend an independent review of the trials before the gear is issued to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But Defense Department officials says an outside look isn’t needed. In a lengthy response to the Government Accountability Office report, Pentagon officials acknowledge there were a few problems during testing of the armor’s bullet-blocking plates. But these were minor miscues, they said, that don’t shake their confidence in the overall results.

The GAO report says the Army deviated from established testing standards and concludes that several of the new armor designs that passed would have failed had the tests been done properly.

The report, requested last year by senior members of the House Armed Services Committee, is the latest study to call into question the Army’s ability to oversee the production of a key piece of battlefield equipment.

In January, the Pentagon’s inspector general faulted the Army for not properly overseeing a series of tests on the protective plates at a private ballistics laboratory.

The inspector general’s audit recommended that nearly 33,000 plates be pulled from the Army’s inventory of nearly 2 million because the inserts might not provide troops with adequate protection against armor-piercing bullets. The Army disputed the findings, but withdrew the plates as a precautionary step.

Stung by the inspector general’s conclusions, Army officials dismissed the private laboratories they’d long relied upon for the tests and said they would do the vital job themselves at a military testing facility in Aberdeen, Md.

That proved to be a contentious decision, however. The testing companies and manufacturers of the plates insisted the private sector could do the trials better, faster and for much less money.

With the GAO report, which is to be issued publicly on Friday, that argument is sure to get new traction.

Funny, when you think about it.

The only time a certain political element actually prefers to trust the private sector over a government agency is when they can use a private sector company to bash the military.

How soon do you think it will be that we hear of a private company’s word (say, a pharmaceutical company’s) being taken over a government agency’s about the safety of a particular medication?  After all, everyone knows that private companies are motivated by an evil desire for profit.

But if you can use a private company to attack the military leadership, suddenly that profit motive is off the radar, and they’re just public spirited citizens concerned about our soldiers.

I have no opinion about the truth of the matter in question here… but I do wish there wasn’t a double standard in how the opinions are weighted.

As a simple example, the recent spate of private organizations challenging the CBO analysis of the cost of nationalized health care is not handled by the media in any way similar the report above.  The dominant assumption by the media is that private organizations have something to gain from challenging nationalized health care, while government agencies are somehow disinterested observers and evaluators.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

There ARE no disinterested observers in these debates.  The rational thing is to compare expertise and assess incentives, when deciding how to weight the opinions of various agencies, groups, businesses, etc.  One way is to check the STARTING facts that a report uses.  How reliable is the information it began with?  And from what philosophical positions does it proceed, as it evaluates that data?

I do know that in the summer, when CBO was producing documents saying health care “reform” would bankrupt the nation, Democrats were bashing the reports, but now that CBO has produced a neutral document, suddenly CBO is the good guy again.

‘No Israelis want to fly to Turkey now’

With a new wave of anti-Israel sentiment in Turkey, and a furious response in Israel, the once-booming tourism trade between the countries is already feeling the effects.

“I can’t sell a Turkish Air ticket going via Istanbul,” Mark Feldman, CEO of Zion Tours, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. Istanbul is a common stop-over point on the way to many other destinations.

“Nobody, but nobody, wishes to fly there… packages are very cheap, the airline is a good airline… [but] people are voting with their feet,” Feldman said.

Relations with Turkey have recently been strained, due to Turkey’s withdrawal from an international military exercise involving Israel, a series of verbal assaults from Turkish leaders, and the premiere of a new television series portraying IDF soldiers as murderers. The first episode of the series aired in Turkey on Tuesday evening and depicted IDF soldiers in the West Bank killing a baby and a young girl, and lining up Palestinians to be shot before a firing squad.

According to Feldman, “This [tourism decline] is getting intensified, and the television series will accelerate it. I expect this [Israeli tourist] boycott and this anger to last throughout the fall and winter.”

Turkey is generally the second most popular destination for Israeli tourists, ranking only after the United States. More than half a million Israelis visited Turkey last year. Tourists from Israel ranked 10th in the number of entries to Turkey and made up 2.49 percent of all tourists to the country, Ynet reported in 2008.

Its proximity, luxury resorts, cultural and historical attractions, and the number of affordable trips available make Turkey an appealing destination for Israelis.

Until now, that is. 

Of course, this sort of thing doesn’t affect rich Hollywood types, for whom condemnations of the USA by the likes of Venezuela and Cuba makes those places MORE attractive as vacation spots…  along with photo-ops with heads of state, of course.

Unlike the Hollywood Left (now there’s a redundant phrase), Israelis actually react negatively when their nation is accused of murder.  Now doubt Turkish TV producers are influenced by watching Hollywood-produced, US-bashing films, and just wanted to get in on the action.

What a lovely thought for an Israeli family to take their kids to a Turkish resort, and on the TV in the hotel room they could watch a nice new Turkish TV series about sadistic IDF soldiers.

Al Jazeera English

The US believes this is not the time to impose more sanctions against Iran as part of its push to get the country to end its nuclear programme.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, emphasised co-operation with Moscow on the atomic issue in statements on Tuesday after talks with Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister.

Both countries would continue to pursue a diplomatic resolution with Iran, she said as she praised Russia’s help in tackling the issue.

Clinton agreed with a recent statement by Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, that sanctions against Tehran may be inevitable if no progress was made, but said “we are not at that point yet”.

“That is not a conclusion we have reached. And we want to be very clear that it is our preference that Iran works with the international community … to fulfil its obligation on inspections,” she said.

Nazanine Moshiri, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Tehran, said it was “extremely important” for Iranians not to have the immediate worry of sanctions.

“They don’t want a forfeit round of sanctions right now. That’s why they’re keen to keen continue this diplomatic track and keen to talk to the Americans at Vienna on October 19th,” she said.

“And also to open up [the nuclear site of] Qom to inspections. It’s a very clever move by the Iranians to continue this track.”

How is it that all these multi-culturalists haven’t done their homework on Islamic culture?   They continue to deal with the Iranians as if they are a competing business negotiating for water rights, or delivery dates, or service plans.

What we are negotiating with them about is the date be which they will be able to destroy first our allies, and then us.  

Read about hudna, Mr. President.

A dolphin splashed a little water at an aquarium show, leading to this report that a woman is suing over fall she blames on wet floor.

Wet floors are slippery. Dolphins love to splash. So the folks who run the Brookfield Zoo should have known accidents were bound to happen, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court.

Allecyn Edwards sued the Chicago Zoological Society and the zoo because she claims they “recklessly and willfully trained and encouraged the dolphins to throw water at the spectators in the stands making the floor wet and slippery,” “failed to provide warnings of the slippery floor” and “failed to provide mats … when the staff knew the floor would get wet and slippery,” among other negligent acts, according to the complaint.

On Aug. 20, 2008, Edwards was walking along the floor near bleachers at the dolphin exhibit and fell, the suit says. The injuries from the fall caused her to lose wages, incur medical expenses and experience physical and mental suffering, the suit says.

Edwards’ attorney did not return calls for comment, and a spokeswoman for the Chicago Zoological Society, which manages Brookfield Zoo, declined to comment.

And how much is a fall around dolphins at play worth? In excess of $50,000, according to the lawsuit.

Imagine if she’d gone to Sea World. If the amount of the lawsuit is based on volume of water splashed, the lady could retire.

Now, HERE is someone with grounds for a lawsuit.

Temper, temper, Shamu.  You could be paying off the lady for a long time if she wins in small claims court.   What does Sea World pay you, $1.50 per hour?

In the meantime, maybe a little lawsuit reform is indicated, hmmm?

Trips to Mars in 39 Days

Using traditional chemical rockets, a trip to Mars, at quickest, lasts 6 months. But a new rocket tested successfully last week could potentially cut down travel time to the Red Planet to just 39 days. The Ad Astra Rocket Company tested a plasma rocket called the VASIMR VX-200 engine, which ran at 201 kilowatts in a vacuum chamber, passing the 200-kilowatt mark for the first time. “It’s the most powerful plasma rocket in the world right now,” says Franklin Chang-Diaz, former NASA astronaut and CEO of Ad Astra. The company has also signed an agreement with NASA to test a 200-kilowatt VASIMR engine on the International Space Station in 2013.

I know where I’m going on my next vacation.