Memorial Day Weekend

Yes, I do have friends...old friends and new friends. The old friends* are from my undergrad days at Rutgers. The new friends are their progeny. For our annual get together, we congregated at Eric and Stacey's house in CT for the M-day weekend. In order to preserve my eccentricity, I camped in the yard, while the families overnighted in the house. Who wants to sleep in a house with 10 kids, anyway? The weather was great, as was the food, and company. Weekend highlights were staying behind at the house relaxing while all the families went to the park to do "activities" on Saturday morning, hanging out by the campfire after dark imbibing, and playing "manhunt" and badminton with the kids.

*SITCOM friends (Single Income, Two Kids, Oppressive Mortgage).

Monkey Brain Control

Man has create machines that are a zillion times stronger (construction equipment), faster (rockets) and with greater recall and logic skills (computers) than man. Then next frontier will most likely be biological - genetics, DNA and the brain - and biologically integrating these machines with man. And here it is...

NYTimes Reports: Two monkeys with tiny sensors in their brains have learned to control amechanical arm with just their thoughts, using it to reach for and grab food andeven to adjust for the size and stickiness of morsels when necessary.

The monkeys had their own arms gently restrained while they learned to
use the added one.

Then, just beneath the monkeys’ skulls, the scientists implanted a grid about the size of a large freckle. It sat on the motor cortex, over a patch of cells known to signal arm and hand movements. The grid held 100 tiny electrodes, each connecting to a single neuron, its wires running out of the brain and to a computer.

The computer was programmed to analyze the collective firing of these 100 motor neurons, translate that sum into an electronic command and send it instantaneously to the arm, which was mounted flush with the left shoulder.

Most astounding is the ability to capture the biological motor neurons fromthe brain and translate them into motor coordination.

Al Jazeera English on Racism in America

The new clip was produced by Al Jazeera English. Amazing!!! The beauty of the internet shines once again. American News networks would never air something like this. It takes a Middle East News network to air the truth about America. American News networks like to pretend racism doesn't exit in America. But the truth is: racism is rampant in America. And Obama was right. The uneducated, white, blue-collar, rural folks are "bitter" about their "lot-in-life" and can't fathom a black person running for president.

Juliane Moore - Cannes Film Festival

I just like the picture. That's all.

A Message from Hillary Clinton

After seeing this "spot on" clip, I'm considering reconnecting my cable just to watch SNL.

Getting Lazy

I caught myself feeling really put out this morning at the though of having to walk to the mailbox to return my Netflix rental. The mailbox is only a half of block away from my house. I can and often walk to it in my slippers. But still I wish the DVD could get there some other way.

I know I really should be appreciative that I'm able to select movies on online and the DVDs mailed to my home, but I'm not. But I am glad that I don't have to drive to a DVD rental store.

I can't wait until ALL movies are available online. No more waiting for the envelopes to arrive, removing the DVD, watching the, and putting them back in the envelope and mailing em.

Once all movies are online, I'll never have to leave my computer!! Glory days!!! As I see it, soon (if not almost already) no more CDs, DVDs, books, or non-digital photos!!! They'll all be obsolete. The computer seems to be consuming everything these days. I'm glad. I hate clutter.

I finding myself in front of the computer more and more anyway and I don't mind it. During writing breaks, I started watching Hulu. The site is fairly random and free except for brief (their words, not mine) commercials. But that's why sitcoms were invented anyway, as filler between the commercials. And I don't subscribe to cable, so it not a bad site to view sitcom reruns.

Picture Update

Keeping it Simple

 

Springtime in Central Park

 

Getting Old

 

"A Day at the Museum"

Sunset in Ithaca

The Empire Strikes Barack

This is HILARious. It epitomizes Obama's supporters....

Gas Tax - "Truth" Ad

Just another reason why BO might be the better candidate. He’s willing to look at the bigger picture and holdout for a long-term fix, not just promote what is perceived popular at the moment or a short-fix to solicit votes. I don't mind giving-up a little today, for a much better tomorrow, if it make sense.

Thomas Freidman explains best in Dumb as We Wanna Be. Friedman writes "Unfortunately, the idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away. Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country."

It's kinda like why save a tank of gas today, if there's a better way to save ten tanks of gas tomorrow?

Update: 3 MAY 08 : Hilary really messed-up on this time. Hilary’s economic gas relief plan calls for the elimination of an 18.4 cents per gallon excise tax on summer gas consumption. And while on the surface, it sounds ver appealing, it’s clearly flawed for an economic perspective.

Sure, her plan will lower gas prices, but it will also increase consumption, and in turn, the increase in consumption means an increase in gas prices back to original levels. Simple supply and demand, Economics 101: lower prices = increased demand.

The difference, however, will be the increase in gas prices will flow directly to oil producing countries, without the U.S. treasury taking a cut. Winners: Oil Producing Countries. Losers: US citizens. No change in gas price and no US Treasury income.

Based on this, egregiously myopic blunder of Hilary’s, I’m sure the Obama campaign will spend the weekend portraying her as economically illiterate, not a good thing in troubled economic times.

Obama’s counter proposal is to provide a $1000 paycheck income tax deduction. The consumer can then choose for themselves to either offset higher gas prices or food prices or whatever. The US treasury revenues will decrease, but the US citizen will benefit, without increase gas consumption, the associated damage to the environment cause by increase gas consumption and a windfall to oil producing countries.