October 19, 2023
August 17, 2022
Rainbow Vomit Cat
Looks like rainbow vomit coming out of the cat's mouth.
Isn't that just adorable! ;-)
(Credit Photo: Dossy Blumenthal)
Rainbow Vomit Cat
August 12, 2022
What Are You Refusing To See?
The Torah was given in 1,312 BCE, before most of the discoveries of the world, modern science, and tools like telescopes and microscopes. Yet, the Torah tells us secrets of the world and science long before they were known.
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
What Are You Refusing To See?
April 18, 2022
Space Boy Is Dead Meat
Given man's destructive nature to man, why would we want to entice aliens to come here and do to the world what Russia is currently doing to Ukraine.
Moreover, why would we court disaster and give them a celestial roadmap to get to earth?
Our scientists may know science, but they are nuts to want to bring ET destruction to us. ;-)
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Space Boy Is Dead Meat
April 7, 2021
Her Name Is Coco
And her standup hair says it (sideways).
The blue stars over her eye lashes are pretty cool too.
When she opens her eyes, she comes to life.
Do you want to meet her?
A robot, mannequin, virtual reality or perhaps the future of humanity. ;-)
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Her Name Is Coco
April 19, 2013
Get Yourself An IT Management Agent
Bloomberg BusinessWeek (10 April 2013) says really good freelance application developers are now being represented by IT Management Agents.
One such agent company is called 10X and they represent more than 30 IT stars.
The management agent helps the developers find jobs, negotiate salary and terms, and handle the paperwork letting the IT guys do what they do best--which is code!
10X takes a 15% cut of their client's earnings, but some developers claim 2-3 times the salary they were earning before by using an agent--and rates are climbing to $300 an hour.
Some companies are using these premium talent coders until they can bring on a full hire or when they need some big guns for some special IT project.
Perhaps with agent in tow (and even without), IT folks will start to shed their outdated nerdy image and instead take on some real Hollywood glamour--for the talent they really do bring to the organizational table. ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Get Yourself An IT Management Agent
August 18, 2012
How Good Is Our DNA
These days it's typically in 0 and 1s--binary code--on computer chips.
But according to the Wall Street Journal (18 August 2012), in the future, it could be encoded in the genetic molecules of DNA.
DNA has "vastly more capacity for their size then today's computer chips and drives"--where a thumb size amount could store the entire Internet--or "1.5 milligrams, about half the weight of a house ant could hold 1 petabyte of data, which equals to 1,000 1-terabyte hard drives."
As opposed to binary code, DNA will store information as strands made up of four base chemicals: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C) and thymine (T).
Just like letters in the alphabet make up words, sequencing of these 4 base chemicals can store biological instructions (e.g. 3 billion for a person) or any other information.
Using DNA for storage involves 4 key steps:
1) Encoding information into binary code
2) Synthesizing the chemical molecules
3) Sequencing them in a string to hold the information
4) Decoding the molecules back into information
Overall, DNA is seen as a "stable, long-term archive for ordinary information"--such as books, files, records, photos, and more.
Researchers have actually been able to store an entire book of genetic engineering--with 53,426 words--into actual DNA, and "if you wanted to have your library encoded in DNA, you could probably do that now."
With the cost declining for synthesizing and sequencing DNA, this type of data storage may become commercially practical in the future.
And with the amount of information roughly doubling every 2 years, large amounts of reliable and cost-effective memory remains an important foundation for the future of computing.
Frankly, when we talk about storing so much information in these minute areas, it is completely mind-boggling--really no different than the corollary of imaging all the stars in vastness of sky.
It is almost incredible to me that we have people that can not only understand these things, but make them work for us.
With NASA's Curiosity Rover exploring Mars over 34 million miles away, and geneticists storing libraries of information in test tubes of DNA coding, we are truly expanding our knowledge at the edges of the great and small in our Universe.
How far can we continue to go before we discover the limitations to our quest or the underlying mysteries of life itself?
What is also curious to me is how on one hand, we are advancing our scientific and technological knowledge as a society, yet on the other, as individuals, we seem to be losing our knowledge for even basic human survival.
How many people these days, are proficient on the computer in an office setting, but couldn't survive in the wilderness for even a few days.
Our skills sets are changing drastically--this is the age of the microwave, but knowing how to cook is a lost art to many.
So are we really getting smarter or just engaging our minds in a new direction--I hope we have the DNA to do more than just one! ;-)
(Source Photo: adapted from here with attribution to Allen Gathmen)
How Good Is Our DNA
October 7, 2011
Think Different, Change The World
Think Different, Change The World