Fossil remains of a 47-million-year-old animal, found years ago in Germany, have been analyzed more thoroughly and determined to be an extremely early primate close to the emergence of the evolutionary branch leading to monkeys, apes and humans, scientists said in interviews this week.

Described as the “most complete fossil primate ever discovered,” the specimen is a juvenile female the size of a small monkey. Only the left lower limb is missing, and the preservation is so remarkable that impressions of fur and the soft body outline are still clear. The animal’s last meal, of fruit and leaves, remained in the stomach cavity.

It’s crazy how much detail you can see here.

From NY Times

Allow me to present the next game from the creators of the fantastic Shadow of the Colossus, and Ico(Team Ico, and both games are for the ps2)… currently named “Project Trico”:

(I totally realize that I may be the only one to care about this, but if you’ve ever played Shadow of the Colossus, you’ll understand my excitement to see what this team can do on the PS3).

This has been officially juiced.

Congress is looking at a bill that would allow medical device users to sue companies if their device malfunctions.  In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that products approved by the FDA are effectively safe-guarded from such lawsuits.  This new legislation would not only cripple medical device companies, but would also have a severe negative impact on the consumers.

(more…)

“Time lapse video of night sky as it passes over the 2009 Texas Star Party in Fort Davis, Texas. The galactic core of Milky Way is brightly displayed. Images taken with 15mm fisheye lens.”

Amazing.

I think Obama’s rhetoric is at its best when he talks about religion.

Remember, too, that the ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt. It’s the belief in things not seen. It’s beyond our capacity as human beings to know with certainty what God has planned for us or what He asks of us. And those of us who believe must trust that His wisdom is greater than our own.

And this doubt should not push us away our faith. But it should humble us. It should temper our passions, cause us to be wary of too much self-righteousness. It should compel us to remain open and curious and eager to continue the spiritual and moral debate that began for so many of you within the walls of Notre Dame. And within our vast democracy, this doubt should remind us even as we cling to our faith to persuade through reason, through an appeal whenever we can to universal rather than parochial principles, and most of all through an abiding example of good works and charity and kindness and service that moves hearts and minds.

It’s his ability to recognize the simultaneous importance and fragility of faith, and his talent in bringing seemingly contradictory belief structures together in common purpose, that makes him so incredible.

As a non-believer, it’s easy for me to cringe at the word “faith,” but when Obama presents it, it seems so much less abhorrent.

Side note – This speech reminds me of a speech I watched a long time ago that was one of the reasons I became an Obamaphile.  Here’s part one:

How many of you have walked right into a street sign or into oncoming traffic while writing an email on your iPhone? I HATE when that happens, which is why I’m so glad that Email ‘n Walk has finally arrived!

Email ‘n Walk takes a live feed from your phone’s camera and overlays the email creation screen on top of it so you can see where you’re going while you type. Now you’ll be able to see when you’re about to trip over an ugly dog BEFORE you do it, saving you from a potentially awkward situation.

It’s free, for a limited time, so you should check it out.

[via Life Hacker]

Wolfram Alpha dot com, hoi yoi!

I won’t lie, it’s somewhat disappointing due to the slowness on getting some answers…but for being the launch weekend, I don’t even want to think about how bad the hosted environment for Alpha is getting hammered with queries.

I was pretty happy to see that the one question I was really hoping would be answered correctly somewhat was:

Alright guys. This is my first official post on Juice. I read it daily, but never feel as though I have much to contribute. Recently I’ve been downloading gigs (and I mean gigs), of random jazz, funk and blues music. Most is nothing special, but some of it is. I thought I’d share it with you guys.

First band I found was The Phenomenal Hand Clap Band. This Brooklyn-based band has a progressive rock, funk, psychedelic kind of sound with a Brazilian influence.  Some of their songs are awful, some are pretty great. Overall, they have a pretty unique sound that just seems to make me happy. When I listen to the song below, all I can think about is riding on Falcore’s back, chasing some assholes who threw me in a dumpster. True story. Let me know if you feel the same.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download: here

If you like these guys, I can send you the rest of the album. Enjoy

Intel is launching a new ad campaign to elevate its stature on the “awesome” scale.  Basically they want people to think that they’re as bad ass as Apple and Google.  The ads are a pretty solid morale booster for employees, but I’m not sure if they’ll get through to the general public.  We’ll see.

Also, you can play dress-up with a bunny suit on the Intel’s website. Now you all can know how I get dressed in the morning.

(Side note for colin – Intel’s flash site could totally use your deep-linking system…)

Pardon the cusses, but I believe they’re warranted.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/screencast/introducingwolframalpha.html

Link brings you to a screencast displaying some sample queries that Alpha can handle.

Apologies for not expanding more on this, but trust me, this is seriously awesome.

Update: Obviously Google wouldn’t want to take this kind of innovation from another company lying down, hence: Google Squared:

Scientists are now trying to study consciousness. I ask, why has it taken so long?

Andy Newberg, a neuroscientist/physician with a background in spacemedicine, is learning how to identify the markers of someone who hasexperienced space travel. He says there is a palpable difference in someone who has been in space, and he wants to know why. Newberg
specializes in finding the neurological markers of brains in states of altered consciousness: Praying nuns, transcendental mediators, and others in focused or “transcendent” states.

Check out the Article

According to Sullivan, Obama = Bush now:

In what can only be seen as a stunning reversal, the president is now refusing to release photographs that would help prove that the abuse and torture techniques revealed at Abu Ghraib were endemic in the Bush military. [...]

Slowly but surely, Obama is owning the cover-up of his predcessors’ war crimes. But covering up war crimes, refusing to proscute them, promoting those associated with them, and suppressing evidence of them are themselves violations of Geneva and the UN Convention. So Cheney begins to successfully coopt his successor.

I’m actually feeling pretty meh about this.  It’s not like we don’t know what happened.  We tortured people.  A lot.  In a lot of places.  I don’t really see how releasing these photos really changes any of that, other than producing shock value.  To me, this isn’t really value-added, considering what the cost might be.  Sullivan responds to this with a purely principled argument, ignoring context, which is what I would expect from a conservative:

The reason is pretty simple. Without photos, we would never have heard of the mass abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib. Bush and Cheney would be denying today that any of it happened at all. When the photos were uncovered, revealing clearly what the anodyne words “stress position”, “mock execution”, “forced nudity” etc actually meant, we finally were able to hold the government accountable for the abuse it authorized.

Of course, they lied to us and to the Congress about this, declaring that these techniques, meticulously crafted in Washington, had been improvised by a few “bad apples” on the night shift  whom the Weekly Standard believed should be jailed or executed (that was before they discovered that their friends were deeply implicated).

We now know that these Abu Ghraib techniques were imported from Gitmo and were used in every theater of war as Cheney constructed a secret war machine that used the capture, torture and abuse of prisoners as its central intelligence-gathering tool. But we only have the photos from Abu Ghraib and so people can continue to pull a Noonan and pretend that this didn’t happen no a much wider scale. From my understanding, the photos would prove very similar techniques spread across the globe. And so it would be clear that any Muslim anywhere, upon seeing US troops, could be Abu Ghraibed. The photos would reveal more powerfully than the impressive documentation in countless reports that Bush and Cheney’s torture and abuse machine was everywhere, in every theater.

His argument is basically that, had we not known what we already know, we’d learn a lot.  And, even though we already know what these benign terms actually mean, these photos would re-affirm what we already know.  And also we’d know that we tortured people in Afghanistan, which we already knew.

Now let’s examine the cons.  People in the Middle East get to see photos of us torturing Arabs 24/7 for about 2 weeks.

The way I see it, there’s no gain, and a lot of cost by revealing these photos.  And while I’m generally a “consequences be damned” type when it comes to transparency, I just don’t see the value here.  It’s not like the Administration is denying what’s in the photos, or denying that we tortured people.

I’m not going to get bent out of shape over this one.