Archive for the 'Science & Geeks' category

Darwin did not see this. Darwin was too shy when he published his major work “the origin of species” on November 24, 1859. The evolution is also for machines and technology and the struggle for life has a meaning.

The evolution of technology, beginning in the early stone age and evolving to the most powerfull technology of all times.

Client: SATURN
Advertising Agency: Scholz&Friends, Berlin, Germany (www.s-f.com)

Doom 2009

So, the great FPS game will be back before the end of the year 2009. Either the launch campaign started early in Nepal or the bus drivers are using their vehicles as video game weapons (the latter would explain the extraordinarily high frequency of dramatic road accidents there).

The arrival of Windows 7 also annonces the arrival of a new updated DirectX to serve the PC gamers’ community. We already knew that Vista did not have the favour of the gamers (who often stayed with Windows XP) and that had (among other things) some significant impact on DirectX 10 that required Vista. Will gamers now run to Windows 7? It’s possible, but if you want to see the real progress brought to video games (here, to the very popular Crysis FPS) by the various version of DirectX, check the video below:

There are not only creepy aliens in space (where no one can hear you scream). There are also monster-shaped galaxies.

A Spectre in the Eastern Veil

Thanks to NASA.

The ICANN started to allow non-latin alphabet to be used in the domain names to support half of the word which is actually using a non-latin alphabet (Russians, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, etc.)

Google decided to celebrate with an anti-latin graphic to great their visitors.

Magnetic levitation is considered by some as the future of train technology. Several real trains have actually been created (the German industry has been a pioneer and is in a strong competition with Japan for the development of such MagLev trains or Magnetic Levitation trains). But did you really see how it works? It’s easy. Check this demonstration with maglev toy trains.

The tracks are made of traditional magnets and the train contain a big super-conducting magnet (cooled down by liquid nitrogen to maintain its super-conducting characteristics). Everything is relying heavily on magnetic fields. So, not surprisingly, these fields can be observed in the real train. The following video — shot on the Rokko Liner in Kobe, Japan — shows metal paper clips dancing on the stray magnetic fields of such a Maglev train, going through the floor of one of the passenger cars.

Don’t drop your credit card (or an age-old floppy disk) on the floor for fear of seeing it quickly erased.

See what happens to video game players, when a real World Rally Championship (WRC) pilot takes them to the real dirt. “Are you ready for the real thing?” Ken Block is not only a good driver, he’s trying his best to have them p…ing their pants.

Source: Autoblog.

Even the local guy does not seem too sure about it!

I’m not prone to vertigo, but I would not try it. I am happy being currently in Nepal and not in Pakistan. Wait! Here is a bridge in Nepal:

20 foods you should not eat together

You can’t read Chinese? That’s a pity. You would learn from this official announcement that some foods should not be eaten together (it is not clear how the exact risk was identified, though).

According to Xinjiang, the list of terrible mixtures is:

1. Pork + water chestnuts = a stomach ache
2. Beef + chestnuts = vomiting
3. Lamb meat + watermelon = a decreased vigor for life
4. Dog meat + green beans = poisonous to the body
5. Rabbit meat + celery = loss of hair
6. Chicken + celery = a decreased vigor for life
7. Goose meat + chicken eggs = a decreased vigor for life
8. Turtle meat + amaranth (a nutritional herb) = poisonous to the body
9. Carp + liquorice (not the candy) = poisonous to the body
10. Crab + persimmon fruit = diarrhea
11. Chicken eggs + saccharin = poisonous to the body, potentially fatal
12. Brown sugar + preserved eggs = poisonous to the body
13. White wine (白酒) + persimmon = chest pains
14. Onions + honey = damaged vision
15. Radish + fungus = dermatitis (a skin disease)
16. Bean curd + honey = makes you deaf
17. Potatoes + bananas = (not translated)
18. Bananas + sweet potato = a bloated belly
19. Peanuts + cucumbers = harmful to the body
20. Sweet potatoes + persimmon = lithiasis (formation of stones, such as the kidney stone)

I knew that you wanted to know about it…

After a demonstration of how cars evolved or progressed in terms of security in the last years, I also found some old crash tests where you can see what happens with a dreadful combination: High-speed (60+mph) and poor security car design.

With the repeated announcement of (minor) incidents with the security of the original PDF reader from Adobe, I wondered what could be a good replacement. Obviously, it seems important to stay around free or low prices (Adobe Acrobat: Windows/Mac/Linux, Basic: free, Pro: $299), but is it possible to beat the Adobe product to read PDF files?

• PDF-XChange (Windows, Basic: free, Pro: $34): loads real fast (much faster than the Adobe viewer), has all the basic options (annotations, graphic annotations, etc.) and the Pro version allows to reorganize the pages of a document or to extract text from it.
• Foxit (Windows/Linux, Basic: free, Pro Pack: $39.99): loads even faster, allows annotations (but only the Pro versio does it without watermark).
• Sumatra PDF (Windows, free): is even simple; everything is done for sheer speed.
• Apple PDF Preview (Mac, free): is very powerful (and it’s free, remember) and included in the MacOS offering; annotations, extraction, reorganization, all is available

Mac4Lin v1.0 is a free download for Linux systems which will allow your machine to appear very similar to a recent Mac.

If you want to grab the maximum CPU power for your PC video game (or any other PC application, by the way), there is a free utility that will ensure that the PC CPU does not spend to much time on anything else: Game Booster. It may be bad for a correctly balanced performance, but some games may appreciate the help.

Nota: This is similar to AMD Fusion Tool, but simpler.

We tend to forget it easily, but automotive technology made astounding progress in the past decades. And, there is a domain which has been simply transformed by this leap forward: Car safety. 1970’s cars were crushed by the energy of car accidents. The following video is a witness of what happened to pretty good cars (from VW) in these years, when they suffered a crash test. You will easily notice how the passenger compartment deformed itself and wasn’t doing much to protect the passengers (here, crash test dummies).

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It is not often easy to correctly evaluate the exact power needed for the Power Supply Unit (PSU) of your computer (if you buy primary parts and go the DIY way). Here is a calculator that will help you find the power output exactly needed for your PC configuration:

eXtreme Power Supply Calculator Lite