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Brian Micklethwait's Blog
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Category archive: Science
One of the many fine things about the internet – and in particular that great internet business, Amazon – is that you can now easily get hold of books that seem interesting, even if they were published a decade and a half ago. Steven Johnson's book, Emergence, for instance. This was published in 2001. I think it was some Amazon robot system that reckoned I might like it ("lots of people who bought this book you just bought also bought this one"). And I read some Amazon reviews, or whatever, and I did like it, or at least the sound of it, and I duly sent off for it. (I paid £0.01 plus postage.) And now I'm reading it.
Chapter one of Emergence is entitled "The Myth of the Ant Queen". Here is the part of that chapter that describes the research then being done by Deborah Gordon, into ants:
At the heart of Gordon's work is a mystery about how ant colonies develop, a mystery that has implications extending far beyond the parched earth of the Arizona desert to our cities, our brains, our immune systems - and increasingly, our technology. Gordon's work focuses on the connection between the microbehavior of individual ants and the overall behavior of the colonies themselves, and part of that research involves tracking the life cycles of individual colonies, following them year after year as they scour the desert floor for food, competing with other colonies for territory, and - once a year - mating with them. She is a student, in other words, of a particular kind of emergent, self-organizing system.
Dig up a colony of native harvester ants and you'll almost invariably find that the queen is missing. To track down the colony's matriarch, you need to examine the bottom of the hole you've just dug to excavate the colony: you'll find a narrow, almost invisible passageway that leads another two feet underground, to a tiny vestibule burrowed out of the earth. There you will find the queen. She will have been secreted there by a handful of ladies-in-waiting at the first sign of disturbance. That passageway, in other words, is an emergency escape hatch, not unlike a fallout shelter buried deep below the West Wing.
But despite the Secret Service-like behavior, and the regal nomenclature, there's nothing hierarchical about the way an ant colony does its thinking. ''Although queen is a term that reminds us of human political systems," Gordon explains, "the queen is not an authority figure. She lays eggs and is fed and cared for by the workers. She does not decide which worker does what. In a harvester ant colony, many feet of intricate tunnels and chambers and thousands of ants separate the queen, surrounded by interior workers, from the ants working outside the nest and using only the chambers near the surface. It would be physically impossible for the queen to direct every worker's decision about which task to perform and when." The harvester ants that carry the queen off to her escape hatch do so not because they've been ordered to by their leader; they do it because the queen ant is responsible for giving birth to all the members of the colony, and so it's in the colony's best interest - and the colony's gene pool-to keep the queen safe. Their genes instruct them to protect their mother, the same way their genes instruct them to forage for food. In other words, the matriarch doesn't train her servants to protect her, evolution does.
Popular culture trades in Stalinist ant stereotypes - witness the authoritarian colony regime in the animated film Antz - but in fact, colonies are the exact opposite of command economies. While they are capable of remarkably coordinated feats of task allocation, there are no Five-Year Plans in the ant kingdom. The colonies that Gordon studies display some of nature's most mesmerizing decentralized behavior: intelligence and personality and learning that emerges from the bottom up.
I'm still gazing into the latticework of plastic tubing when Gordon directs my attention to the two expansive white boards attached to the main colony space, one stacked on top of the other and connected by a ramp. (Imagine a two-story parking garage built next to a subway stop.) A handful of ants meander across each plank, some porting crumblike objects on their back, others apparently just out for a stroll. If this is the Central Park of Cordon's ant metropolis, I think, it must be a workday.
Gordon gestures to the near corner of the top board, four inches from the ramp to the lower level, where a pile of strangely textured dust - littered with tiny shells and husks-presses neatly against the wall. "That's the midden," she says. "It's the town garbage dump." She points to three ants marching up the ramp, each barely visible beneath a comically oversize shell. "These ants are on midden duty: they take the trash that's left over from the food they've collected-in this case, the seeds from stalk grass-and deposit it in the midden pile."
Gordon takes two quick steps down to the other side of the table, at the far end away from the ramp. She points to what looks like another pile of dust. "And this is the cemetery." I look again, startled. She's right: hundreds of ant carcasses are piled atop one another, all carefully wedged against the table's corner. It looks brutal, and yet also strangely methodical.
I know enough about colony behavior to nod in amazement. "So they've somehow collectively decided to utilize these two areas as trash heap and cemetery," I say. No individual ant defined those areas, no central planner zoned one area for trash, the other for the dead. "It just sort of happened, right?"
Cordon smiles, and it's clear that I've missed something. "It's better than that," she says. "Look at what actually happened here: they've built the cemetery at exactly the point that's furthest away from the colony. And the midden is even more interesting: they've put it at precisely the point that maximizes its distance from both the colony and the cemetery. It's like there's a rule they're following: put the dead ants as far away as possible, and put the midden as far away as possible without putting it near the dead ants." I have to take a few seconds to do the geometry myself, and sure enough, the ants have got it right. I find myself laughing out loud at the thought: it's as though they've solved one of those spatial math tests that appear on standardized tests, conjuring up a solution that's perfectly tailored to their environment, a solution that might easily stump an eight-year-old human. The question is, who's doing the conjuring?
It's a question with a long and august history, one that is scarcely limited to the collective behavior of ant colonies. We know the answer now because we have developed powerful tools for thinking about - and modeling - the emergent intelligence of self-organizing systems, but that answer was not always so clear. We know now that systems like ant colonies don't have real leaders, that the very idea of an ant "queen" is misleading. But the desire to find pacemakers in such systems has always been powerful-in both the group behavior of the social insects, and in the collective human behavior that creates a living city.
I continue to photo white vans. The poshest white van so far is one I photoed today. Here's the basic photo:
But, this being a posh enterprise, the graphics are a bit thin and polite, and my photo doesn't help. So here's a close up what it is:
And here are the services they offer.
Earlier in the day, I also photoed this white van, which also seemed rather posh:
Again, for the same sorts of reasons, here's a close-up of what it is:
But, although "piano people" suggests people who play pianos, or at the very least tune them, all that these piano people do is move them from place to place, carefully.
There really are a lot of white vans out there.
I've been reading Paul Kennedy's Engineers of Victory, which is about how WW2 was won, by us good guys. Kennedy, like many others, identifies the Battle of the Atlantic as the allied victory which made all the other victories over Germany by the Anglo-American alliance possible. I agree with the Amazon reviewers who say things like "good overview, not much engineering". But this actually suited me quite well. At least I now know what I want to know more about the engineering of. And thanks to Kennedy, I certainly want to know more about how centimetric radar was engineered.
Centimetric radar was even more of a breakthrough, arguably the greatest. HF-DF might have identified a U-boat's radio emissions 20 miles from the convoy, but the corvette or plane dispatched in that direction still needed to locate a small target such as a conning tower, perhaps in the dark or in fog. The giant radar towers erected along the coast of southeast England to alert Fighter Command of Luftwaffe attacks during the Battle of Britain could never be replicated in the mid-Atlantic, simply because the structures were far too large. What was needed was a miniaturized version, but creating one had defied all British and American efforts for basic physical and technical reasons: there seemed to be no device that could hold the power necessary to generate the microwave pulses needed to locate objects much smaller than, say, a squadron of Junkers bombers coming across the English Channel, yet still made small enough to be put on a small escort vessel or in the nose of a long-range aircraft. There had been early air-to-surface vessel (ASV) sets in Allied aircraft, but by 1942 the German Metox detectors provided the U-boats with early warning of them. Another breakthrough was needed, and by late spring of 1943 that problem had been solved with the steady introduction of 10-centimeter (later 9.1-centimeter) radar into Allied reconnaissance aircraft and even humble Flower-class corvettes; equipped with this facility, they could spot a U-boat's conning tower miles away, day or night. In calm waters, the radar set could even pick up a periscope. From the Allies' viewpoint, the additional beauty of it was that none of the German systems could detect centimetric radar working against them.
Where did this centimetric radar come from? In many accounts of the war, it simply "pops up"; Liddell Hart is no worse than many others in noting, "But radar, on the new 10cm wavelength that the U-boats could not intercept, was certainly a very important factor." Hitherto, all scientists' efforts to create miniaturized radar with sufficient power had failed, and Doenitz's advisors believed it was impossible, which is why German warships were limited to a primitive gunnery-direction radar, not a proper detection system. The breakthrough came in spring 1940 at Birmingham University, in the labs of Mark Oliphant (himself a student of the great physicist Ernest Rutherford), when the junior scientists John Randall and Harry Boot, working in a modest wooden building, finally put together the cavity magnetron.
This saucer-sized object possessed an amazing capacity to detect small metal objects, such as a U-boat's conning tower, and it needed a much smaller antenna for such detection. Most important of all, the device's case did not crack or melt because of the extreme energy exuded. Later in the year important tests took place at the Telecommunications Research Establishment on the Dorset coast. In midsummer the radar picked up an echo from a man cycling in the distance along the cliff, and in November it tracked the conning tower of a Royal Navy submarine steaming along the shore. Ironically, Oliphant's team had found their first clue in papers published sixty years earlier by the great German physicist and engineer Adolf Herz, who had set out the original theory for a metal casement sturdy enough to hold a machine sending out very large energy pulses. Randall had studied radio physics in Germany during the 1930s and had read Herz's articles during that time. Back in Birmingham, he and another young scholar simply picked up the raw parts from a scrap metal dealer and assembled the device.
Almost inevitably, development of this novel gadget ran into a few problems: low budgets, inadequate research facilities, and an understandable concentration of most of Britain's scientific efforts at finding better ways of detecting German air attacks on the home islands. But in September 1940 (at the height of the Battle of Britain, and well before the United States formally entered the war) the Tizard Mission arrived in the United States to discuss scientific cooperation. This mission brought with it a prototype cavity magnetron, among many other devices, and handed it to the astonished Americans, who quickly recognized that this far surpassed all their own approaches to the miniature-radar problem. Production and test improvements went into full gear, both at Bell Labs and at the newly created Radiation Laboratory (Rad Lab) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Even so, there were all sorts of delays - where could they fit the equipment and operator in a Liberator? Where could they install the antennae? - so it was not until the crisis months of March and April 1943 that squadrons of fully equipped aircraft began to join the Allied forces in the Battle of the Atlantic.
Soon everyone was clamoring for centimetric radar - for the escorts, for the carrier aircraft, for gunnery control on the battleships. The destruction of the German battle cruiser Scharnhorst off the North Cape on Boxing Day 1943, when the vessel was first shadowed by the centimetric radar of British cruisers and then crushed by the radar-controlled gunnery of the battleship HMS Duke of York, was an apt demonstration of the value of a machine that initially had been put together in a Birmingham shed. By the close of the war, American industry had produced more than a million cavity magnetrons, and in his Scientists Against Time (1946) James Baxter called them "the most valuable cargo ever brought to our shores" and "the single most important item in reverse lease-lend." As a small though nice bonus, the ships using it could pick out life rafts and lifeboats in the darkest night and foggiest day. Many Allied and Axis sailors were to be rescued this way.
This is cool, says Instapundit, and he's not wrong:
For all his joie de vivre, Jardine is a master drone builder and pilot whose skills have produced remarkable footage for shows like Australian Top Gear, the BBC's Into the Volcano, and a range of music videos. His company Aerobot sells camera-outfitted drones, including custom jobs that require unique specifications like, say, the capacity to lift an IMAX camera. From a sprawling patch of coastline real estate in Queensland, Australia, Jardine builds, tests, and tweaks his creations; the rural tranquility is conducive to a process that may occasionally lead to unidentified falling objects.
Simply put, if you've got a drone flying challenge, Jardine is your first call.
So, Mr Jardine is now flying his flying robots over volcanoes. There are going to be lots of calls to have these things entirely banned, but they are just too useful for that to happen.
When I was a kid and making airplanes out of balsa wood and paper, powered with rubber band propellers, I remember thinking that such toys were potentially a lot more than mere toys. I'm actually surprised at how long it has taken for this to be proved right.
What were the recent developments that made useful drones like Jardine's possible? It is down to the power-to-weight ratio of the latest mini-engines? I tried googling "why drones work", but all I got was arguments saying that it's good to use drones to kill America's enemies, not why they are now usable for such missions.
Incoming from Michael J:
Katy Perry and dancing Nazi sharks. I guess this is why you stay up for the Superbowl.
Actually I missed KP's half time performance, but I have it on one of my various TV hard disks. I did stay up until the Superbowl ended, but I found myself only giving it about a third of my attention.
I did tune in at the end. That bizarre catch was fun. But the game ended the way it did because, at any rate in the opinion of all the commentators, the Seattle Seahawks made a horrible mistake. ("I cannot believe that call!") Truly great games are won because of something wonderful, not something horrible. In an ideal world, you want the losers thinking, not: "Oh Shit, What Were We Thinking?!?!? We'll have nightmares about that for the rest of our lives." You want them thinking: "Well, there was nothing we could have done about that." And the winners can spend the rest of their lives remembering that they did it, not that the other guys did it for them.
And then this morning there was this:
6 1 6 . 6 6 | . 4 W 4 W 1 | 1 . 1wd 6 6 6
That's the last three overs of the England Second Eleven's batting effort against the South Africa Second Eleven. I love how you can now follow these bizarrely obscure games. Ben Stokes, who has been having a rough time of it of late, is the one hitting six of those seven sixes at the end, and finishing on 151 not out (off 86 balls) , out of 378-6. Perhaps someone in the England First Eleven (recently crushed by Australia in a triangular warm-up tournament) will get hurt during the forthcoming World Cup, and Stokes will be inserted into their team. Such is the romance of sport.
Finally, here is a piece by cricket boffin Ed Smith, about how having fun is very important. Because of fun, Alexander Fleming invented penicillin, etc. But the real reason for fun is that having fun is fun. It's articles like this that cause insane parents to send their children to Fun Classes.
I shouldn't mock. It's a good piece. And fun is what this blog here is mostly about.
Another Bit from a Book, and once again I accompany it with a warning that this Bit could vanish at any moment, for the reasons described in this earlier posting.
This particular Bit is from The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley (pp. 255-258):
Much as I love science for its own sake, I find it hard to argue that discovery necessarily precedes invention and that most new practical applications flow from the minting of esoteric insights by natural philosophers. Francis Bacon was the first to make the case that inventors are applying the work of discoverers, and that science is the father of invention. As the scientist Terence Kealey has observed, modern politicians are in thrall to Bacon. They believe that the recipe for making new ideas is easy: pour public money into science, which is a public good, because nobody will pay for the generation of ideas if the taxpayer does not, and watch new technologies emerge from the downstream end of the pipe. Trouble is, there are two false premises here: first, science is much more like the daughter than the mother of technology; and second, it does not follow that only the taxpayer will pay for ideas in science.
It used to be popular to argue that the European scientific revolution of the seventeenth century unleashed the rational curiosity of the educated classes, whose theories were then applied in the form of new technologies, which in turn allowed standards of living to rise. China, on this theory, somehow lacked this leap to scientific curiosity and philosophical discipline, so it failed to build on its technological lead. But history shows that this is back-to-front. Few of the inventions that made the industrial revolution owed anything to scientific theory.
It is, of course, true that England had a scientific revolution in the late 1600s, personified in people like Harvey, Hooke and Halley, not to mention Boyle, Petty and Newton, but their influence on what happened in England's manufacturing industry in the following century was negligible. Newton had more influence on Voltaire than he did on James Hargreaves. The industry that was transformed first and most, cotton spinning and weaving, was of little interest to scientists and vice versa. The jennies, gins, frames, mules and looms that revolutionised the working of cotton were invented by tinkering businessmen, not thinking boffins: by 'hard heads and clever fingers'. It has been said that nothing in their designs would have puzzled Archimedes.
Likewise, of the four men who made the biggest advances in the steam engine - Thomas Newcomen, James Watt, Richard Trevithick and George Stephenson - three were utterly ignorant of scientific theories, and historians disagree about whether the fourth, Watt, derived any influence from theory at all. It was they who made possible the theories of the vacuum and the laws of thermodynamics, not vice versa. Denis Papin, their French-born forerunner, was a scientist, but he got his insights from building an engine rather than the other way round. Heroic efforts by eighteenth-century scientists to prove that Newcomen got his chief insights from Papin's theories proved wholly unsuccessful.
Throughout the industrial revolution, scientists were the beneficiaries of new technology, much more than they were the benefactors. Even at the famous Lunar Society, where the industrial entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood liked to rub shoulders with natural philosophers like Erasmus Darwin and Joseph Priestley, he got his best idea - the 'rose-turning' lathe - from a fellow factory owner, Matthew Boulton. And although Benjamin Franklin's fertile mind generated many inventions based on principles, from lightning rods to bifocal spectacles, none led to the founding of industries.
So top-down science played little part in the early years of the industrial revolution. In any case, English scientific virtuosity dries up at the key moment. Can you name a single great English scientific discovery of the first half of the eighteenth century? It was an especially barren time for natural philosophers, even in Britain. No, the industrial revolution was not sparked by some deus ex machina of scientific inspiration. Later science did contribute to the gathering pace of invention and the line between discovery and invention became increasingly blurred as the nineteenth century wore on. Thus only when the principles of electrical transmission were understood could the telegraph be perfected; once coal miners understood the succession of geological strata, they knew better where to sink new mines; once benzene's ring structure was known, manufacturers could design dyes rather than serendipitously stumble on them. And so on. But even most of this was, in Joel Mokyr's words, 'a semi-directed, groping, bumbling process of trial and error by clever, dexterous professionals with a vague but gradually clearer notion of the processes at work'. It is a stretch to call most of this science, however. It is what happens today in the garages and cafes of Silicon Valley, but not in the labs of Stanford University.
The twentieth century, too, is replete with technologies that owe just as little to philosophy and to universities as the cotton industry did: flight, solid-state electronics, software. To which scientist would you give credit for the mobile telephone or the search engine or the blog? In a lecture on serendipity in 2007, the Cambridge physicist Sir Richard Friend, citing the example of high-temperature superconductivity - which was stumbled upon in the 1980s and explained afterwards - admitted that even today scientists' job is really to come along and explain the empirical findings of technological tinkerers after they have discovered something.
The inescapable fact is that most technological change comes from attempts to improve existing technology. It happens on the shop floor among apprentices and mechanicals, or in the workplace among the users of computer programs, and only rarely as a result of the application and transfer of knowledge from the ivory towers of the intelligentsia. This is not to condemn science as useless. The seventeenth-century discoveries of gravity and the circulation of the blood were splendid additions to the sum of human knowledge. But they did less to raise standards of living than the cotton gin and the steam engine. And even the later stages of the industrial revolution are replete with examples of technologies that were developed in remarkable ignorance of why they worked. This was especially true in the biological world. Aspirin was curing headaches for more than a century before anybody had the faintest idea of how. Penicillin's ability to kill bacteria was finally understood around the time bacteria learnt to defeat it. Lime juice was preventing scurvy centuries before the discovery of vitamin C. Food was being preserved by canning long before anybody had any germ theory to explain why it helped.
This article confirms not one but two of my medical prejudices, which is double nice. Experts have their uses, one of which is to tell you that you have been right all along about something they've only just discovered.
The article is about artificial sweeteners, and this is how it ends:
What does this all mean?
1. Our gut bacteria matters a lot. Some guts can withstand artificial sugars well and others can't. It stands to reason that, as we learn more about the uniqueness of our own microbiome, those of us who want to lose weight would be well served by diets that are tailored to the way our body and its biomic mini-me processes sugar.
2. Artificial sweeteners are pervasive and some people still can lose weight and enhance their health while consuming them. But since we now know that, on balance, they seem to be more bad than good, moderating how much we consume might be smart, too.
3. The study suggests that if people replace artificial sugars with real sugars or cut it out, their biomes could change in a way that contributes to the restoration of normal glucose tolerance over time, all other things being equal.
So, artificial sweeteners have a tendency to be very bad for you. That's prejudice of mine number one. But, they may not be bad for you because, and this is prejudice of mine number two, people vary, physically. There is not just the one way of being healthy. There are a minimum of several, and what is harmless or even beneficial for you and to those like you may be very bad for other sorts of people.
The basic reason I came to think that artificial sweeteners might be bad for me was, to begin with, pure rationalisation of the fact that I have always thought that they taste disgusting, compared to sugar. "Diet" stuff, as a general rule, tasted, to me, horrible compared to regular stuff. In particular, Diet Coke tasted like that pink liqued they make you gargle with at the dentist. I started out believing that Diet Coke is bad for you because I wanted it to be, and I wanted the Regular Coke that I have always chosen when coking up to be less bad. But the more I thought about that early frisson of (literally) distaste, the more I came to believe that my at first merely wishful thinking actually did make some sense. Sugar really is somewhat more natural than most sweeteners, or so I assume, and we are more likely to be creatures that can handle sugar, even if not in the quantities that life now offers.
Plus, about five years ago, my niece told me that aspartame (which she said is an evil chemical used to make evil non-sugar) is evil. Rubbish says Big Aspartame. But I reckon, for some people, it is evil.
While rootling around in the www like it was about 2003, I found this piece, dating from 2009, which was all about this apparently pretty but otherwise unremarkable abstract picture:
In case you don't already know what is going on here, the big story here is that the blue bits and the green bits are the same colour. What colour your eyes see something as depends on the other colours in the immediate vicinity.
The writer linked to above found this graphic here, which you can too if you do a bit of scrolling down.
If you saw this around 2009, or something similar around 2003, then apologies for the repetition. That early period of blogging, just after 2000, will always seem to me like a fleeting golden age, when everything of this sort was being discovered and passed on for the very first time. Because we could. Before, we couldn't. Now, we could. But now (as in now), most of this sort of trivia has been in circulation for a decade, and it lacks the impact it once had. We bloggers must find new things to say, to cover for the fact that blogging itself is no longer new. This is not a bad thing.
I've been reading Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life, and very entertaining and informative it is too. Strangely, one of the best things about it for me was that he explained, briefly and persuasively, both the rise to global stardom and the fall from global stardom of British agriculture. The rise was a lot to do with the idea of crop rotation. I remember vaguely being told about this in a prep school history class, but although I did remember the phrase "crop rotation", I didn't care about it or about what it made possible.
Here is Bryson's description of this key discovery:
The discovery was merely this: land didn't have to be rested regularly to retain its fertility. It was not the most scinitillatingof insights, but it changed the world.
Traditionally, most English farmland was divided into long strips called furlongs and each furlong was left fallow for one season in every three - sometimes one season in two - to recover its ability to produce healthy crops. This meant that in any year at least one-third of farmland stood idle. In consequence, there wasn't sufficient feed to keep large numbers of animals alive through the winter, so landowners had no choice but to slaughter most of their stock each autumn and face a long, lean period till spring.
Then English farmers discovered something that Dutch farmers had known for a long time: if turnips, clover or one or two other suitable crops were sown on the idle fields, they miraculously refreshed the soil and produced a bounty of winter fodder into the bargain. It was the infusion of nitrogen that did it, though no one would understand that for nearly two hundred years. What was understood, and very much appreciated, was that it transformed agricultural fortunes dramatically. Moreover, because more animals lived through the winter, they produced heaps of additional manure, and these glorious, gratis ploppings enriched the soil even further.
It is hard to exaggerate what a miracle all this seemed. Before the eighteenth century, agriculture in Britain lurched from crisis to crisis. An academic named W. G. Hoskins calculated (in 1964) that between 1480 and 1700, one harvest in four was bad, and almost one in five was catastrophically bad. Now, thanks to the simple expedient of crop rotation, agriculture was able to settle into a continuous, more or less reliable prosperity. It was this long golden age that gave so much of the countryside the air of prosperous comeliness it enjoys still today, ...
The fall of British agriculture was all mixed up with refrigeration, which enabled the wide open spaces of the late nineteenth century world to make masses of food and to transport it to hungry urban mouths everywhere before it went bad. Prices fell below what the farmers of Britain (where there were no wide open spaces by global standards) could match.
This afternoon, The Guru is coming by to reconstruct God, so God (the other one) willing, I will be back in serious computing business by this evening.
When I was recently in Brittany, my hosts supplied me with a state-of-the-art laptop and a state-of-the-art internet connection. These last few days, without God (my one) and having to make do with Dawkins (my obsolete and clunky little laptop, the thing I am typing into now), I have felt less connected to the world than I did in Brittany. I am connected, after a fashion. But Dawkins is so slow and clunky that I have been doing only essentials (like finding out about England being hammered in the ODI yesterday), and checking incoming emails, and shoving anything however bad up here once every day. It's like I've regressed to about 2000.
I have managed to put up a few pictures here, in God's absence. But Dawkins' screen makes these pictures look terrible. I am looking forward to seeing God's version of these pictures and hope they will be greatly improved compared to what I am seeing now.
Thank God (the other one) I haven't been depending on God (my one) for music. As I have surely explained here many times, one big reason I prefer CDs (and separate CD players scattered around my home) to all this twenty first century computerised music on a computer is that if God goes wrong, as he just has, I don't lose music. I also have music concerts recorded off of the telly, onto DVDs, which I can play on my telly, which is likewise a completely separate set-up to God.
In general, the argument against having everything done by one great big master computer is that when something goes wrong with that master computer, everything else in your life also goes wrong, just when you may need those things not to. One of the things that willgo wrong, rather regularly, with your all-in-one master computer is when this or that particular one of its excessively numerous functions becomes seriously out of date. I mean, if it has a vacuum cleaner included, what happens if vacuum cleaners suddenly get hugely better? In Brian world, all I have to do is get another new and improved vacuum cleaner, and chuck out the old one. In all-in-one master computer world, you are stuck with your obsolete vacuum cleaner. Or, if you can, you have to break open your all-in-one master computer and fit a new vacuum cleaner, and probably also lots of other new stuff to make sure the new vacuum cleaner works, which buggers up a couple of your other functions that used to work fine but which no longer work fine. Or at all. I prefer to keep things simple, and separate.
Something rather similar applies with how to handle (the other) God. That is another arrangement you don't want to have running the whole of your life for you either. It's okay if you do God for some of the time and keep Him in his place, but you want scientists telling you about science, doctors about medicine, and your work colleagues about your work, and so on. If, on the other hand, absolutely everything in your life, and worse, everything in the entire world you live in, is controlled by ((your version of) the other) God, everything is very liable to go to Hell. (Aka: Separation of Church and State. Aks: don't be a religious nutter.)
I have my own particular take on (the other) God, which is that He is made-up nonsense. But just as wise believers in (the other) God don't let that dominate their thinking on non-God things, nor do I think that my opinions about (the other) God can explain everything else as well. These opinions merely explain the particular matter of (the other) God being made-up nonsense.
Do not, as they say, put all your eggs in one basket.
Overheard in a TV advert for sweeties:
You can't trust atoms. They make up everything.
Talking of which, I am now reading Lee Smolin's book about String Theory. Basic message: It's a cult. I haven't yet read him using that actual word, but that's what he is saying.
I am, of course, not qualified to judge if Smolin is right, but you don't have to be qualified to express a judgement, and I judge that Smolin is right. And the way I like to learn about new stuff is by reading arguments about it, starting with the argument that says I am right about it. Smolin is basically telling me that my ignorant prejudice that String Theory is one of the current world's epicentres of the Higher Bollocks is right, although he is careful not to express himself as crudely as I just did, for fear of upsetting his physicist friends, and because, unlike me, he sees some merit in String Theory.
I have known that String Theory was in trouble for some time, because Big Bang Theory's resident String Theorist, Dr Sheldon Cooper, has been having doubts about it. He wanted to switch to something else, but they said: We hired you as a String Theorist and a String Theorist you will remain.
The above link is to a blog I had not heard of before, entitled Not Even Wrong. Not Even Wrong is the title of another book I have recently obtained with has a go at String Theory. I have not yet started reading this.
It's true. You can't trust atoms. And grabbing both ends of one and stretching it out into a string doesn't change that. It makes it worse.
From Stuff Matters by Mark Miodownik (pp. 80-81):
Given that literally half of the world's structures are made from concrete, the upkeep of concrete structures represents a huge and growing effort. To make matters more difficult, many of these structures are in environments that we don't want to have to revisit on a regular basis, such as the Oresund bridge connecting Sweden and Denmark, or the inner core of a nuclear power station. In these situations it would be ideal to find a way to allow concrete to look after itself, to engineer concrete to be self-healing. Such a concrete does now exist, and although it is in its infancy it has already been shown to work.
The story of these self-healing concretes started when scientists began to investigate the types of life forms that can survive extreme conditions. They found a type of bacterium that lives in the bottom of highly alkaline lakes formed by volcanic activity. These lakes have pH values of 9-11, which will cause burns to human skin. Previously it had been thought, not unreasonably, that no life could exist in these sulphurous ponds. But careful study revealed life to be much more tenacious than we thought. Alkaliphilic bacteria were found to be able to survive in these conditions. And it was discovered that one particular type called B. Pasteurii could excrete the mineral calcite, a constituent of concrete. These bacteria were also found to be extremely tough and able to survive dormant, encased in rock, for decades.
Self-healing concrete has these bacteria embedded inside it along with a form of starch, which acts as food for the bacteria. Under normal circumstances these bacteria remain dormant, encased by the calcium silicate hydrate fibrils. But if a crack forms, the bacteria are released from their bonds, and in the presence of water they wake up and start to look around for food. They find the starch that has been added to the concrete, and this allows them to grow and replicate. In the process they excrete the mineral calcite, a form of calcium carbonate. This calcite bonds to the concrete and starts to build up a mineral structure that spans the crack, stopping further growth of the crack and sealing it up.
It's the sort of idea that might sound good in theory but never work in practice. But it does work. Research now shows that cracked concrete that has been prepared in this way can recover 90 per cent of its strength thanks to these bacteria. This self-healing concrete is now being developed for use in real engineering structures.
Maybe Miodownik is very good at explaining things, or maybe I am just ready to be learning this stuff. Probably both. I chose that excerpt because my average reader may not know about such things as bacteria which automatically repair concrete. But the truth is that I am almost embarrassed by how much I am reading that is new to me, or only vaguely known, as a sort of historical rumour.
I had no idea, to take just one example, who invented/discovered stainless steel, or where, or how. Now, I have a much better idea. The story is told on page 29 of this book, which I heartily recommend to all technological illiterates who would like not to be technological illiterates.
Every once in a while I hear or read about someone who sees sound, as colour, different sorts of sounds as different colours. (As you can tell from the links at the bottom of this, I just did this again, on purpose.) What the hell are these people talking about? You don't see sound, you hear it.
But, I have learned enough of the contrasting natures and nervous systems of different people to know that claims of this sort are probably true, in the sense that this is indeed what it feels like to those making such claims, even if the claims made no sense whatever to me. (Here is another piece by me, about how different people differ, this time with respect to the notion that you (i.e. they) can decide what you (they) believe. To me, what you believe is what you actually do believe, and you can no more change it with a mere decision than you can decide to grow another foot. But other people clearly can change what they believe, in just this cavalier fashion. What they actually, deep down, think is true doesn't seem to matter to them. To me: bewildering and bizarre. To them: obvious and commonplace.)
So anyway, back to those bizarre and bewildering people who see sounds, different sounds as different colours.
I now understand these people much better.
Because, yesterday morning, for a fleeting instant, it happened to me.
Immediately after it happened, I hastily bashed some notes into a computer file describing what I had just experienced, and that is the file that I am now typing further and more considered thoughts into now.
What happened was that I awoke, to the sound of my alarm clock. This alarm clock makes a high pitched beeping noise: beep, pause, beep, pause, beep, pause ...
And, I experienced this sound as ... white.
That is correct. I saw the sound. And the sound was just as white as the background colour of the file into which I am now typing, or the background colour of this blog posting as you are now looking at it.
I never experience sounds a colours when fully conscious. But it makes perfect sense to me that experiences I may only have during the weird moment when I am neither entirely awake nor entirely asleep, but am moving from the latter state to the former state, might be experiences that others may have much more frequently, even when fully awake. Or, fully awake by their standards.
Yesterday morning, for that fleeting, bleeping instant, some sort of weird connection was being made between my ears and the bit of brain where colours get processed and reflected upon, a place where all incoming messages are interpreted as colours no matter what they were originally, a connection that doesn't normally occur, or perhaps which continues to occur when I am fully awake, but so weakly compared to the connections made between my ears and and the sound processing part of my brain as to be undetectable.
All I have to believe, about those strange people who see sounds as colours all the time, is that they experience what I very briefly experienced yesterday morning, but much more strongly than I did and do. This is not now hard for me to imagine, not hard at all.
A very quick skim-read of this wikipedia article about chromesthesia (which is the particular sort of synesthesia that turns sound into colour, as opposed to just something into something else) did to tell me that chromosthesia can happen particularly when you are waking up, but that could be wrong.
However, I did spot (at the other end of the chromesthesia link above) this:
However, all studies to date have reported that synesthetes and non-synesthetes alike match high pitched sounds to lighter or brighter colors and low pitched sounds to darker tones, indicating that there may be some common mechanism that underlies the associations present in normal adult brains.
So, I am not alone in associating a high pitched bleep with a very light colour, in my case the lightest colour of the lot.
A commenter on one of the climate skeptic blogs, I think at Bishop Hill, provided a link to this fascinating posting, at Coyote Blog.
The Coyote man combines three tendencies that he sees in global temperatures. First, there is a warming process that has been going on since the Little Ice Age. Second, there is a slight kink upwards in this graph, very slight, associated with recent CO2 increase. Third, there is an oscillating wave, for some reason involving a couple of acronyms. And the result is a graph that seems to fit the recent facts better than any other graph I've seen. Certainly better than that idiot hockey stick.
If Coyote is right about all this, and he is in fact only semi-serious about it, then the global temperature will soon be seen to be inching downwards, until about 2030, at which point it will then turn back towards relatively rapid heating, again, along the lines of what happened from circa 1970 to circa 2000. So, a few We Will Freeze years, followed by some more We Will Fry decades.
However, we're talking tiny numbers here. None of this is remotely describable as a catastrophe, even in the long run.
Coyote says he developed this stuff six years ago. But I could find no link back to him actually saying this six years ago. Pity.
Not for the first time, I find myself wishing that I could live another two hundred years rather than for about another twenty or probably less. What will happen to global temperatures for the next century or so? How will the politics of it all play out? I'd love to live long enough to find out. But, I won't.
This started out as a jokey posting about climate science. It ended up as yet another rumination on the process of getting old. When you are young you are going to live indefinitely. You will die, eventually. But too long into the future for this event to be distinguishable for practical purposes from never. Then, rather suddenly, that all changes.
I recently did another climate science posting at Samizdata.
I still can't get used to the internet. I never really will. You can find all kinds of stuff out in a few seconds. You know that, and so do I know it. But, unlike (probably) you, I will never get truly used to this.
Last night, for instance, there was a TV show on about Fossils, fronted by this old Fossil Professor, and mention was made of – and a little sliver of film was shown of – a building (with lots of fossils in it) called the Royal Ontario Museum. I said, that looks like that Daniel Libeskind museum in Berlin, in the saw cuts in big blocks style. So let's see about that Royal Ontario Museum shall we? Sure enough, that is Libeskind also.
I had imagined that the saw cut style was specifically used only for that Berlin museum, to make you wince when you look at the building, same as you do when you find out the grizzly details of what happened to all those Berlin Jews.
However, it now seems (to me) that Libeskind just likes doing saw cuts. Am I getting this wrong?
Maybe I could google that question also, and find out if anyone else agrees with the above. But that's enough answers for one posting.


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The Midnight Meat Train is a 2008 mystery horror-thriller film based on Clive Barker's 1984 short story of the same name, which can be found in Volume One of Barker's collection Books of Blood. The film follows a photographer who attempts to track down a serial killer dubbed the "Subway Butcher" and discovers more than he bargained for under the city streets.
List of links to The Midnight Meat Train fansites:
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subset: commoncrawl


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72-Year-Old Morgan Shepherd To Attempt To Make Daytona 500
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) – Morgan Shepherd will attempt to become the oldest driver to race in the Daytona 500 when he tries to qualify later this month.
Shepherd turned 72 in October. He became the oldest driver to compete in a Sprint Cup race last summer at New Hampshire.
He'll try to qualify for the Daytona 500 in the No. 93 Support Military Foundation Toyota in collaboration with BK Racing.
Shepherd partnered with SMF when he ran New Hampshire last July. It was Shepherd's first Cup race since 2006. He ran 92 laps before retiring. Shepherd ran eight Nationwide Series races last season, and ran the full 34-race schedule in 2011.
Shepherd has competed in 15 previous Daytona 500s, with a career-best finish of second in 1992 while driving for The Wood Brothers.
(© Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
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Virtualization 101: Refreshing Servers in Your Datacenter With VMware and HP
Watch Now
Date Added: Nov 2009
Format: Webcast
By combining HP ProLiant G6 servers, HP virtualized storage systems and VMware vSphere 4, one can refresh the IT environment with an advanced yet simple end-to-end virtualized architecture that reduces costs, simplifies management and enhances business agility. Together, VMware and HP can accelerate the refresh of the existing hardware by delivering a next-generation datacenter built on converged and virtualized platforms. The attendee of this webcast will find out how quickly business savings can stack up and will learn how to transform the business with HP and VMware virtualization solutions.


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Catalogue entry
[from] Picturesque Views in England and Wales pub.1827–38 [T04503-T04612; T05081-T05104; T05873; complete]
Twenty-four line-engravings, by various engravers and in various states, comprising twenty-four subjects out of a total of ninety-six (see also T04503-T04612 above); various papers and sizes; some annotated in pencil with initials of unidentified collector 'FHB'
Purchased (Grant-in-Aid) 1988
Prov: ...; N.W. Lott and H.J. Gerrish Ltd, from whom bt by Tate Gallery (earlier provenance given in individual entries where known)
Lit: As for T04503-T04612
For the publishing history of this series, see under T04503-T04612.
T05098 Powis Castle, Montgomery engr. J.T. Willmore, pub.1836
Line-engraving 165 × 251 (6 1/2 × 9 7/8) on India paper laid on wove paper 436 × 599 (17 1/8 × 23 9/16); plate-mark 243 × 318 (9 9/16 × 12 1/2)
With Turner studio blind stamp
Prov: As for T05083
Lit: Rawlinson I 1908, no.285, first published state
Published in part XX, no.1. Original watercolour: City Art Gallery, Manchester (Shanes 1979, no.69, repr. in col.; Wilton 1979, no.861).
Published in:
Tate Gallery: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions 1986-88, London 1996


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Under The Gun sent photographer Derek Scancarelli to Best Buy Theater in New York City to photograph Clockwork Indigo on December 5, 2014.
In October, Brooklyn hip-hop crews Flatbush Zombies and The Underachievers dropped a collaborative EP entitled Clockwork Indigo.
The New York City stop of the Clockwork Indigo Tour marked the last weekend of a 36-date run of shows around the United States where the groups took stage under their A Clockwork Orange inspired collaboration.
Aside from the Stanley Kubrick themed logos, the other main semblances to the director's obscure and maniacal styling was the raw energy and …


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Select Local Merchants
Unicorne CrepesRead MoreLocated in Unicorne Crepes, Unicorne Crepes' crepes have a gooey inside and crisp outside. If you want a dainty meal, go elsewhere. If you want a craveworthy dish, get to Unicorne Crepes. Little ones are just as welcome as their parents at Unicorne Crepes. Your group can sit comfortably at Unicorne Crepes, a local restaurant. You can also have Unicorne Crepes cater your next event. Or, take your grub to go. Parking is plentiful — the restaurant provides valet in the nearby lot, where regular parking is also available. Drivers can take advantage of alternate street parking when the lot is packed. Unicorne Crepes offers safe bike parking outside. You can enjoy a delicious meal at Unicorne Crepes for a bargain rate, with most tabs there running well under $15 per person. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are all available at Unicorne Crepes.2800 Southcenter MallTukwila, WA US
Melting PotRead MoreMelting Pot's French chef is serving up little bites of heaven. Take your vehicle to dinner nearby parking is plentiful and will not pose a problem for drivers looking to dine. A night out here can be a bit pricey, so prepare to shell out a bit more. So come taste the food of love at Melting Pot's delicious French restaurant in Issaquah.23420 SE Black Nugget RdIssaquah, WA US
Byblos DeliRead MoreThe premier destination for a flavorful menu, Byblos Deli in Bellevue is one of the area's top-rated restaurants. The reasonable prices allow customers to focus on what matters: the perfect quality. Thanks to its outdoor seating, the restaurant is a fantastic option when the Cascadian weather cooperates. There's not really a recommended attire, so feel free to dress comfortably. Also, in addition to its low prices, this won't exactly be the place to earn credit card points (it's cash-only). In fact, you should be able to enjoy a good meal for $11 or $12, and can probably get in and out for $8 if you try. There truly is something for everyone, with both healthy and vegetarian items on the robust menu. Plus, most local parents will tell you that it's a good place to bring the kids, as well. In addition to its convenient take-out offerings, the restaurant even provides catering for events around town. A good spot for both lunch and dinner, Byblos Deli is a great choice when you're in the mood for unique international cuisine, and want to be more adventurous than the regular ol' Chinese/Mexican/Italian fare. Don't worry about trying to find a spot on the street, as visitors to the restaurant do have access to a private parking lot nearby.14220 NE 20th StBellevue, WA US
Place PigalleRead MorePlace Pigalle: A User's Guide French Cuisine | Pike Place Market | Puget Sound Views | Intimate Seating Sample Menu Cocktail: Mariana, made with vodka, Mandarine Napoléon, Campari, and fresh lime Appetizer: octopus with housemade lavender-and-fennel sausage, preserved lemon, tomatoes, spinach, and garlic Entree: bouillabaisse provençale with seasonal fish, Dungeness crab, clams, mussels, prawns, saffron-tomato broth, and crostini rouille Where to Sit: Day or night, find a window seat, or—better yet—grab a table outside to take in the epitomic Seattle sights. When to Go: The restaurant is open seven days a week for lunch and dinner, or you can stop in for a glass of wine or cocktail at the bar. While You're Waiting Take in the views of the bright ferris wheel, glimmering Elliott Bay, and Olympic Mountain. Glance through the 11-page list of regional and international reserve wines, from champagnes to sherries. Inside Tips Don't skip the cocktails. Bartenders squeeze fresh orange, grapefruit, lime, and lemon juice for house drinks, such as the Tuscan Lemon Drop with fresh lemon and vanilla-citrus liquor, and classics like a Hemingway Daiquiri or Corpse Reviver #2. Silence your cell. Fellow diners will appreciate it, and the staff will expect it. Fun Fact: Place Pigalle is named after the red-light district in Paris. Years before it became a fine-dining institution in 1982, it served as a bordello (masked as an inn), a biker hangout, and then a gathering place for artists and travelers. Vocab Lesson Dungeness crab: West Coast crab with a slightly sweeter taste than snow or king crabs. Bouillabaisse: a Provençal fish stew originating in Marseille, typically made with several types of fish and shellfish and served with rouille on grilled bread. Rouille: a creamy sauce blended with olive oil, breadcrumbs, and saffron.81 Pike StreetSeattle, WA US
Cafe CampagneRead MoreCafe Campagne: A User's Guide French Comfort Food | Award-Winning Fries | House-Made Charcuterie | Popular Brunch Spot | 30 Wines Sample Menu Brunch: scrambled eggs with fresh herbs and pork sausage Lunch: croque monsieur Dinner: crispy duck-leg confit Dessert: homemade ice cream Where to Sit: Ask for a table on the terrace, where patrons can look out on all the bustling activity of Pike Place Market. When to Go: Try happy hour, which occurs from 4–6 p.m. Monday–Friday. While You're Waiting: Grab a seat at the long, wooden bar. Bartenders mix cocktails and pour 30 wines by the glass. Inside Tips Mark your calendar. Every year, the café hosts Drink Pink, a party with wine tastings and hor d'oeuvres. French accents are optional. If you can't find something on the wine list, bring your own bottle for a small corkage fee. Cafe Campagne is cool with this, as long as they don't offer the same wine. Press and Praise The Stranger says "Cafe Campagne makes you feel like everything's all right, especially at weekend brunch." Eater readers put the café on their list of Top 8 French Fries in Seattle. Vocab Lesson Croque-monsieur: originated in French cafés, this pressed sandwich is filled with ham, gruyère, and béchamel. (A fried egg turns it into a croque-madame.) Confit: a French term used to describe food that has been cooked in oil, syrup, or—in the case of some meat—its own fat, and then preserved. While You're in the Neighborhood Before: Buy a vintage poster at Old Seattle Paperworks (1514 Pike Place). After: Catch a surprising, tongue-in-cheek production at Theater Schmeater (2125 3rd Avenue).1600 Post AlleySeattle, WA US
Virginia InnRead MoreThe Three Faces of Virginia Inn Local Ingredients While Virginia Inn started as a bar, it's now more of a bistro, serving specialty cocktails, local beers and wines, and dishes made with Pacific Northwest ingredients. Washington beef comprises burgers, Alaskan halibut fills sandwiches, and Oregon shrimp mingles with veggies. Even the ice cream is local, hailing from Snoqualmie Gourmet Ice Cream. Artistic Traditions Art has been an important part of Virginia Inn since opening under the current management in 1981. It claims to be one of the area's first "artbars," featuring more than 300 artists on its walls over the years. So beloved is its art tradition that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer called it one of the two best places to show art in the city in the '80s. High Praise The only reason Virginia Inn wasn't considered an all-out dive bar was its historic status (it's been around in some form since 1903). That changed in 2008, however, when the space was renovated into what Seattle Met calls "a French-meets-Northwest bistro and bar that outclasses some of the best restaurants in the city." Frommer's also took notice of the menu, praising the spot for it's "decent, inexpensive French food".1937 1st AvenueSeattle, WA US


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The control of blood sugar and its possible role in preventing cardiovascular disease is the focus of discussion on a new blog for health care professionals.
Somerville, NJ (PRWEB) February 17, 2009 -- Does the control of blood sugar, an important part of treatment for people with type 2 diabetes, contribute to the prevention of cardiovascular disease? While earlier studies suggested that patients with diabetes who were put on a regimen of blood sugar control would also benefit in preventing cardiovascular disease, several more recent studies are inconclusive on this point.
Health care professionals who want more information on this topic and would like to discuss it with their peers can now find free downloadable set of slides as well as an interactive BLOG on the www.diabetesbestpractices.com website.
The slide presentation focuses on the findings of the latest study in this field, The Veterans Affairs Diabetes Trial (VADT).
In the VADT study a comparison was made between patients with diabetes who were put on a standard treatment program for the reduction of blood sugar and those who were given an intensive glucose control regimen.
The study found no significant difference between the treatment groups in any component of the primary outcome that included first time occurrence of a major cardiovascular event and there was no difference in the rate of death from any cause. In addition there was no difference in microvascular complications.
The VADT study concludes that "For now, appropriate management of hypertension, dyslipidemia, and other cardiovascular risk factors appears to be the most effective approach to preventing cardiovascular morbidity and mortality."
In light of these findings, Dr. Anthony McCall, Professor of Diabetes at
|Source: PRWeb
Copyright©2009 Vocus, Inc.
All rights reserved


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Keira Knightley Discusses Perfume and Coco Mademoiselle 2011-03-11 12:20:00
Keira Knightley Talks Coco Mademoiselle
by Lacey Gattis
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arcticpuppet 4 years
she is so stunning!
postmodernsleaze 4 years
Right!? She's very convincing!!
styrch 4 years
Ok, I think Kiera may have just sold me on purchasing Coco Mademoiselle simply because of her statements about perfume and about THAT perfume.


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Remember the kids art idea we tried last week, exploring texture? Here's what happened when we added painting on top – lovely sensory, textured experiments!
Kids art :: painting on texture
The surface of our boards was made up of a collage of recycled materials, in all sorts of textured finishes. (See how we made them here)
Once the glue had dried, we decided to come back and use our collages for more art, this time by adding paint on top.
Some people wanted a rainbow of colours…
some people chose shades of similar colours.
Everyone discovered that adding the paint on top of the textured surface was fun! There was lots to explore as the lines, bumps and feel of the different materials took the paint differently. We could:
:: paint along the top or right inside the grooves
:: use a paint brush lightly over the surface to only paint the material on top
:: use a tooth brush on the sandpaper, to really feel the grainy texture
:: poke the end of a paint brush into the polystyrene, and then use the brush end to fill in with colour
:: paint each surface a different colour, or use one colour over them all
Lovely relaxing and interesting experiments – really great for wind-down times, or for transitions. (Rather than saying no to a messy activity like painting right before bedtime, I find it's a perfect way for the children to say goodbye to a busy day and turn into night-time mode.)
And here are some finished pieces. Same concept, similar process, totally different products at the end.
Have you ever tried this painting idea with your children? What textured materials did you use?
More kids art ideas
For painting ideas that are a little bit different, see what you can make with no paint brushes allowed.


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Home > Electronics > iPod/MP3 Players, Voice Recorders > iPod/MP3 Accessories > Sound Docks & Speakers
Kanex AirBlue Portable Bluetooth Receiver for Car and Home
Usually ships in 5-7 business days. Limited availability. May not be in stock at time of order. No back orders.
The Kanex AirBlue is a portable Bluetooth-based music receiver that simply enables you to wirelessly play, listen and control all your favorite media from your iPod touch, iPhone or MP3 player through your home stereo or speakers and in-car stereo.
Product Information
Mfr Part#
Device Type
Convenient and portable; Control Bluetooth devices over AV; Charge via USB; Long-life battery
Dock Specifications
Compatible Devices
Interface Type
Wireless Range
Up to 33 Feet
Power Specifications
Integrated Rechargeable Battery
Battery Life
Up to 10 Hours
Manufacturer Warranty
What's in the Box
What's in the Box
Receiver, 3.5mm to RCA Cable, 3.5mm to 3.5mm Cable, Mini USB to USB Cable
Important Add-Ons
Questions and Answers
More Info
Warranty & Support
Vendor Warranty:
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Micro Center Return Policy:
We guarantee your satisfaction on every product we sell with a full refund — and you won't even need a receipt.* We want you to be satisfied with your Micro Center purchase. However, if you need help or need to return an item, we're here for you!
If an item you have purchased from us is not working as expected, please visit one of our in-store Knowledge Experts for free help, where they can solve your problem or even exchange the item for a product that better suits your needs.
If you need to return an item, simply bring it back to any Micro Center store for a full refund or exchange.
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Desktop / notebook computers, tablets, processors, motherboards, digital cameras, camcorders and projectors, 3D printers, 3D scanners, and CD/DVD duplicators may be returned within 15 days of purchase. All other products may be returned within 30 days of purchase. Merchandise must be in new condition, with original carton / UPC, and all packaging / accessories / materials. If you need to return software, a game or a movie, remember that you may not retain any copies — it's not legal, and it's not nice.
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Wireless phones and devices may be returned within 14 days of purchase. When returning a wireless phone or device with a plan, you are responsible for ensuring that your service is cancelled with the carrier. If you don't cancel your service, you may incur additional charges from your carrier. All carrier charges are your responsibility.
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If you need help with hardware or software products purchased from Micro Center, please contact one of our knowledgeable tech support reps by live chat or email.
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Louis Berger Group
The Louis Berger Group, based in Morristown, NJ, according to their website:
Source: Wikipedia
Campaign Finance$121,557 Given
Figures are based on itemized contributions reported to the Federal Election Commission and state agencies. Please note that:
- contributions under $200 are not reported, and so are not included in totals.
- only contributions from individuals and organizations to candidates are included. Various accounting measures and more exotic contribution types are excluded.
- contributions are matched based on organization and recipient name reported within each election cycle. Contributions using an incorrect or non-standard version of the name may be missed.
- corporate name changes and mergers may cause figures to differ from those of the Center for Responsive Politics.
- organization totals include known subsidiaries of the organization.
For more information, please see our campaign finance methodology page. Lobbyist bundling data is described on our lobbyist bundling methodology page.
Top Recipients
- PAC Color Block
- Organization's PAC(s)
- Employee Color Block
- Associated Individuals
Republicans vs. Democratsin dollars. "Other" includes 3rd parties and organizations without official party affiliation.
State vs. Federalin dollars
Top PAC Recipients
- PAC Color Block
- Organization's PAC(s)
- Employee Color Block
- Associated Individuals
Lobbying$340,000 Spent
Figures are based on lobbying activity reported to the Senate Office of Public Records. Reported dollar amounts are required to be accurate only to the nearest $20,000. For organizations whose primary business is lobbying, we display total income and top clients. For organizations that are not primarily lobbying firms, we display total amount spent on lobbying and top lobbying firms hired.
For more information, please see our lobbying methodology page.
Lobbying on Behalf of Louis Berger Group
Names of Lobbyists
Most Frequently Disclosed Lobbying Issues
- Defense,
- Foreign Relations,
- Transportation
RegulationsMentioned in 17 dockets; Submitted to 2 dockets
All data is based on documents downloaded from Regulations.gov. The first table shows mentions: all documents that include the name of the company anywhere in the document or document metadata. The second table shows submissions: all documents where the submitter metadata included the company name. Each table shows the top 10 dockets, ranked by number of occurrences.
Matches are based on a search for the company name. Variations in the company name, such as acronyms, nicknames or alternate names may cause documents to be missed. The mention of a company name in a document may be incidental and does not necessarily indicate that the company has any relevance to the document. Company names that are common English words may erroneously match with text that is not referring to the company.
Not all agencies submit public comments to Regulations.gov. For a list of participating and non-participating agencies see here. Agencies that do submit to Regulations.gov have varying levels of accuracy and completeness.
Regulations and public comments can be downloaded in bulk here.
The tables show occurrences of "Louis Berger Group" in public comments on proposed federal regulations.
Documents Submitted by the Organization
View all submissions data for Louis Berger Group
- Submissions
- Agency
- Docket
- Date
Mentions in Document Text
- Mentions
- Agency
- Docket
- Date
View all mentions data for Louis Berger Group
- Toggle 3 BIS Proposed Revisions to the Export Administration Regulations: Implementation of Export Control Reform; Revisions to License Exceptions after Retrospective Regulatory Review 2012
- Toggle 2 EPA Ocean Dumping; Sabine-Neches Waterway Ocean Dredged Material Disposal Site Designation 2011
- Toggle 2 SBA Small Business Size Standards: Professional, Scientific and Technical Services 2011
- Toggle 1 DOE Applications for Long-Term Authorizations to Export Liquefied Natural Gas, etc.: Jordan Cove Energy Project, L.P. 2012
- Toggle 1 FWS Designation of Critical Habitat for the Northwest Atlantic Ocean Distinct Population Segment of the Loggerhead Sea Turtle 2012
- Toggle 1 BIS Bureau of Industry and Security: Retrospective Regulatory Review Under E.O. 13563 2011
- Toggle 1 EPA Definition of "Waters of the United States" Under the Clean Water Act 2011
- Toggle 1 SBA Small Business Size Standards: Administrative and Support, Waste management and Remediation Services 2011
- Toggle 1 USCBP Opening of Boquillas Border Crossing and Update to the Class B Port of Entry Description 2011
- Toggle 1 NHTSA Environmental Impact Statement for Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE)Standards, Model Years 2017-2025 2011
Advisory Committees1 person on 1 committee
Data is based on disclosures required by the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). Matches are based on the occurrence of the company name in the committee member affiliation. Variations in company names may cause some matches to be missed.
The table shows only the top 10 agencies. To search and download raw records from the complete dataset see the FACA data section.
Table shows employees of "Louis Berger Group" that sat on federal advisory committees.
- Agency
- Representation
- Toggle Department of Commerce 1 person on 1 committee


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Support for Voter Registration Modernization
Support for the effort to modernize our voter registration system is increasing. Below, find a collection of selected quotes from elected officials and newspapers in support of Voter Registration Modernization.
Elected Officials | Other Officials | Editorial Support
"Democracy works best when everyone participates. By removing unnecessary roadblocks to the ballot box, more residents will be able to exercise their constitutional right and have their voices heard. [Same day registration] will help more people across Illinois have a say in how their community, state and nation are run."
— Illinois Gov. Patrick Quinn (D) (Illinois News Network, 7/1/2014)
"The fundamental right to vote is a cornerstone of our democracy, but unfortunately, the inefficiencies and errors in the administration of our elections have become common and are eroding the right of citizens to participate in elections. During our last federal election, far too many citizens had to overcome significant obstacles in order to cast a ballot. The existence of long lines, malfunctioning poll books, defective voting machines, and the lack of staff and adequate resources at polling locations created inexcusable conditions for voters."
— U.S. Sens. Barbara Boxer, Chris Coons, Mark Warner, and Bill Nelson (D) (Senator Boxer's Press Release, 6/11/13)
"We haven't been able to get the legislature to respond to our efforts to allow online voter registration. It's cheaper, it's easier and it's more secure. We can save between $1.5 million and $3.5 million for the local boards of elections…It's simpler for the voter, because it's right there at their fingertips."
— Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) (Cleveland.com, 6/30/14)
"This legislation [which allows for early voting, pre-registration, and online voter registration] makes our democracy stronger…With this new law we are making it easier and more efficient to register and vote, ensuring more people have an opportunity to participate in the election process."
— Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) (Governor Patrick's Press Release, 5/22/14)
"After moving some mountains to quickly launch online voter registration in time for the 2012 presidential election season, I wanted to see what could be done to make [online registration] even better. This enhanced application is a result of in-depth collaboration among dozens of experts in cultural, language, disability access, elections and technology issues"
— California Secretary of State Debra Bowen (D) (California SOS Press Release, 4/21/14)
"Earlier this year, a bipartisan commission I appointed chaired by my election lawyer and Mitt Romney's election lawyer came up with a series of modern -- or common-sense reforms to modernize voter registration, and to curb the potential for fraud in smart way, and ensure that no one has to wait for more than half an hour to cast a ballot. States and local election boards should take up those recommendations. And with the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer almost upon us, I urge members of Congress to honor those who gave their lives so that others could exercise their rights, and update the Voting Rights Act. Go ahead and get that done."
— President Barack Obama (Remarks at the National Action Network's Annual Convention, 4/11/14)
"Georgians deserve to be able to register to vote or change their information with as much ease as possible. [Online registration] not only will provide benefits to the voter, but also for all 159 counties,"
— Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp (R) (ZPolitics, 4/1/14)
"This new system [online voter registration] will make it faster and more convenient for citizens of all eligible ages to take advantage of one of their most fundamental rights as American citizens…Voting is the most basic tenant of our democracy – it is incumbent upon us to ensure that voters have adequate access to the ballot box and that we encourage civic engagement."
— Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy (D) (Governor Malloy's Press Release, 2/18/14)
"Indiana is the first state in the nation to develop standards for this new frontier of technology…We have become leaders in modernizing the electoral process. First, we gave every county the option to use ePollBooks and now we are protecting Hoosier voters as they sign-in by ensuring only the best quality ePollBooks are used in Indiana."
— Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson (R) (Indiana Secretary of State Press Release, 1/29/14)
"I am committed to ensuring that all eligible Missourians have the opportunity to cast a ballot, and since you can't vote unless you're registered, we decided to do what we could to simplify the process and make it more convenient for voters…Now, Missourians will have the opportunity to fill out their registration form in one step from their homes, instead of multiple steps at different locations."
— Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander (D) (Missouri Secretary of State Press Release, 12/19/13)
"Today we join many states that have already demonstrated that online registration is secure and that it saves taxpayers money."
— Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie (D) (Minnesota Secretary of State Press Release, 9/26/13)
"ERIC [Electronic Registration Information Center] provides states with a powerful new set of tools that improve the accuracy of voter rolls and expand access to voter registration, achieving both goals more efficiently …We need to continue modernizing our voter registration system to be more accurate, cost-effective, and efficient."
— Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman (R) (Washington Secretary of State Press Release, 9/4/13)
"The launch of online voter registration will enable eligible citizens to apply to register to vote and to update their registration information online, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, regardless of where military service, family or professional obligations may require them to be. I am proud to have sponsored this legislation to assist Virginians to more conveniently participate in elections. Online registration is secure and enhances the integrity of Virginia's voter rolls; further, it saves costs and increases efficiency and access."
— Virginia Delegate David Ramadan (R), sponsor of legislation (Virginia State Board of Elections, 7/23/13)
"Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote."
— President Barack Obama (Inaugural Address, 1/21/13)
"[Online voter registration] will help people who find traditional procedures out of reach, including the housebound and the disabled community. With the right equipment, for example, sightless people can register without the assistance of another person to fill out a card. Our military servicemen and women will find far less delay in registration, eliminating worries about whether the snail mail will deliver their paperwork in time."
— Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown (D) (The Oregonian, 3/1/10)
"The integrity of our election system requires an automated voter registration process that is accurate, permanent and secure. A modernized system would serve voters better and save states money by streamlining the process, substantially reducing or eliminating paper and minimizing administration costs."
— Ken Blackwell (R), Ohio Secretary of State 1999-2007 (Washington Times, 10/05/2009)
"Democrats believe it is too hard for people to register and vote; Republicans believe it is too easy to register and vote fraudulently. There may be a way to solve both problems simultaneously through new technology and forge a better bipartisan solution."
— Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) (National Journal, 04/13/2009)
"One key area where improvements are necessary, and possible, is the modernization of our voter registration system."
— Robin Carnahan (D), former Missouri Secretary of State and Trey Grayson (R), former Kentucky Secretary of State (Roll Call, 03/10/2009)
"By linking these voter databases to other state agencies—the DMV, the post office, tax rolls, felon lists, death records—the potential to reduce fraud and and prevent [eligible] voters from being turned away is tremendous."
— Then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) (Keynote Address, Launch of AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project, 02/08/2006)
"A system of automatic registration, in which the government bears more of the responsibility for assembling accurate and secure lists of eligible voters, is a necessary reform."
— Then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) (The New York Times, 11/06/2008)
"Our aim was to transcend partisan divisions and view election administration as public administration that must heed the expressed interests and expectations of voters …The focus that we and our eight colleagues on the Commission brought to the Report is recognition of the issues and trends in election administration judged from the standpoint of voter expectation and the ways those expectations can and should be met."
— Robert F. Bauer and Benjamin L. Ginsberg, Chairs of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration (Presidential Commission on Election Administration, 1/22/14)
"This view of administration will not only reduce wait times where they occur, but also improve the quality of administration in many other ways, from the registration process through the selection and design of polling places, to improved access for particular communities of voters, such as those with disabilities or limited English proficiency, and overseas and military voters. The Commission has found that problems encountered with election administration overlap and intersect, and improved management at one stage in the process will yield benefits at later stages. Improving the accuracy of registration rolls, for example, can expand access, reduce administrative costs, prevent fraud and irregularity, and reduce polling place congestion leading to long lines."
— The Presidential Commission on Election Administration's Letter to President Obama (Presidential Commission on Election Administration, January 2014)
"The challenge for the [US election] system, and for this Commission, is to confront the problems revealed with each election and to institutionalize processes that allow the system to learn from one election to the next."
— The Presidential Commission on Election Administration's Report (Presidential Commission on Election Administration, January 2014)
"[Online ballot absentee application] is a great improvement in voting absentee for our men and women overseas or at U.S. military bases far from home. Those defending our freedoms should be able to exercise their right to vote in a simple, straightforward manner."
— Retired Lt. Col. John Kingrey, judge advocate general officer, Army Reserve (Minnesota Secretary of State Press Release, 9/26/13)
"South Carolina has made important improvements to our registration and elections process in the last decade, and we are proud to announce one of the single most important changes to the process is now a reality…There's no waiting in line, no forms to print out, nothing to mail in. Any eligible person can register in just minutes."
— Marci Andino, Executive Director of the South Carolina State Election Commission (South Carolina Election Commission, 10/2/12)
"One final area for reform that merits our strongest support is the growing effort – which is already underway in several states – to modernize voter registration. Today, the single biggest barrier to voting in this country is our antiquated registration system. According to the Census Bureau, of the 75 million adult citizens who failed to vote in the last presidential election, 60 million of them were not registered and, therefore, not eligible to cast a ballot…. modernization efforts would not only improve the integrity of our elections, they would also save precious taxpayer dollars."
— Attorney General Eric Holder (Remarks at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum, 12/13/11)
"Voter registration modernization would 'remove the single biggest barrier to voting in the United States, our antiquated registration system.'"
— Attorney General Eric Holder (Brennan Legacy Awards Dinner, 11/17/2009)
"As states implement the changes required by the MOVE Act, they should make it easier for military and overseas voters to cast state and local ballots as well. At the same time, states should modernize their registration systems to ensure that these highly mobile voters receive ballots and voting information at the correct address."
— Rear Adm. James J. Carey, National Chairman of the National Defense Committee (Washington Times, 11/11/2009)
"Bringing our voter registration system into the 21st century must be the priority for improving the election process."
— Robert Bauer, General Counsel to Obama for America and Trevor Potter, General Counsel to John McCain's 2008 campaign (The Washington Post, 06/24/2009)
"The single most important thing that Congress can do right now is create universal voter registration, which would mean that all eligible voters are automatically registered."
— Rosemary E. Rodriguez, Former Commissioner, U.S. Election Assistance Commission (The New York Times, 11/06/2008)
"Automatic voter registration is the way to go."
— John Tanner, Department of Justice Voting Rights Section Chief 2005-2007 (The Indianapolis Star, 7/19/2009)
"No one should have to wait more than 30 minutes to vote. Ballots should be simple; registration efficient. Polling places should be well-organized and workers trained properly."
— The New York Times (1/22/2014)
"Modernizing the registration system is the most crucial step."
— The New York Times (2/12/2013)
"Mr. Obama should adopt the Brennan Center template."
— The Scranton Times-Tribune (11/17/2012)
"Given the progress some states have achieved with new registration methods, it's time for Congress to step in and require that all states bring their systems into the digital age."
— The New York Times (4/7/2012)
"So, it's time for Congress to fix [voter registration], [...] to encourage states to to automatically register citizens [...]."
— Roll Call (6/29/2009)
"The U.S. needs to make modernizing voter registration a top priority."
— The Baltimore Sun (6/22/2009)
"The larger answer to low registration rates is to enact laws requiring universal voter registration."
— The New York Times (4/10/2009)
"The most important change Congress can make is to require universal voter registration."
— The New York Times (3/17/2009)
"It is clear [...] that the cumbersome, paper-based system of voter registration needs to be overhauled."
— The Washington Post (3/16/2009)
"One simple change would solve several problems that have bedeviled recent national elections: universal voter registration."
— The Boston Globe (11/14/2008)
"[I]t's time to rethink another vestige of an earlier era—voter registration system that not only prevents people from voting but causes myriad troubles for election officials."
— The Washington Post (11/08/2008)
"Beyond this, the country should start to debate the idea of 'universal voter registration.'"
— The Christian Science Monitor (10/22/2008)


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Capital Markets
Company Overview of GI Partners, LLC
Executive Profile
Richard A. Magnuson
Executive Managing Director, GI Partners, LLC
|Total Calculated Compensation
|This person is connected to 4 Board Members in 4 different organizations across 4 different industries.
See Board Relationships
Mr. Richard A. Magnuson, also known as Rick, serves as an Executive Managing Director at GI Partners. Mr. Magnuson founded GI Partners in 2001 and leads the GI team. Mr. Magnuson focuses on IT infrastructure and services, leisure and retail sectors at GI Partners. Mr. Magnuson served as an Executive Managing Director at CBRE Global Value Investors, LLC (CB Richard Ellis Investors, L.L.C). He served as a Deputy Managing Director at Nomura International's Principal Finance ...
Corporate Headquarters
188 The EmbarcaderoPhone: 415-688-4800
San Francisco, California 94105
United States
Fax: 415-688-4801
Board Members Memberships
Director and Chairman of Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee
Chairman of Digital Realty Trust Inc
Dartmouth College
Stanford Graduate School of Business
Other Affiliations
Annual CompensationThere is no Annual Compensation data available.
Stocks OptionsThere is no Stock Options data available.
Total CompensationThere is no Total Compensation data available.
|There is no Competitor Compensation data available.
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Vine Superstar Apologizes for Anti-Gay Vine (Again), Kisses Male Fan
Social media super star and Internet celebrity Nash Grier came under fire after a Vine surfaced that showed the teen using the word "fag" and implying that only HIV impacts gay men. Though he apologized before the media picked up on the clip, he's apologized again this week, and in what may be an attempt to prove he isn't homophobic, allowed himself to photographed while kissing a male fan.
"In April of 2013, I made a vine video using a gay slur," Grier, 16, tweeted on June 9. "I made a stupid and ignorant mistake which there is no excuse for."
He adds: "Soon after I posted the video I started to realize how hurtful and wrong the video was and I deleted it. This clip was bullying. It's awful. To anyone I offended I want you to know that I am truly sorry. My goal is to educate myself and do something positive with what I learn. Again to anyone I offended, I am so, so sorry."
In a possible effort to prove that he isn't anti-gay, there is currently a Snapchat pic going around the web, showing Grier kissing a male fan, who Towleroad identifies as gay.
The fan posted the picture to his Tumblr and wrote: "To all the people complaining about Nash being a homophobic who's against gays; He willingly kissed a boy just for a snapchat story on top of apologizing twice."