Science Category Archives
резервная копия
4 March 2010 | Architecture, Science | No Comments
лазерное сканирование окружающего нас мира развивается стремительнейшим образом:
The basic principle behind the laser technology is simple: A box, with a laser inside, sits on a tripod; as the box slowly rotates 360 degrees, the laser, moving up and down, bounces its beam off whatever is solid in front of it. In so doing, it registers some 50,000 points in space every second. Traditional surveyors might produce a couple of hundred measurements a day, prone to subjectivity and human error. Lasers collect millions of measurements per hour. A scanner can even identify certain materials, determining whether something is, say, made of glass or stone.
Aerial lasers and a hand-held version operate the same way. Combined, they can bring to life as 3-D images entire cities or a mountainside.
удивительнейшей точности, кстати:
So precise are these digital models that they can be used not only to facilitate much needed restoration work of deteriorating monuments but also to recreate them if they are completely destroyed by natural or man-made disasters. In other words, if the Bamiyan Buddhas had been laser scanned before they were obliterated by the Taliban, they could now be reconstructed with unbelievable accuracy.
и сканируют все подряд:
There are also those abandoned sewers, stormwater tunnels and subway tunnels. Day and night, laser scanners that have gone mobile will be deployed into these voids, and bit by pinprick bit, these labyrinths that once confounded, concealed and even consumed trespassers with their disorienting mazes will resolve into total comprehensibility. Every detail will be known to you.
Simultaneously, disembodied limbs out in some vast tract of land will get to work replicating these filigreed abysses. Once completed, it will look like a city eroded down to its subsurface infrastructure. It’ll be the playground for urban explorers who might be looking for more muted thrills and for architects who could no longer wait for the mythical Golden Age of WPA 2.0 to play out their desires.
ни дать, ни взять “Зодиак” Стивенсона, перемноженный на “Канализацию, газ & электричество” Раффа.
хочу все знать
26 February 2010 | Hardware, Lifeform, Literature, Science | No Comments
пользователь 
avva раскопал фотографии канавок на виниловой пластинке — снимки навевают различнейшие ассоциации, и пройти мимо наиболее прекрасной, не процитировав, я не могу:
А по этой канавке прет игла. От нее убегает Индиана Джонс с блондинкой на плече. Та вопит. Так оно и работает.
хоть мне они и напоминают больше марсианские каналы — как я их себе видел в детстве.
в обход
7 January 2010 | Metaphysics, Science | No Comments
кратчайшее разъяснение замечательной теоремы Гёделя о неполноте, между прочим.
black clinics of Chiba
25 December 2009 | Biology, Literature, Science | No Comments
определенно, с каждым днем все сильнее расползается по миру то будущее, что уже давно наступило, но пока ещё неравномерно распределено:
Chinese national Lin Rong, 27, reportedly paid surgeons 100,000 Yuan (~15,000 USD) to have the fingerprints from her left index finger and thumb swapped with those on her right hand.
дальше будет поддельная сетчатка глаза, поддельный геном. поддельная жизнь. спрос ведь рождает предложение — вот и еще одна характерная запись в гибсониане современности:
A 48-year-old woman with a stimulating electrode implanted in her right ventral thalamus started to compulsively self-stimulate when she discovered that it could produce erotic sensations and changes in autonomic and neurologic function.
<...>
Soon after insertion of the nVPL electrode, the patient noted that stimulation also produced erotic sensations. This pleasurable response was heightened by continuous stimulation at 75% maximal amplitude, frequently augmented by short bursts at maximal amplitude. Though sexual arousal was prominent, no orgasm occurred with these brief increases in stimulation intensity. Despite several episodes of paroxysmal atrial tachycardia [heart disturbance] and development of adverse behavioural and neurological symptoms during maximal stimulation, compulsive use of the stimulator developed.
At its most frequent, the patient self-stimulated throughout the day, neglecting personal hygiene and family commitments. A chronic ulceration developed at the tip of the finger used to adjust the amplitude dial and she frequently tampered with the device in an effort to increase the stimulation amplitude. At times, she implored her to limit her access to the stimulator, each time demanding its return after a short hiatus. During the past two years, compulsive use has become associated with frequent attacks of anxiety, depersonalization, periods of psychogenic polydipsia and virtually complete inactivity.
нам ли вырваться из этих сетей.
via.
тайное окно
18 December 2009 | Literature, Science | No Comments
свободные образовательные курсы в интернете, между прочим. вот, например, соверменная американская литература. есть и еще, наверняка — разве что у них там с категориями все вперемежку.
у меня в квартире в туалете лежат справочник по физике в трех томах, введение в теорию относительности, учебник по римскому частному праву и что-то еще вдобавок — это я, видимо, к слову о ценности знаний. и о том, где мы их приобретаем.
клоунада
5 December 2009 | Internet, Science | 1 Comment
eще раз про все эти (и другие) цирки — вот в нескольких словах предельно точно именно то, что уже давно чувствую:
будто сркн читаю…
не укладывается все это в голове.
рассказываю это все людям – ни одному слову не верят, смеются.
это какая-то мощная трансформация действительности…
не укладывается это в голове как-то. какой-то театр абсурда. только страшный очень.
исход
27 November 2009 | Personal, Science | No Comments
слэшдоттеры (прекрасные, разумеется) изыскивают очередной план побега:
A science writer discovered it’s possible to finance your cryogenic preservation using life insurance — and then leave a huge death benefit to your future thawed self. From the article, ‘Most in the middle class, if they seriously want it, can afford it now. So by taking the right steps, you can look forward to waking up one bright future morning from cryopreservation the proud owner of a bank account brimming with money!’ There’s one important caveat: some insist that money ‘will have no meaning in a future dominated by advanced molecular manufacturing or other engines of mega-abundance.’
и если одной части меня безоговорочно хочется прямиком в будущее, в распростертые объятья клонирования, нанотехнологий (что, очевидно, звучит, как ругательство, но есть же другие ориентиры) и искусственного интеллекта, то другая так же отчаянно ищет библиотечной тишины и минувшей былой неспешности — кто знает, что оказалось бы для меня продуктивней, кто знает.
crash! boom! bang!
24 November 2009 | Science | No Comments
Большой адронный коллайдер наконец-то заработал:
Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider, located underground near the French-Swiss border, say proton beams have collided for the first time in the machine.
The scientists told the BBC the event occurred Monday as two beams were circulated simultaneously around the 16-mile-long ringed tunnel that’s located nearly 330 feet beneath the ground in Switzerland.
When fully operational, the LHC will smash together numerous beams of protons to shed light on what conditions existed in the universe less than a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang.
детали тут. а здесь можно все и увидеть (продолжаю коллекционировать страхи, да).
толкователи снов
17 November 2009 | Religion, Science | No Comments
прошлая неделя оказалась примечательна вот еще чем:
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences is holding a conference on astrobiology, the study of life beyond Earth, with scientists and religious leaders gathering in Rome this week.
звучит интригующе:
Among other things, extremely alien-looking aliens would be hard to fit with the idea that God “made man in his own image”.
Furthermore, Jesus Christ’s role as saviour would be confused: would other worlds have their own, tentacled Christ-figures, or would Earth’s Christ be universal?
прогресс, да и только:
However, just as the Church eventually made accommodations after Copernicus and Galileo showed that the Earth was not the centre of the universe, and when it belatedly accepted the truth of Darwin’s theory of evolution, Catholic leaders say that alien life can be aligned with the Bible’s teachings.
Father Jose Funes, a Jesuit astronomer at the Vatican Observatory and one of the organisers of the conference, said: “As a multiplicity of creatures exists on Earth, so there could be other beings, also intelligent, created by God.
как гибко, однако, как ново. пепел Джордано Бруно стучит в моем сердце.
via.
науке вопреки
7 November 2009 | Science | 1 Comment
а с Большим адронным коллайдером дела опять не славабогу — теперь это птицы:
The bird dropped some bread on a section of outdoor machinery, eventually leading to significant over heating in parts of the accelerator. The LHC was not operational at the time of the incident, but the spike produced so much heat that had the beam been on, automatic failsafes would have shut down the machine.
oпределенно, история с путешествениками во времени имеет место быть:
The New York Times has unearthed an article by physicists Holger Bech Nielsen and Masao Ninomiya that pose a number of ‘timeless’ questions surrounding the LHC.
The essay is titled ‘Test of Effect From Future in Large Hadron Collider: a Proposal’ – although we would have called it ‘Run for it Marty: Doc Brown was right’ – and put forward the theory that bad luck will dog the launch of the LHC, with future influences stopping the Collider from doing its job.
Interestingly, these theories were announced before the calamitous string of incidents that have postponed the LHC from finding the hallowed Higgs boson particle.
жаль, впрочем — я-то все жду не дождусь.