Guinness Storehouse St Patrick's Day sign

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day everyone. Hopefully your celebration was a safe and happy one!

Here is an example of ice containing methane which has been lit on fire.

Combustible Ice

I have known about ice containing methane for quite a while because as it melts, it poses a severe threat to the environment. The more that is released, the warmer it gets, the warmer it gets, the more combustible ice melts… And, well, you can see how things can quickly begin to spiral out of control.

Well steps are currently being taken to study the use of this energy source and at the same time reduce the threat it has on the environment. And this is a step in the right direction. Recent studies have shown that more than 8 million tons of previously unknown methane has been leaking into the atmosphere each year.

In September of last year China discovered a previously unknown reserve of combustible ice on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The find is equal to 35 billion tonnes of oil. To get an idea of how much this is, it is enough to power China for the next 90 years.

Before the source of fuel can be effectively utilized though, researchers believe that it will have to undergo a phase change.

That means that the ice will have to be melted, separating the methane from the water. The methane that would be won from one single cubic meter of ice is equal to 164 cubic meters of natural gas. With fewer impurities it will burn cleaner, and this is a good thing, since it will produce fewer pollutants than gas won from other sources.

Of course, it should be made clear that natural gas is not a clean source of energy, and when it is burned, it does create pollution. However, it is is cleaner than oil.

This is a dilemma, since the methane will be released into the atmosphere as the ice melts, regardless if it is used or not. Is this a viable solution for the search for cleaner energy? Probably not, since there are multiple methods to produce workable renewable energy.

Further research will have to be invested into this “new” source of energy before it can be clear if it is usable or not.

While I have been meaning to post about bioplastic for a while, it seems like I haven’t had a moment of free time to do it.

Here is the video from their first post about homemade bioplastic.

While there is a lot of different aspects to think about when bioplastics are used, that isn’t the main focus of this article. If you want to learn more about the current state of this technology, you can read an extensive article on Wikipedia.

The part that really interested me about the post was that you can make it at home without much effort. And the recipe isn’t complicated:

“Combine 7 parts water, 1 part vinegar, 1/2 part glycerine, 1 1/2 parts starch for the basic recipe. You heat this in a pan for several minutes and presto you have bioplastic. More glycerine makes for a harder plastic. More starch makes for a denser and less viscous plastic. An 8 parts water, 1 vinegar, 1 gycerine, 1.5 starch variant worked best for filling molds and was much easier to work with. A recipe with 4 tablespoons water, 1 starch and 1 teaspoon of both gylcerine and vinegar made for a bit tougher but also less uniform result.”

I haven’t had time to try it yet, but the original poster, Joris Peels, experimented with the recipe over a weekend and posted extensively about the results.

Here is a teddy bear that he produced using the method.

Home Made Bioplastic

You can read his entire post entitled: Cooking & molding bioplastics at home: recipes, results & tips

If you take the time to try making your own plastic from this recipe, don’t forget to share some pictures!

Open Source Software

I read recently that a powerful US copyright lobby is likening OS (Open Source software) to piracy or worse. Alright, we need to put this into perspective, so you can realize just how absurd this comparison is. Piracy is when somebody’s copyrighted content, whether it is music, movies, video games, books etc. is taken and distributed. We won’t go into any big detail, you know what I am talking about.

Open source software on the other hand is where a programmer, or a team of programmers, create an application. This can be in the form of a browser, such as Firefox, an operating system, such as Linux (any flavor), or a graphics application (Gimp, Blender, MyPaint, Inkscape…) etc. and make it open to the community. Have these people stolen anything? No. Have they distributed somebody else’s content? No!

What they have done is made their intellectual property available to people like you and me. These people give many others the opportunity to do something they wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. And chances are they have contributed more than you might think.

If you run a website, or even visit websites, you have come into contact with open source software in various forms. You don’t realize it, but the majority of the web is run through the open source database MySQL. Not to mention WordPress, Apache, RedHat, CentOS etc. etc. etc.

Meanwhile, it’s not uncommon for commercial applications to “borrow” code and inspiration. Even Mac OS X is based on the BSD operating system.

Off the top of my head I know of two countries that actively support open source software, one of them is Germany. The second one is Indonesia, which last year sent out a report to all their government departments encouraging them to migrate to open source.

You can read an interesting post from the Technology Blog on the Guardian.co.uk, the title of the article is: When using open source makes you an enemy of the state

Is this the end of open source software? That isn’t very likely, it will take more than one greedy corporation lobbying to outlaw what people are allowed to do with their IP.

Leonar3Do

I saw this earlier today and I was really impressed with how the idea has evolved. I saw something like this several years ago in a documentary and at that point it was closer to science fiction than reality. That has changed.

But before I go on I should probably explain what “this” is. Leonar3Do is a creates virtual space in front of your computer monitor. You can more it around and you can look at it from different angles as long as you are wearing the headset.

The device was created to allow you to sculpt on your computer, this actually isn’t anything new. There have been applications that allow you to do this for years but you were always restricted to the screen. Now with the creation of Leonar3Do that is no longer the case.

To get a better idea of what this means you can take a look at this video that demonstrates the technology better.

Black Dragon Sculpture

I should mention that this video is a mock-up, you can’t film the effect and you can’t see it unless you are wearing the glasses. My guess is we’ll have to wait a couple more years for something like that.

You can learn more on the official website, Leonar3Do.com. And if you are wondering how much this is going to cost, it may disappoint you to learn that it will be over $1000.

Here is one of the toys he has made. It is particularly interesting how he made the robot suit, which he named the RetroRobo, fit around the pilot inside.

Mani Zamani 3D printed robot

You can get a better idea of the size and shape of the toy in this turntable video.

As I have already said he has a large portfolio of toys he had designed. Here are a couple of my favorites.

Mani Zamani 3D printed-steel revoltech 4

Mani Zamani 3D printed-steel revoltech 5

Mani Zamani 3D printed-steel revoltech 6

You can see more of Mani’s designs by visiting his website: manizamani.com

Goats are exceptional climbers, and they are extremely nimble on their… Hooves.

A Short Story

A couple of years ago we were at a zoo that had goats in one section walking around freely. I can’t tell you what kind they were, they were rather small, and had short legs. They were friendly and would walk around people, but they didn’t like it when the visitors would try and touch them.

No, they weren’t mean, they didn’t ram anybody, but they were able to read the signs better than the people. No petting. Anyway, there were some children there who absolutely wanted to get their hands on this sweet little goat. She had other ideas and she was quicker than the kids.

I was standing next to a park bench when she came running at me. Before I had time to move out of the goat’s, way she jumped up on the bench, which was maybe 18” wide, ran along it and sailed into safety. She sprung about eight feet off of the other side before she hit the ground and then she was gone. I am assuming she could have jumped further when you look at what these mountain goats are capable of.

Goat Pictures

The reason for this post is still these incredible pictures of mountain goats in action. They can reach staggering heights, climb the most unfriendly walls, and they do it all without fingers. Take a look at some of these pictures for unbelievable mountain goat action!

african goats in tree

Jumping Goat

Funny picture of a goat on rocks

Mountain Climbing Goats

Mountain Goat

Tree Goats

Cliff Full of Goats

Goat on mountain

Gravity Defying Goat

And as you can see I’ve saved the best for last!

Cute Goat Photo

I originally saw these photos on Digg and they were just so fun I had to share them with you. You can view all 30 of them here.

world strongest dog

Some of you may recall the post I made late last year about the World’s Strongest Dog. In that post I talked about the Whippet named Wendy that suffers from a rare myostatin gene defect which causes her to have a double muscle layer. This is the same defect that causes the Belgian Blue to grow to the proportions it does.

If you’re wondering what a Belgian Blue looks like, you can get a pretty good impression for their size in this video. You will also be able to learn why the myostatin gene defect makes Wendy so muscular.

Returning to Wendy, I decided to do a little more research on her and see if I could learn more about this fascinating dog, even if she wasn’t the World’s Strongest Dog. And through a little digging I found that she has her own website. Who doesn’t have their own website these days?

You can visit her website, rightly titled: Wendy the Incredible Whippet. There you can learn more about this amazing dog and read along with her story. To peak your interest, here is a small excerpt:

“Wendy came into my life in August 2003. The breeders gave her to me as a companion to another puppy that my employer was getting. They had kept Wendy because her double muscles made her abnormal, and not wanted by most people. They also wanted to make sure that if they let her go she would end up at the right home.”

Read Wendy the Whippet’s complete story.

So you’re still not convinced that Wendy is in fact a Whippet. Don’t feel bad, the very first thing it says on her website is that she is often mistaken as a Pit Bull. But she is not, she is a loving, doubled muscled Whippet that loves to sit on her owner’s lap and get petted.

Here she is with a normal sized Whippet.

Wendy and Normal Whippet

And I thought that this photo really showed off how muscular she really is.

Wendy the Whippet

The last update on the website mentioned that Wendy was going to start taking advanced obedience training. She had finished up her novice class, even running through a mock trial with few mistakes. This might be due to her love for hotdogs as a reward.

Microsoft Data Mining Patent

Microsoft thinks that you are worth a million dollars! And because of that fact Bill Gates, Ray Ozzie and many of the other executives at Microsoft have been issued a patent that allows then to mine your personal data.

This recent patent (okay, the application for the patent was filed in September 2006) that was awarded this week basically layout a system for collecting your personal information. What this “personal data mining” system does is examine your actions and interests based on what they have observed you and others that fall into your category doing. This will allow them to make targeted suggestions. This could be in the form of recommendations on which books to read, movies to see or restaurants to eat at.

While this isn’t much different than what a lot of other companies have been doing, it goes beyond simply making contextually targeted plugs.

As the name implies, it is a method to mine your personal data. As per the patent this includes your:

“personal management information (PIM data), pictures, videos, documents, e-mail, instant messages, addresses, calendar dates/scheduling information (e.g., birthdays, anniversaries, appointments . . . ), voice mail, phone logs, RSS feeds, subscriptions, bookmarks, mail lists, project management features, computing device data, tasks and location data.”

Basically everything that is linked to you falls into this catch all system and it is as good as gold.

The patent also talks about the option to “include a monetization component”. What does this mean? It means you might just land in “an auction to sell information to the highest bidder.”

If you have any interest in reading through the full patent application, you can find it here.

This reminds me of the patent application that Steve Jobs recently filed for OS Advertisement.

Look at this bird for example. It is alone. And that means, all 12 of these tigers are very interested in making it’s acquaintance. Now, if there had been other foolish birds that were willing to land in a tiger’s enclosure, this one bird wouldn’t have been the center of so much attention. Take a look at the picture to see what I mean.

Tigers Wrong Place Wrong Time

I am not sure if the bird made it out, but its biggest advantage is that so many tigers are competing for its friendship. Combine that with the amount of effort the bird is making to hotfoot it out of the enclosure, and its chances are pretty good.