November 21, 2013
A cryptocurrency is a peer-to-peer, decentralized, digital currency whose implementation relies on the principles of cryptography to validate the transactions and generation of the currency itself. They often use a proof-of-work scheme to guard against digital counterfeiting. While over 30 different cryptocurrency specifications and protocols have been defined, most are similar to and derived from the first fully implemented cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, created in 2009 by pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto
Most cryptocurrencies are designed to gradually introduce new units of currency, placing an ultimate cap on the total amount of currency that will ever be in circulation. This is done both to mimic the scarcity (and value) of precious metals and to avoid hyperinflation. Cryptocurrencies are also less susceptible to seizure by law enforcement than traditional currencies. Early attempts to integrate cryptography with electronic money were made by David Chaum, via DigiCash and ecash, which used cryptography to anonymize electronic money transactions.
Posted in Money, Politics, Technology |
Leave a Comment »
November 18, 2013
Boston Dynamics is an engineering and robotics company spun off from MIT in 1992 that is best known for the development of ‘BigDog,’ a quadruped robot designed for the US military with funding from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and ‘DI-Guy,’ software for realistic human simulation.
Early in the company’s history, it worked with the American Systems Corporation under a contract from the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division to replace naval training videos for aircraft launch operations with interactive 3D computer simulations.
read more »
Posted in Money, Technology, War |
Leave a Comment »
November 15, 2013
An olfactometer [ol-fak-tom-i-ter] is an instrument used to detect and measure ambient odors that is also called a ‘nose telescope.’
Posted in Technology |
Leave a Comment »
November 4, 2013
A hashtag is a word or a phrase prefixed with the hash symbol: #. It is a form of metadata tag, for example, short messages on microblogging and social networking services such as Twitter or Instagram may be tagged by putting ‘#’ before important words, either as they appear in a sentence, or appended to it.
Hashtags provide a means of grouping such messages, since one can search for the hashtag and get the set of messages that contain it.
read more »
Posted in Language, Money, Technology |
1 Comment »
October 31, 2013
Seawise Giant, later ‘Happy Giant,’ ‘Jahre Viking,’ ‘Knock Nevis,’ ‘Oppama,’ and finally ‘Mont,’ was an Ultra Large Crude Carrier (ULCC) supertanker and the longest ship ever built. She possessed the greatest deadweight tonnage ever recorded.
Fully laden, her displacement was 724,239 tons, the heaviest ship of any kind, and with a draft of 81 ft (the distance between the waterline and the bottom of the hull), she was incapable of navigating the English Channel, the Suez Canal or the Panama Canal. Overall, she was generally considered the largest ship ever built, as well as the largest self-propelled human-made object ever built.
read more »
Posted in Money, Technology, World |
Leave a Comment »
October 31, 2013
‘The Yule Log‘ is a TV program which is broadcast traditionally on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning, originally by NYC television station WPIX but now by many other Tribune Company-owned television stations, including WGN America. A radio simulcast of the musical portion was broadcast by associated station WPIX-FM (now WFAN-FM) until 1988. The program, which has been two to four hours in duration (without commercial interruption), is a film loop of a yule log burning in a fireplace, with a traditional soundtrack of classic Christmas music.
The concept was created in 1966 by Fred M. Thrower, President and CEO of WPIX, Inc. Inspired by an animated Coca-Cola commercial a year earlier that showed Santa Claus at a fireplace, he envisioned this program as a televised Christmas gift to New Yorkers who lived in apartments and homes without fireplaces. This also provided time for employees of the television station to stay home with their families, instead of working for the usual morning news program.
read more »
Posted in Humor, Philosophy, Technology |
Leave a Comment »
October 28, 2013
Pharmacy automation is the automation of tasks performed in pharmacy:
measuring and mixing powders and liquids for compounding; tracking and updating customer information in databases (e.g. personally identifiable information, medical history, drug interaction risk detection); inventory management; and dispensing of medication.
read more »
Posted in Drugs, Health, Technology |
Leave a Comment »
October 26, 2013
The Kessler syndrome (proposed by the NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler in 1978) is a scenario in which the density of objects in low Earth orbit is high enough that collisions between objects could cause a cascade—each collision generating space debris which increases the likelihood of further collisions.
One implication is that the distribution of debris in orbit could render space exploration, and even the use of satellites, infeasible for many generations. Every satellite, space probe, and manned mission has the potential to create space debris. A cascading Kessler syndrome becomes more likely as satellites in orbit increase in number and old satellites become inoperative.
Posted in Technology, World |
Leave a Comment »
October 25, 2013
Wiki-PR is a public relations firm that markets its ability to edit Wikipedia. Its practices have contradicted Wikipedia practices, including those on sockpuppetry (using an online identity for purposes of deception) and conflict-of-interest editing, leading to hundreds of blocked accounts.
Wiki-PR was created in 2010 by Darius Fisher, its current COO, and Jordan French, its current CEO. Clients have included Viacom and Priceline. The firm claimed having administrator access enabling it to manage the Wikipedia presence of more than 12,000 clients. Wiki-PR uses aggressive email marketing to acquire new customers.
Posted in Money, Politics, Technology |
1 Comment »
October 24, 2013
On the Origin of the “Influencing Machine” in Schizophrenia is a highly influential article written by German psychoanalyst Viktor Tausk in 1919. The paper describes Tausk’s observations and psychoanalytic interpretation of a type of paranoid delusion that occurs in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. The delusion often involves their being influenced by a ‘diabolical machine,’ just outside the technical understanding of the victim, that influences them from afar.
It was typically believed to be operated by a group of people who were persecuting the individual, whom Tausk suggested were ‘to the best of my knowledge, almost exclusively of the male sex’ and the persecutors, ‘predominantly physicians by whom the patient has been treated.’ These delusions are known in contemporary psychiatry as ‘passivity delusions’ or ‘passivity phenomena’ and are listed among Kurt Schneider’s ‘first rank’ symptoms which are thought to be particularly diagnostic of schizophrenia, and still form some of the core diagnostic criteria.
read more »
Posted in Health, Technology |
1 Comment »
October 23, 2013
Colossus: The Forbin Project is a 1970 American science fiction thriller film based on a 1966 novel Colossus, by Dennis Feltham Jones, about a massive American defense computer, named Colossus, becoming sentient and deciding to assume control of the world. The machine was built in secret by Dr. Charles A. Forbin to control all of the United States and Allied nuclear weapons systems.
Colossus is built to be impervious to any attack, encased within a mountain and powered by its own nuclear reactor, filling the area with gamma radiation. When it is activated, the President of the United States announces its existence at a press conference with Forbin in Washington, proudly proclaiming it a perfect defense system that will ensure peace.
read more »
Posted in Art, Technology, War |
Leave a Comment »
October 18, 2013
Virtuix Omni is an omnidirectional treadmill video game peripheral for virtual reality games currently in development by Virtuix. The Omni uses a slippery platform used to simulate the motion of walking. The platform requires special shoes that reduce friction when walking.
The player is fully enclosed within a ring that works with a safety harness to absorb the player’s weight. The Omni is designed to be used with a head-mounted virtual reality display, such as the Oculus Rift.
Posted in Games, Technology |
Leave a Comment »
The Daily Omnivore 