Oblate Spheroid? - Got A Flat Earth Explanation Right Here Via Aqua-Optics

Flat Earth ... it's still a thing. Image Credit: Gizmodo Australia

Oblate Spheroid? - Got A Flat Earth Explanation Right Here Via Aqua-Optics

The Earth isn't flat, or so we are told.

We have gone through many explanations on what the shape of the Earth actually is.

First, we were told the Earth is flat and that the water just simply dropped off of the edge into space. We all knew there were many problems with this explanation because it never dealt with the issue of the continued volume of water ... save for a recirculating pump that had not been yet invented.

Second, we were told the the Earth was spherical as in a basketball. Equal roundness from all sides. This explanation was bolstered through the exploits of explorers, Italy's Columbus, backed by Spanish money, being the chief among them in the search for a faster way to trade in India and China.

Last, satellites confirm that the actual shape of the Earth is more of that like someone sitting on a beach ball where the top to the bottom are closer to each other than from side to side. The technical name for this shape is Oblate Spheroid where it actually places that point that is closest to the heavens and stars as being around the Equator as opposed to being the recognized tallest mountain in the world, Mt. Everest.

This video has another idea ...

So, the Earth may be flat and that we are all suffering a case of optical illusion. It's an oddball planet we all are passengers on, especially when humans attempt to distort provable reality through entertaining narratives.
[ht: Justin Nuyens]



TAGS: Earth, Edmund Jenks, Mount Chimborazo, Oblate Spheroid, Tallest Point, Flat Earth, Water Distortion

Olli - Olly Oxen Free Autonomy Hits The Streets

I'm symbolic. Image Credit: Local Motors (2016)

Olli - Olly Oxen Free Autonomy Hits The Streets

Local Motors, in partnership with computer giant IBM through Watson, introduces an organic small group/mass autonomous transportation solution perfect for most any community.

No oxen were used in this creation - Actually, "Olly Olly Oxen Free" is a catchphrase used in such children's games as hide and seek, capture the flag, or kick the can to indicate that players who are hiding can come out into the open without losing the game, that the position of the sides in a game has changed, or, alternatively, that the game is entirely over (ht: Wikipedia).

In this case the Olli is the name given to a driverless/autonomous vehicle that seats 12 people which through its computer partner, IBM's Watson, can interact with passengers and navigate the streets and deliver the people riding inside to their destination.

The game of driverless/autonomous vehicles has changed with the Olli concept because this application does not currently partner with a software services company like Google or Yahoo that are focused on individual transportation pods thus removing any pursuit of happiness from the process of actual driving.

This excerpted and edited from Electric Cars Report -

Local Motors Debuts First Self-driving Vehicle to Tap the Power of IBM Watson IoT

Local Motors, the creator of the world’s first 3D-printed cars, today introduced the first self-driving vehicle to integrate the advanced cognitive computing capabilities of IBM Watson.

The vehicle, dubbed ‘Olli,’ was unveiled during the grand opening of a new Local Motors facility in National Harbor, MD, and transported Local Motors CEO and co-founder John B. Rogers, Jr. along with vehicle designer Edgar Sarmiento from the Local Motors co-creation community into the new facility.

Olli exterior. Image Credit: Local Motors (2016)

The electric vehicle, which can carry up to 12 people, is equipped with some of the world’s most advanced vehicle technology, including IBM Watson Internet of Things (IoT) for Automotive, to improve the passenger experience and allow natural interaction with the vehicle.

Olli is the first vehicle to utilize the cloud-based cognitive computing capability of IBM Watson IoT to analyze and learn from high volumes of transportation data, produced by more than 30 sensors embedded throughout the vehicle.
----
Furthermore, the platform leverages four Watson developer APIs — Speech to Text, Natural Language Classifier, Entity Extraction and Text to Speech — to enable seamless interactions between the vehicle and passengers.

Olli interior. Image Credit: Local Motors (2016)

Passengers will be able to interact conversationally with Olli while traveling from point A to point B, discussing topics about how the vehicle works, where they are going, and why Olli is making specific driving decisions. Watson empowers Olli to understand and respond to passengers’ questions as they enter the vehicle, including about destinations (“Olli, can you take me downtown?”) or specific vehicle functions (“how does this feature work?” or even “are we there yet?”).

Passengers can also ask for recommendations on local destinations such as popular restaurants or historical sites based on analysis of personal preferences.
----

It's a beautiful Father's Day in #NationalHarbor! Catch up with CEO @johnbrogers & #meetolli- our latest innovation. Image Credit: Local Motors via @localmotors

As part of Olli’s debut, Local Motors officially opened its new National Harbor facility in Maryland to serve as a public place where co-creation can flourish and vehicle technologies can rapidly advance. The company’s 3D-printed cars are on display, along with a large-scale 3D printer and an interactive co-creative experience that showcases what the future of the nation’s capital might look like.
----
Olli features a 15 kWh battery pack powering a 20 kW continuous, 30 kW max electric motor that delivers 125 N·m of torque. Maximum speed is 20 km/h (12 mph) and all-electric range is 58 km (32.4 miles). Olli is equipped with 2 Velodyne VLP16 LiDAR units, 2 IBEO ScaLa laser scanners, 2 ZED optical cameras and an Ellipse N GPS.

The very first Olli will remain in National Harbor this summer, and the public will be able to interact with it during select times over the next several months.
[Reference Here]

Now, riding around on this Oblate Spheroid, we say "Olli Olli Oxen Free" - to indicate that players who are hiding can come out into the open without losing the game, that the position of the sides in a game has changed, or, alternatively, that the game is entirely over - community driverless/autonomous transportation has arrived with a form factor and application that allows everyone the pursuit of happiness while pushing the technology envelope of possibilities forward.



TAGS: Local Motors, Watson, Cloud Computing, Internet of Things, IoT, driverless, autonomous, vehicle, Olli, 3D-printed cars, 3D printer, electric motor, ZED optical camera, Ellipse N GPS, Speech to Text, Natural Language Classifier, Entity Extraction, Text to Speech, National Harbor, Maryland

Waving Wind Sticks Can Replace Windmills

Sticks planted in the ground get moved by the wind where the movement is captured and converted to electricity. Image Credit: Vortex Bladeless (2015)

Waving Wind Sticks Can Replace Windmills

There is a new wind energy capture technology in town and it deserves a serious look. The form factor is a stick that is effected by the wind as was the Tacoma Bridge on November 7, 1940.

Most people are familiar with a technology that was popularized by the Dutch in recent centuries which was used to move water from or around land and perform many labor tasks in their culture ... and has become the iconic symbol of all things Dutch - the Windmill. Of the 10,000 windmills in use in the Netherlands around 1850, about 1000 are still standing.

The total number of wind-powered mills in Europe is estimated to have been around 200,000 at its peak, which is modest compared to some 500,000 waterwheels. Image Credit: Zingrate.com

Capturing the power of the wind through blades and transferring the motion created through a bar shaft to pump mechanisms, generators, or grinders, that once required human effort, to have the benefit of function.

Growing interest in alternative energy sources has made the three-pronged metal and composite wind turbines planted across open, wind-driven landscapes, a familiar sight.

Electric power windmills have been a feature in the Palm Springs entrance to Coachella Valley for at least 20 years. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2011)

There is a company in Spain that wishes to have this display become less noisy, labor intensive, and cluttered through grabbing the wind energy through vibration or oscillation of a single stick.

This excerpted and edited from Quartz -

HOWLIN' - This wind turbine generates power without blades
By Zach Wener-Fligner for Quartz - May 19, 2015

Thanks to a Spanish energy startup known as Vortex Bladeless, there’s a new type of turbine with a rather different look.

With the potential to be cheaper and more reliable. Vortex’s generator resembles a giant straw in the ground and harnesses wind energy without the need for rotating windmill blades. It’s designed to vibrate in the wind as much as possible, like a guitar string; those vibrations are then converted into stored energy.

According to the company’s website, the Vortex turbines are 53% cheaper to manufacture and 51% cheaper to operate than traditional wind turbines. This is in part due to their lack of moving parts—there just aren’t that many components to break. Their current model, the 41-foot Vortex Mini tube, captures around 30% less energy than a traditional wind turbine, but can also be packed more densely into a given space.

The company has raised about $1 million from the Spanish government and private investors, according to Wired; it says it will begin raising more money via crowdfunding on June 1.
[Reference Here]

Windmills and solar panel farms are popping up everywhere creating an aesthetic eyesore, backed through the infusion of public monies. It is time to consider a cheaper, quieter, and more artful way to capture alternative (to petroleum) energy to fuel our lives.

Most like the concept of converting the lessons learned through the Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster to achieve artful display landscapes, here on this Oblate Spheroid, that deliver on the promise of a better way to convert wind to energy for the good of all.


TAGS: windmills, solar panels, Tacoma Bridge, oscillation, wind stick, Vortex Bladeless, turbines, electricity, power generation, Oblate Spheroid, crowd-funding,

Anywhere Grid-Less Hosteling For One With Ecocapsule

Ecocapsule is smart house powered purely by the solar and wind energy. It allows people to reach
the frontiers with the luxury of the hotel room. It can serve as micro-house, cottage, pop-up hotel
or even as charging station for electromobiles. Image Credit: Nice Architects

Anywhere Grid-Less Hosteling For One With Ecocapsule

Ever wonder how hard it would be to live in a space without access to electricity wires from a pole, or water from a pipe, supplied by a societal utility - and further, once achieved, hard hard it would be to replicate the solution?

A group of folks located in the Slovak Republic known as Nice Architects have created an egg shaped living space that hopes to make a living off-the-grid "audience-of-one" a reality and it goes by the name of Ecocapsule.

A 2D top-down view schematic of the Ecocapsule's living space floorplan. Image Credit: Nice Architects

This egg-shaped living space is set to be debuted in Vienna, Austria this month (May 28 & 29, 2015) at a start up show that began in 2012 and has become what Forbes magazine calls "a smarter SXSW (Austin, TX)", the Pioneers Festival.

First functional prototype of the independent micro-house Ecocapsule will be exhibited in the
foyer of the Hofburg palace as a part of Pioneers festival 2015 event in Vienna. Image Credit: Nice Architects

Each unit is equipped with solar panels, a retractable wind-turbine, and a design that captures rain water.

Solor and wind power conversion included. The egg shape enhances water capture from dew or rain which is stored in a tank located underneath the floor and pumped for use in the sink, toilet, or shower. Image Credit: Nice Architects

Inside, the design includes a kitchenette with running water, a flushing toilet, and hot shower.

Interior view from the storage end of the Ecocapsule. One has a hands on environment where one can sleep, cook, shower, deal with personal waste & cleanliness, and have little worry about power assisting in maintaining basic living needs. Image Credit: Nice Architects

The Ecocapsule is suitable for a wide range of human-living applications. Suggestions by Nice Architects include independent research station, a tourist lodge, emergency housing, a humanitarian-action unit ... or as we might suggest at Oblate Spheroid, a personal/office space to be placed in the backyard which eliminates the cost and time consumed complying for the need of permits required by the local government offices.

Urban elbow room without the hassles associated with dealing with permitting. Image Credit: Nice Architects

Place the Ecocapsule on a flatbed trailer, and now one has an actual trailer for grid-less, energy assisted, hosteled comfort for almost any application including ... just camping.

Exterior view shows external and interior storage plus bed. Image Credit: Nice Architects

Those interested in buying one will be able to pre-order at the end of 2015, with delivery in the first half of 2016.

FAQ Section

What is the price of the Ecocapsule?

Price of the Ecocapsule will be announced in the last quarter of the 2015. 

When will  be Ecocapsule available for purchase?

We will start taking pre-orders in the last quarter of the 2015. We expect to start delivering first produced units in the first half of the 2016.

Shipping price - Ecocapsule can fit info standard shipping container, keeping shipping cost low. Here are examples of approximate shipping fees:

Slovakia -New York               2393 USD   2200 Euro

Slovakia-Buenos Aires           1958 USD   1800 Euro

Slovakia-Johannesburg           2937 USD   2700 Euro

Slovakia - Melbourne             1631 USD   1500 Euro

Camper version - We are still developing chassis for the capsule and hopefully we will be ready in late 2016.

Custom versions:

We will be initially offering one version of the Ecocapsule. Later we will extend customization options.

Where can we see it?

First public display of the Ecocapsule will be during Pioneers festival in Vienna (28-29th May 2015).

Later it will be displayed in Slovak national pavilion at Expo 2015.

Basic Specifications:
(ht: Nice Architects)

Dimensions: 

W - 8.366 Feet - 2.55m 
L - 14.599 Feet - 4.45m 
H - 7.381 Feet - 2.25m or 14.763 Feet - 4.5m with extended pole
 
Weight: 3307 lbs. - 1500kg
 
Installed power output: wind 750W / solar 600W
 
Battery capacity: 9744Wh 


TAGS: Ecocapsule, Pioneers Festival, SXSW, Forbes, Slovak Republic, Nice Architects, Vienna, Austria,

Progressive Water Resource Management Gone Wild

Mt. Tabor Reservoir. Image Credit: File Photo – The Oregonian

Progressive Water Resource Management Gone Wild

Here in California, the Delta Smelt, a non-indigenous (imported) fish, is given grand reverence over the human need to grow and harvest food for living and profit. We are very familiar with the over-reach of power over common sense in the pursuit of progressive political perception.

Just this week in Portland Oregon, it was discovered via a review of surveillance camera video, a teen-aged male was captured emptying his bladder into the Mount Tabor Reservoir, an open air facility established during the period of 1894 through 1911 and used to hold a portion of the city of Portland’s water fed into the home delivery water resource system.

Mt. Tabor Reservoir. Image Credit: KBOO.FM

This excerpted and edited from Oregon Public Broadcasting -

    Portland To Empty Water In Mt. Tabor Reservoir After Contamination
    OPB | April 16, 2014 1:42 p.m. | Updated: April 17, 2014 6:39 a.m. | Portland

    The Portland Water Bureau was forced to shut down one of its Mount Tabor reservoirs early Wednesday. A trespasser urinated into one of the reservoirs.
    —-
    Bureau officials say about 50 million gallons of drinking water were isolated at Reservoir No. 5. None of the contaminated supply was distributed to customers.

    David Shaff is with the Portland Water Bureau. He says water quality samples have been taken for safety reasons.

    “I’m still going to empty the reservoir, clean it, and re-fill it. And the reason I’m going to do that is because I have customers who have an expectation that I’m not going to deliberately deliver water that has been contaminated by someone peeing into the reservoir,” Shaff said.

    “The basic commandment of the Water Bureau is to provide clean, cold and constant water to its customers,” Shaff said Wednesday. “And the premise behind that is we don’t have pee in it.”

    The open reservoirs hold water that has already been treated and goes directly into mains for distribution to customers.

    The urine poses little risk — animals routinely deposit waste without creating a public health crisis — but Shaff said he doesn’t want to serve water that was deliberately tainted.

    “There is at least a perceived difference from my perspective,” Shaff said. “I could be wrong on that, but the reality is our customers don’t anticipate drinking water that’s been contaminated by some yahoo who decided to pee into a reservoir.”
    —-
    The three unidentified men were cited for trespassing after being stopped at the site early Wednesday morning. One was also cited for public urination.

    The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office will decide whether to pursue criminal charges.
    —-
    The reservoir is one of five the city is in the process of replacing with underground storage to comply with federal regulations.

    Floy Jones, co-founder of the group Friends of the Reservoirs, criticized the decision to drain the reservoir, saying there’s no evidence any urine reached the water and it wouldn’t harm anyone if it did.

    “It’s extremely wasteful,” she said.

    In June 2011, the city drained a 7.5 million-gallon reservoir at Mount Tabor in southeast Portland. This time, 38 million gallons from a different reservoir at the same location will be discarded after a 19-year-old was videotaped in the act.

    The man who urinated into Portland’s water supply in June 2011 eventually pleaded guilty to misuse of a reservoir and was sentenced to community service.
    [Reference Here]

This is another situation where common sense and the progressive application of power collide in the wasteful pursuit of perception. The cost to drain and re-clean the reservoir (that had its bi-annual cleaning process completed about three weeks ago according to Water Bureau records) is referenced in Wikipedia as being around $36,000 for the 2011 incident.

Has anyone around here heard of Bear Grylls? Edward Michael “Bear” Grylls is a British adventurer, writer and television presenter and is best known for his internationally syndicated television series Man vs. Wild, also known originally as Born Survivor.

On his program, he was famous for a survivalist meme of showing people that urine is, when all else is not available, a hydrating substance. He would show that one would not die, or become ill, in drinking pee straight out of a container in order to keep alive and to not having bodily functions shut down due to a lack of water for a short period of time.

Does it taste good straight – NO, it tastes as one would expect pee to taste.

Can one taste human urine when it is diluted in, say, EIGHT MILLION GALLONS OF WATER?

    A better question that should be asked is – what percentage of contamination does this known human urine waste cast-off represent to the overall unmeasured wildlife/animal waste cast-off (urine and solid waste sewage) of all birds, bats, rats, squirrels, dogs, cats, and etc. that make it into the Portland water supply through the feeder system and the reservoirs as well … before delivery into the system?

‘Infinitesimal’ is the word that comes to mind.

Save the $36,000.00+ of public money on the perception of power and show real power through the education of all who use the public water system that employs open air reservoirs on this Oblate Spheroid. This is still a water system, without filtration, that will always be classified until changes are made, as … “Gone Wild.”

Happy New Year 2014 - Fireworks Display Via GIF

New Year in the Philippines - The view of the Metro Manila skyline from Monterey Hills in San Mateo, Rizal. Credit: Paolo Nacpil via 24.media.tumblr.com

Happy New Year 2014 - Fireworks Display Via GIF

Fireworks at the end of a rope. Credit: musicsongz.com

Simultaneous color bursts all in one line. Credit: 9to5gifs.com

Random explosions in light blue-white. Credit: media.tumblr.com

Single red, white, and blue spherical burst. Credit: twodelighted.com

Cityscape fireworks at waters edge. Credit: 24.media.tumblr.com

Random spray burst fireworks at waters edge. Credit: f.ptcdn.info

Single rocket multiple burst cascade firework. Credit: gifs.gifbin.com

Eiffel Tower with superimposed white burst 'twilight sky' effect over Paris display. Credit: announcingit.com

Have a Happy and Abundant 2014 here on this Oblate Spheroid shaped blue orb!

Popular Science Settles On Consensus Over Reporting Fact

Popular Science magazine cover that has as an article, "How to Prevent America's Next TRAIN CRASH" - funny, how now Popular Science is about trying to prevent the crash in the flow of America's research funding through shutting off comments that expose fraud. Image Credit: m5.paperblog.com

Popular Science Settles On Consensus Over Reporting Truth Based In Facts

This week saw an actual sea change and weak stomach for debate on consensus over publishing comments that argue for scientific method derived facts and the truth.

This excerpted and edited from PopularScience.com -

Why We're Shutting Off Our Comments
By Suzanne LaBarre - Posted 09.24.2013 at 8:15 am

Starting today, PopularScience.com will no longer accept comments on new articles. Here's why.

Comments can be bad for science. That's why, here at PopularScience.com, we're shutting them off.
----
Another, similarly designed study found that just firmly worded (but not uncivil) disagreements between commenters impacted readers' perception of science.

If you carry out those results to their logical end--commenters shape public opinion; public opinion shapes public policy; public policy shapes how and whether and what research gets funded--you start to see why we feel compelled to hit the "off" switch.

A politically motivated, decades-long war on expertise has eroded the popular consensus on a wide variety of scientifically validated topics. Everything, from evolution to the origins of climate change, is mistakenly up for grabs again. Scientific certainty is just another thing for two people to "debate" on television. And because comments sections tend to be a grotesque reflection of the media culture surrounding them, the cynical work of undermining bedrock scientific doctrine is now being done beneath our own stories, within a website devoted to championing science.
[Reference Here]

"How It Works" - Credit: Popular Science

The 'money quote' has to be:

popular consensus on a wide variety of scientifically validated topics

This is what Popular Science, the magazine and website, bases all of it opinion and articles on ... popular consensus. The fact that Popular Science is shutting down comments to their consensus derived articles proves that they admit to publishing Consensus over Scientific Method derived facts.

Since WHEN is Consensus a substitute for Scientific Method?

Not once is Scientific Method mentioned as the basis of information their articles are based upon. Their statement only alludes to popular consensus and scientifically validated topics.

Further, the editors admit to trying to shape public opinion through their publishing silo with this observation - "commenters shape public opinion; public opinion shapes public policy; public policy shapes how and whether and what research gets funded--you start to see why we feel compelled to hit the "off" switch." - and therein lays the rub.

Who holds the scientific community's feet to the fire when mathematical formulas and data are shaped so that results reflect the intent of the politically-motivated public policy. Follow the money.

The biggest problem with Popular Science is that the editors are nothing more than Progressive-Minded J-School Stenographers who report what has been bought-and-paid-for Consensus objectives, rooted in politically-motivated public policy, as opposed to reporting Scientific Method derived FACTS!!!

Does the mathematical fraud perpetrated by the University of East Anglia ever get reported and calculated into the Consensus equation? At Popular Science, now that they have hit the "off" switch on comments to their published articles - we, at Oblate Spheroid, think not!

Auto Show In The Mountains At Big Bear Lake's 24th Annual Fun Run

Crowds viewing the  classic cars, hot rods, custom paint jobs, wheels, tires and chrome all in one place, the parking spaces in the Village of Big Bear Lake! Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2013)

 Auto Show In The Mountains At Big Bear Lake's 24th Annual Fun Run

Join the Antique Car Club for the 24th Annual Fun Run! The show takes place all around a closed-down Big Bear Lake Village on the South shore of Big Bear Lake. All of the cars in the show are staged/parked in the commercial parking spaces and Chamber of Commerce parking lot in and around the village.

The competition is limited to 500 entries and the admission to the car show is free!

Special commemorative Big Bear Fun Run artwork adorns T-shirts for sale to help raise money for many local charities.  Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2013)

The Big Bear Lake Antique Car Club was founded in 1982 by a group of people who shared a common interest in “vintage automobiles.” The purpose of the club is to indulge this common interest and raise money for charities in the Big Bear valley, California.

One of the greatest spectacles of this vintage motor culture display and the reason the event is dubbed "Fun Run" is when all of the vehicles that are in the show competition take to the road that circumnavigates the lake and drive to both the delight of the owners and spectators. The cars and motorcycles leave at 3:45 PM on Saturday, August 10, 2013 (This time is FIRM) and the West gate will open for the "Cruise around the Lake" or "Fun Run."

People who are aware of what is about to take place, set up perches around the roads waiting to see and hear their favorite vehicle(s) and greet them with enthusiastic waves. This cruise for the participants who are driving takes about 30 minutes ... but for the spectator, the parade of the "Fun Run" or "Cruise around the Lake" lasts over an hour.

Route map of the actual Big Bear Fun Run ... the rolling display is why, for 24 years, this car show remains a must do summertime Southern California attraction. Image Credit: Big Bear Fun Run

The run will go West from the Village entrance on Hwy. 18 for about 4 miles and North across the Dam, turn right or East on Hwy. 38 through Fawnskin (for about 5 miles). Then continue on Northshore, turn right on Northshore lane, pick-up their commemorative mugs, and turn right on North Shore (Hwy 38) to Stanfield Cut-Off and turn right, go across the cutoff road to Big Bear Blvd. and turn right, and back to the Village. Any roadside perch is a good spot to see all of the vehicles as they roll around the Lake.

When the cars that were on display, take to the road for the roughly 15 mile parade, clock-wise around this San Bernardino mountians 'blue jewel', this is when the fun really begins ... what a treat. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2013)

The cars parade through Fawnskin on the North shore of Big bear Lake here on August 13, 2011. Image Credit: vegaslugnut via YouTube

For 23 years, people have come up to the mountain air and Ponderosa pines of the San Bernardino national forest and enjoyed the classic cars, hot rods, custom paint jobs, wheels, tires and chrome all in one place, Big Bear Lake! Come on up and bring a camera because this is the kind of event around the Oblate Spheroid that never disappoints.

Umbrella Public Relations Stunt Achieves World Record Claim

Umbrella display: Located within the volcanic region of exotic Hainan Island, Mission Hills Resort Hainan marks a magnificent addition to Hainan's tropical island paradise. Boasting an exceptional variety of world-class lifestyle, recreation and wellness facilities, the Resort is poised to be one of China's most sought-after leisure destinations. Caption and Image Credit: Mission Hills Resort Hainan

Umbrella Public Relations Stunt Achieves World Record Claim

Yesterday, at what has been billed as the world’s largest golf facility, Mission Hills Shenzhen, China, people holding umbrellas on the fairway of a picturesque golf link, claimed a world record by creating a “human” displayed QR Code.

Close-up detail. Image Credit: Mission Hills Resort Hainan

The QR Code was formed by nearly 2,000 staff carrying umbrellas and an aerial photograph was taken from a height of 270 feet so that the code could be used in Press Releases.

The purpose of this PR effort is designed to promote sustainable eco-tourism ... and in celebration of Mission Hills' 20th anniversary, the Group is giving away twenty 3 day / 2 night Romantic Premier Spa Suite Getaway packages at Mission Hills Haikou Resort on the tropical island of Hainan.

When users scan the QR Code, they will be directed to a campaign website to answer three simple questions related to sustainable eco-tourism. Those who complete the questions with the correct answers will be entered into the draw for a chance to win one of the Mission Hills Micro Holiday packages valued at US$2,600.
(ht: PR Newswire)

Say Hi to the world, 1,369 people love Taiwan, the arrangement of the world's largest human OR Code, hands in the air to empty footage Say Hi to let the world see Taiwan, to show the enthusiasm of the people of Taiwan. Caption and Image Credit: Wen Shiren Cultural Foundation and the Taiwan Foundation (taiwansayhi.com)

QR display detail - Wen i Taiwan ‧ wonderful movie tidbits Say Hi to the world activities Video posted January 16, 2013. Image Credit: Wen Shiren Cultural Foundation and the Taiwan Foundation (taiwansayhi.com)

This is not the first time people holding umbrellas stand in a predetermined pattern in order to form a QR Code upon which folks with camera/QR enabled smart phones could scan the code created and be directed to a website to qualify or buy something of value or interest. At the beginning of December last year, 1369 people raised black, white and blue umbrellas to form a QR Code directing people to a website that promotes Taiwan culture and tourism - http://www.taiwansayhi.com.
(ht: 2d)



** Article first published as Umbrella Public Relations Stunt Achieves World Record Claim on Technorati **

City Block Size Asteroid Comes Near-Earth To Oblate Spheroid

The asteroid, which is 10 times the size of an Olympic swimming pool, is one of 9,000 "near-Earth objects" recorded by Nasa. It will not be visible to the naked eye but stargazers can watch a live broadcast and catch a glimpse of it passing by Earth online. Named LZ1, the asteroid is 500m (1,650ft) wide and is likely to get only within 14 times the moon's distance from Earth. Image Credit: The Telegraph

City Block Size Asteroid Comes Near-Earth To Oblate Spheroid

An asteroid the size of a city block discovered by astronomers in Canberra will zoom past Earth but poses no risk of a collision.

The "unusually large" asteroid will not be visible to the naked eye but asteroid enthusiasts may watch it pass by during a live online broadcast, said Patrick Paolucci, president of the skywatchers' site, Slooh.

NASA has already cataloged 9000 such Near-Earth Objects, but astronomers are always on the lookout for new ones.

"Once in awhile one will come out of nowhere like this one, which is actually pretty big," Paolucci told AFP.

"We were like, 'Wow, we should track this one."'

The asteroid, named 2012 LZ1, is thought to be about 500 metres wide, and is expected to pass within 14 times the Moon's distance from the Earth.

The massive object was discovered just days ago by Scottish-Australian astronomer Rob McNaught and colleagues at the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics of the Australian National University.

The asteroid qualifies as a Near-Earth Object because of its size and proximity - more than 152 metres wide and within a distance of 7.5 million kilometres from Earth.

Paolucci said the asteroid's fly-by would be covered in real-time with footage from an observatory in the Canary Islands at Slooh.com beginning at 10am (AEST) on Friday.
[Reference Here]

Hubble Captures Oldest On Record Galaxy - 13.1 Billion Light Years Away

Image Credit: NASA


Hubble Captures Oldest On Record Galaxy - 13.1 Billion Light Years Away

NASA Hubble Space Telescope has captured an image of the oldest galaxy on record, the space administration announced January 10, 2012.

The space administration said it has captured an image of a group of galaxies located 13.1 billion light years away. The team said the galaxies represent a cluster in the initial stages of development.

The space administration notes that galaxy clusters are among the largest structures in the universe, comprising hundreds to thousands of galaxies bound together by gravity. The developing cluster, or protocluster, is seen as it looked over 13 billion years ago.

“These galaxies formed during the earliest stages of galaxy assembly, when galaxies had just started to cluster together,” said Michele Trenti of the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge in the U.K. “The result confirms our theoretical understanding of the buildup of galaxy clusters. And, Hubble is just powerful enough to find the first examples of them at this distance.”

Hubble spotted the five galaxies while performing a random sky survey in near-infrared light. The newly found galaxies are small, ranging from 10 percent to 50 percent the size of our own Milky Way. But they are similar in brightness to the Milky Way, said astronomers NASA says the galaxy has likely grown into one of today’s massive “galactic cities,” comparable to the nearby Virgo cluster of more than 2,000 galaxies.

This excerpted and edited from NASA -

The Age of the Universe ... Then vs. Now

Before 1999, astronomers had estimated that the age of the universe at between 7 to 20 billion years. With advances in technology and the development of new techniques we now know the age of the universe is 13.7 billion years, with an uncertainty of only 200 million years. So how did this understanding come to be?

Early estimates of the Age of the Universe

In the 1920's Edwin Hubble discovered the expansion of the universe. He found that galaxies which are further away are moving at a higher speed following the law, v=Hod, where v is the velocity in km/s, d is the distance in Mpc, and Ho is the Hubble constant in km/s/Mpc. By independently measuring the velocity and distances to galaxies, the value of Ho could be determined. Astronomers further determined that the age of the universe is related to Hubble's constant, and that it is between 1/Ho and 2/3Ho depending on cosmological models adopted. The velocity could be determined via the redshift in the spectrum. The distance to the galaxy can be determined using observations of certain types of pulsating stars, called Cepheids, whose instrinsic brightness is related to the period of their brightness variation. However, the accuracy of the distance measurement was hampered by how faint ground based telescopes could see. Up until the 1990's, the best estimates for Ho were between 50 km/s/Mpc and 90 km/s/Mpc, giving a range on the age of the universe between 7 and 20 billion years.

Enter the Hubble Space Telescope

So in 1993, the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope began a "key project" to obtain distances to the Cepheids in 18 galaxies. Astronomers were able to obtain for the first time more precise distances, and a more accurate value of Ho. In 1999 after several years of observations with HST astronomers were able to estimate Ho to be 71 km/s/Mpc within 10% uncertainty, one of the greatest achievements of modern astronomy. Extrapolating back to the Big Bang, that value of Ho implied an age between 9 and 14 billion years old.
[Reference Here]

Astronomers note that most galaxies in the universe reside in groups and clusters, and astronomers say discovering clusters in the early phases of construction has been a challenge due to the fact that they are rare, dim and widely scattered across the sky. The new find helps demonstrate that galaxies build up progressively over time, researchers said. It also provides further evidence for the hierarchical model of galaxy assembly.

The team of astronomers are scheduled to deliver the results of the findings Tuesday at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin, Texas. The study will also be published in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

“Records are always exciting, and this is the earliest and the most distant developing galaxy cluster that has ever been seen,” said Michael Shull, a member of the team who discovered the protocluster. “We have seen individual galaxies this old and far away, but we have not seen groups of them in the construction process before.”
(ht: The State Column)

An American President's Christmas Message From America To All

An American President's Christmas Message From America To All

It may amaze one to ponder that only 30 years ago (December 23, 1981), a President of the United States felt it was his leadership duty to speak directly about the reason for the season and assure all, whether they believed in Christianity or not, that our country and its citizens were protected here as one, under "Faith and Freedom" ... regardless of belief or circumstance.

May God bless the memory of Ronald Reagan. A message as poignant and timeless in 1981 as it is here in 2011.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Permafrost Estimates Increase Its Potential Contribution To Climate Change Theory

Melting permafrost makes the ground cave in, creating a ribbon or pocket of collapsed land called thermokarst. Scientists at Toolik are studying this to see how often they find it and what impacts it has on surrounding environments. Image Credit: trendsupdates.com

Permafrost Estimates Increase Its Potential Contribution To Climate Change Theory

All climate change attributed to the concept that "greenhouse gasses" are the main change agent may not be associated with actual human activity at all. A major contributor to Carbon and Methane gas released in our atmosphere may actually come from Earth's natural processes as the Earth goes through its cycles of hot and cold aided by the activity of our solar system's Sun.

What the release of this information does not do, as nearly all Global Warming articles that put forward the conclusion that Human Activity is the primary reason for Earth's climate of change, is point out that the math, most of the climate change projection in time models are based upon, is a fraud that was exposed in November 2009 with the unauthorized release of emails from the University of East Anglia in Great Britain. That the theory, Anthropomorphic Global Warming (AGW) is just an effort fueled by the money from Governments and Institutions (in the form of grants) that get there power to do things by proving AGW actually exists.

Take for example this article from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. As it is written, it stands as a cheer-leading news piece without the balance of stating that all AGW/Climate Change studies are based upon a theory ... not a fact. The article referenced below has inclusions that help to bring balance to the article with "[called-out inclusions]".

This excerpted and edited from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner -

New estimate boosts permafrost contribution to climate change
by Jeff Richardson / jrichardson@newsminer.com

A survey of 41 [grant-paid] scientists — including seven University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers — estimates the amount of carbon released from thawing permafrost by 2100 will be 1.7 to 5.2 times larger than previously estimated.

Their conclusions, reported Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature, describe permafrost thawing as a likely accelerator of [the unproven concept on] global warming.
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In most soils such material is typically in the top several feet, but in frozen soils those carbon-filled sediments can be much deeper.

Because of that, the estimated amount of carbon stored in northern soils has tripled in recent years, to roughly 1,700 billion tons. That’s four times more than all the carbon emitted by human activity since the Industrial Revolution and twice as much as is currently present in the atmosphere.

“Soils in the north are cold,” said Ben Abbott, a UAF doctoral student at the Institute of Arctic Biology and co-author of the Nature article. “It’s like a big refrigerator, and all that material is just stored.”

With that much carbon-filled material present, a small change in the estimated amount released could make a notable difference in climate change projections. Most scientists [an untrue assumption] believe gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, both of which are released by warming permafrost, contribute to global warming [an unproven concept].

But researchers studying northern areas with permafrost have admittedly sparse data [not enough for true conclusions], said Ted Schuur, a University of Florida professor who co-authored the article. Because of that, he said, numerous members of the Permafrost Carbon Research Network were surveyed to collect a larger picture, combining scientific data with their predictions. A National Science Foundation grant paid for the work [as in, follow the money].

“We don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, but these are probably the best people to ask [a collection of people who get paid to come up with these conclusions],” Schuur said.
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Ben Abbott, the UAF doctoral student at the Institute of Arctic Biology and co-author of the Nature article mentioned above said he and other researchers have more work ahead to test their hypotheses [again, not factual conclusions] through field research. He’s spent recent summers at Toolik Field Station, a research center north of the Brooks Range, and said he’s looking forward to another season of testing soil cores and water samples for gas emissions [no mention that the most abundant greenhouse gas that exists on Earth is Water Vapor].

Other UAF researchers who participated in the survey included Terry Chapin, IAB professor emeritus; Guido Grosse, research assistant professor at the Geophysical Institute; Dave McGuire, professor of ecology; Chien-Lu Ping, natural resources professor; Vladimir Romanovsky, Geophysical Institute professor; and Katey Walter Anthony, research assistant professor with the International Arctic Research Center.
[Reference Here]

Biggest Take-Away: "The estimated amount of carbon stored in northern soils has tripled to roughly 1,700 billion tons. That’s four times more than all the carbon emitted by human activity since the Industrial Revolution and twice as much as is currently present in the atmosphere."

What this information proves is that "greenhouse gasses" and their regulation may do nothing to curb the changes in a system of changing climate found here on this Oblate Spheroid.

Live cleanly? ... Yes!

Live under the cloud of regulation based on the grant-fueled, unproven theory that Human Activity and its control can effect climate here on Earth? ... No!

Lest one wants to put forward the additional theory that Man, and his activity, are the small rock that has turned into this larger problematic snowball, check out this article that was written before the discovery of the FRAUD that became "Climategate" in November 2009, by the National Geographic about Polar Ice Caps!


<first seen as Permafrost Estimates Increase Its Potential Contribution To Climate Change Theory at Technorati and Politisite>

Matter/ Antimatter - Atom Smasher Makes New Discovery

The LHCb team stands in front of their experiment, the LHCb detecor, at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. Image Credit: CERN/Maximilien Brice, Rachel Barbier

Matter/ Antimatter - Atom Smasher Makes New Discovery

An atom smasher based near Geneva, Switzerland conducted an experiment recently and found that there may be bits of matter that don't mirror the behavior of their antimatter counterparts.

This observance is unexpected, in that scientists have operated under the theory the universe started off with roughly equal amounts of matter and antimatter where particles of antimatter have the same mass of their twins but an opposite charge. They theorized that over the ensuing 14 billion years, most of the antimatter was destroyed, leaving a leftover universe of mainly matter.

After many experiments, in Switzerland, using the Large Hadron Collider, the 17-mile (27 km) circular particle accelerator, researchers are reporting that some matter particles produced inside the machine appear to be behaving differently from their antimatter counterparts, which might provide a partial explanation to the mystery of antimatter.

Roughly equal amounts of matter and antimatter are created in the collision of energetic gold nuclei inside the particle accelerator dubbed RHIC, but because the fireball expands and cools quickly, antimatter can survive longer than that created in the big bang. In this collision an ordinary helium-4 nucleus (background) is matched by a nucleus of antihelium-4 (foreground). Image Credit: STAR Collaboration and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

This excerpted and edited from LiveScience.com -

Is the New Physics Here? Atom Smashers Get an Antimatter Surprise
By lt | LiveScience.com

One potential explanation for this outcome is called "charge-parity violation." CP violation means that particles of opposite charge behave differently from one another.

The LHCb researchers found preliminary evidence that this is happening when particles called D-mesons, which contain "charmed quarks," decay into other particles. The whimsically named charmed quarks, like many exotic particles, are so unstable, they last only a fraction of a second. They quickly decay into other particles, and it is these products that the experiment detects. ("LHCb" is short for LHC-beauty, another flavor of quark.)

From the experiment, the researchers found a 0.8 percent difference in the probabilities that the matter and antimatter versions of these particles would decay into a particular end state.
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The new finding ranks as a "3.5 sigma" result, meaning the statistics are solid enough that there is only a 0.05 percent likelihood that the pattern they see isn't really there. For something to count as a true discovery in particle physics, it must reach a 5 sigma level of confidence.

"It's certainly exciting, and certainly worth pursuing," LHCb researcher Matthew Charles of England's Oxford University told LiveScience. "At this point it's a tantalizing hint. It's evidence of something interesting going on, but we're keeping the champagne on ice, let's say."
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If the finding is borne out, it would be a big deal, because it would mean the reigning theory of particle physics, called the Standard Model, is incomplete. Currently the Standard Model does allow for some minor CP violation, but not at the level of 0.8 percent. To explain these results, scientists would have to alter their theory or add some new physics to the existing picture.
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One possible example of the kind of new physics that might explain such CP violation is called supersymmetry. This theory suggests that in addition to all the known particles, there are supersymmetric partner particles that differ by half a unit of spin. Spin is one of the fundamental characteristics of elementary particles.

So far, no one has found direct evidence of supersymmetry. But if supersymmetric particles exist, they might be created instantaneously and disappear again during the particle-decay process. That way they could interfere with the decay process, potentially explaining why matter and antimatter decay differently.
[Reference Here]

As the old saying goes ... the more man gains answers to questions, the more questions to be answered are raised here ... on this Oblate Spheroid.



<Article seen first as Matter / Antimatter - Atom Smasher Makes New Discovery at Technorati>