Horizontal Perspective 横顾天下

This morning the building management had to interrupt the electrical power supply for 4-5 hours to facilitate some upgrading work to be carried out. In order to ensure a constant electrical supply to the BiPAP on which I depended to breath, my wife Gi had arranged for a one-day rental of a UPS (uninterruptable power supply) with a battery life of 7 hours. It was a big metal box (222 mm X 483 mm X 660 mm, 98 KG) sitting on a hand trolley parked beside my bed. During the power outage, Kevin (my eldest son) came by to check on me and remarked “I bet computers used to be that size”. While he’s right, I have no heart to tell him that as recent as when he was born (he’s 22), computers were indeed larger, very much larger.

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Newsweek reported last week about the latest weapons in the US military’s arsenal. The iPod Touch and the iPhone are being adapted as general purpose handhelds for soldiers in the field.

To help soldiers make sense of data from drones, satellites and ground sensors, the U.S. military now issues the iPod Touch.

Apple gadgets are proving to be surprisingly versatile. Software developers and the US Department of Defence are developing military software for iPods that enables soldiers to display aerial video from drones and have teleconferences with intelligence agents halfway across the globe. Snipers in Iraq and Afghanistan now use a “ballistics calculator” called BulletFlight, made by the Florida firm Knight’s Armament for the iPod Touch and iPhone. Army researchers are developing applications to turn an iPod into a remote control for a bomb-disposal robot (tilting the iPod steers the robot). In Sudan, American military observers are using iPods to learn the appropriate etiquette for interacting with tribal leaders.

Source: Newsweek International Edition: U.S. Soldiers’ New Weapon: Apple iPod.

A tablet that is used to help dieters lose extra pounds is to go on sale over the counter in the UK for the first time. The product, Orlistat (marketed as Alli by GlaxoSmithKline) has been licensed for prescription in the UK for more than 10 years.

The pill, which works by blocking the absorption of fat in the body, is aimed at adults with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 28 or more.

BBC NEWS Report.

I am not entirely sure that this is a good move. What do you think ?

BTW, the Body Mass Index(BMI) is calculated thus:

More at Health Promotion Board

In this post I wish to do something I had not done before: feature a website. I am doing this because I am truly moved by the contents of this site, and I hope some of you will receive as much as I had from it.

The site I am referring to is TED (www.ted.com), and goes with the tag-line Ideas worth spreading. I first came across TED in December of 2007, when, excited by YouTube, I was looking around for better quality video contents. I was persuaded to try out Miro, a sort of virtual TV that offers FREE (I’m a sucker for all things free) High Definition video feeds. The Miro player offered a good selection of current news channels like ABC World News, NBC Nightly News, Discovery News, MSNBC Business News, NBC and Al Jazeera (in English). It also listed TED Theme: Tales Of Invention as one of the initial selection. Out of curiosity, I took a look and was immediately hooked.

The principal reason I found the contents of the site attractive was because they are informative and thought provoking without being self-important. It also proved to be extremely captivating. Initially I just wait for the weekly features to arrive, but after a couple of months I began to spent time going through the site. Almost on each occasion I manage to turn up something interesting. Even the crack-pot ideas (yes, they are there too) are surprisingly engaging.

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Way back in 1987 I bought myself a CD recording of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera and very quickly became a fan. I had been listening to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musicals since 1974 when I was first exposed to his 1970 album of the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. As a matter of habit, I looked up the names of the principal singers, and the names Michael Crawford (the phantom), Sarah Brightman (Christine) and Steve Barton (Raoul) stuck in my head. At that time I had the feeling that I had come across ‘Michael Crawford’ before, but exactly where or when eluded me. Thus it would stay for the next 18 years.

In the year 2005 my wife Gi bought me a few VCDs of old musicals that she knew I’d really enjoy watching again. Among the titles were South Pacific, Singing In The Rain and Hello Dolly. It was in the screening of Hello Dolly that it came back to me, for the name Michael Crawford was sharing top billing with Barbra Streisand and Walter Matthau. Even then then I could not be sure.

Cornelius Hackl? The lanky grasshopper of a man? The country bumpkin from Yonkers who found love in New York city? He’s the later day phantom?!?

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Journal reference: Journal of Microelectrical Systems (6 Dec 2008)
A Microfabricated PolyDiMethySliloxane (PDMS) Microbial Fuel Cell

Yeast cells feeding on the glucose in human blood might one day power implants such as pacemakers. A living source of power that is able to regenerate itself would eliminate the need for regular operations to replace batteries. A team at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, has created tiny microbial fuel cells by encapsulating yeast cells in a flexible capsule. They went on to show the fuel cells can generate power from a drop of human blood plasma. Such fuel cells would be especially useful for devices, such as intraspinal microelectrodes for treating paralysis, which need to be implanted in places where replacing a battery is tricky.

Conventional fuel cells rely on high-temperature catalysts such as platinum to strip electrons from fuels and generate a current. The idea with microbial fuel cells, which are being investigated as large-scale power sources is to exploit the wide range of low-temperature catalysts – enzymes – found in living cells. The easiest way to do this is to simply steal the electrons produced when cells start to break down food. This can be done with the help of an “electron mediator” – a chemical small enough to pass into cells, grab some electrons, and diffuse out again.

The new fuel cell consists of a colony of Saccharomyces cerevisiae – the kind of yeast commonly used in brewing and baking – encapsulated in a fuel cell made of a form of silicone called polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). (more…)

We want to make it absolutely clear that this is not a crisis of mismanagement. This is simply a crisis of dollars — a crisis of not having enough dollars coming our way.

Source: InfoWorld report

Microsoft requested on Tuesday some $20 billion in bailout funds from the federal government, claiming that as the company controls an overwhelming share of the OS market, it is too big to fail. Low adoption rates for Vista, the ensuing ad campaign trying to convince people that they really do like Vista, and the increased need for development resources to rush Windows 7 to market to make people forget about Vista have necessitated the bailout, the company said.

“We want to make it absolutely clear that this is not a crisis of mismanagement,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in a prepared statement. “This is simply a crisis of dollars — a crisis of not having enough dollars coming our way.”

Ballmer didn’t say if Microsoft executives would still receive bonuses if the company succeeded in getting bailout funds. He also did not indicate how the company intended to spend any bailout money it might receive, merely explaining that it would be used to “fund operations.”  Sources within Microsoft hinted that the money might be used for a surprising purpose: suing Apple, Google, open source companies, and other entities Microsoft has labeled “revenue stealers” in internal communications.

… as a stopgap measure while it struggles with the economic climate, Microsoft believes litigation can be a revenue-positive undertaking.

[This is probably the funniest 1st April spoof I've ever come across - Edgar]