Horizontal Perspective 横顾天下

Most people believe cold and flu viruses can contaminate doorknobs, faucets and other surfaces. But is that true? And for how long?

Studies have found that the survival time for both kinds of viruses varies greatly, from a few seconds to 48 hours. The reasons have to do with a number of factors, including the type of surface, humidity and temperature.

For example, cold and flu viruses survive longer on inanimate surfaces that are nonporous, like metal, plastic and wood, and less on porous surfaces, like clothing, paper and tissue. Most flu viruses can live one to two days on nonporous surfaces, and 8 to 12 hours on porous surfaces. But a 2006 study found that avian influenza virus can survive for as long as six days on some surfaces.

Cold viruses, however, deteriorate quickly. A study in 2007 found that when objects in a hotel room — light switches, telephones — were contaminated with a cold virus, 60 percent of healthy volunteers picked up the virus when they touched one of the objects an hour later. Eighteen hours later, the transmission rate was cut in half.

On skin, cold and flu viruses generally last less than a few minutes, but that can be plenty of time: studies have shown that most people touch their hands or mouth several times in the course of daily activities — enough to cause infection.

So it’s TRUE. Cold and flu viruses can contaminate doorknobs, faucets and other surfaces. And flu viruses in particular can survive much longer than most people think possible. So wash your hands, frequently and thoroughly; and avoid touching your mouth, nose and eyes for as much as possible.

The Senseable City Laboratory at M.I.T. has designed a wheel that captures the kinetic energy released when a rider brakes and saves it for when the rider needs a boost.  The new wheel uses a kinetic energy recovery system, the same technology used by hybrid cars, like the Toyota Prius, to harvest otherwise wasted energy when a cyclist brakes or speeds down a hill. With that energy, it charges up a battery inside the wheel’s hub. 

The sleek red hub, called the Copenhagen Wheel, can be retrofitted to any bike’s rear wheel, and it includes sensors that track air quality, a meter that logs miles and a GPS unit to track routes. All that data can be sent via Bluetooth to a rider’s smartphone and shared with others. This eliminates the clunkiness of other electric bikes with heavy batteries and unwieldy wires by placing all the technology into the wheel.

Another group back at M.I.T. is building a different electric bike wheel. It‘s designed to be plugged in to charge, and may add regenerative components as an external accessory, but not as a component embedded into the wheel’s hub.

It could be great for people who have a 10-mile commute and don’t want to show up at work sweating.
Elderly bikers might also make a good target. For my mother it would be perfect. She loves riding her bike and has one or two hills on her normal route that this could help with.

Last week BBC NEWS reported that Japanese police had uncovered the first case of biometric fraud. In this case, a 27 year old Chinese woman was discovered to have had her fingerprints surgically swapped between hands in order to fool Japanese immigration.

It is Japan’s first case of alleged biometric fraud, but police believe the practice may be widespread. … The apparent ability of illegal migration networks to break through hi-tech controls suggests that other countries who fingerprint visitors could be equally vulnerable — not least the United States

This highlight what is probably foremost on the mind of U.S. immigration officials, though few chose to voice it publicly. They are now aware that the biometric technology can be subverted easily if the passport issuing authority of the originating country does not ensure that the credentials presented is both authentic and accurate. What can be done about it? Perhaps this?

A Tokyo toy store recently launched a universal jigsaw puzzle kit on its sales-floor. For ¥1,800 (about US20 or S$28), you get a box containing 300 pieces of generic pixel puzzles which are all just varying shades of a single colour. Out of the box, you can make Mona Lisa, JFK, etc, arranging it according to symbols printed on the reverse side. Unlike conventional jigsaw puzzles, you can make up just about anything with it with some creative imagination (or some help from the company).

Here’s how it works: You take a snapshot of the subject which you wish to compose with your cell-phone and send it to a supplied cell-phone number. The service crunch it and reply with detailed instructions and pattern on how to assemble the pieces to make up the picture. You follow the instructions, finish the puzzle, hang it up and amaze your friends (that’s bragging for the Japanese). When you are tired of the picture, break it up and start over with another picture, ad infinitum (or ad nauseam if you tire of fads quickly like the average modern-day Japanese).

Pictorially, the sequence :

You might have noticed that there has been no new post since 30th of Nov. This is due to the state of my PC. I had been experiencing quite a bit of system errors, which was exacerbated my two disastrous attempts to apply the Vista SP2. So on the 28th, I reluctantly bought an OEM copy of Windows 7 Ultimate from a U.S. website.  (I said reluctantly because I feel that the prices charged by Microsoft for Windows is ridiculously high. But that’s another story). The next day, I bit the bullet and processed with the upgrade.

As I was looking for the least disruption to the system, I elected for an in-place upgrade. It didn’t take because my data directories (My Documents, etc) are placed on another disk. So it went for a new install, (which I prefer). It took just over 3 hours. But the reinstallation of my existing applications and settings will take a long while more. That’s what I’ve been doing since. It’s finally completed today. So it’s nose back against the grindstone from tomorrow.