Johnald's Fantastical Daily Link Splurge

Downwind faster than the wind: fascinating

Posted: 17 Mar 2009 01:57 AM PDT

(12 votes - 0 comments - 269 views)
This video shows our DDWFTTW cart, and demonstrates that stored kinetic energy is not the explanation for how it advances on a treadmill, or even climbs an inclined treadmill

Teen Dinosaurs Got into Trouble

Posted: 16 Mar 2009 11:20 PM PDT

Like teenagers today, some juvenile dinosaurs used to hang out together, according to research announced today. Also like teens, the dinos sometimes hung out in places they shouldn't have.

apod:Martian Moon Deimos from MRO

Posted: 16 Mar 2009 11:20 PM PDT

Andy Rooney Rambles on About Nothing

Posted: 16 Mar 2009 11:17 PM PDT

(13 votes - 1 comment - 134 views)
It looks like old age is finally catching up to Andy. What the hell is this about!?

Fossil sea monster's bite makes T-Rex look feeble

Posted: 16 Mar 2009 10:30 PM PDT

OSLO (Reuters) - A giant fossil sea monster found in the Arctic and known as ''Predator X'' had a bite that would make T-Rex look feeble, scientists said Monday. The 50 ft (15 meter) long Jurassic era...

Questionable and Banned Medical Devices

Posted: 16 Mar 2009 10:26 PM PDT

(10 votes - 2 comments - 227 views)
A vintage "hysteria curing" vibrator for women, a foot operated breast enlarger, a prostate gland warmer, night emission preventing cockring, a hair growing machine.

YT: "Bob McCoy, curator of the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices, demonstrates some of his vibrators and sexual therapy devices with the cantankerous Joy Behar in a "JoySpot" segment on "The View". Bob also demonstrates the Foot Pump Breast Enlarger on Meredith Viera. Bob is now retired but information about his collection can be found at http://www.museumofquackery.com"

Noam Chomsky - Universality in Linguistics & Human Rights

Posted: 16 Mar 2009 07:29 PM PDT

(12 votes - 3 comments - 121 views)
If humans have a common, in-born capacity for language, and for such complex behaviors as morality, might the faculties be somehow linked? (Chomsky starts at min 6:58)

There are two speakers in this talk: Noam Chomsky, and Elizabeth Spelke (Professor of Psychology Co-Director, Mind, Brain, and Behavior Inter-faculty Initiative, Harvard University).
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Noam Chomsky perceives a mere thread of a connection. At breakneck speed, Chomsky leads us through a history of language theory, concluding with the revolutionary model he championed: a universal grammar underpinning all languages that corresponds to an innate capacity of the human brain. While scientists may now have a "clearer grasp of the universals of language," says Chomsky, notions of universality grow murky as we move "into domains of will, choice and judgment." Chomsky cites the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights as one example of "broad cross-cultural consensus." But he brandishes examples of how "our moral and intellectual culture….forcefully rejects universal moral judgments" -- such as continued U.S. refusal to approve anti-torture conventions.

In contrast, Elizabeth Spelke forcefully links "universals in human nature to some of the developments in bringing about a greater balance in human rights." Thirty years of cognitive and cross cultural research show that humans universally structure their world in terms of objects, have a universal capacity to represent numbers, and to represent other people as "intentional, goal-directed agents whose freely chosen actions are subject to moral evaluation." Variation among humans flows from another universal capacity: to "freely combine concepts from different core systems." Spelke speculates that "humans might be gripped by a tremendous illusion that different members of different groups really are fundamentally different" – an illusion that might drive us to conflict and rights abuses. These aspects of human nature pose a major challenge, but, Spelke concludes, a more fundamental faculty "holds the potential key to remedy"—our capacity to "articulate deeply entrenched notions, criticize and get beyond them."

iCat

Posted: 16 Mar 2009 07:29 PM PDT

(10 votes - 0 comments - 272 views)
Don't go expecting a little mobile toy cat, like Pleo: iCat is a device for investegating social behavior in the home.

Read more at http://www.botjunkie.com/ and http://www.research.philips...

Snapshot of galactic doom

Posted: 16 Mar 2009 05:30 PM PDT

Take one part Spitzer Space Telescope, one part Hubble Space Telescope, and two galaxies. Shake well, bake covered for a few million years, and get this.

BBC: Secular Believers • VideoSift: Online Video *Quality Control

Posted: 16 Mar 2009 05:17 PM PDT

http://www.videosift.com/video/BBC-Secular-Believers