? August 2, 2010
August 4, 2010 ?
August 3
Gastric bypass surgery performed by remote control
Sunday, August 21, 2005
A robotic system at Stanford Medical Center was used to perform a laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery successfully with a theoretically similar rate of complications to that seen in standard operations. However, as there were only 10 people in the experimental group (and another 10 in the control group), this is not a statistically significant sample.
If this surgical procedure is as successful in large-scale studies, it may lead the way for the use of robotic surgery in even more delicate procedures, such as heart surgery. Note that this is not a fully automated system, as a human doctor controls the operation via remote control. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is a treatment for obesity.
There were concerns that doctors, in the future, might only be trained in the remote control procedure. Ronald G. Latimer, M.D., of Santa Barbara, CA, warned “The fact that surgeons may have to open the patient or might actually need to revert to standard laparoscopic techniques demands that this basic training be a requirement before a robot is purchased. Robots do malfunction, so a backup system is imperative. We should not be seduced to buy this instrument to train surgeons if they are not able to do the primary operations themselves.”
There are precedents for just such a problem occurring. A previous “new technology”, the electrocardiogram (ECG), has lead to a lack of basic education on the older technology, the stethoscope. As a result, many heart conditions now go undiagnosed, especially in children and others who rarely undergo an ECG procedure.
How Many Blades For Your Wind Generator Selecting The Right Set
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By Tony Jones
One of the most and often questions I get asked involves the blades configuration of a wind generator. How many blades? How long should they be? What is the correct material for them to be built out of. This is very important when building a wind generator. There has been a lot of misinformation printed lately in the name of making a sale. At Hurricane Wind Power we sell what we believe is the best product for our generators. At the end of the day it is our job to provide the consumer with the best product available therefore nothing I do is set in stone. If I find something better I am the am always willing to change, but these are my opinions based on my experience.
Buying or building a blade set is not a one size fits all application. It is very important to match the blade set to the generator you are installing them on. Our generators are all hand wound so it is easy to get to the cut in point. Let’s discuss that for a moment and assume you don’t know anything about wind turbines. If you do great if not this is a piece of information I consider essential when considering a blade set. The cut in point is the place in the generators power curve where the voltage exceeds that of what is being charged. The load can be a 12,24,or 48 volt bank of batteries. It could also be the start up point of a grid tied inverter which is adjustable. What you need to know is that all of the spinning that your wind turbine is doing before it reaches the cut in point makes you no power.
Once a generator is spun to an rpm the makes the voltage of the ‘cut in point’of the system the generator is then under a load. After that point, the torque in your blade set that pushes against the resistance is what creates power. Therefore in my opinion and for our products the more torque the better. This is because our generators have a low RPM cut in and do not need several hundred RPM just to reach the point where they can produce usable power. Surface area and blade length are what creates power.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si3O9jDwgxo[/youtube]
As a general rule there are few absolutes in choice of material. The exception being that my opinion is building blades out of PCV is dangerous and a waste of your time. Further if they are not balanced correctly they can destroy a generator. Aluminum blades seem to be popping up all over the place. These cupped blades are cheap to make and have little flexibility. They therefore tend to stress crack pretty quick. Again just relaying my experiences
I have seen quality blades made of galvanized steal such as the ones we sell. These blades have a fixed pitch and have some give to them. They therefore flatten out a bit as the RPM increases allowing the blade to be more efficient and resistant to the weather and stress cracking. Wood and carbon fiber are also used to make some of the finest blade sets I have seen.
In summary I believe the diameter and surface area of the blade set are two of the most important factors in choosing a blade set. These are directly related to how much torque can be put on the generator to overcome resistance and therefore produce power.
At the end of the day it takes power to make power. If you see a wind turbine with a small blade set with no surface area claiming to output 2000 watts it is a good bet that is a fraud . Wattage is a measure of work being done, therefore spinning a generator up to a high RPM with no load on it and reporting the wattage output is deceiving at best.
About the Author: I am Anthony Jones MA owner of Hurricane Wind Power. We are a quality customer oriented wind power store specializing in,complete kits wind generators wind turbines grid ties and DIY products visit us at: The Wind Generator Authority
Source: isnare.com
Permanent Link: isnare.com/?aid=653772&ca=Computers+and+Technology
Eurozone approves Greece bailout
Monday, May 3, 2010
The European Union and International Monetary Fund (IMF) have agreed to provide the ailing Greek economy with 110 billion euros (US$146 billion) worth of loans over three years. Finance ministers from the sixteen countries that use the euro – known as the eurozone – approved the plan yesterday.
According to the plan, the EU is to provide 80 billion euros of the loans, and the IMF the other 30 billion; it is aimed at preventing Greece from defaulting on debt.
Before being fully implemented, however, the proposal must be individually approved by all fifteen other countries in the eurozone. According to Luxembourgish prime minister Jean-Claude Junker, up to 30 billion euros would be given to Greece in the first year.
German chancellor Angela Merkel commented on the proposal yesterday, saying: “The programmme is without alternative to safeguard the stability of the euro.”
The Greek government yesterday predicted that the country’s gross domestic product would drop by four percent this year; it also forecast the national debt, currently at 115% of GDP, will increase to 149% in 2013, before going down.
33 dead, 15 injured in Virginia Tech shootings
Monday, April 16, 2007
Two shootings at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia have left 33 people dead, gunman included, in the deadliest civilian shooting in the United States. A further 15 people are being treated in a hospital. According to police, the gunman committed suicide.
At a 4:45 p.m. EST press conference, it was stated that no names of the injured or killed will be released soon. According to the press conference, the shooter shot and killed two people at an on-campus dormitory in a “domestic dispute.” He then walked to the other end of the campus and began to open fire on students.
BC election writ drops; referendum campaigns underway
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The provincial election was called today in British Columbia. Alongside with the election, the citizens of the province will also be debating if they should change their electoral system from Single Member Plurality to Single Transferable Vote (STV). The vote for both the election and the referendum is to be held on May 12th.
According to the Angus Reid Strategies online poll, the issues before the candidates this year are the economy, crime and public safety, and health care.
Gordon Campbell is the current Premier of British Columbia, and leader of the Liberal Party. Three new tax measures have been proposed, increasing apprenticeship training tax credits, reducing small business income tax, and raising the revenue definition for small business. “Keep B.C. Strong” is the Liberal slogan.
The New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Carole James is focusing her election platform on supporting a green economy, eliminating the carbon tax, offering families tax relief, freezing post-secondary tuition, raising the minimum wage, and providing a small business tax holiday. The NDP slogan is “Take back your B.C.”
The Green Party, led by Jane Sterk, is focused on environmental issues, crime and police, and a ‘green economy’. The Green Party is in support of the carbon tax and will be campaigning in favour of the new STV voting system that is being proposed again. The Green Party slogan is “A better plan for B.C.”File:Carole james.jpg
Wilf Hanni is at the helm of the Conservative Party which opposes the Recognition and Reconciliation Act, privatization of BC Hydro Bill 42 ‘gag law’, and the carbon tax. They propose to reduce senior civil employee pay scale, as well as personal and corporate income tax.
Other parties running candidates are the Democratic Reform under Graeme Roger, the Marijuana Party under Marc Emery, the Work Less Party under Conrad Schmidt, the Refederation Party under Mike Summers, the Sex Party under John Ince, and the Communist Party under George Gidora.
For 60 days before the election, each party may campaign with an allowable CA$1.1 million, in the final 28 days, $4.4 million may be spent. $70,000 is allowed by candidates before the writ is dropped, and another $70,000 in the midst of campaigning.
The referendum will allow BC voters to choose between two voting systems. The Single Member Plurality system is the current system in all Canadian provinces, and is also used to elect Members of Parliament in Ottawa. The other system is BC-STV, which would replace 85 single-member ridings with 20 larger ridings in which between two and seven Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) would be elected. The total number of MLAs will not change. Voters would rank the candidates in order of preference, as many or as few as they wish. When the results are tallied, votes are transferred to the next preference on the ballot when the first preference has been elected or eliminated. The system is designed to ensure that every vote helps to elect someone, every vote counts as fully as possible, and every voter is represented by a candidate they voted for, as nearly as mathematically possible.
Previous elections held under the current Single Member Plurality (also known as First Past The Post) system led to odd results in certain elections, such as the 2001 election where the winning party obtained 77 of the 79 seats of the legislature with just 58% of the vote, and the 1996 election, in which the party with the most votes failed to win the election. The recommendation to switch to STV was made by the British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform, a group formed in 2004 of randomly selected citizens. They spent a year learning about voting systems around the world and consulting with BC citizens.
It’s the fourth referendum in the country and the second in the province within the last 4 years. The previous referendum held in 2005 also voted on these same electoral systems and came within 2.3% of the 60% threshold. In order for the referendum to be binding, BC-STV will again need 60% of the popular vote and 50% of votes in 51 of the 85 ridings in BC. If the change is approved, it will be the first province in the country to adopt reform of the electoral system in recent history.
Fair Voting BC, recognized as the official proponent group, argues that STV will lead to fairer election results, effective local representation and greater voter choice. They argue that BC-STV will give voters the power to hold politicians and political parties accountable, by giving every voter a vote that actually makes a difference. If the STV system is approved, then it will be put into use for the first time for the 2013 provincial election.
The recognized opponent group is the No STV Campaign Society. Their arguments are that STV will give larger ridings, voters would be unsure of whom their MLA would be, there would be unequal geographic representation, that the counting method is too complicated, the electoral system results are unverified in practical usage, the system results in a higher probability of minority governments and the subsequent coalition of parties. They also argue that other countries who use systems similar to STV have had problems with their election results.
$500,000 in public funding has been given to both the proponents and the opponents of the referendum.
Reasons To Hire Rat Control Services In Alexandria, Va
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byAlma Abell
The realization that a household is suffering from a rodent problem can induce a state of panic in some homeowners. While panic is not helpful, taking immediate action certainly is; there are two ways to do this: take a DIY approach, or hire an exterminator. Most of the time, it’s a much better idea for homeowners to look into Rat Control Services in Alexandria VA than it is for them to attempt to solve the problem themselves.
Health Concerns
Rat infestations can pose serious health concerns to a home’s residents and visitors, as these rodents carry a wide variety of diseases that can be spread through rat droppings and urine. It’s never a good idea to handle rat detritus without adequate safety gear and experience.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NRWtd_SiU8[/youtube]
Avoiding Further Damage
While it may be tempting to just spend a few dollars on traps and just wait around until the rats wind up getting caught, there’s no guarantee that they will, in fact, be trapped before they are able to do significant damage to the home. Rats can chew up insulation, wires, and even wood, and the cost of repairs can wind up eclipsing the price of hiring a professional to remove them quickly and efficiently if the problem is allowed to persist for long enough.
Get Rid of Every Rat
It’s rare for just one rat to take up residence in a home; chances are, if one rat has found a food source and a place to build a nest, others have already followed. Hiring Rat Control Services in Alexandria VA is the best way to ensure that every single rat has been eradicated.
Prevent Future Infestations
Getting rid of the existing rat problem is only the first step that homeowners should be taking. Once the rats that are already infesting the home have been removed, certain steps must be taken to prevent their return such as blocking entryways and eliminating sources of food and nest materials. A professional exterminator can offer preventative services that will stop the problem from reoccurring.
Get Help Now
Do you need to find Rat Control Services in Alexandria VA to get rid of rats but you’re not sure who to call? Contact Pest Management Services today to get a quote.
Interview with Ton Roosendaal about Elephants Dream and free content movies
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Three days after the Internet release of the free content 3D short Elephants Dream (see Wikinews coverage), we exchanged e-mails with Ton Roosendaal about the reaction to the film, open source filmmaking, and the changes to Blender that resulted from the production. Ton Roosendaal is the lead developer of the Blender 3D rendering and modelling software that was used for the movie. He is also the chairman of the Blender Foundation, a non-profit organization which was formed in support of the software and projects like Elephants Dream.
How much money did the Blender Foundation spend on producing the movie? Has the money been fully recouped by DVD orders and donations?
We still have to finish the final bookkeeping for this project. It has been executed in co-production with the Netherlands Media Art Institute, and we each had our own internal budgeting for the project. When you exclude expenses of pre-production and producer personnel, the total budget was about 120,000 €, of which we covered half. Our contribution was roughly covered half by the DVD sales, and half by European Union support (http://www.uni-verse.org consortium).
One of the most common criticisms of CGI films is focus on technology over content. For instance, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within flopped with audiences, in spite of being an undisputed technical milestone. I’ve seen many reviews that criticized the plot of “Elephants Dream” as too bizarre or confusing. In retrospect, are you happy with the story development process?
Haha, I knew the story and plot would get a mixed acclaim. There’s a couple of reasons I’d like to mention for it.
First of all; the criticism resembles how people witness Blender itself, too. Many people expect that Free Software is an easy accessible mass audience product. We get a lot of complaints by non-artists that they can’t get into the software easily, whilst the complexity of commercial products like Maya or Houdini is perceived as a confirmation of its “quality”. Apparently an Open Movie created similar expectations with the audience.
Luckily we also got many positive reviews of the artistic result of the movie. It is quite abstract, but definitely has many layers of information, inspiring many of the viewers to see relevant real life messages hidden here.
For this project we’ve teamed up with the Netherlands Media Art Institute, internationally renowned as a resource for video art. So for Elephants Dream, we’ve had the luxury to challenge ourselves to create real independent artistic content as well. The artists had a lot of freedom from the start; they were responsible for the concept, story and creative development of the entire movie. This has resulted in a lot of quite personal choices, based on what the artists liked to do themselves. I really cherish such an approach, it has resulted in a very motivated team working crazy hours the last months to get it all realized.
But, most importantly; the main target of our project was not only to create a 3D movie short, but to experiment with ways to improve the efficiency and quality of open source development. On this aspect only, this project was just a huge success, and the main reason for our sponsors (the DVD pre-sale) to support it. I know they might have liked a cartoonish funny movie with furry animals better, but for that you get already pretty well served by the bigger 3D animation studios. 🙂
I’m the first to admit that – looking back especially – certain aspects worked out quite weakly; there’s loose ends and questionable decisions, especially in story development and continuity. That’s just the risk of doing experiments, and nothing I regret really. The five artists from our user community who were invited to make the movie were young people with no professional background in filmmaking. Their personal incentive to participate in this project was also to learn from it, and to create a good portfolio for their future career. I’ve witnessed them grow in competence in the past year enormously, something I’m incredibly proud of.
On the technical level, the only major criticism I’ve seen of “Elephants Dream” is the character animation, especially in the opening scene — many reviewers felt that the movements seemed a bit unnatural. Do you agree with these criticisms? If so, what do you think can be done to improve on that level?
Yeah, the challenge the artists set themselves – to use quite realistic personages – is also something that easily works against you. In many animation movies they introduce characters in the beginning in a way you get used to their specific characteristic movements, so you accept a certain level of non-realism easily. (Check the weird walk cycles in The Incredibles for example). Another aspect is that we’ve started work on the first scenes, and ended with the last scenes. I can clearly see the animation quality increase, and that whilst the ending scenes were done in much less time due to time constraints.
We also didn’t schedule to do 9.5 minutes of animation either…. Originally it was more like 6. But, it’s always easier to look back to define the right decisions, eh? 🙂
I’m very happy with the reviews we got so far; luckily the movie was perceived as a professional quality product, and reviewed based on comparisons with what the big studios come up with. Even when we couldn’t satisfy all these quality demands, it has luckily not been branded as a pathetic presumptuous attempt by amateurs!
Do you think there is hope for a full-length open movie project in the near future? Would the Blender Foundation be interested in such a project, or do you intend to continue focusing mainly on shorts?
I’d like to wait a little while with defining what a next project would look like. Given the constraints of “organizing projects to improve open source development”, we might have not much choice either. It would probably mean to work with a new team each time, so most likely be based on shorts only. On the other hand, there’s also clear signals that this approach works well, and creates excitement and involvement of a lot of people, also from producers and sponsors. That might enable us to set up a next project based on larger targets. For a full-length feature film however, we should involve a sufficient amount of experienced film makers as well, and/or invite the first team to participate again. That would put a lot of pressure on the required budget…. You can’t do that based on a 1000 DVD pre-sale target. Would more be like 20,000 or so…. 🙂
How did the process of making the movie feed back into the development of Blender? Are there major technical changes that were made only or primarily because of the film?
Already during the pre-production phase the artists have defined the key targets for Blender development. This then was coordinated with the online development community too. I’ve done the most crucial (re-)development mostly myself, though. Especially on the character animation tools, on the rendering pipeline and compositing tools.
It is especially the latter I’m most satisfied with. In 3D movie production the compositing stage creates a giant content bottleneck. By transparently integrating this in our render-pipeline, a very efficient workflow has been achieved. And, not to forget, Blender now also offers the first production-level open source compositor on the market!
The current summary you can find in our work-in-progress release notes.
What are the key technical features in Blender you want to add or improve for future movie projects?
Depends on what the movie is about! There’s always hundreds of features you can work on. However, we’ll have to work on that anyway, movie project or not. There’s a lot of professionals using Blender now, and they can’t wait for the Blender Foundation to do movies! Look at this studio for example:http://www.plumiferos.com/
I read that at least one proprietary software package, Reaktor, was used for the sound effects. Is this because no equivalent free software solution exists yet? Will future projects have a “free software only” policy?
We’ve limited the “Open Source tools” requirement to our own Studio Orange only. That was what we could keep in control at least, and I can tell you it was not always easy even… 🙂
For sound and music we’ve decided from the beginning to seek an external sponsor. We have chosen to work with the best quality studio and composer we could find, preferably using open source, but not as a prerequisite.
My own competence is solely within the CG [computer graphics, Ed.] side of movie making. When it comes to music editing, or video encoding and DVD authoring, I could only decide to choose to work with external parties with proven competences in that area. I have to be practical in projects like this, especially to ensure it will be realized.
Hopefully, now we’ve got so much attention world wide, we can involve more non-CG open source next time, too. I will definitely strive for the maximum here, but it will fully depend on the amount of professional support we can get.
Blender itself was originally closed source freeware, until it was “liberated” through a fundraising campaign. If you could choose one proprietary application to “set free” where such a goal could be realistically achieved, which one would it be?
Well, the “realistically achieved” demand makes it quite difficult. 🙂 Looking back at similar cases, like Mozilla and OpenOffice.org, it was always very circumstantial. It just happens sometimes, you can’t organize something like this to happen in advance. The only common denominator is “a company in troubles”… so, who’s in trouble now?
What is your personal favorite computer-animated full-length film?
Uuuh… that differs every week! Probably Ice Age (the first one). Mostly because they didn’t overdo showcasing 3D technology so much, but created truly adorable characters and great funny gags.
News briefs:October 14, 2007
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Audio Wikinews News Brief for 2007-10-14 |
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Recorded by: DavumayaProblems listening to the file? See media help.
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The time is 5:40 UTC and this Audio Wikinews Brief for Sunday, October 14, 2007.
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Bush crashes his bike into Scottish police officer
Thursday, July 7, 2005
U.S. President George W. Bush crashed his mountain bike into an unfortunate police officer in Scotland.
Mr. Bush, who celebrated his 59th birthday last night was cycling on a bike around the Gleneagles Hotel, where he is staying for the 31st G8 summit, when he, perhaps partially due to the bad weather, crashed into one of the police officers responsible for his and the other leaders’ safety.
The officer had to be taken to the hospital having suffered a twisted ankle whilst Mr. Bush, who was wearing a helmet, only suffered minor bruises despite landing on asphalt. The president had to return to the hotel by van because the bike was too badly damaged.
Bush has been involved in two similar accidents during his presidency. In 2003, he fell off a Segway personal transporter, and in 2004, he fell off a mountain bike.