http://www.livescience.com/technology/090728-new-state-matter.html
It seems that some materials scientists have in fact created transparent aluminum.OK … it IS transparent to wavelengths in the ultraviolet, but it is a step in the science fiction direction.
That’s the ticket, laddy!
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/07/chicago-8-states-sign-high-speed-rail-pact.html
After a decade plus of false starts and maybes, it looks like there is another attempt to get high speed rail off the ground and moving.
With the anticipated loss of petroleum in the coming century, the one thing that we will see is a major change in transportation; a move that will disproportinately affect larger geographic nations (US, Canada, Russia, China, India, Brazil), because it will hit hardest in air travel and automobiles. While we have slowly made progress on electric automobiles, air travel does not appear to have any realistic or cheap alternatives. Certainly, it is a possibility that in the 2100s, air travel will be something that is read about, or reserved for government/military/emergency use only.
Especially in larger countries, high speed rail has been discussed as the only reliable way to begin replacing air travel, based on current proven technology. Of course, with air travel still relatively cheap, there is no incentive to move on this. Hopefully, this is a step in the right direction regarding sane planning for the future. True, this plan only covers a few midwestern states, but will hopefully branch out from there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HcsDc_9LX8
Disney released one of the most awaited film trailers this last week at Comicon.
Coming in 2010 in Disney 3-D …
Jeff Bridges is back as Kevin Flynn!
Not only the 16th modern perfect game in history, but considering that his other no-hit game involved facing exactly 27 batters (he picked off Sammy Sosa, whom he had walked), Mark is the first player in Major League history with two no-hit games facing the minimum 27 batters. This was all thanks to one of the greatest situation catches in the outfied you are ever likely to see as DeWayne Wise preserved the perfect game, no-hitter, and the shut out all at once with a home run robbing catch to lead off the ninth inning (out #25) that needs to be seen to be believed.
By far and away: the greatest pitching performance I have seen from my Sox in my lifetime.
To quote the Hawk: MERCY!! … yes … Yes … YEs … YESSSSS!!!
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html
Just in time for Apollo 11′a anniversary, NASA has released the photos that should for once and for all end the lunar hoaxers claims of a faked moon landing.
In June, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) went into orbit. Its cameras are the best ever installed on a lunar orbiter … so good in fact that they can take pictures of the lunar excursion modules (LEMs) that landed on the moon. As of the time NASA released the photos, there were pictures of Eagle (Apollo 11), Antares (Apollo 14), Falcon (Apollo 15), Orion (Apollo 16), and Challenger (Apollo 17) had been imaged (Apollo 12’s Intrepid has not been imaged yet, and of course Apollo 13’s Aquarius never made it to the moon).
Some of the photos are fantastic … in some cases, scientific equipment is visible, as is a disturbed path from the LEM to scientific equipment (footprints and/or tire tracks … in the absence of wind, those tracks will be around a very long time).
Another victory for science, fact, and education!
Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch, and in three days (July 20) will be the anniversary of man’s first steps on the moon. Singularly, our species ultimate achievement (the wheel, fire, and the curveball, excepted).
Not in time for the anniversary, but some time in the next month or so, some folks associated with the film industry will be cleaning up the grainy footage that captivated well over a billion people 40 years ago. As one story descibed it: the footage will now be better than what people actually saw on their TVs in 1969.
There was one problem: believe it or not, NASA actually seems to have lost all of the original footage from the moon landing. Fortunately, there were duplicates kept all over the world they were able to find for the project.
Some of the restoration is done:
There are other snippets available on youtube. Undoubtedly, the hacks trying to make a buck by selling people books and videos of the “faked moon landing” will have a field day with the lack of original NASA footage and the fact that “Hollywood is just cleaning up their best work”.
Still, it is ridiculous that this great event does not get its due in history.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-cubs-bankruptcy&prov=ap&type=lgns
The Chicago Cubs are exploring filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in order to hasten their $900 million sale, which according to a few people is not only a vast overpayment for the club and its associated holdings, but may lead the new owners to require financial restructuring of the team (read: not signing any high priced free agents for a while, having a strictly limited ability to resign talent wanting more money).
The definition of “a while” according to the Chicago Tribune was about 30 years, so at this rate, the Chicago Cubs will likely be competitive again sometime around 2040.
I know, I know …. its not all likely to happen, but a South Sider can hope.
Hey Chicago, what do you say?
The Cubs are going broke today (sing it)
Broke Cubs Brooooke. Broke Cubs Brooooke.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090713/sc_livescience/catsdocontrolhumansstudyfinds
In Pulp Fiction, Uma Thurman’s character, Mrs. Mia Wallace, insists the world can be broken up into two categories: those who prefer The Beatles, and those who prefer Elvis. I know that there are large segments of the modern world who have not heard of either, but I do suspect that large segments of the population can be divided into “dog” people and “cat” people.
Count me among the dog people. There is something noble about the animal that can both survive on its own, or with a pack. Hunter, protector, and loyal companion, that would willing give its life to save yours. If your house caught on fire, and you asked a feline to save you, it would “go get help”.
Now, new research comes out that proves there’s a good reason to be cautious of these sneaky cats: they do use some form of perverse mind control over owners … something I got to see a bit first hand last week.
It turns out that a certain meowing of hungry domestic cats mimics the sounds of a crying human infant … that is the frequencies of the mewing are similar to the sounds of infants. The human brain is hardwired to respond to these sounds, and thus when a cat meows for its food, the owners are more or less biologically predisposed to give in to their tabby masters.
This rang a bell after spending a week among cats and the humans they own in Seattle. My friends there are owned by a pair of felines. At night, as feeding time approached, I noticed on more than one occasion that my friends noted an inability to tell the soft purring of their cat-masters from the muffled crying of their infant son, upstairs behind a closed door. Reading this article brought back that memory. Of course, one example is more than enough to confirm any scientific finding 
I suspect that H.G. Wells was a cat fancier … if he had been a dog fancier, the Martians in War of the Worlds would have been cat-like. And now we have proof!
When I was but a young teen, V was a great TV miniseries. Forget the sequel (which wasn’t bad), and forget the series which followed. The original miniseries was a really good examination about how powerfully evil movements (like Nazism) can easily grow in advanced societies that think they are immune to such things. In addition to showing how seductive this evil can be, it also depicts (much like it was in France in World War II) that resistance movements generally draw from all strata of society … in other words, there is no one group that can claim to be the righteous … rather it is elements of all groups who come together to resist tyranny. The original series depicted the resistance as being made up of journalists, scientists, street hustlers, doctors, mercenaries, religious, non-religious, rich, poor, and people of every ethnicity.
One of the highlights seems to be the casting of Morena Baccarin who you can see combines the exotic sultriness that she brought to the character Inara in the series Firefly, with the creepy authority that she brought to the character Adria in Stargate SG-1.
There was talk a few years ago of writing a continuation from the second miniseries (ignoring the brief series that followed), and even bringing back the same actors from the original series. The next thing I heard was that it would be a strict remake of the original miniseries.
The look and feel given to this series (it will be a full blown series, not a miniseries like its predecessor) is very movie-like. I look forward to seeing what twist is given this series over the original.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ys-forbesoverpaid071009&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
Are baseball players overpaid? Sure they are (at least most of them). The New York Yankees alone owe a payroll in 2009 of over 201 million dollars. This is actually down 8 million dollars from last year, but is almost double their 2000 season payroll. As a comparison, when George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees from CBS in 1973, he paid an astonishing 10 million dollars (keep in mind: Alex Rodriguez is pocketing 32 million dollars from the Yankees this year).
Also, by comparison, the Florida Marlins owe a combined payroll of just under 37 million dollars. The Pittsburgh Pirates payroll is just under 49 million dollars.
Let’s take a trip back in time …
In 1975, the Major League Baseball Players Union created a test case situation, when two players opted to play one year without a contract, and declared themselves free agents. Up until this point, all Major League players were subject to what was termed the “reserve clause”. That is, once they signed a contract with team, they were forced to reserve their services for that team after the contract expires. In other words, when the contract expired, they could not deal with other teams, and other teams could not approach them: they could only deal with their original team. As you might guess, this gave team owners tremendous leverage in dealing with players. Players who did not want to deal with their current team were free to lave and not play, but could not deal with another Major League team.
In 1975, the grievance filed by the two players resulted in an end to the reserve clause, as the neutral arbiter sided with the players in that the reserve clause was an unfair way to deal with players. The owners argued that if there were no reserve clause, the best players would always be signed by the teams with the most money.
Sound familiar?
As a result, in 1976, the owners and players’ union wrote a new rule, which refused a player free agency until they had played 6 years. The rules have been rewritten a few times since then, however, it has remained relatively the same.
Not surprisingly, in 1977 and 1978, the New York Yankees won their first World Series since the early 1960s. George Steinbrenner went out and purchased players like Reggie Jackson, Goose Gossage, Bucky Dent, and ran roughshod over the league.
You might guess that the solution is simple. Even on radio, many of the talking heads say to not blame the players for trying to make all the money they can (and I personally don’t), because it is the owners who voluntarily offer the money and pay the salaries. If the owners simply refuse to offer and pay, the salaries will go down.
The problem: the owners tried that and got hauled into court.
In the early-mid 1980s, the owners engaged in what is referred to as the era of collusion. During this time, as players reached free agency, and started dealing with other teams, owners either refused to meet the minimum offers from the players, or offered salaries so low that it more or less forced the players to sign for more “reasonable” salaries with their original teams. The owners were accused of fixing the outcome of seasons by restricting player movement, not to mention refusing to negotiate in good faith. Not surprisingly, this created an era of bad feeling between the players and owners, which likely led to the players strike in the early 1990s.
So here we are: we have finally reached the point where the best players are for the most part ending up on the richest teams (Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Cardinals, Angels, Dodgers), there has been a corresponding increase in the value of teams (the Yankees are valued around 1.5 billion dollars; the Cubs just sold for a vastly overpriced 900 million dollars). Oh yeah, the cost of going to a baseball game has skyrocketed (the top seats, excluding luxury-type suites, at Yankee Stadium are $325 each).
So, where do we go?
It is clear that there needs to be the following in baseball:
1. Owners must have a minimum payout to the players. They already do, though this may need to be adjusted up. There is something wrong when teams have combined payrolls that are only slightly higher than the salary of one player somewhere else in the league.
2. There needs to be a negotiated salary cap, as exists in the NBA and NFL. If player salaries continue to spiral out of control, then we are seeing the beginning of the end of the game. We are already seeing national media all but refusing to cover teams not in the biggest markets. Why? Partially because in the smaller markets the interest in the game is waning because of an inability to land bigger stars and perform well, consistently (sure, teams like the Tigers occasionally make the World Series, but this is more about happenstance than consistency).
What is the problem? The players have repeatedly stated they will not submit to a salary cap. With teams experiencing an inability to succeed and draw fans, there has been talk of contraction (meaning several players losing a job). The players successfully negotiated an anti-contraction clause into their last collective contract. Given that the Expos would have logically been contracted, they instead moved to Washington where they have drawn flies in their brand new stadium. This hasn’t worked.
In the end, baseball is seeing waning interest among young people …. it is not drawing an international following like the NFl does to a limited extent, and the NBA has to a much larger extent. If baseball is to survive, something needs to be done to safeguard its players … and their employers … and ultimately the fans.
