- Of course there’s always debate about invasive species, but usually… Well, usually you don’t think hippopotamus, not in the same mental grouping as zebra mussel and starling. But apparently we live on a place where that can happen; where Colombian drug lords decide to create a haven (of sorts) for hippos; and where, even today, the problem lingers. (NYT, via MeFi)
- But who’d hijack a hippo? Probably no one. But maybe you want precautions in place, just in case:
The crate was hoisted onto the flatbed with a 120-ton construction crane. For security reasons, there were no signs on the truck indicating that the cargo was a hippopotamus, the zoo said.
- But it’s not all fun and games. (Actually, part of #1 is already treading into the not-fun-and-games category, if you read into it.) Sometimes hippos fight sharks. At least in Italian natural history books from the 60s, maybe. (via Tetrapod Zoology)
Hippos
Posted by Ben on October 8, 2009
https://www.swordbilled.com/hippos/
Cleaning House (Rundown)
- It turns out computers can figure out what language you’re speaking without actually hearing you. In at least some controlled circumstances, anyway. (NewScientist, via Monochrom)
- “Astonishingly”, (1) people forget their passwords all the time, but (2) the ever-helpful “secret” “questions” are not really either — at least, not as far as security is concerned.
- If I had a car I needed to get into on a regular basis (as in, for driving), this would be wicked awesome. It’s not everyone who can open a car with his shoes.
- And this video montage is just kinda sweet.
- This post is a good example of why I’m recently drawn to reading Tetrapod Zoology on a regular basis. The lead-in sentence (I think) sells itself:
I used to receive random unsolicited emails from an individual who strongly promoted the idea that birds could not not not not be dinosaurs, that the entire dinosaur family tree was screwed up beyond belief, that ‘dinosaurs’ had evolved from random assorted diverse archosaurs, that cladistics was rubbish, and that all mainstream palaeontologists were idiots.
Read on.
- I am still waiting for these business cards made out of meat to get real. (No, not like that.)
- Without having perused it much, Ficly at minimum stands out as an interesting concept — a place for collaborative story-telling (in a time & place where social networks are, weirdly, moving us away from that kind of collaboration). (via SimpleSpark)
Posted by Ben on September 17, 2009
https://www.swordbilled.com/cleaning-house-rundown/
Aliens, astronomers, or super-intelligent aardvarks?
You decide. Whatever the case, it’s kind of amazing.
(via Ectoplasmosis)
Posted by Ben on August 26, 2009
https://www.swordbilled.com/aliens-astronomers-or-super-intelligent-aardvarks/
And now…
Went away. Came back. Pictures. You know how it is.
Posted by Ben on August 7, 2009
https://www.swordbilled.com/and-now/
The narratives of refrigerator innards
This falls into the category of things that are uninteresting in real life, but which become interesting through the act of photography. Or something. (It may simply be that the photographs aren’t accompanied by the rank refrigerator smell that’s always lurking, waiting for the right moment to assault your nostrils.)
The photos are accompanied by brief descriptions of the households they represent.
(in GOOD Magazine, via The Morning News)
Posted by Ben on June 20, 2009
https://www.swordbilled.com/the-narratives-of-refrigerator-innards/
I can see your brain
Of course, movies have known for years that this was possible–it’s just taken reality a while to catch up. Yes, science can see images in your brain, although for now it’s seemingly mostly proof-of-concept, and fairly limited. (No full color perfect simulacra of your dreams, yet.)
“Researchers from Japan’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed new brain analysis technology that can reconstruct the images inside a person’s mind and display them on a computer monitor, it was announced on December 11. According to the researchers, further development of the technology may soon make it possible to view other people’s dreams while they sleep.”
(Via Pinktentacle via Monocrom; also, the complete journal article is available online in PDF format: Neuron: “Visual Image Reconstruction from Human Brain Activity using a Combination of Multiscale Local Image Decoders” by Miyawaki et al. [11 Dec 2008])
Posted by Ben on June 4, 2009
https://www.swordbilled.com/i-can-see-your-brain/
Language, linguistics, lovely
A sort of extraordinary exercise in control of voice and facial expressions, in the form of a Judy Garland impression, of all things. From the ever-impressive Amy Walker:
Related to something I could have sworn I’d posted previously, but apparently haven’t: 21 accents in 2 1/2 minutes.
(via BoingBoing)
Posted by Ben on June 4, 2009
https://www.swordbilled.com/language-linguistics-lovely/
Wait, what?
(via Ectoplasmosis)
Posted by Ben on May 13, 2009
https://www.swordbilled.com/wait-what/
A search engine that predicts the future
The future:
…which is even stranger when you consider that it’s predicting the release of itself. Stay tuned.
I’ve been playing around on the preview, and while I’m not as impressed as I was by the initial (guided/rehearsed) demo searches, I’m still mighty curious. As long as WolframAlpha survives, it certainly won’t get worse. And there are already some interesting types of calculations it can summon.
There’s a whole world of math and physical usefulness, but much less so in the biological world, so far. Is my impression.
We’ll see.
Posted by Ben on May 12, 2009
https://www.swordbilled.com/a-search-engine-that-predicts-the-future/