Me with Steven Pinker's hair

For a while now, I've had a bit of an intellectual man crush on the brilliant psychologist Steven Pinker. And so when I discovered hairmixer.com this morning (a site that lets you mix photos of yourself with the hair of celebrities) I knew what I had to do. So this is me with the hair of Steven Pinker.

...now if you'll excuse me, i'm off to try out my hair on Richard Dawkins.

A Map of the Internet

A graphical representation of all of a small section of the network of interconnected computers that we call the 'internet'. Via opte.org

Pretty!

Only 2 years to go on James Randi's Million-Dollar Challenge.

What a coincidence. I'd just finished responding to a comment to my psychic predictions post about the validity of psychic claims, and in my response I made mention of James Randi's Million-Dollar Challenge. Then five seconds later I discover that the million-dollar prize will be discontinued as of 2010.

The James Randi Educational Foundation Million-Dollar Challenge will be discontinued 24 months from this coming March 6th, and those prize funds will then be available to generally add to our flexibility. This move will free us to do many more projects, which will be announced at that time. This means that all those wishing to be claimants are required to get their applications in before the deadline, properly filled out and notarized as described in the published rules.

I think that is such a shame. I don't see why they need to do it. The Million-Dollar challenge offers "a one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event." It's been going for some time now, although has only been one million dollars since 1998. The fact that the prize is so large, and the tests so flexible (the design of the test is negotiated with the applicant), makes it great to point to as a 'put up or shut up'. But if it's ending soon I worry that it looks like Randi was afraid that someone was finally getting close to winning the prize. Hopefully someone else will put up another million.

But there's still 2 years to go, so if you've got any cool abilities now is the time to apply.

My 'psychic' predictions for 2008

On the latest episode of the Skeptics Guide podcast they were reviewing all of the psychic predictions that were made for 2007 (the hit rate was terribly low) and making their own predictions for 2008.

I thought i'd have a go as well, so here's my predictions for 2008:

1. A cyclone will narrowly miss an Australian city potentially saving the lives of millions.
2. A prominent Australian involved in the world of sport will die unexpectedly
3. Tobey Maguire will father a child.
4. Lindsay Lohan will do jail time.
5 (and a vague Nostradamus-esque one) In the place where many have died before, there will be a great thunder, 3 will make themselves notorious, and a city will burn.

What are your 'psychic' predictions for 2008?

Cargo ship with a kite reduces fuel consumption

The Belgua SkySail - a 10,000 tonne cargo ship with a 160 square meter kite that reduces fuel consumption by 15%. (more at The Guardian)

Pretty cool.

What else might benefit from a 160 square meter kite?

All night bird party

What's with the birds in my street chirping away in the middle of the night? They woke me up at 2am this morning.

Is it all the light pollution? Do they think it's morning?

Or was there some kind of birdie rave party on last night?

The One Laptop Per Child Program

I just think that the One Laptop Per Child program is amazing. Brilliant technology, great scheme. I think that I might contribute to this, as a solution to my donation dilemma.

NY Times technology reporter David Pogue gives this nice intro to the OLPC:




Kevin Rudd eat your heart out!

What is disappointing, however, is that the OLPC has made some of the big technology players jealous. Microsoft and others are scared that they're losing potential customers in the developing world, and so they are developing ultra cheap laptops of their own running cheap cutdown versions of XP for these regions. Terrible. It's bad enough that the first world is flooded with crappy virus infested Windows boxes. Why inflict that on kiddies in developing countries?