Items tagged with 'nerdingout'
Ecovative called a "technology pioneer"
Ecovative's environmentally-friendly packaging material.
Ecovate Design, the Green Island-based startup, has been named a "Technology Pioneer" for 2011 by the World Economic Forum (you know, the Davos people). From the WEF brochure:
Over US$ 100 billion dollars of environmentally harmful foams are used each year, depleting finite fossil fuel reserves and causing serious environmental impact during production and disposal. Ecovative's technology has the potential to eliminate a significant amount of environmentally harmful foams, including the expanded polystyrene used worldwide in packaging, automobiles, building construction and consumer goods.
Ecovative has developed packaging and insulation that made with seed husks and mushroom roots. The two founders, Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre, are RPI grads. The company's gotten a lot of attention -- it was even name-checked on CSI:NY.
From 2008 on AOA: A (very cool) fungus grows in Troy
photo: Ecovative Design
The hottest month?
August was crushed to find out that the NWS says July is hotter.
After seeing some chatter (chirping?) about today's temperature on Twitter (essentially: it shouldn't be this hot), we figured we'd look it up to see what the typical temps are for August (and every other month, for that matter).
The chart above shows the monthly normal temps as recorded by the National Weather Service in Albany for the years 1971-2000 (so, yep, it doesn't include the last decade of data). As you can see, July is typically the hottest month, though August is close behind. The numbers are also in a table after the jump.
The average high so far this month has been 81.5, which is a few degrees warmer than usual.
About today... The highest temp on record here for August 31 came in 1953, a day that topped out at 93. As of 3 pm today, the temp was 91. The average high for this date is 76.
Should we punch the ticket for more expensive parking?
People get very passionate about parking and seemingly all things parking-related: paying for it, permits, meters, shoveling. And these conversations almost always revolve around whether there's enough parking -- and whether it's cheap enough.
Well, in a NYT column this weekend economist Tyler Cowen pushes the case that in most places parking should be... more expensive:
Is this a serious economic issue? In fact, it's a classic tale of how subsidies, use restrictions, and price controls can steer an economy in wrong directions. Car owners may not want to hear this, but we have way too much free parking.
Higher charges for parking spaces would limit our trips by car. That would cut emissions, alleviate congestion and, as a side effect, improve land use.
Cowen goes on to talk about the work of Donald Shoup, a UCLA urban planning professor and the author of The High Cost of Free Parking. He continues the discussion on his excellent blog -- and responds to criticism.
Also via Cowen: San Francisco is testing parking meters that change the price based on current supply and demand.
By the way: Troy is considering residential parking permits for three of its neighborhoods. [TU]
Earlier on AOA:
+ Assembly passes Albany residential parking permits bill
+ Meters parked in Troy
+ The ethics of the shoveled parking spot
+ Ask AOA: Parking in Center Square
+ How the rest of us are ticketed
photo: Kim M
How much, where?
One the left, home prices as a percentage of median income. On the right, household median income.
Here's something that might help you kill time until you can leave work get a better picture of the Capital Region.
The Housing + Transportation Affordability Index is an online mapping tool that lets you apply all sorts of filters to local maps -- housing affordability, median household incomes, autos per household, transportation costs and so on. The maps are based on census data.
The index is a project of the Center for Neighborhood Technology, which promotes "more livable and sustainable urban communities." That viewpoint shows up in some of the explanations on the site.
[via Jen]
screengrab: CNT
The aurora might be visible tonight
Thanks to "wonderful fireworks the Sun has been producing," there's a chance we could catch a glimpse of the aurora borealis tonight (you know, the Northern Lights.) [CS Monitor] [HSCFA]
Forecasts indicate New York State could be on the edge of the aurora's viewing area. Around midnight, look to the north for a red or green glow. Your chances will better the more north you are, and the darker the sky.
OK, about those fireworks on the sun...
New York's least-smoky counties
The Capital Region's four core counties have some of the lowest adult smoking rates in the state, according to data distributed by the state health department today.
The full rankings are after the jump. Among Capital Region counties, Albany County had the lowest smoking rate at 16.5 percent.
We were also curious about how smoking rates might associate with income -- so we whipped the two sets together. The result is also in there.
Eww: The DOH released this data as part of push to get people to stop smoking. Part of the campaign: two new TV spots of which a DOH officials says: "Some viewers may complain the ads are too graphic or emotional..." The one embedded above is pretty gross. Here's the other.
New Yorkers are cranky tweeters
A study that used data from Twitter to track mood across the nation has been getting a lot of attention online today. New Scientist has a good overview of the study, which was headed up by researchers at Northeastern University.
Of course, we were curious about our area of the country. And we gotta say, from what we can tell, the results are not warm and fuzzy.
UAlbany's garlic guy
The work of UAlbany chemistry professor Eric Block is the main dish in a NYT piece today by Harold McGee, the creme de la creme of food science writers.
Block is an expert on alliums -- that is, plants such as onions and garlic. From McGee's piece:
"It's still astounding to me what happens when you cut or bite into an onion or a garlic clove," Dr. Block told me in a telephone conversation last month. "These plants originated in a very tough neighborhood, in Central Asia north of Afghanistan, and they evolved some serious chemical weapons to defend themselves."
Their sulfur-based defense systems give the alliums their distinctive flavors. The plants deploy them when their tissues are breached by biting, crushing or cutting. The chemicals are highly irritating, and discourage most creatures from coming back for seconds. They kill microbes and repel insects, and they damage the red blood cells of dogs and cats. Never feed a pet onions or garlic in any form. ...
Dr. Block explains that different alliums stockpile different sulfur chemicals to make their weapons, and this accounts for their varying flavors. The stockpiles themselves are inert, but when the plant's tissues are damaged, enzymes in the tissues quickly convert the sulfur compounds into reactive, stinging molecules.
There a bunch of interesting bits in the article -- whether you cook, or just eat.
Block wrote a recently-published book about alliums, Garlic and Other Alliums: The Lore and the Science. The book blurb says it "outlines the extensive history and the fascinating past and present uses of these plants."
Block co-authored a 2007 paper in the Archives of Internal Medicine that reported the neither raw garlic nor garlic supplements appeared to have clinically significant effects on cholesterol levels in people.
[via @ualbany]
A bright idea
Check it out: after we posted that scientists at the GE Global Research Center in Niskayuna were looking for new things to film with their super slow motion camera, a bunch people of posted suggestions.
And the researchers used one of them! B had suggested an incandescent bulb turning on. The clip above is one of the results.
The whole post on the Edison's Desk blog includes more videos (a few of a bulb burning out) along with some explanation (why does the light pulse?).
Listomania
A list of lists: from beer to frowns to development to on-time arrivals.
Updated June 8, 2010
Everybody loves a good list. And it seems like every month or so, the Capital Region or New York State (or something around here) ends being ranked on some sort of list.
We got thinking about this recently -- and came to the only logical conclusion: there needs to be a list of lists.
And here it is.
Let's take this real slowwww
Check it out: Adam Rasheed, one of the researchers at GE's Global Research Center in Niskayuna, is looking for suggestions of stuff to shoot with a super high-speed camera -- the video can be slowed down to see all sorts of details. Rasheed says they'll try to post the results online.
An example is embedded above. It's the slow motion video of a water balloon being popped.
"The Death of Styrofoam?"
There's an interesting profile of Green Island startup Ecovative Design and its founders Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre in The L Magazine. From the article by Robert Tumas:
As the van corners sharply onto the interstate, a 10-inch piece of what looks like molded off-white Styrofoam, with curious pieces of brown bark and particulates laced throughout, slides across the dashboard and comes to a rest on the beat-up glove box in front of me. I pick it up and turn it around in my hands; it's a little rough, but otherwise feels exactly like Styrofoam. "Sorry," Eben says, taking it off my hands and tossing it in the back of the car, "It's everywhere." The material in question is called Ecocradle, an invention of Eben and Gavin's, and it just might save the world. This may sound like a big claim for something that looks like a dirty piece of old Styrofoam, but that's the point; Ecocradle could very well spell the end of old-fashioned Styrofoam, and all its attendant environmental evils.
The piece includes a bunch of details about Bayer and McIntyre, the founding of the company, the non-response from the Styrofoam industry and Ecovative's plans for the future.
Definitely worth reading through.
Earlier on AOA: a whole bunch of items about Ecovative
What are those stinky trees?
Pretty. Stinky.
I was recently reduced to a position not unlike one commonly assumed by a heaving cat while on my way up from University Heights to B'yond Style for my monthly haircut, as I passed by a row of trees sporting what anybody would surely consider to be a beautiful arrangement of white flowers from each branch. Curious.
The next day, while riding the #10 CDTA bus, I smelled it yet again. Unsurprisingly, those trees were around. At that I concluded that the miasma that had been violating my olfactory system for nearly a week had to be radiating from these trees.
I am sure many, if not all of you, have seen these trees as the warm weather gives way to the blooming of flowers and leaves, and have no doubt noticed that they STINK. And not only do they just stink: they seem to give off what some have called a particular, familiar odor ("fish that's been sitting out way too long" is another description).
Thus my research into these odorous organisms began.
A mixed case for street signs
Also, don't go that way on Marshall.
After D mentioned the new mixed-case street signs on the reconstructed section of Delaware Ave in Albany, B went out a took a photo (you can see the old-style all caps signs in the background of the large version).
Both D and Summer commented that the new mixed-case signs are hard to read. Wrote Summer: "It makes no sense to me, because all you see is a big "D" and the rest is tiny."
As CapHwys noted, mixed-case lettering on street signs is now a standard in the latest edition of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, the bible for road signs. There's research from as far back as 1950 that using mixed-case, as opposed to ALL CAPS, is easier to read. (Although, the gains from lower case letters apparently drop off when people aren't sure of the word they're looking for.)
Earlier on AOA:
+ Next exit: the correct lettering?
+ Next exit: illegibility
photo: B
Addicted to tanning?
Can't stop?
A paper published today in the Archives of Dermatology reports that of 229 UAlbany students surveyed who were tanners, almost 40 percent could be considered to have an "addiction" to tanning.
The study was conducted by Sharon Danoff-Burg, an assistant professor at UAlbany, and Catherine E. Mosher, a research fellow at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in NYC. In 2006, they surveyed a pool of more than 400 students at UAlbany. [HealthDay] The students were evaluated for indoor tanning addiction using two measures -- a modified questionnaire that's usually used for screening for alcoholism and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) criteria for substance-related disorders.
Danoff-Burg and Mosher report that of the 229 student who reported going to tanning salons, 39.3 percent met the DSM criteria and 30.6 the questionnaire criteria for addiction to indoor tanning (about 22 percent met the criteria for both screens). [Reuters] Of those scored as being tanning-addicted, 78 percent said they tried to cut down but couldn't. [LAT]
The authors write: "Further research should evaluate the usefulness of incorporating a brief anxiety and depression screening for individuals who tan indoors. Patients with anxiety or depression could be referred to mental health professionals for diagnosis and treatment."
A small study in 2004 reported that tanning appears to have mood-altering effects. And a 2006 study reported that it appeared that the younger a tanner started, the harder it was to quit.
Earlier on AOA: Dan Nester reported in the Daily Beast that there are more than 800 tanning salons in the greater Capital Region.
[via @UAlbanyNews]
* HealthDay reports it was UAlbany -- the study's abstract simply says it was "a large university (approximately 18 000 students) in the northeastern United States" (that's UAlbany's enrollment). We're checking to confirm. Yep, it was UAlbany. We confirmed it with the university.
photo: Flickr user Evil Erin
Mark Changizi: Alien Vision Revolution
This could be interesting: RPI cognitive scientist Mark Changizi will be giving a talk about human vision Wednesday evening. From the blurb:
Why do humans see in color? Why do we have eyes on the front of our heads, like cats, rather than on the sides, like horses? And how is it that we find it so easy to read when written language did not exist until a few thousand years ago--a virtual millisecond in evolutionary time? These are just a few of the riddles theoretical neurobiologist Mark Changizi explores in his talk on Alien Vision Revolution. Searching for the design principles behind color vision, binocularity, motion, and object recognition, Changizi suggests what they say about human nature and the circumstances in which it was formed. He also uses those principles to extrapolate how extraterrestrial beings would be likely to see--probably the same sorts of writing but not the same colors, and not with eyes that face forward.
Changizi recently published a book last year called The Vision Revolution, about recent scientific insights into human vision. Commented Melinda Wenner for Scientific American MIND: "One thing is certain: The Vision Revolution will make you wonder the next time you notice someone blush, catch a ball or finish reading a magazine page."
Changizi's talk is at 7 pm at EMPAC. It's free and open to the public.
Video from the Rube Goldberg Challenge
Check it out: prompted by last week's mention of the Rube Goldberg Challenge for high school students this past weekend at Union College, Sebastien stopped by to see the devices. Here's some video he shot:
He's also posted a slide show of photos.
A lot of the video and photos made us smile. It looked like a lot of fun.
(Thanks, Sebastien!)
Wink: high-speed wireless for Albany
If you've tried to use wireless internet on Lark Street or other parts of downtown Albany, you've probably tried, or at least seen, Albany FreeNet. Tech Valley Communications offers the free wireless service in Albany's downtown business corridors.
Today Tech Valley Com rolled out a premium wireless internet service in Albany. It's called Wink.
We talked with Tech Valley Com's wireless director, Jeff Mirel about Wink, Albany FreeNet and the dream of a free-wireless city.
Orszag to speak at RPI commencement
Ladies are powerless to resist the haircut.
Nerd sex symbol Peter Orszag will be the speaker at RPI's commencement this year. When Orszag isn't impregnating heiresses or engaging stunning television reporters, he's the director of the Office of Management and Budget for the Obama Administration.
It's very possible that Orszag is a cylon -- what with his sterling CV, rep as a "super nerd" in the White House, anti-charity approach to losing weight, being "way taller than you're supposed to be", marathon running, and genetic ability to metabolize large amounts of caffeine. All that -- and he's putting the "OMG back in OMB."
And check out the lineup for this year's "President's Commencement Colloquy:" Orszag, Robert Langer, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Harold Varmus. That's like a week's-worth of Charlie Rose episodes.
Also: The Albany College of Pharmacy has lined up the US Surgeon General, Dr. Regina Benjamin, as its commencement speaker.
[via Kevin]
photo: Marc1022 via Wikipedia
Wooing the Google
The collaborative effort to pitch Troy for Google's community fiber project is pushing ahead. The effort now has a site: Troygle. And the city government has gotten involved with the planning process. [Troy Record] (There's been a Facebook page for a few weeks.)
The best quick argument we've seen for Troy's bid came from Lou in a comment:
1. Because of RPI, Troy has a sizable population of folks who'll come up with clever ways to weave all that bandwidth into their daily lives, and who'll have the skills to report on the effects in detail.
2. Because there's a sizable underprivileged population, Troy's a good lab for examining the public benefits of superior data infrastructure.
3. Troy's big enough, but not too big. Significant yet economical.
Saratoga County is apparently also looking to make a pitch. [Post-Star]
As you might imagine, the competition to win this project is fierce. Towns are using basketball crowds, flash mobs and mayors with shrinkage to attract attention. Topeka, Kansas even temporarily re-named itself... Google.
[FastCompany link via @dougbartow]
Split the check
Check it out: Spiral Design, a design studio based in Cohoes, has developed a tip calculator/bill-splitting app for the iPhone. From the app's description:
GratuitEase™ is a simple, easy-to-use tipping calculator. Enter the bill sub-total, sales tax, select a tip percent, choose to tip on the sales tax or not and divide the total equally among friends.
As you might expect, there are a bunch of apps like this. What might set Spiral's apart is its interface, which is fun -- it's like a one of those old-school handwritten restaurant checks.
The app is 99 cents.
By the way: Snow Brawlin' -- the game app developed by Saratoga studio Ghost Hand Games -- was recently the #1 most downloaded game... in Eastern Europe.
On2 merger with Google approved
On2, the Clifton Park video compression company, announced late this afternoon that its shareholders have approved its merger with Google. The company says it expects to close the deal on Friday.
The original deal had been held up because some shareholders had protested the price Google was paying. Google then upped its offer to $133 million.
So, why is Google buying a company that makes software for encoding video? You may have heard of a site called YouTube.
The poetic enchantment of math -- and dinner
A mathematically precise model of a hyperbolic pane -- made with crochet.
This could be interesting/nerdy/fun: science writer Margaret Wertheim will be speaking at EMPAC Wednesday night on "mathematics as poetic enchantment."
Wertheim is co-founder of the Institute for Figuring. From the org's site:
The Institute's interests are twofold: the manifestation of figures in the world around us and the figurative technologies that humans have developed through the ages. From the physics of snowflakes and the hyperbolic geometry of sea slugs, to the mathematics of paper folding, the tiling patterns of Islamic mosaics and graphical models of the human mind, the Institute takes as its purview a complex ecology of figuring.
Here's a TED talk by Wertheim about hyperbolic space, coral and crocheting. And here's a NYT article about her Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef project.
The evening is also a dinner date -- the talk is in the cafe at EMPAC and will feature food by the Epicurean.
The talk starts at 6 pm. Tickets are $15.
image: Dr. Diana Taimina / IFF
Los Angeles: so far... and sort of close
We came across a project today called Fan Page Analytics that pulls data from public Facebook profiles to see how people are connected.
The best way to understand it is to just go check it out (and here's more on the geographic connection analysis by the project's creator). Here's the listing for Albany. A few things that caught our eye:
+ The list of cities "connected" to Albany (that is, where people have friends) includes a bunch of places you'd expect in the East: New York City, Poughkeepsie, Boston, maybe even Washington DC. But #10 on the list is Los Angeles.
+ It's interesting to see the top connections for the cities that sit along I-90 in New York. Albany has strong connections to Syracuse. Syracuse has strong ties to Albany, Utica, Rochester and Buffalo. Rochester has strong ties to Syracuse and Buffalo. And Buffalo has strong ties to Rochester and Syracuse.
+ The most popular "like" among the Albany profiles surveyed? The dislike button.
[via Kottke]
image from Fanpage Analytics
How many gallons per mile?
There's a bill in the state Senate that would require all new cars sold or leased in New York to come with a sticker that lists the autos' gallons-per-mile. Yep, that's gallons-per-mile -- not just miles-per-gallon.
So, why GPM?
... said LB about For sale: one purple bookmobile