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Long Bets is an interesting idea. The site hosts predictions of the future and allows netizens to vote and debate the predictions -- their viability, their implications, and whatever else comes to mind. The predictions have an best-before due date, which is where the betting part comes in. If your prediction is realized before the date, you win -- and there is real money at stake. The person making the prediction antes up $50. The person betting has to drop $200. The winner gets to choose which charity receives their winnings. The real money aspect keeps out the rift-raft, but allows anyone to join the discussions. This concept is similar to market concept, where the merits of ideas and opinions are bought and sold for virtual money. [ Thanks for the link Darren. ]

ESA, ESO and NASA are making raw hubble data available to the masses. Data from the telescope comes in Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) format -- and is a standard for the astronomical community. I remember the format from my observing days at university. Programs to use the FITS format however have not been accessible. The ESA/ESO/NASA team however, have created a FITS plugin for Photoshop that allows FITS formated data to be interpreted. Once you've loaded the plugins, you'll need to download the FITS datasets to your computer. Having broadband would come in really handy, as the datasets are huge. Image processing will take some work, but the beautiful images that will result are worth the effort. [ This came via The Caretaker blog . ]

This week's BusinessWeek magazine did some navel gazing for bloggers with a cover article on blogs and how they will change your business. If you're a blogger, you're already a believer -- granted some of you do some rather personal navel gazing in the public blogosphere, and probably don't get the difference between blogs and personal journals. The article contends that blogs are a prerequisite, "not a business elective." Why? Consider the following argument. Businesses in the past have controlled their image and public perception. They had much more control in the past, especially with media in the hands of the few, who were also businesses. With freedom of the press and media control shared amongst the conglomerates and some smaller players, business lost some control of the shaping of public perception. But, they still had significant control. They controlled their image by buying media time -- one way or another -- via commercial time, or by bul

In the 1990s, the Lunar Prospector and Clementine found signs of ice in the shadowed craters never the Moon's poles. There has been no substantial evidence for ice however. NASA's future plans for lunar colonization hinges on finding water on the Moon . Water would be useful for lunar colonists as drinking water, water to grow food, provide oxygen and rocket fuel, as well, water is very effective in blocking space radiation. In 2008, NASA will launch the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to map the lunar environment. It's hoped that the LRO will confirm water on the Moon, and will set the stage for the return to the Moon in 2020.

The Register has an article about the dangers of spreadsheet misuse in the business world. Spreadsheets have achieved ubiquity in businesses. There isn't a business manager who could function without them -- and if you're a business manager who functions without them, chances are, you're not a real manager because you don't know you are using them, whether directly or indirectly (and I actually know some these strange beasts). The dangers with spreadsheets isn't the software, but the misuse of the software. Usually no controls governing the information, analysis or computations done within spreadsheets. An indispensable tool that too often is being used to enable critical business processes, spreadsheets also fall into a grey area for support -- most IT organizations could care less about them or their use/misuse. Often IT is busily enforcing controls on the huge ERP packages that business managers couldn't misuse anyway, and completely forget the million

If you've got some computer skills, a high speed line to the internet and are looking for a job, a home business as a virtual worker may be just the thing for you. According to the Canadian Telework Association , 1.5 million people in Canada have virtual jobs -- charging a rate of $25-40 per hour. For those looking to provide administrative duties, check out the Canadian Virtual Assistant Connection . [ Thanks for the link Garry . ]

I just read on Hammer & Nail of State Rep. Daniel LeMahieu's proposed bill in to "prohibit health care facilities on campus from dispensing, advertising or prescribing birth control to adult female students" in Wisconsin. Apparently, LeMahieu thinks that birth control “encourages women to be promiscuous.” WTF?

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent out a letter to employees to clarify Microsoft's and his preferred position on gays and specifically, their position on anti-discriminatory legislation being debated. Ballmer says that Microsoft and he himself, remains "hardcore" about diversity and "rigorous about having a non-discriminatory environment." OK Steve. Down boy. Ballmer went on to say that Microsoft decided to narrow their legislative focus rather selfishly on matters that had a direct impact on their business. In no way did they cave in when Rev. Hutcherson demanded that the two Microsoft employees that testified in support of the anti-discriminatory legislation, be burned at the stake, because from Ballmer's experience, gays don't burn well -- and further, the demand that Ballmer should do a public dance in support of taking away all gay rights was just ludicrous. Ballmer questioned whether public companies should be taking a position on social is

Indian mathematician, Chandrashekhar Khare, has made an important leap in number theory with the publishing of a proof for the level-1 case of the Serre conjecture . Late last year, Khare and J.P. Wintenberger published a two part strategy to solving Serre conjecture. The strategy builds on the work of Andrew Wiles and Richard Taylor, en route to proving Fermat's last theorem . Khare is at work on the final proof of the Serre conjecture, although there is no timeline for the publication of his result. For more information, see the following: Mod l representations of arithmetic fundamental groups : Part I (An analog of Serre's conjecture for function fields) [PDF] Lectures on Serre's Conjectures [PDF] Fermat's Last Theorem : After 356 Years [PDF]

OS/2 World, an OS/2 online community, is looking to bring OS/2 out of the closet in a resurrection. The community is petitioning IBM to open source the entire OS or components of it. It's not a bad idea. Let's face it -- IBM dropped the ball with OS/2 and is letting it die a slow and painful death. OS/2 however, seems to have a cult following -- how else would you describe these guys? Giving it away may lend new viability to the product, and may also serve to drive innovation. The Linux community for one, could probably gain from some of the code in OS/2.

Check out this little piece of wizardry . It doesn't always work, but when it does -- well ... [ Thanks Darren -- another 5 minutes wasted. ]

Music is about to hit North American cell phones in a really big way. In Europe and Asia, cell phones are already well versed in MP3 playback -- but in the large North American market, they've had only a passing interest from mobile carriers. That's about to change however. The music industry and mobile carriers are teaming up to deliver music downloads directly to cell phones that are about to become the new digital jukeboxes. Every large mobile carrier is busy at work on their music stores, and the major labels, having missed the boat on the internet, are quickly reading their catalogs for the cell phone market. iPod and iTunes have been the most successful digital music foray, but consider the numbers: there are 1.4 billion people with cell phones, and to date, only 10 million iPods have been sold. The iPod can hold 60GB of music -- your entire music collection; but Samsung already has a 3GB phone on the market and is developing a 10GB version. How long will it be be

BusinessWeek has a cover article on the downsizing of CEOs -- especially in Corporate America. The resizing of CEOs are coming as a result of the bad apples being thrown out -- from Enron, WorldCom, and Fannie Mae to the recent shenanigans of AIG's former boss, Maurice R. Greenberg . More power is being wielded by the directors, auditors and lawyers, who in the past have played the advisor role to CEOs, in helping them helm their companies, and are now questioning, countering and generally being confrontational. Why the change? Fear. Sarbanes-Oxley alone has gone the distance of making the advisors accountable for shareholders and the public. Now, there is liability. Advisors can find themselves in the hot seat just as much as CEOs. This is all a great thing. Public accountability -- the stymieing of bad accounting practices, lying to investors and breaking of the law. But it also has a downside. More and more, the advisors are commanding higher fees, and are curtailing

Microsoft, a firm supporter of gay rights in the past, has quietly retreated from its position due to pressure from the religious right. Apparently, Microsoft was supportive of a bill protecting gays from discrimination in the workplace in Washington State -- but backed away when pastor Ken Hutcherson of Antioch Bible Church of Redmond threatened to organize a national boycott of the company's products.

I just picked this up from Mocking Music -- apparently a new malware has hit the internet. Nopir-B bills itself as a DVD-cracking program that gets your around DVD copy protection. What it does instead is take control of your machine, deleting all MP3s it finds, then hunting down P2P programs and some other apps and wiping them out. Anti-virus vendors are updating their products, but expect this piece of crap to hang around the P2P world for some time. Personally, I think the RIAA or MPAA are behind it. No hacker would build this for fun -- the hacker community would take them apart for it.

Some interesting articles of note from last week's BusinessWeek magazine: MBA Applicants Are MIA -- Tuitions for business schools are on the rise, the job market is again healthy and, is there really value in getting an MBA? Or, to qualify that -- is there really any value in getting an MBA without work experience? I'm of the firm belief that an MBA is lost on those without experience -- which would include a few good failures along the way. It's not the death knell for MBA schools, but it sure is to be a good kick in the pants. AIG: Get Ready for Starr Wars -- in case you haven't been following the news, it goes something like this. Former AIG CEO & Chairman Maurice "Hank" Greenberg ran a great company. It made profits while its competitors were at a lost trying to catch up. It also sold insurance that wasn't really insurance, and made a killing. Now NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is out guns blazing and is set to get his man. Ooops. G

Picture this: a cruise ship off a major coastal city of an industrialized country, in international waters. The vacationers are not on vacation, but are at work. They come from many of the developing countries that are now supplying the brains to the next wave of innovation -- India, China, etc. They get the same amenities as a guest on a cruise ship would, except they work in two shifts, get paid more than they would at home -- and technically, it is offshoring -- only it's local. This ship was dreamt up by Roger Green and David Cook , who have now formed SeaCode and are in the market for a cruise ship to anchor Los Angeles and clients who need cheap, highly skilled labour. Uh-huh. I'll believe it when they turn a profit.

Astronaut Harrison Schmidt complained of having " lunar dust hay fever " after a moonwalk during the 1972 Apollo 17 mission . His symptoms were gone in a day, and the episode drifted from the limelight. The astronauts of that mission had brought dust from the Moon into their spacecraft and it had become airborne, entering their lungs. Dust particles less than 10 microns wide can block the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the lungs, and the lungs can't clear out the dust by coughing or mucous. Further, white blood cells are destroyed when they try to take sharp-edged particles away in the bloodstream. This all leads to silicosis -- effectively, the slow suffocation of the victim. Moon dust isn't poisonous, just dangerous. Martian dust on the other hand may be toxic to humans and even corrosive to equipment. With future missions to the Moon and Mars possible, NASA is busy figuring out how to keep the dust out. All interesting, but I also wanted to pos

With your own Pope Hat ! Yes, with one of those funky hats, you can walk around mumbling in what passes for latin and blessing people. [This came from moxiegrrrl .]

OK, it's nothing new . I'm sure it's been around for a while, in Beta ... but it's damn cool! (Although it didn't find the local PizzaPizza from my house ... oh well.) If you really want to see cool, select Satellite from the top, right hand corner, then type in an address to seach for. Amazing!

Work at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider ( RHIC ) at Brookhaven National Laboratory have revealed that free quarks and gluons form a new state of matter, behaving like a perfect liquid . Quarks and gluons are the building blocks of the atomic nuclei, and in the early universe have been thought to have been in a gaseous state before cooling to form atoms of hydrogen. The observations from collisions of gold ions fits the theorectical predictions for a quark-gluon plasma -- the type of matter thought to have existed microseconds after the Big Bang . In the observations, the trajectories of thousands of particles from collisions move collectively, responding together to pressure variations. This motion is akin to fluid motion and can be described by the equations of hydrodynamics . For more information, check out: Hunting the Quark Gluon Plasma [PDF, 9.5MB]

Ray Kurzweil had lunch with Mikhail Gorbachev when he was in the US to deliver a keynote address at Massachusetts Software Council. It's an interesting conversation, especially for Gorbachev's take on where he sees technology and science playing a role in the furthering of Russia (and the world) in economic and social development. [ Thanks for the link Darren. ]

My wife and I went out last weekend, and the weekend before that. I took some pictures while we were out. The first album contain some squirrels we encountered at Edward's Gardens -- a park in Toronto, at Leslie and Lawrence. There wasn't much growing, the park still looked dead. The sun was out however, and the parking lot was filled with Torontians coming from winter hibernation. That was the weekend of April 10th. This past weekend, my wife and I drove up to Bracebridge. It was actually my idea. Go figure. Bracebridge is known for its falls. Quite a few of them, but they're all small. We took some photos.

A friend from IBM was telling me about this on Friday. IBM and National Geographic are pooling efforts into a five year project to collect at least 100,000 DNA samples from people around the world in order to build a public database of anthropological genetic information. The effort, on IBM's part, is in keeping with their push into business transformation services -- in this case, IBM is counting on their donated effort to bear fruit in future contracts in the lucrative life sciences market. The effort has its detractors, who fear that the world isn't ready for the study of human history, race and genetics . As well, there are general concerns around genetic studies, especially since they could lead to more of humanity being patented by businesses. Despite the concerns, the Genographic Project is taking off however, and promises to create the largest DNA database of the human species. The data could lead to a higher resolution image of human migration out of Africa 50,

BusinessWeek magazine has an in depth article on IBM's transformation journey from a computing company into one that provides " business-performance-transformation-services ." Spurred by IBM's CEO Samuel J. Palmisano, IBM is attempting to shake off its dependence on the $1.2 trillion computing industry with a growth rate of 6% annually, and join the business process outsourcing industry -- a move that Palmisano hopes will pull IBM out of trenches where they're battling for commodity dollars, and instead, place them in the position where they can not only oversee the entire computing industry, but all industries, all businesses. It's not that IBM will leave the computing industry behind. It still has a huge stake and reaps lots of profits from its hardware and computing services businesses. It has a huge patent library and thousands of research scientists dreaming and innovating. What IBM expects however is that margins will continue to decline in their t

Speaking of the ethical treatment of people ... this has been generating a lot of noise, and rightly so. Christina Aguilera has decided to join Skechers in removing some of the progress women have made over the last couple of generations. She's appearing in a series of print ads, portraying a nurse, schoolgirl and police woman, and in each instance, sexualizing the role she portrays. I'm not going to blame society for this. Nor am I going to blame Skechers -- like most businesses, it treats morals and ethics as commodities to be traded for profits. I blame Aguilera.

I have mixed feelings on this. I'm not anti-war, nor am I anti-armed forces. I'm all for the armed forces, and I'm all for going to war -- when it is the right thing to do. Somehow, this ad I saw for the US Navy bothers me however. It features a series of images: missiles, a jet fighter firing a missile, a ship firing a missile, and more ships firing missiles. The captions: Studying rocket science is more fun when you actually have rockets. NAVY - Accelerate Your Life.

This came via a budding newshound, who scours the net for ... well ... click and find out: Your Unitarian Jihad Name Unintentionally sexual comic book covers SCIgen - An Automatic CS Paper Generator

This is amusing. Recently, a man was arrested in a Best Buy in Baltimore, MD, for paying an installation charge in 57 $2 bills . Apparently the cashier was not amused. In fact, the cashier was downright stupid. The police was called, and the man was arrested and held in custody until it was verified that the $2 bills were real.

Read this -- it will make you laugh, cry and want to bludgeon American morons. Let's face it -- America is like our big brother -- but every now and again, you've got to wonder -- did the big guy just got hit one too many times in the head? [This was brought to you via the Canadian Cynic .]

Ornamism , is defined as "fusion of Ornament and Organism." The site provides a visual treat by creating a virtual organism on screen for you, then mutating it. Watch as some of the most interesting patterns are rendered as your virtual organism grows, evolves and mutates. The author, Mario Klingemann , has also built other visual treats , which are available on his site. They're pretty. Ornamism is created using Processing , a visual development language and environment created for the art and design folks. It's a free download.

The Finnish Disease Database Human Population Genetics: Lessons from Finland [PDF] Discover Magazine continues its three part "Learning Series" of articles on the influence of genetics and race on medical science. The second part of the series profiles the "boring Finns" and their unique contribution to genetic medicine. The people of Finland are fairly unique in that there is uniformity in their genes due to the centuries of isolation and intermarriage -- the result of which has left Finns with a large set of hereditary disorders. Their uniformity is great for researchers since the human race as a whole hasn't changed much since we emerged from Africa 50,000 years ago. We all carry the same genes -- the same genes that make us susceptible to many ailments -- and they are the same genes that have been around for 50,000 years. In the Finns however, a hereditary trail for ailments can be traced -- to parents, grandparents -- across generations. The rest

China is paying for its inefficiencies in energy consumption -- through hard dollars and the havoc be played out on their environment. China's wasteful ways: It consumes three times the world average in energy to produce $1 of GDP Its steelmakers use twice as much energy as Japan or Korea per ton of output Only 5% of its office & residential towers meet its own energy conservation standards Fuel consumption grew 1.5 times its economy in 2004, while the rest of the world is 1 times or less Inefficient fuel use is tagged at $120 billion in lost output and pollution related health problems annually True, China is a developing nation as much as it an industrial nation. It's caught between the 3rd and 1st world, and is rapidly changing. Comparisons with the productivity and efficiencies with the 1st world nations are sometimes unfair, just as it's unfair to use its competitiveness for comparison. China has a lot to do, and a big push is being made of have Beijing

My wife and I journeyed up to Bobcaygeon (and then, onto Fenelon Falls) a couple of weekends ago. My only reason was because I had never been. Her reason -- she likes going out of the city. Upon reflection, it was crazy. I took some pictures. Click on the thumbnail to see them. There wasn't much to see. Winter was slowly fading, so everything had that "dead, waiting for resurrection" look.

Baseline Magazine has an article profiling Shadowcrew , an online criminal organization that, in its heyday, had 4,000 members, and trafficked in stolen credit cards and identities. It was shutdown by the US Secret Service in the fall of 2004, but not before its crimes had cost businesses upwards of $4 million in damages. Shadowcrew is a web mob, and it was most likely not the largest, well organized or effective as the others that exist out there. Web mobs exist online, and they steal identities, credit card information, and sell them for as little as $1 online. They also provide the framework to facilitate the online sale of stolen information. They are a menace to businesses hoping to leverage the internet for e-commerce. Read the article for Baseline's dissection of web mobs -- learn how they operate, how easy it is to become a victim and how little there is that crime fighters can do against them today.

Ever wonder how motherboards (and other boards) are made? Take this photographic tour of a Gigabyte factory in Nan-Ping, Taiwan. You'll be amazed by the automation and the number of different machines that are involved in putting a motherboard out.

Wired Magazine has a great article on four undocumented Mexican highschoolers in Phoenix, who took on University engineering students in the third annual Marine Advanced Technology Education Center's Remotely Operated Vehicle Competition last year, and won -- against great odds. The four highschoolers are incredibly smart, and championed by two exceptional teachers. They are however, up against great odds to repeat their competition success in life. As undocumented residents, they are illegals. To go to University, they have to pay tuition fees that foreign students would have to pay -- even though on average, they've been living for 11-years in the US. They are also living in poverty, and they can expect little help from their parents. They represent great potential however -- and it makes you wonder how much potential is being thrown away due to similar circumstances. After reading the article, if you'd like to contribute to a scholarship program set up to provid

Here are a few articles that distracted me from the hordes on the subway this past couple of weeks: Your Next TV -- American TV manufacturers think they have chance to take back the television market from the Asian manufacturers. Read this article to find out if they stand a chance ... and see what they'll be marketing to you in the coming years. Believe it or not, your next TV could have the Dell or HP brand slapped on it. Major Hangups Over the iPOD Phone -- Motorola and Apple were slated to release the iPOD phone, but something went horribly wrong with their plans. The mobile carriers wanted no part in it, as there was nothing there for them. Motorola and Apple wanted to allow you to buy and upload your own music into your phone from your computer. The carriers wanted you to buy your songs from them, like you do with your ring-tones today. Both sides are greedy, and both sides want your money. Because they can't agree, you're not getting an iPOD phone. Here C

Friday night I watched Dogma with my daughter. I've seen the movie a few times already, and it's always a hoot to watch it again. Christian mythology has quite the stories, and because it is very much still alive, the story is that much more potent. The premise of the movie is a poke a Catholicism and the seriousness with which it takes itself. The whole finding-the-new-Pope-thing that will unfurl in the coming weeks points further to why the whole of organized religion needs to come to grips with the fact that we're no longer living in the dark ages. Rituals are rituals ... but organized religion takes itself seriously, and the buffoons that follow them need to wake up and take control of their lives and the world they live in. But I digress. Watch the movie, it's good for you. Saturday morning, I watch Clerks with my daughter over breakfast. It was a Kevin Smith binge I supposed. It has been a while since I saw Clerks, and I had forgotten what a riot it i

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have created a scale that can measure up to a zeptogram (10 -21 g) of mass. The researchers demonstrated their scale by measuring the mass of a cluster of xenon atoms. The scale holds promise in medical and environmental science, where protein chips and mass spectrometers are used to identify molecules, but are hardly accurate. With a scale that is 1,000 times more precise as the latest -- capable of measuring up to a yoctogram (10 -24 g) -- accurate measurements and therefore ease of molecule identification could be accomplished.

This month is Mathematics Awareness Month -- it occurs every year in April, and has been running since 1986. According to their website, it's all about increasing "public understanding of and appreciation for mathematics."

OK, not quite yet, and if the media had their way, he'd stick around for another week or so, so they can enjoy the circus and the ratings. The way the media vultures are circling, the man might was well be dead, as they're already picking at the corpse. Not that I give a shit or anything. It's only the Pope, and there's no love loss between us. The man is not a nice man.