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Researchers at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, UK, have found a 30% reduction in warm currents that carry water north from the Gulf Stream. This finding has been long predicted as a possible consequence of global warming, and predictions have further warned that such an outcome could plunge Europe into a mini-ice age. The researchers are unsure if their findings suggest a short-term change, or if this is a trend that will continue for the long-term. Meanwhile, at the UN Climate Change Conference in Montreal, Australia and the United States remain unconvinced that global warming is actually happening, and don't see the need to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Related reading: Ocean Slides -- visual guides to ocean circulation. Temperature of the Gulf Stream -- from NASA's Visible Earth site. The Gulf Stream, courtesy of NASA.

Walter Derzko writes on his blog about "technoism." What is "technoism?" It's defined as a "suppressed skepticism and blind compliance with regards to the technology revolution in our lives." A self-assessment [PDF], to determine if you're a victim of technoism was created by Beverly J. Davis at Purdue University in 2003.

Google 's market cap is over US$120B, with its stock trading at over US$400/share. All this from revenues of around US$6B. That explosive growth, coupled with a culture that values brilliance, has made Google the envy of techdom -- as well as earned it the disdain from everyone who has felt the brunt of its arrogance. With the money and clout it has, many are expecting acquisitions to drive its growth -- but Google has thus far avoided big purchases. It has stuck with trawling for small outfits that have yet to hit market with a product -- to some degree, sticking with pure engineering shops, so it can easily transition them into the fold. Google is a place where engineers rule, and the suits are second class citizens. BusinessWeek has a nice summary of fat-cat Google, and just how Page & Brin may be thinking. Related reading: Google's 2004 Annual Report [PDF] -- sourced from of all places, Yahoo!

Today, Dec. 1st, is World AIDS Day . It's a day set aside to build awareness of HIV/AIDS -- to show support for those who you may know, or not know, that are dying from the disease; to give hope; to hopefully reiterate the message that AIDS is still out there, looking for more victims, and we need to focus on developing a cure. In the short term, there is education and prevention. As millions continue to die, we must continue to show support and give hope. Do your bit -- whatever you can. Spread the word, prod your government to fund more research and show a bit of support. Related links: AVERT -- an international AIDS charity. UNAIDS -- UN site focusing on HIV/AIDS. World AIDS Campaign

Check out some really cool photographs by Matt Jalbert . I especially like the panoramas. Something I will try to do in the future. [ Thanks for the link Darren. ]

I saw Tim Burton's Corpse Bride in the theatres sometime ago with the group from work. Actually, a bunch of the guys went, as we couldn't convince the women to accompany us. Maybe there was one too many "guy" flicks that we had dragged them to that just didn't inspire them go with us for the Corpse Bride. This was the movie that they should have come out for though. You wouldn't think that from a title like the "Corpse Bride" that the movie would have been a romantic movie -- but it was -- in a quirky, Burtonesque kinda way. The damn thing was an actual love story. I'll spare you the trauma, and instead, will say a few words about the execution. The film was superbly made. The animation and stylized characters worked very well. If you've seen other Tim Burton animated films, you know what to expect from this one. The atmosphere was fanciful and weirdly wonderous. The characters were cartoons, while still believable, and could be e...

New Scientist is reporting that InPhase Technologies , along with Hitachi Maxell, are set to release holographic storage discs in late 2006. The discs will initially have the capacity to read and write up to 300GB of data, and will be 10 times faster than today's DVDs. InPhase also claims that they could theoretically store up to 1.6 terabytes of data with read/write at 960 megabits per second. Just in time for me to put my entire movie collection on a disc!

I saw Baby Blood recently -- it's a bloody movie. A really, really, bloody movie! Blood is a plot device of this movie -- I would venture so far as to say that blood may even be a character in the movie. The movie is set somewhere in Europe -- France I think, as this is a French film -- that seemed to have had better times. The mood is depressing and grey. It's as if entropy has had its way with the place. Everything is running out of energy, including the main character, Yanka, played by Emmanuelle Escourrou, who slowly loses the battle with "the evil within." So what's the movie about? Yanka is a circus performer in an abusive relationship with the circus head honcho. She wants out in a bad way, but either hasn't worked up the courage or hasn't had the chance. Her opportunity arrives with the addition of a new leopard to the circus. The leopard carries within it, an ancient creature that has existed since the birth of the planet. For some un...

I just found out about Afra Karim Randhawa via Wired magazine . At age 5, she saw her first computer. At 7, she could easily use PowerPoint. At 9, she enrolled in the local technology institute in Faisalabad, Pakistan, and in four months, became one of the youngest Microsoft Certified Professionals in the world. This past July, Gates invited her to Redmond to meet. She asked him why there weren't many women working in his company. She's now 10 years old, and is working towards a lead developer certification. How cool is that?

PETA knows how to get attention. They've launched a campaign in Liverpool, featuring Pamela Anderson wearing strategically placed lettuce. The whole idea is combat obesity, and PETA thinks that people should "Turn over a new leaf [and] try vegetarian." To quote PETA spokesman from BBC News : "We hope she will appeal to the demographic of young men, who can be more resistant to vegetarianism. This is a tantalising image and we hope even the most die-hard carnivores may be tempted to go to the website and learn about what eating meat is doing to their bodies and to the animals who suffer." Totally ignoring PETA's sexist campaigns for a moment -- just which guy looking at Pamela Anderson wearing lettuce will suddenly develop the urge to go vegetarian?

Social psychologists -- and to some degree, most people in general -- seem to have a fascination with people who behave anything but nicely. Take all the reality television shows for instance. Is there one where people do nice things? Not really. It appears that the television industry tries to find the biggest jackasses to put on the boob-tube, and the public can't seem to get enough of them. From the proliferation of reality TV shows, it doesn't appear that there is any end to the jackasses. But why do we have such a fascination with people gone wrong? Discover magazine has an article that throws a different spin on social psychology. According to psychologist Joachim Krueger, there may be just as much to learn about human behaviour from studying people that do good things. Why do some people stop to help? Why do some people thing of others before themselves? If you listen to what social psychologists have had to say about people, based on their studies so far, yo...

MacLeans takes a chainsaw at the Canadian Tire Guy . They even published excerpts from his diary . Well, I've seen the new ad for this weekend's Christmas sale. The dog ain't bad at all. I'd ask the ad agency for a refund however ... they've turned Canadian Tire into a joke. BTW ... want to know what bloggers think ?

The Origin of Mass and the Feebleness of Gravity Frank Wilczek Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics, MIT Wilczek starts out with saying he's going to explain the origin of mass -- but not all of it. He's going to stay away from dark matter and dark energy. He's going to stick to the 3% of ordinary matter. What is mass? For the longest time, mass was simply there. It couldn't be reduced down to anything. Wilczek jokingly refers to Einstein's second law: m=E/c^2 -- as the time when the concept of mass started to make sense. Most of ordinary matter is locked up in the nucleus of atoms -- which is made up of protons and neutrons -- which in term is made up of gluons and quarks. And we have a consistent theory -- one that combines quantum mechanics and general relativity: quantum chromodynamics . Wilczek goes on to explain the experiments at LEP, and how they led to clarity of QCD. There is more detail to the lecture -- but I only got to half of it before ot...

I'm not sure what to think of this. Bumvertising is an effort by Front Door Enterprises in Seattle. Basically, they give homeless people advertising signs to hold, for which they get some compensation.

The following comes courtesy of my friend, Naj. " MIT World is a free and open site that provides on-demand video of significant public events at MIT." Naj likes, The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman, and The Origin of Mass and the Feebleness of Gravity by Frank Wilczek. There are many more interesting lectures online at MIT World. I haven't watched any of them yet, but already, I know there isn't enough spare time for all I will want to see. Check it out!

Why is common courtesy so uncommon? My wife and I had this little discussion during the car ride home today. What has become of Toronto? I haven't been in Toronto long enough to cry about the good ole days -- and I don't think I would have noticed courtesy in the past. I notice it today however, and in noticing it, I notice the lack of it in general. This past week, like the weeks before, I encounter the uncourteous in my daily travels back and forth to work, on the TTC. Whether it's the people having loud conversations in total disregard for those around them -- or those in a mad rush to get onto the bus or subway, to get a seat. Either way, they're rude, pushy, and have a total lack of common courtesy. They are no different than those who don't make the extra effort to hold the door open for someone; or those that don't say thank you when the extra effort is made -- the world is not your doorstop folks. There are those that stare, smoke their cigaret...

Baseline Magazine is carrying an eye opening article on NASA , and its struggle to get a handle on securing its systems. It is eye opening because it is all about people, and not necessarily about security or the agency itself. It makes me wonder just how they manage to eventually coordinate to get spacecrafts launched and do all the wonderful things they've done. The article describes a decentralized agency, with fragmented goals and managers who, when it really comes down to it, are just trying to protect their turf -- even while recognizing the bigger problems.

Jack Schofield of the Guardian Unlimited (UK) has published the top 20 geek novels written in English since 1932. The list is fairly unscientific. Schofield put the list up and then solicited votes. Nevertheless, the list is interesting to say the least. Below is the list, and what of the list I've actually read. I guess I'm not the geek I once thought of myself as. Read Not Read (1) Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2) George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four (4) Philip Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (3) Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (5) William Gibson's Neuromancer (6) Frank Herbert's Dune (7) Isaac Asimov's I, Robot (10) Douglas Coupland's Microserfs (8) Isaac Asimov's Foundation (11) Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (9) Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic (13) Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon (12) Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons' Watchmen (14) Iain M Banks' Consider Phlebas (17) Neil...

Mother Goose rocks with Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes -- featuring U2, George W., the late Pope JP, and a bunch of other people I didn't recognize. Why? Why not, I suppose.

Here's a blog that questions Google's mantra of "do no evil." The premise, even though the author professes to allow you to decide, is that Google is evil. Why else have a blog with the question? Or maybe that's the cynic speaking. Regardless, what I find amusing, is that while the blog questions whether Google is evil or not -- the author makes no bones of potentially profiting from Google. Check out the AdSense ads on the site. It's enough to say that the Is Google Evil? site is evil.