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April 23rd on Talk of the Nation, Ira Flato spoke to Peter Schultz, the Exhibits and Public Programs Director.

Here's the obligatory link

How come Homer and Krusty look like clones?

That's deliberate. According to a Fresh Air interview that Matt Groening did with Terry Gross last year, the resemblance was a deliberate joke in the early days of the show: here was thls little brat, Bart (the name is another joke), that hated his (bumbling, but loving) father and treated him miserably, and yet he absolutely idolzed this television character that was in every way a copy of Homer, but with all the negative attributes of Homer magnifiied.

It's, like, irony. Dig?

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This message is giving me deja vu -- didn't I post this info to a message of yours once before, or was someone else posing that question in his/her signature?

Anyone catch the NPR piece on piracy today?

Seems to me like this, or a similar technology would be just the ticket to stop pirates from nabbing ships and their cargo.

I've been thinking that an rf transmitter tag with gps interface would work well.

I've built one based on a gps receiver, 2 meter ham radio, and the TinyTrack II Works great in my car, and with the ham radio APRS infrastructure... now how to convert to a ship in the ocean.

You know there are no limits to your jail time when Condi speaks exclusively to Redubyacans

Home of the Sometimes Brave and Partly Free.

Have a weekend,
Kilgore Trout

Great piece with Patrick Stewart defending his role in a Science Fiction TV show for 7 years as a way to encourage others to go out and watch Shakespeare. Real Media and Windows Media Player versions.

Be of good cheer: NPR reported yesterday that computer science college enrollments are way down. So the oversupply will correct itself (again) as those students who don't really like computers stop majoring in it.

And we all know he stole the election from Gore.

Actually, Gore lost the election fair and square -- 5 to 4.

I wonder what happens when the story comes out on which justices had bet on which candidate in the office pool ( Harry Blackmun spilled the beans in his recently released interviews). Sounds like 9 justices that should have recused themselves.

At least in India, they haven't established the same pattern we have in these cases. Historically in the US, nearly every candidate to steal a presidential election has been assasinated in office.

This aired last Friday on public radio:

Talk Of The Nation Science Friday

Seek to 27:30 for the start of the audio program on Frame Dragging.

The question remains is what happens if Frame Dragging isn't observed

You can listen to John Turneaure, co principle investigator for Gravity Probe B. He was interviewed by Ira Flatow on NPR's Science Friday.

When Ira Flatow asked him what would happen if the probe did not find anything and that Einstein might be wrong, he "hemmed and hawwed" a lot and said that wouldn't be the case - that Einstein was right. He also mentioned that the data would go to a physicist and then be released to the public.

It's not that I'm wearing a tin-foil hat (well maybe), but science is based on conducting experiments in the open and openly sharing data with an unbiased view and procedure, even if it means that Einstein might be wrong.

If they really wanted to do this neat, they would stream the data live to a website, rather than can up the data until they are ready to release it.

There are critics of Einstein that are academically serious and not off their rocker like some zero point/tesla fanatics. There have been critics of Einstein ever since he released his theories. You don't hear much about them as they are all heaped into one group and astrocized.

I am not saying that Einstein was wrong (not in the sense that Newton was wrong either), but that true science is keeping an open mind, rather than cower to the politically favorable theory of the moment.

As an aside, frame dragging is like when you take a single electric mixer and use it in a bowl of pudding. Or when you use an electric stirrer in a can of paint. That is frame dragging.

This happens because gravity is a field (according to Einstein). Newton treated gravity like a force.

Physicists reading may improve upon this anology.

Yup. But NPR was instrumental in killing LPFM as well.

Currently, Sirius has an exclusivity deal with NPR and has two channels up.

Some areas have two NPR stations available, one for primarily news and the other for primarily music. Sometimes one is on the AM dial and the other is FM. For example, in central Iowa, 90.1 is WOI-FM (mostly music) and 640 is WOI-AM (mostly talk); in St. Paul, there are two separate FM stations. Recommend checking the NPR website to see if this is true in your area.

NPR and PBS are controlled by the same people, which is the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. If you think NPR is so Liberal(TM), why don't you contact them?

Don't let facts stand in the ay of a troll, though...

I understand (and sometimes make) the argument that "gratis" doesn't always mean "cheap", since someone has to run the system and in this setting you'd probably have to pay them to do it. Still, the whole reason I love listening to these guys so much is that they are the alpha geeks of the automotive mechanic world. It's not like Tom and Ray are a couple of guys who tinker with cars in their back yard and have no technology background.

Real Player doesn't come with Windows XP, so you can't use the argument that you don't want to make your users install additional software, since they'll have to anyway. The official answer from NPR is that

While other media types may offer technical advantages or less restrictive licenses, the conversion and storage of audio files requires considerable time and resources.

I heard this on NPR's Weekend Edition a few weeks ago.

What follows is a long musing on the Dean campaign's use of internet tools, but it has a short thesis: the hard thing to explain is not how the Dean campaign blew such a huge lead, but rather why we ever thought that lead actually existed. Dean's campaign didn't just fail, it dissolved on contact with reality.

According to a piece on All Things Considered yesterday, the RIAA's attempts to vilify "pirates" are apparently discouraging potential customers from buying online, even from legitimate stores like iTMS and Wal-Mart.

At least in a casino you can touch the machine that's robbing you

Yeah, but if you gamble online, you won't get a virus from the machine that's robbing you.

If you want SO BADLY for us to listen to it, then at least make it a clickable link, smacktard.

IJWTS that Lawrence Lessing gave a fine interview on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" this past Tuesday. More info, and the interview in RealAudio format, here.

Brian Unger (formerly of the Daily Show, now on NPR's Day to Day) has an amusing commentary looking back at TV today, if that makes any sense... Link.

I heard a story on All Things Considered just yesterday about a phone based system for finding drive times between two locations. It is called 511 , it is available only in the Bay Area right now, it uses a variety of data including road sensors and speed pass data for near-real time traffic data calculations. It sounds iteresting : http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=17889 73

You can dial 511 on your phone in San Fransico and give your starting point end and end point and it will give you a real time traffic assesment and the time from point A to point B. With some pretty cool voice regonition software.
Story about automated traffic in SF

Something good comes from the fact that I didn't get in because of their affirmative action policies.

NPR's coverage of this announcment included a comment that MS would still have to pay the money now even if they did appeal.

... or the Tappet Brothers are to mechanics.

I was a little pissed off with them when they switched to Windows Media for their shows on the web. (I haven't been able to get MPlayer to play it but WiMP works with Crossover so it's still possible to listen.)

Ironically recent studeies show (not supprisingly) that TV viewing (especially for "news" programming) is on the rise. The funny part is that people actually trust the "news" that they are getting even less according to one poll (see here).

Correct link for the story this week (March 10).

Here in the states NPR had a good story on one of the teams yesterday (wednesday) during their All Things Considered show. You can listen to the show here:

NPR LINK

The NPR Summary of the story is: At the crack of dawn this Saturday, a 200-mile race across the Mojave Desert begins. The competitors are robotic vehicles taking on the form of SUVs, dune buggies and golf carts. It's a contest sponsored by the Pentagon to spur advancements in the field of robotics. NPR's Melissa Block talks with competitor Red Whittaker.

Foo: I'm in favor of detonating lots of nukes on mars, just to see what happens.
Bar: Not sure, but I think seeing Venus's atmosphere sent outwards a few hundred kilometres would look pretty cool.
Baz: Yeah, maybe they could have a pay-per view special to fund the costs.

Interestingly, I just listened to someone discuss the awesome power of a sight that fewer and fewer people have seen: nuking the Earth.

On NPR's Fresh Air, former Secretary of the Air Force Thomas Reed talked about his new book, At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War. In addition to his policial role, he was for a while a "consultant to the director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a well-known center for nuclear weapons research." As such, he helped design nuclear weapons, and was present during their testing.

He pointed out that witnessing an above-ground nuclear detonation was itself a life-changing event, and that the experience colored the decisions of all who saw and felt it. The light, he said of a Christmas Island blast, wasn't just bright -- it was all-enveloping, even through the way-beyond-dark goggles. And the instant blast of heat, that made you want to run away, anywhere, just to get away.

But nuke tests are now performed underground, where the awesome power is visible only as instrument ticks and a dimple in the ground. As the old scientists die, there are fewer and fewer people who have witnessed a nuclear blast as it would occur in the above-ground world.

The whole concept is so abstract, we can now discuss the idea of blowing one up on another planet, without even breaking into a sweat. Unfortunately, there are plenty of folks in the militaries of the world who can do the same sort of abstract thinking in reference to their own planet.

Damn, that got a lot deeper than I thought it would...

National Public Radiois not a visual medium, but neither is HAM Radio. This sounds like the kind of report that might be of interest to Talk of the Nation's Science Friday. Email show suggestions to scifri[AT]sciencefriday.com.

Maybe ir played the theaters in your town because they filmed it there, but the majority of America (almost half the TV-viewing public) saw it as a made-for-TV movie on ABC Sunday, 20 November 1983.

There had been a huge amount of hype before it played (I remember the TIME cover) related to its obviously anti-nuclear bias which was in direct conflict with the Reagan presidency's view that a nuclear war was survivable.

More info here and here.

The downside being, if there was any chance of saving hubble before, it's gone now. I heard the story on NPR a few days ago... something like $200 million in parts are built and ready to go, just waiting on a shuttle mission that would extend hubble's lifespan beyond 2006. "safety concerns" were cited as the cause, but reduced budgeting due to mars' popularity is a far more likely reason. (listen to the audio stream of the program)

*sigh* The bell tolls for yet another victim of society's apathy.

The downside being, if there was any chance of saving hubble before, it's gone now. I heard the story on NPR a few days ago... something like $200 million in parts are built and ready to go, just waiting on a shuttle mission that would extend hubble's lifespan beyond 2006. "safety concerns" were cited as the cause, but reduced budgeting due to mars' popularity is a far more likely reason. (listen to the audio stream of the program)

*sigh* The bell tolls for yet another victim of society's apathy.

I know... It's bad form to reply to my own post, but it can't be helped.
The NPR article mentioned is even more non-sensical.

The randomness in a coin toss, it appears, is introduced by sloppy humans. Each human-generated flip has a different height and speed, and is caught at a different angle, giving different outcomes.

But using high speed cameras and equations, Diaconis and colleagues have now found...

WTF are high speed equations? Or alternatively why would you want to film an equation?

Silly scientist/ reporter.

Gerta Keller's conclusions are being strongly refuted by Jan Smits, one of the researchers that got funding for the core samples used in the study. He said in this NPR clip that he is really upset that Keller's research passed peer review without catching the obvious mistakes.

This article was discussed on All Things Considered on NPR last week sometime (probably Wednesday, because it was the night it was pouring in LA).

Here's the excellent NPR piece, with pics of the gadget they flipped the coins with: NPR.

Worth listening to, if for nothing else than the very cartoony sound of the coing flipping machine... Link.

I am an avid NPR listener, and whenever Klick and Klack, the Tapper brothers are on when I get home, I invariably end up sitting in the driveway. I would love to be able to automagically tape these shows and play them back in my car (while driving to/from work) at the push of a button.

I am an avid NPR listener, and whenever Klick and Klack, the Tapper brothers are on when I get home, I invariably end up sitting in the driveway. I would love to be able to automagically tape these shows and play them back in my car (while driving to/from work) at the push of a button.

From their website:

Public TV's total national, regional and local revenue in FY00 totaled $1.6 billion, according to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Leading sources of revenue: members (23.5%); state governments (18.3%); CPB and federal grants/contracts (16.4%); businesses (16.1%); state colleges and universities (6.5%); and foundations (5.5%).

So, the federal government chips in 16.3% of 1.6 billion dollars. That's 260 million.

From their website, NPR's operating budget (total) is 100 million dollars. Congress pays for 18%.

The FBI budget: 4.298 billion, with $500 in new spending this year to develop counter-terrorism and high-tech crime fighting.

From their website "High tech" crimes outrank public corruption investigations, protecting civil rights, combating organized crime, and even upgrading the organizations technology to successfully perform their mission.

While I don't have a hard number, I can tell you if it's not close to 280 million, it's probably more.

Something along the same lines, NPR had a series called Lost and Found Sounds, with recordings of the Northern Lights

Correction, the name should have been Andy Bowers, not Bob Garfield. Apologies.

NPR... bought with our taxdollars.

Hardly. Only one to two percent of NPR's budget comes from Federally funded sources.

direct link here

"He is senior counsel for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, D.C. Kennedy thinks Bush will be considered the worst environmental president in history and is concerned that Bush will dismantle 30 years of pro-environmental legislation."

Audio at http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=16805 29

How come Homer and Krusty look like clones?

This is way off topic, but it was in your signature line. I was listening to an interview with Matt Groening on Fresh Air (I think) and he explained this point. He was trying to make it a point that Bart hates his father but loves this clone that looks exactly like his father.

You can listen to the interview online. I may be remembering a different interview, but I am quite sure that the similarities between Homer and Krusty was intentional.

And what do you know about this person's life that you're telling them where to spend his money?

Um. Seems pretty clear: we know he lives in an apartment, and thinks $7000 is a lot of money.

Want to play the game some more? He is probably young, else he would not have mentioned the great aunt's death as a novelty. He seems to be unable to scope and budget a wireless network despite being "into computers." He probably has no savings, none, because otherwise he'd have considered this project earlier.

Seriously, one of my pet peeves is when people think they know better what to do with someone's money than the owner.

One of my pet peeves is when people think they know better what to do with their money than someone who actually does.

I'm tempted to leave the joke there but perhaps exposition is in order. The inability to manage personal finances is a massive, widespread problem (and the fact that you don't realize this is probably... significant). Besides the endless horror stories you hear from callers on finance shows (like the Motley Fool), I've seen it too often in person to take it lightly. Thanks to pure incompetence, every relative on my father's side of the family has had serious, and fully preventable, financial disasters. Oh, and guess who they come to for help, after ignoring our advice?

--
I like canned peaches.