Science Addiction

A dormant blog by Devanshu Mehta

Category: Uncategorized

June 4, 2006

Research: Corn Fiber to Ethanol Using Mold

“Iowa State University researchers”:http://www.iastate.edu/~nscentral/news/2006/may/mold.shtml have discovered a method for using mold to break down corn fibers in to simple sugars that can be fermented to create Ethanol. Apparently, the process is not a simple one; corn fibers are very tough and do not degrade easily. Corn fibers are a byproduct of the wet milling process that produces corn syrup. And we all consume gallons of corn syrup mixed with caffeine (aka Coca-Cola) every year so this is good stuff and precisely the kind of thinking that seems to be required. Of course, the process only works on a small scale at the moment but mix a little venture capital or government money in and things become interesting.
[via The Energy Blog]

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June 4, 2006

NSA Wiretap Humor: I Just Called To Say

Newsday has a “fantastic animated cartoon song on the NSA wiretaps”:http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-wh-nsawiretapping,0,1906650.flash set to Stevie Wonder’s _I Just Called to Say I Love You_. This one goes, _You Just Called and We Were Listening_. Good stuff.

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June 2, 2006

Google Internationally Politically Correct

Google added “Hebrew and Arabic”:https://mail.google.com/mail/help/about_whatsnew.html to GMail on the same day. Now that is not being evil on an international scale. 🙂

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May 26, 2006

MSN AdCenter and Firefox Revisited

Thanks to Digg, my article on “the curious behavior of Microsoft towards their advertisers”:http://www.scienceaddiction.com/2006/05/12/how-internet-explorer-stifles-microsoft/ wherein Microsoft builds a web site for their advertisers that does not work for Firefox users. Cut out 10% of your potential advertisers before you even go in to business- that’s a great strategy. We have feedback from users, the blogosphere and *Microsoft*.

Today, two weeks later, the site is “still Firefox-unfriendly”:http://adcenter.msn.com and in fact, even more so:
UPDATED MSN AdCenter in Firefox

It has gotten worse; it doesn’t even fail gracefully any more. It does not inform you that the reason the site looks wonky is that you are using Firefox. It looks the same in Safari- so that locks out all Mac and Linux users… but I am repeating myself.

Since the original article got on the Digg.com frontpage, there were many comments, on my site, at Digg and *directly from Microsoft*. Let me discuss a few: Read the rest of this entry »

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May 21, 2006

Washington D.C. in Spring

Here are a few photographs of a recent trip to DC. I took hundreds of photographs, but these are some of my favorite.

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May 21, 2006

124 mph Mountain

“This is fascinating”:http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/060519_moving_mountain.html

A mountain near the Montana-Wyoming border once moved 62 miles in a half-hour in a catastrophic scenario that could be repeated elsewhere, scientists say. Rock at the summit of Heart Mountain is 250 million years older than at its base. That suggests the top and the bottom have not always been together. The presumed migration to its present home has puzzled scientists for years. They have known the mountain moved, but no one has explained how it happened or how long it took.

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May 20, 2006

“If you aren’t doing anything wrong…”

Everyone has heard of the classic defense of every violation of our privacy, of every move towards a police state:

“If you aren’t doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?”

I hate that line, but there isn’t a comeback to it that is quite as cutting and apt. So here are many ideas from Bruce Schneier and, as an article, it is the perfect sledgehammer for that depressing slogan of the security over privacy brigade. Read the rest of this entry »

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May 20, 2006

Windows Live Mail Supports Firefox

In a strange development in the aftermath of my “article on lack of Firefox support in MSN adcenter”:http://www.scienceaddiction.com/2006/05/12/how-internet-explorer-stifles-microsoft/ Windows Live Beta Email has started supporting Firefox as of a few days ago. This is good news and a positive step from Microsoft. Lack of Firefox support when it came out of Beta would have been a horrible move.

*UPDATE* : It seems like I spoke too soon! They actually took the support away; apparently their last update- the one that brought Firefox support- broke some integral things and now they have gone back to fixing it. Fix it fast, guys. Everyone else (including Yahoo! mail’s new beta) supports Firefox without any problems.

*UPDATE* _(5/31/06)_: And Firefox support is back. Thanks Microsoft (sincerely)- now can we have Safari support?

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May 20, 2006

Linus on CNN

“Linus Torvalds is on CNN this weekend”:http://edition.cnn.com/2006/BUSINESS/05/18/global.office.linustorvalds/ and though the interview is largely unsurprising, he is always charming and self-deprecating- taking as little credit for the “revolution” as possible.

Timings for the interview on CNN International:

You can watch the Linus Torvalds interview on Global Office on CNN International at these times:
*Saturday*
03:30 ET/08:30 BST/1530 HKT/1300 New Delhi
09:30 ET/14:30 BST/2130 HKT/1900 New Delhi
*Sunday*
07:30 ET/12:30 BST/1930 HKT/1700 New Delhi
13:30 ET/18:30 BST/0130 (Monday) HKT/2300 New Delhi

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May 20, 2006

300 Million in October 2006

The US population will hit 300 million in October of this year. The census bureau has a “population clock”:http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html and so does “Gerber”:http://www.gerber300.com/. Gerber, in fact, also says: Read the rest of this entry »

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