neonascent

Carbon Nano-Tube Color A4 E-Paper

Samsung Electronics and Unidym have demonstrated the world’s first carbon nanotube-based color active matrix electrophoretic display (EPD) e-paper. The revolutionary color e-paper was demonstrated on a 14.3 inch display. The e-paper device jointly completed by Samsung and Unidym uses a carbon nanotube (CNT) transparent electrode developed by Unidym. CNT is a novel material that has extraordinary electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties.

Perhaps to be used in the next (-next) generation of

Kindle

or iliad

From Hack a Day:

Here’s a fun little suprise that showed up in a recent Flaming Lips interview. Frontman Wayne Coyne built this custom guitar rig out of a double-necked Epiphone. It has a neck from a Guitar Hero controller, which triggers a built in KORG
Kaossilator
touchpad synthesizer. Checkout the
video interview at around 1:55 for a demo
. He went with the Guitar Hero controller because he feels that it’s replacing regular guitars in childrens’ perception of how guitar is played.

Walking house can escape floods or unruly neighbours - Telegraph

The 10ft high home is solar and wind powered and can stroll at walking pace across all terrains.

It has a living room, kitchen, toilet, bed, wood stove and mainframe computer which controls the legs.

Fantastic to see as a break from buildings as stationary and all-or-nothing (i.e. must be knocked down to reuse the land).

At the same time, it’s a bit contrived to look at this as a totally separate idea to an RV/Mobile Home/Caravan. If one is trying to do something outside of the norm, then still defending the concept of the house is not helpful.

The Tumbleweed Tiny House Company does a good job at a more practical movable house, although a little less fun.

Scientists Erase Specific Memories in Mice - Yahoo! News

“While memories are great teachers and obviously crucial for survival and adaptation, selectively removing incapacitating memories, such as traumatic war memories or an unwanted fear, could help many people live better lives,” Tsien said.

The “work reveals a molecular mechanism of how [memory deletion] can be done quickly and without doing damage to brain cells.”

I’ve already spoken about this line of research before (and at greater length in “No more painful memories?”), and am still extremely uncomfortable with it. The possibility that you can send people to war, or torture detainees, then erase their memories of it just make my skin crawl. This is exactly the sort of technology secret services would want to get their hands on, and there’s no reason to think there’d be any qualms against using it.

What are your thoughts?

Watch “Pfriend or Pfoe?” followed by
“Understanding Real America in Wasilla” segments from yesterday’s Daily Show, and you may well share my mix of scandal and surprise.

Orange County offers drive-through democracy - Los Angeles Times

To be added to the list of drive-through services (from Wikipedia):

* Banking services at a drive-through bank
* Coffee at a drive-through coffee shop
* Dairy products at a drive-through dairy store
* Drugs at a drive-through pharmacy
* Food or drink at a drive-through restaurant (typically fast food)
* Marriage (primarily at special drive-through marriage chapels in Las Vegas in the United States)

I was tempted to scoff at how it typifies something about US values, and dependence on cars, then I realized that Australia is home to the drive-through liquor store*. Let’s say sweeping judgements based on these examples are probably justified for both countries.

* AKA “Bottle-o” in Australian, “Offie” in English.

Art From Code : Generative Graphics

Generating interesting images based on mathematical algorithms.

“You shouldn’t let poets lie to you”

Antidepressant Studies Unpublished - New York Times

Dr. Drazen continued, “we need to show respect for the people who enter a trial.”

“They take some risk to be in the trial, and then the drug company hides the data?” he asked. “That kind of thing gets us pretty passionate about this issue.”

The report […] found that Eli Lilly had presented one study of its antidepressant Prozac as positive, even though a review of the study by the Food and Drug Administration determined that the drug did not perform as well as a placebo.

WOW Report: Church on a Stick
Excellent installation.