Author Archives: Robin

The US now also in on the Pole Game

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Yes, apart from telling Canada it thinks the bit Canada is claiming is Neutral Waters (even though the US aren’t signatories of the Sea Law treaties), they are now sending their very own Coast Guard cutter over there to map out the seabed and see if they can’t also imagine up an underwater ridge connecting the US to the North Pole.
This trip was planned three years ago, they’re saying. Really.

Getting busy up there.

Vivendi tries DRM free sales through Universal

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Universal Music Group is to sell thousands of tracks DRM free untill 1/8, none of which on the iTunes store in an attempt to measure if DRM sells better or worse. Or if the iTunes store sells poorly. Or whatever. Probably just to piss Apple off really. And to see if people will really want to buy DRM free music (no way!). Who knows, but after looking at EMI (who still seem to be selling their music, even if it is DRM free and EMI don’t seem to be making such huge DRM overheads…) this is good news for the Music Industry as well as the consumers.

And Denmark runs for the North Pole

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Here goes the next claimant: Denmark, acting in the interests of Greenland is now claiming the North Pole oil reserves.

You see, they, just like Russia have just discovered an arctic ridge linking their country to the Pole.

Canada isn’t taking this lying down either of course. They’re now sending 900 rangers to the pole as well, making that 2 military bases the Canadians have on the roof of the world.

Canada makes a run for the Pole

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And besides Putin dropping flags on the North Pole seabed and claiming the Pole is connected to Russia through an underwater ridge (see Putin on the Warpath), now Canada is running for it’s claim by putting an underwater ship base thing down, to the anger of the US who says it’s in “neutral waters”.

People are estimating around 25% of the world’s undiscovered oil is lying under the pole.

Moller Flying Car Finally in Production

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OK, well it’s more of a flying moped, but still, it’s nice to see he’s finally got the M200G Volantor in production. No it’s not the skycar thing, it looks like a flying saucer. It flies 3m off the ground and goes around 50 mph. They’ll cost around EUR. 50,000 which isn’t too bad for this technology, but god knows how countries are going to require you to be licenced to fly one or if they’ll let you fly it everywhere.

This is the link to the corporate Moller website, where you’re confronted with the thing (the M400) everyone has been begging them to build since the 1960s. Nope, not yet. But the flying saucer thing is still cool.

Gender differences in the nose

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OK, so this is in mice, but if lab mice are engineered to not have the TRPC2 gene, or if they remove the pheremone receptor in their noses, females start acting like males and shag around, become riotous and leave their kids after as little as two days if a male comes around.
The most interesting inference the scientists made is that basically male / female behaviour is not hardwired into the brain, but comes (for a large part, and at least in mice) from this gene. Thus, there is only one basic model of brain for each species. The body around it creates the gender differences.

edit: 7/8/7
Of course, this study that show that women over 65 who have drunk more than 3 cups of coffee per day have better memories than those who didn’t (and for men it doesn’t make any difference) puts a bit of a cloud on that idea, hey?

Multiverse MMOG

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Multiverse is a Second Life competitor, in that it allows the users to define the online experience. But not only that, you get to build your own MMOG / Virtual World very easily and allow players to play them, hosted on the Multiverse servers. The business model is simple: there are plenty of e-commerce tools Multiverse offers World creators, and when these are used, Multiverse gets a % take of the loot. Now, how do you get people to play your World if it’s not a common world?
Anyway, it can hardly fail to have worse graphics than Second Life…

Joint Qualification for US Officers

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The US is tackling the problem of jointness the right way. Jointness is used to describe operations in conjunction with another (or mulitple other) military arm(s) (such as Air Force coordinating with the Marines).
The US has set up a Joint Qualification System which offers points depending on joint actions each officer has had in the past, but can also gain by attending joint courses and excersises. Enough points result in a Joint Speciality Officer (JSO) designation.
From 2008 officers may not reach flag rank without a JSO.
In a way it’s crazy that interservice rivalry has been allowed to flourish so long and that armed forces have fought as such seperate units. Nowadays with communications being at the point they are there is no excuse for non-jointness in the armed forces.