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News Briefs 06-04-2011

By Rick MGon

It’s not every day you see the sun setting behind a giant statue of Anubis on the way home from work. Tutankhamun exhibition opens in Melbourne this weekend.

Thanks Greg, RPJ, & Kat.

Quote of the Day:

Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.

Mark Twain

Rick MG
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10 Comments

  1. Antikythera
    A common view of ancient Greek technology is that they knew about things like gears, mechanics and steam pressure, but only used it for entertainment.

    Apparently this was also the case for the Antikythera device, following the artice:

    [quote]
    “It was meant to be a statement, to impress, to instruct,” he said, “rather than being a day to day practical calculating device.”
    [/quote]

    Whereas today, we can make amazingly capable and cheap computers, that would enable us to optimize households to optimize energy usage, water consumption and the like. We could also use these computers, networked as they already are, to gather important atmospheric and geological data in previously unknown detail.

    So consequently we use these computers to entertaining children, and adults in their non-grown-up moments. And we use the networking to gather important data, in order to sell them more entertainment.

  2. I love it when Randi mocks
    I love it when Randi mocks real science or science doing its best to be scientific. Ths latest mockery reminds me of Randi’s pathetic attempts to “explain away” the classic entangled photons experiments. He is not a real scientist, and he demonstates that to us with some regularity.

  3. Pioneer anomaly

    The team used a 1970’s software program called Phong Shading, originally developed to create a 3D rendering effect on graphics, to model the reflection of waste heat from the spacecraft on their varied surfaces – the 2.7-metre diameter antenna, and rest of the spacecraft behind it. Then they did the maths.

    Rather than a program, phong shading is a mathematical algorithm invented to simulate the way light bounces at a 3d object, and also to give it a smoother appearance —compensating for a low polygon number in the topology of the model, which was pretty important back when computers were not as powerful. It is now a standard feature in all modern CGI software packages.

    Quite an amusing article. Too many words just to say that the scientists polished their models (pardon the pun) and that solved the anomaly 😉

    1. phong
      Isn’t the problem with this explanation that, while the phone shading approximates real light effects in a way that looks good, it does it wrong in terms of what light actually does ?

      1. I dunno
        Like all CGI algorithms, phong shading is meant to mimic real life to a certain degree. It’s just an approximation, nothing more.

        But I’m certain that the scientists are aware of that, and (hopefully) know whether or not their results fall under certain deviation parameters that still render them valid.

  4. Mark Twain?
    “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.”*

    Oh, come on – a Twain quote? Nope, don’t buy it. Why didn’t you just finish the job and put up Babs Streisand’s Shakespearean “drums of war” non-quote-of-convenience? Really, please. It’s important that even quotation attribution be correct, otherwise we look sloppy and credulous – or exactly what debunkers try to make us, er, I guess that should be “people like me”, look like.

    So, post a verifiable reference to this quote in a Clemens’ work, letter, interview or remarks, and I shall abase myself in fulsome paeans to your erudition. Otherwise, I’m gonna keep it up with the this-is-such-an-obvious-stinker-you-should-have-known stuff as long as it remains attributed to the man.

    *I agree with the sentiment, and while I love skeptics, they must be intellectually honest, or they’re mere debunkers.

      1. In Denial
        Searching Google Books for that phrase doesn’t turn up anything before the 1990s. Though it’s possible that it originated with different phrasing (“Denial isn’t only a river in Egypt”/”Denial is not a river in Egypt” etc).

        Update: Searching “Denial” and “river in Egypt” together yields a reference from 1980.

        1. Quote like an Egyptian
          The quote may be from a public speech or interview Mark Twain did, if I remember a documentary correctly. No documents or recordings exist, that Twain scholars are aware of, so it could be one of those quotes that’s stuck in the public lexicon and passed verbally from generation to generation. Other than that, I copy-pasted the first Egypt-themed quote I could find on BrainyQuote… the other option was:

          [quote=Zahi Hawass]I am damn good. I am doing all this for Egypt and nothing else. I reject 70 per cent of media interviews while these people who accuse me are running after them.[/quote]

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