The iPhone had always been significantly heavier than other smartphones. Should the details in this article be accurate, we might be holding a much lighter iPhone this October.

I would like a slimmer iPhone, but I don’t know if a lighter one would feel as nice in my hands. I mean, after using the current iPhones, other smartphones tend to feel a little toy-like if you ask me. But I guess it’s a matter of getting used to it.

Alan

Oh, look it’s done! Well, I have say, I most definitely called that! I bet some of you didn’t believe me. Well, you were wrong!

No, that’s not it, just a preparation, to help you truly understand the difference, the great accomplishment, the mountain  that I have overcome as an animator. If you realized my ruse, even just halfway through, then go back. It may not seem important now, or even twenty years from now (probably because it won’t be) but it will make the whole experience a lot more enjoyable, for you and me. I think I may have delayed long enough. Some of you have already skipped this virtually useless paragraph, so to give it use, and also to get back at everyone who’s is already watching, and to teach them to do the right thing. I will hereby place a password to an upcoming post here. Clamfood. The next few sentences are to trick people who are merely skimming. Such sentences are useless to the point that you may, now skip to the video. I declare, with independence and a feeling of pride and freedom that my second year shall be a third the greatness of my nineth, which shall in turn be a third the greatness of my third. And that’s the reason I chose to choose this extremely boring topic. The End. Now you can watch the movie… and… Go!

Okay. It wasn’t perfect. I had two major mistakes, in a total of twenty seconds. But whatever. I was getting kinda bored. Three quarters of the time it was loading. All i had to do was up-up-up-up-up shift-command-S >-delete-#, and photoshop did the rest. naturally, it took forever, since I was saving to a USB (probably). my original plan was to do each letter individualy. Balloons go up, H. Balloons go up, A . Balloons go up, P. Balloons go up, P. Balloons go up, P. etc. You get what I mean. about fifteen times the time I took. Bleh. And three quarters the time waiting? Not for me. So I made a decision halfway through that I would make it say HAPPY BIRTHDAY. And that’s how it happened. No joke.

Here are a few things that were nice about it:

• The background. there was sort of a rainbow thing, and then on top of it there were those flower things. yay.
• the amount of balloons. I mean, you see the first one, and you’re like bleh. It was like that for the background too.
• the balloons popping near the end. that looked better than I expected it to, which is always nice
• “Spy” being suggested at the end. Second public video here, and I swear, you have to go on youtube a lot, see these great ones suggested, and then you see your own, even just for your own video. Inspiring, even.

Samsung sent out their press invites (seen above) for what we can only assume is for the Galaxy SIII (or whatever they intend to call it). There have been some assertions (here & here) that the new device will be formed out of Liquid Metal (more info). Although I would like nothing more than to see this type of industrial design from someone other than Jony Ive, it seems highly unlikely. Apple entered into an agreement with Liquid Metal Technologies for exclusive rights in consumer electronics in August 2010. This no doubt would include smartphones making this some litigation fodder for the lawyers in Cupertino should Samsung use the name or IP in the upcoming device.

Let me also add that the casing may be a type of ceramic, akin to what HTC has done with the HTC One S. BGR published an exclusive earlier this year highlighting a “ceramic case” as part of the S3′s design, but using actual Liquid Metal is probably not the case.

Preview of how Omega used Liquid Metal in one of their chronographs is shown below.

Okay not quite yet, but this kind of blue-sky thinking is the answer to ending our insane reliance on using fuel (usually through combustion) to heat water which in turn turns turbines to generate electricity. Now wind (and wave/tidal when they are more commercially viable), hydro and other forms of direct turbine generation (like natural gas) and solar voltaic are realistic options in generating power for our future needs.

Coal-fired plants currently operate at about 31% efficiency – as in less than a third of the stored energy in the coal is converted to electricity – and that figure doesn’t acount for transmission losses.  Euractiv.com
Even if experimental coal gasification plants were to come online, they would still only  operate at around 50% efficiency. DOE

Some modern fossil fuel plants could operate at up to 48% efficiency already, but this is the maximum owing to the laws of thermodynamics. Nuclear cannot operate at more than 30-32% efficiency at present, though designs currently at the experimental stage could get closer to that of fossil-fuel  turbines Wiki, but again no higher because in both cases the temperatures involved prevent greater efficiency.
Now wind (30 to 59%) and solar (up to circa 30% and even 50% in the future)[ Livestrong ] efficiencies using current technologies don’t seem to compete in terms of energy conversion, but there is the added bonus that once the generating capacity is installed, the energy source is free and does not require a transport or massively industrialised infrastructure to supply it. Wave and tidal power, which are currently still in development, have the potential to be up to 99% efficient USAF  and 80% NWE respectively.
Of course the decommisioning costs of renewable turbines and PV arrays are negligible when compared with the clean-up costs for fossil fuel and nuclear power stations – it seems to be quite difficult to find out what the estimated costs of decommissioning defunct power stations might be, which suggests that it will be high – especially with coal ( and all the toxic chemicals that don’t get burned like mercury, uranium, thorium, arsenic and other heavy metals Wiki) poisoning the land and nuclear which produces 10000 metric tonnes of fuel waste per year worldwide, but also huge quantities of low-level radioactive waste (but still less than and less radioactive than coal fired power stations), for which there is still no reliable disposal method even after 60 odd years. Therefore, one can safely assume that the clean-up costs of decommissioning nuclear and fossil fuel plants woud run to (probably) hundreds of billions of dollars.
Step forward Donald Sadoway, Professor of Materials Chemistry at MIT giving a short talk  at TED on the new liquid metal batteries that he has developed with his students (video below).

“>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sddb0Khx0yA&hd=1]

For the more scientifically minded amongst you, here is the PDF link for Sadoway et al  (published January 2012) in the Journal of the American Chemical Society

One Magnesium-antimony (Mg-Sb) battery about the size of a 40ft shipping container has a capacity of 2MWh – about enough for 200 homes. The technology is scalable (so smaller batteries could be used for individual houses, offices, workshops) and it is capable of dealing with the high temperatures that are associated with electrical surges (from rapid charging over a [relatively] short period of time). The metals, as the description “liquid metal”  suggests are kept in a fluid state in order that the Magnesium can migrate down through the electrolyte when discharging (forming a MgSb alloy) and back up when charging (returning to ions), thus the battery has an operating temperature of around 700°C and is therefore only really practical for stationary use.

This battery which of course has no moving parts to wear or break or that need replacing, could spell the end of antiquated power generation – steam turbines (which coal, gas (mostly), oil and nuclear power stations all use) could be a thing of the past, using [relatively] common materials that are inexpensive, ( Sadoway et al [2012] give Antimony (Sb) = $7/kg and Magnesium (Mg) = $5.15/kg ). It is worth noting that there are massive discrepancies in available data for price of the minerals used in these batteries, but nonetheless it is apparent that their cost and availability are not in question.  Indeed, they are very common and readily available.  Lawmakers ought to start to take the remediation and clean-up costs in mind when considering commissioning new power stations, because then they would be far more likely to opt for batteries such as this combined with a varied and multi faceted renewables portfolio.

Another great thing is that the batteries have low internal resistance,  so do not age nor do they decay through multiple cycles in the way that many modern batteries using rarer elements do, thus they have a good lifespan.

I really do see this as a fantastic breakthrough, this could be comparable to the invention of the internal combustion engine or the television for the massive way it could alter how we generate and use electricity. And it gives us the ability to store electrical potential for when it is needed, rather than ramping up the power at the ‘conventional’ power stations, as happens at the moment.

This new battery technology, combined with new solar and wind technologies, provides a realistic alternative to non-renewable energy sources.

The Terminator

T-1000

…a place for your bangles

…desk or dressing table

http://tiny.cc/35k6q

I’m writing a book. I’ve got the page numbers done.

Steven Wright

…liquid metal

]]> http://freeiphonethemesblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/liquid-metal-iphone-wallpaper/ Wed, 29 Feb 2012 18:13:15 +0000 mh22315 http://freeiphonethemesblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/liquid-metal-iphone-wallpaper/ http://no-names.org/2012/01/26/just-wondering-thoughts-in-ones-mind/ Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:43:51 +0000 myritingboard http://no-names.org/2012/01/26/just-wondering-thoughts-in-ones-mind/ Minds,  are  places,  where all thoughts are possible and anything can happen at any given moment.  Just like the thoughts in ones mind right now,  as the matter of fact . . .thoughts are happening in your mind,  as we speak. Are you just wondering what your thinking about this right now,  is happening in  or are you simply just reading and wondering where this is all going . . .SPACE

We are going to space and travel to the outer parts where they tell us several other  planets are,  and that they may contain entities of one sort or another.  It all depends whether we believe there is life out in space.  I don’t know if i do as my mother will not talk of this . . .I think i told you this at one time, she will talk of Sasquatch but not of Aliens. {I wonder why myself}, is she afraid of what may be out  there?   Maybe i will ask her if her dad spoke of ALIENS . . .

We all know we are call planet EARTH and we all know what we look like.  But what about out there . . .IN SPACE. What if any, would the inhabits of these other PLANETS LOOK LIKE . . .

PICTURE THIS . . .I DID

MERCURY    is a liquid metal and looks silvery.  It is also a chemical element. It is also a PLANET near the sun.  Explains the liquid part of it and the silvery look. Plus the -MERCURTIANS

I am your Leader

AND THEN

VENUS   is  the second planet from the sun and closest to  our MOTHER EARTH

 They say it is the planet of love,  giving her two names, [morning star] and [evening star]. Then we have the  Venus fly trap and the

VENUTIANS

This is your leader

AND THEN

MARS      not only a planet,  they say the God of war.  The red planet.    Dust . . .Home of the hot white.  This  entity is out of water and does not belong on Earth.

MARTIANS

YOU CAN NOT STOP US

AND THEN

JUPITER they say is a God,   the ruler of thunder and water. It is also THE largest Planet in the solar system.     Then we have the,  

JUPITERTIANS

I ate your leader

AND THEN

SATURN - calling this the golden God of  agriculture. He allows no killings for seven days.  It is also a planet with a steady yellow glow.  Then we have  the  

SATURTIANS               

Roar

AND THEN

We can not for get   

 URANUS - they say is the first Lord of the earth. They also say his children were giants,  the one-eyed Cyclopes, the Titans and Hecaton-cheires, with 100 hands.  URANUS is also a planet that looks like a greenish disk, and then . . .

URANUTIANS

I'm in your leader

 

 

 

 

 

 

AND THEN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEPTUNE

Not only the third most massive Planet,  they call it  direct,  in its rotation and revolution.  They also call Neptune a God. This God is of the sea. Then we have ,

 

 

 

NEPTUNTIANS

Lead me to your taker

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But i only fear JUPITERTIANS and MARTIANS    they are here and they will kill all humantians.

 

 

 

Many thanks go out to my artless artistic artist.

LEADERS AND GODS

LaMichael James and the rest of the Oregon Ducks probably gave Wisconsin fits with their extremely reflective helmets for the Rose Bowl. Photo by Getty Images

Now that we’ve had a week to reflect on the college football season after a dominant performance by the Alabama defense, we’ll take one last look at the uniforms for these special games.

It comes as no shock that I’ll lead off with Oregon and its very shiny helmets for the Rose Bowl. It’s a wonder Wisconsin did not complain it couldn’t see as the Ducks ran out in the Pasadena sun light wearing what more closely resembled solar paneling than a football helmet.

Overall, I thought the look was neat and innovative for even Oregon. The use of “liquid metal” for the helmets and facemasks was cool to see. It added another dimension to the beauty of the setting for the Rose Bowl.

It was also very cool to see the reflection of the field and the mountains surrounding the Rose Bowl whenever ESPN gave the audience a close-up view of the helmet.

Oregon’s helmets worked for the most part, but the one drawback was the helmet had virtually nothing to do with the uniform. I understand it would require a completely silver uniform for the Ducks that might have blinded the 100,000 in attendance, but it’s justa  pet peeve I’m airing here.

Wisconsin also brought a subtlety to the game with the helmets. If you look really close, you can see the pattern of a rose in the W of the Badgers’ helmets. It’s stuff like that, that makes the Rose Bowl great.

The game presented a contrast of style in both style of play and general style. It was neat.

There was plenty of other fashion statements made over the bowl season, and here are a few highlights in our final installment of quick hits for this season:

Virginia looked pretty gross when they took on Auburn in the Chick-fil-a Bowl and it showed in its performance on the field. Photo by Getty Images

• Virginia went with a frighteningly bad look in a blowout loss to Auburn in the Chick-fil-a Bowl. I have no idea what the Cavaliers were going for. Maybe they thought since the game was being played on New Year’s Eve night, everybody would be too drunk to notice. Luckily for this blog, I work on Saturday nights so I noticed.
• Oklahoma State went all-black in their Fiesta Bowl victory over Stanford. I still wish they would go with orange and white one time. This look made it seem like it was Halloween, not New Year’s.
• Baylor more closely resembled the old New York Jets than the Baylor Bears in the Alamo Bowl, but I guess it helped them score a lot of points so that’s great.
• Notre Dame wore names on the back of their jerseys for the Champs Sports Bowl so there’s that.

It just occurred to me that I’ve never really posted my take on the fantastic Terminator:The Sarah Connor Chronicles mythology. It took me a while to get it too, and I had to read a lot of fan fiction to form anything coherent.

It all depends on exactly how Cameron got sent back. Sarah said that John sent her away from him, but Cameron didn’t actually confirm that. 

Basically the question, “Will You Join Us?” is the key. Future John reached out to the Liquid Metal species and they rejected him, but gaining or losing their loyalty was probably a key turning point in the war.
At some point T1000 Weaver realized that rejecting Connor’s offer was a mistake, so she went back in time to create a counter Skynet AI, which ended up being John Henry, to help John win the war, or at least turn the tide. At first I thought John Henry existed in the future, but there was so much about him that Weaver didn’t know, and was constructing on the spot, that it became kind of clear at the end that this was John Henry’s first appearance in the timeline. Weaver wanted peace between Humans and Metal…maybe she came from far enough in the future to see both species destroy each other and most of the planet as well.
Cameron clearly knew the significance of the phrase, “Will You Join Us?” and somehow knew that John Henry needed to get to the future, mobile, in order to help John win the war. That’s one reason why she was in the present and thus gave him her chip.

If she got sent back by Future John, he knew all of that and sent her back both to ensure his own safety, and ultimately to be sure that John Henry was created and made it to the future.
If Cameron sent herself back, it’s entirely possible that she either killed John and was trying to fix it, or John got killed as a result of their unorthodox relationship. The theory that I like the best is that other resistance leaders that thought like Jesse eventually mutinied against Connor to get him out of power, but he ended up being killed…and it was all because of Cameron. She realized then that her presence would lead to John’s death one way or the other, and sent herself back to protect teenage John, launch John Henry, and remove herself from the future equation, thus hoping to prevent Future John’s death. Which she of course would have no way of knowing, but it was a time leap of faith.

So: John Henry and his mother, WeaverBot, arrive in the future, with the idea of creating a peaceful coexistence between humans and metal. Cameron’s dechipped body is in the past, thus getting her out of the picture, and allowing John a future without her.
The only wrinkle in that scenario is the fact that teenage John came with Weaver in the time bubble, which effectively changed everything, so I don’t know how that would’ve played out…I know that Josh Friedman or Thomas Dekker have said that John would’ve come back to the present about midway through Season Three, so, there you have it. Check that out here.

Really would’ve been great to see that storyline get its proper conclusion.

HINT: DO A MOVIE LIKE THEY DID WITH FIREFLY/SERENITY DAMMIT!!!

Goal Pieces:

1. Read more books in my genre.

2. Read more books on craft and apply the lessons to my writing.

Forgive me, for I have not posted in the last few updates.

Ha!

Did anyone even notice? There’s almost eighty of them.

There wasn’t much to report. “Hey, guys, I still suck. ‘Til next time!” I got stuck in The Rut for a while, but I’m out for now, thanks to my buddies, and I come with progress.

I read a chunk of Techniques of the $elling Writer by Dwight V. Swain and one section dealt with scene don’ts. Among them was the flashback. Swain had a great and simple way of explaining why this is a don’t. It’s not realistic. If you’re in a situation with conflict, the last thing you’re going to do is reminisce. I’ll use Terminator 2 as an example.

So, it’s the scene where the Terminator and John Connor are set to break Sarah Connor out of the crazy house. There’s an urgency to this rescue mission because the other Terminator, the evil one, is on the way there too. To kill and assume Sarah’s identity.

John’s Terminator successfully takes out the guards. No one can stop them from getting in. Now imagine instead of doing just that, John says, “You know, T, this reminds of the time Mom and I broke into this laboratory. I was younger and really scared, but she wasn’t. She kicked those guards’ asses just like you. Even though I was scared I felt safe. Kind of like now. Let’s go get Mom.”

Be honest, after you leapt through the movie screen, hoping to land in the T2 world so you could slap John upside the head, you’d be asking the manager for your money back.

Why would John, for one second, think about anything but saving his mom? Because conflict takes all thought except the matter at hand away.

I knew flashbacks were unnecessary for most of fiction, but Swain’s example made the reason why so much clearer that it’ll be very hard to make this mistake. Yay for that.

Oh, and I love grey. Grey is the best! I spell it with an “e”…is that weird? I wonder which spelling is more common…probably “gray” with an “a” because that sounds more obvious. Just a guess!

Alrighty, what am I wearing??

Stripe Tank: Banana Republic

White Tank: Nordstrom (B.P.)

Shorts: Gap

Shoes: American Eagle (from Payless FOREVER AGO)

Scarf: Banana Republic

Watch: Michael Kors

Silver Bracelets: Liquid Silver

Aqua Rhinestone Bangle: From some dude I used to know

The Acer Liquid Metal will be available in two colors — brown and silver. The brown version will arrive first, in mid-November and then the silver will follow in early-December. As for price, expect to pay £299.

The phone will carry 3.6-inch display, be wrapped in metal, and have curved top and bottom edges. It will run Google’s Froyo of Android and will utilize a Qualcomm 800 MHz processor, similar to that found on the HTC Desire Z and the T-Mobile G2 for the U.S. market. Additionally, the Liquid Metal will also have a WiFi b/g/n radio, support for 14 Mbps HSDPA networks, and a 5-megapixel camera with flash and 720p HD video recording. DLNA is also supported and Acer has also included Dolby support, like on the Nokia N8. Tethering is also supported out of the box.

Although the phone will come with the native Android launcher and menu, Acer will also ship the phone with its ‘Breeze’ front-end that makes accessing applications easier, including viewing information even when the phone is locked. The company also supplies its SocialJogger app to aggregate content from Facebook and Twitter feeds.

read more

via

I now own all of SUPERMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES on DVD. Each week, I’m going to work my way through the series one episode at a time.  Dig?

Episode: “My Girl”

What Happens: Hey! Superman’s Childhood Crush, Lana Lang comes to Metropolis! She’s dating Lex Luthor! Explosions! Fashion! Mystery?

Very off-model S-shield

Thoughts:

• At 20 minutes, is this the shortest episode to date?
• Clark Kent’s immediate reaction to initials “LL” being to guess “Lana Lang” is pretty funny when you consider how many people he knows with those initials (well, maybe not in the animated continuity). LL dating Lex Luthor: also pretty good.
• Uh hey there Frank Miller-esque criminal amazon woman

Just missing the pointed teeth and swastika pasties, really.

• Sort of off-topic but not really: the quality of this episode animation-wise is…off. Simpler than usual, almost. And the transfer on this particular episode is not great. Wonder why that is?
• I like the way they position Lana in contrast to Lois on the show: Lana’s always been the “girl who got away” but now she knows Clark is Superman, so it makes the romantic tension between alittle more interesting. Logically, he WOULD find a girl from his past who knows his secrets, who knows the real Clark Kent, appealing.
• Sidebar: I love the character of Mercy. Giving Lex a tough-as-nails girl friday who just does his dirty work is a brilliant conceit.

Creep creep

• Oh man, Lex’s boner face.

You've seen it. You can't unsee it.

• While we’re on the subject, you get the sense that Lex genuinely cares for Lana here, which is a change of pace from the disposable women we’ve seen him with so far in the show. The only reason he turns on her is because she’s being unfaithful to him. I like it. Lex is human, after all.
• This episode feels very noiry, with the whole Lana/Lex/Clark triangle/espionage plot. Batman:TAS gets more associated with this kind of thing (because, yeah) but I feel like a number of Superman: TAS episodes have this feel.
• Superman saving the deer and delivering the corny “open season on terrorists” line is perfect Superman right there.
• The reference to Batgirl by Lana is, I think, only the second reference to Batman we’ve gotten on the show thus far. Might be wrong.
• Oh Lana. Stepping out on Lex Luthor with Superman is like the worst idea of all time.
• Oo a reference to Central City too.
• Lana’s plan here of “eavesdropping on Lex, fucking up his plans by telling Superman, and expecting no negative consequences” is a pretty shortsighted one.
• Surely nothing bad will happen at the LEXCORP LEAD & ALLOY?

Lead & Alloy & Kryptonite & Ghosts

• I can’t imagine liquid lead flows EXACTLY like water but what do I know?
• Superman: Forever doomed to be the plaything of loud, outgoing women.

Overall? Decent episode, but nothing too showy. The Lex portions of the episode are fantastic, really great to see an episode where he isn’t motivated by power or greed but, well, LOVE. What the episode lacks in the great villains or set pieces of the past few episodes it makes up for in solid character work. Really, have any of these episodes so far been less than “Very good”?

Next Episode: “Tools of The Trade” (No clue what this one’s about)