Happy New Year 2010

That’s it for this year, it just remains for me to wish you all a very Happy, Successful & Prosperous 2010!

-Alistair Why-

Origin of New Year

Origin of New Year dates back to the era of emperors. They thought of celebrating a special day which should dot a day for beginning and end of the year. First New Year celebrations were noticed in Mesopotamia around 2000 years. It was celebrated at the time of Equinox in mid-March by the Egyptians, Persians and Phoenicians while Greeks celebrated it on winter solstice.

Ancient New Year Calendar
First New Year celebrations were noticed in Mesopotamia around 2000 years. It was celebrated at the time of Equinox in mid-March by the Egyptians, Persians and Phoenicians while Greeks celebrated it on winter solstice.
As per the ancient Roman calendar New Year fell on March 1. This calendar just had ten months and March was the first month of the year. The calendar originated by the cycles of the moon, beginning in spring and ending with autumn planting.

Inclusion of Two Calendar Months
It was Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome who divided the year into twelve lunar months by adding the months of January and February. The New Year was shifted to January as it marked the beginning of the civil years in Rome. But this was not fully accepted by the people of Rome and they continued celebrating in the month of March only.

January 1- an Official Date of New Year Celebrations
The Roman emperor Julius Caesar officially declared January 1 to be a New Year in 46 B.C. Romans worshiped God Janus who had two faces, one looking forward and the other looking backward. The month of January was named after this Roman God and it gave an idea to the emperor to establish January as a gate to the New Year. It is said Caesar celebrated January 1 – New Year by ordering the revolutionary Jewish forces to route back.

People began New Year celebrations on January 1 after many years. They ritualized the beginning of the year by acting and re-enacting the world of the past before peace proliferated. People learned January as first month of the year and with this the tradition of following Julian calendar.

Abolition of Roman New Year Date
In the medieval period, pagan festivals were given more importance and March 25 was announced as the beginning of the New Year. March 25 was called the Annunciation Day as on this day Mary got the news that she should be impregnated.

Later, the King of England ensured that Jesus’ birth December 25 should be commemorated as New Year.

Gregorian Calendar
About 500 years later, Pope Gregory XIII abolished the old Julian calendar and introduced Gregorian calendar which comprised of a leap year after every four years to maintain balance between seasons and calendar. Finally, in 1582, Gregorian calendar was set to celebrate New Year on the first day of January.

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[http://www.newyearfestival.com/origin-of-new-year.html]

Top 10 Gadgets of the Decade

By Claudine Beaumont, Technology Editor of the UK’s Telegraph on-line:

10. Slingbox (2005)

The Slingbox is a TV streaming device which allows you to shift (or “sling”) television shows from your TV or personal video recorder to a computer anywhere in the world. It means you can watch the latest episode of Coronation Street from a hotel room in Dubai, or catch up with The Wire in Madrid. You can even “sling” shows to your mobile phone, to watch on the move.

9. iPhone (2007)

Apple’s iPhone redefined the mobile phone experience – its elegant touch-screen, superlative ease of use and handy features (including a built-in iPod and navigation software) set the new standard for phone design. And it is responsible for our insatiable appetite for apps – since the App Store launched in 2008, we’ve downloaded more than a billion restaurant finders, games and guide books on to our iPhones.

8. Asus Eee PC (2007)

The Asus Eee PC seemed too good to be true – an ultralight, ultraportable laptop that cost less than £200. The Eee PC kick-started the “netbook” trend – the emergence of a new category of inexpensive, low-spec computers designed for sending emails, accessing the internet, and carrying out simple word-processing tasks on the go. Dozens of other manufacturers have since jumped on the netbook bandwagon, but we’ll always fondly remember the Asus Eee PC for getting the ball rolling.

7. Flip (2007)

The Flip was the first pocket-sized camcorder to punch above its weight. Incredibly easy to operate, the Flip could capture around an hour of surprisingly good-quality footage for such a small device. But its best feature was the built-in USB stick that flipped out from the side of the camcorder, enabling users to instantly edit video and upload it to the web. It became the tool of choice for the YouTube generation.

6. TomTom Go (2004)

Once upon a time, if you wanted to get from A to B, you had to use a map. This meant knowing lots of things about cryptic Ordnance Survey symbols, and being able to find a way around traffic jams at a moment’s notice. But the sat nav changed all that; the TomTom Go was arguably the first truly mass-market sat nav device that appealed to people of all technical abilities. Farewell folding maps; hello advanced lane guidance, automatic congestion detection and re-routing, and speed camera alerts.

5. BlackBerry (2002)

We didn’t know it at the time, but the arrival of the BlackBerry meant life would never be the same again. With its ability to pick up emails on the go, the BlackBerry was the tool of choice for high-flying businessmen who needed to be in touch with the office at all times. But its always-on connectivity also meant the working day was never really done, with people expecting you to answer emails in the evenings, on weekends, and even on the family holiday – no wonder it’s been nicknamed the CrackBerry for its addictive qualities.

4. Nintendo Wii (2006)

Nintendo’s inexpensive, family-focused games console is credited with bringing a new generation of players to video games. It uses an innovative motion-sensing controller system, where players wave their Wiimote controls to mimick hitting a ball or cracking a whip. More than 56 million Wiis have been sold worldwide, and players can use it to experience everything from snowboarding to armed combat to balancing exercises.

3. USB stick (2000)

The arrival of the USB stick condemned the floppy disk to the dustbin of history. In 2000, IBM launched DiskOnKey with a then-huge 8MB of storage, around five times that offered by a floppy disk. It soon became the quickest and easiest way of transferring files between computers, and carrying backups of important documents. Modern USB sticks can hold gigabytes of data, and the future of the USB stick looks assured for some time to come.

2. Sky+ (2001)

Before Sky+ came along, taping your favourite television show meant navigating the complicated recording menus on your VCR, and then scrolling endlessly through VHS tapes to find the show you wanted to watch. Sky+ was a breath of fresh air – it was an easy-to-use personal video recorder with a capacious hard drive, allowing viewers to record hundreds of hours of programmes at the touch of a button. You could even pause and rewind live television, or record every episode in a series using the “series link” function.

1. Apple iPod (2001)

The undisputed gadget of the decade is Apple’s iPod music player. When it went on sale in October 2001, few could have predicted that this device – which could store up to 1,000 songs on its tiny hard drive – would revolutionise both the way we consume music, and the music industry itself. The iconic white earphones of the iPod soon became ubiquitous on Tubes and trains, while the launch of the iTunes music store, which allowed users to digitally download songs on to their iPod, has been blamed for the death of the album. The iPod made it possible to carry your entire music collection with you, and laid the foundations for the current generation of music players and mobile phones.

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[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/reviews/6839117/Top-10-gadgets-of-the-decade.html?utm_source=telegraph&utm_medium=TD_TechGadgets&utm_campaign=Tech3112]

Russia’s Reindeer Herdsmen

The Yamal peninsula in Siberia is 272 miles long and considered to be one of the most beautiful places in the world. It is also home to the Nenet tribe who make their living from reindeer breeding. Their houses and clothes are made from reindeer skin. There are a few thousand herdsmen on the peninsula who have herds of more than 500,000 reindeer. Their traditional way of life is being threatened by global warming and climate change.

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[See more superb images from the English Russia web site; http://englishrussia.com/?p=7487#more-7487]

Digital Stained Glass Makes for a Smart Radiography Imaging System

At SIGGRAPH2009 Asia, University of Tokyo researchers are showing off their new nifty handheld display that aims to bring more natural ergonomics to digital image viewing. Using a basic sheet of plexiglass positioned above a projector, the system can recognize the shape and orientation of the sheet and superimposes an image on the sheet. By bending, rotating, and moving the sheet with respect to the projector, the display changes the slice viewed on the screen for easy navigation through volumetric data.

From the white paper on the Volume Slicing Display:

With the VSD, radiologists would be able to retrieve a certain amount of three-dimensionality from a flat X-ray plate at any time, by just touching certain portions of the screen, orientating and manipulating it freely above a calibrated projector. It is interesting to note that such interface could solve another important issue, that of the confidentiality of the patient data, since without the machine the piece of paper will only show an undecipherable 2d-barcode identifying the patient.

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[http://www.k2.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/members/alvaro/Publications/VSD_et0050.pdf Via www.medgadget.com]

A Fair Only Millionaires Can Appreciate and Afford

Amsterdam’s annual Millionaire Fair thumbs its nose at hardship and tight credit to offer over-the-top toys to the super rich

By Nick Hall

The world at large might be scouring the streets for bargain Christmas presents this year—or even ignoring mortgage payments. The rich, you will be pleased to know, are doing fine. That’s the message coming loud and clear from the defiant assembled masses of the luxury market at the Millionaire Fair in Amsterdam this week.

The event started in 2002 after Dutch magazine Miljonair noticed a gap in the market for a decadent display of obscene wealth and spotted a chance for the rich to find ludicrously expensive ways to splash their cash under a single roof. The fair soon spread to Shanghai, Dubai, Moscow, and Istanbul as the epitome of excess became a global brand in itself.

Since then the world economy crashed harder than Lindsay Lohan. Even the fair has felt the effects and shrunk back to focus on its core audience in Holland, Germany, Russia, and Turkey.

But walk the red carpet into Amsterdam’s RAI exhibition center, bedecked for a week with chandeliers, fountains, violinists, and more, and it’s pretty clear that the luxury industry is fighting through the recession and finding ever-more imaginative ways to charge eye-watering sums for the best that money can buy.

“We do real business at this show and this year is no different,” said Mercedes-Benz (DAI) Holland spokesman Aldo van Troost. “If someone that had €100 million in the bank now has just €60 million, they can still afford to treat themselves.”
an unconventional bargain

Despite the financial doom and gloom outside the gates, more than 50,000 have already walked the red carpet into the RAI exhibition centre to spend some serious money. Not all of them are millionaires. The show targets those with disposable income to spend on the finer brands in life, from Wagamamas noodle bars, Sanyo (SANYY), and Land Rover to yachtmaker Riva, champagne house Piper Heidseck, and jeweler Gassan.

The show has something for everyone. Be it a $20 million yacht, a $5,000 bottle of whisky, or even a $162 oyster plate, there is something for every cultured palate in the luxuriously appointed 2009 fair. There was even a bargain, albeit an unconventional one: At the Laser Europe stand, those who lost hair to the crisis can find a 40% discount for hair-replacement therapy.

Apart from that comical offer, luxury vendors inside the hall have been delighted to leave bargain hunters outside while they compete for the attention and wallets of the wealthy few.

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[http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/dec2009/bw20091216_840219.htm]

Alcohol substitute that avoids drunkenness and hangovers in development

An alcohol substitute that mimics its pleasant buzz without leading to drunkenness and hangovers is being developed by scientists.

By Paul Rodgers and Richard Alleyne in the UK’s Daily Telegraph:

The new substance could have the added bonus of being “switched off” instantaneously with a pill, to allow drinkers to drive home or return to work.

The synthetic alcohol, being developed from chemicals related to Valium, works like alcohol on nerves in the brain that provide a feeling of wellbeing and relaxation.

But unlike alcohol its does not affect other parts of the brain that control mood swings and lead to addiction. It is also much easier to flush out of the body.

Finally because it is much more focused in its effects, it can also be switched off with an antidote, leaving the drinker immediately sober.

The new alcohol is being developed by a team at Imperial College London, led by Professor David Nutt, Britain’s top drugs expert who was recently sacked as a government adviser for his comments about cannabis and ecstasy.

He envisions a world in which people could drink without getting drunk, he said.

No matter how many glasses they had, they would remain in that pleasant state of mild inebriation and at the end of an evening out, revellers could pop a sober-up pill that would let them drive home.

Prof Nutt and his team are concentrating their efforts on benzodiazepines, of which diazepam, the chief ingredient of Valium is one.

Thousands of candidate benzos are already known to science. He said it is just a matter of identifying the closest match and then, if necessary, tailoring it to fit society’s needs.

Ideally, like alcohol, it should be tasteless and colourless, leaving those characteristics to the drink it’s in.

Eventually it would be used to replace the alcohol content in beer, wine and spirits and the recovered ethanol (the chemical name for alcohol) could be sold as fuel.

Professor Nutt believes that the new drug, which would need licensing, could have a dramatic effect on society and improve the nation’s health.

The NHS report Statistics on Alcohol: England, 2009 found more than 800,000 alcohol-related admissions to hospitals in 2007-08 – and more than 6,500 deaths – at a cost to the service of £2.7bn a year.

Some charities estimate that the toll could be up to five times higher. Drink is, for example, a factor in 40 per cent of fatal fires, 15 per cent of drownings, 65 per cent of suicides and 40 per cent of domestic abuse. It also has other costs, including 17 million lost working days a year, worth about £20bn to the economy.

“I’ve been in experiments where I’ve taken benzos,” said Professor Nutt. “One minute I was sedated and nearly asleep, five minutes later I was giving a lecture.

“No one’s ever tried targeting this before, possibly because it will be so hard to get it past the regulators.

“Most of the benzos are controlled under the Medicines Act. The law gives a privileged position to alcohol, which has been around for 3,000 years. But why not use advances in pharmacology to find something safer and better?”

Getting the drug approved could be hard for the team as clinical trials are expensive, and it is not clear who would pay for them, according to Professor Nutt.

He said that the traditional drinks industry has not shown any interest, however some countries might be persuaded to sponsor the team.

Some countries have more liberal regimes than others, though, and Professor Nutt thinks Greece or Spain, within the EU, could lead the way.

The latest Home Office performance figures showed that more than one in four people believe that alcohol is blighting their community.

A survey of every police force area in England and Wales found that 26 per cent of those polled “perceived people being drunk or rowdy in public placed to be a problem in their area” – a slight increase from last year.

The fears over the affects of alcohol range from urban to rural communities, with the worst hit being Manchester, South Wales, London, Northumbria and Gwent.

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[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6874884/Alcohol-substitute-that-avoids-drunkenness-and-hangovers-in-development.html]

London Hotel Buried Underground

By Evelyn Lee:

This five star hotel is going under – underground that is! Designed by ReardonSmith Architects for a proposed development at Hersham Golf Club in Surrey, London, this new subterranean hotel will pay its ultimate respects to London’s Green Belt by placing all 200+ guest rooms underneath it! The entire scheme is covered with a plush green roof that takes its cue from the surrounding countryside.

In addition to the green integrated into the building, the proposal includes the addition of extensive on-site re-vegetation and re-organization of existing spaces (such as parking) that will actually leave the site even more eco-friendly than it is now.

Matthew Guy, ReardonSmith’s project designer, states “Our concept integrates hotel, spa, and golf facilities into a single architecturally exciting and organic composition below and above ground. The design fulfills the requirements of the brief for a bespoke five star hotel while returning hard standing to the Green Belt and improving the physical layout and visual attraction of the entire site. It represents a commercially viable solution to developing in the Green Belt and is, we believe, a world-first.”

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[http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/12/23/5-star-underground-hotel-in-london/]

Phuket Limo

Vespa South Africa have designed the ideal limo for Phuket. Given what an ordinary scooter carries here, this puppy should easily manage a family of six plus pig, dog, ladder and the week’s shopping whilst towing at least 6 jetskis behind.

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[http://www.likecool.com/Vespa_built_a_four_seater_Stretch_Scooter--Motorcycle--Car.html]

Secret of the golden ratio revealed

By Darren Quick:

The golden ratio describes a rectangle with a length roughly one and a half times its width. Also known as the golden section, golden mean and divine proportion, among other names, it has intrigued mathematicians and artists alike for centuries. The Egyptians supposedly used it to guide the construction the Pyramids, the architecture of ancient Athens is thought to have been based on it, and many artists have fashioned their works around it. This includes Leonardo da Vinci, who used it in the Mona Lisa and the Vitruvian Man. Now a Duke University scientist believes he has figured out the secret behind the golden ratio’s popularity – and it’s all down to evolution.

Adrian Bejan, professor of mechanical engineering at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering says the reason the golden ratio is thought to be the most aesthetically pleasing geometric proportion is because the eye is able to scan an image the fastest when it is shaped as a golden-ratio rectangle.

“When you look at what so many people have been drawing and building, you see these proportions everywhere,” Bejan said. “It is well known that the eyes take in information more efficiently when they scan side-to-side, as opposed to up and down.”

In 1996 Bejan developed his Constructal Law, which basically says that every finite-size (flow) system is destined to remain imperfect and the best that can be done is to optimally distribute the imperfections of the system. It is this optimal distribution of imperfection that generates the geometry or shape of the system. The theory says that flowing systems – from airways in the lungs to the formation of river deltas – evolve in time so that they flow more easily. Bejan believes that this same theory can be applied to the natural design that connects vision and cognition and thus explains the popularity of the golden ratio.

Bejan argues that the world – whether it is a human looking at a painting or a gazelle on the open plain scanning the horizon – is basically oriented on the horizontal. For the gazelle, danger primarily comes from the sides or from behind, not from above or below, so their scope of vision evolved to go side-to-side. As vision developed, he argues, the animals got “smarter” by seeing better and moving faster and more safely.

“As animals developed organs for vision, they minimized the danger from ahead and the sides,” Bejan said. “This has made the overall flow of animals on earth safer and more efficient. The flow of animal mass develops for itself flow channels that are efficient and conducive to survival – straighter, with fewer obstacles and predators.”

For Bejan, vision and cognition evolved together and are one and the same design as locomotion. The increased efficiency of information flowing from the world through the eyes to the brain corresponds with the transmission of this information through the branching architecture of nerves and the brain.

“Cognition is the name of the constructal evolution of the brain’s architecture, every minute and every moment,” Bejan said. “This is the phenomenon of thinking, knowing, and then thinking again more efficiently. Getting smarter is the constructal law in action.”

In numerous papers and books over past decade, Bejan has demonstrated that the constructal law predicts a wide range of flow system designs seen in nature, from biology and geophysics to social dynamics and technology evolution. Its latest application to explain the mystery of the golden ratio appears in the International Journal of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics.

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[http://www.gizmag.com/golden-ration-explained/13654/]