August 12, 2006, 2:01 PM CT

Puzzle Fantastica

What's all this then?

P.F. #1 has become born and grown and lived and shown its charity and, to quote Whitman, it will forever "be curious, not judgmental." It has not been solved. Near 200 contributions have been made, and near 10,000 people have gandered.

Where do we go from here? We weren't being coy earlier when we said the puzzle was bigger than us. We'd like to say it was now bigger than Sudoku but, as Kerouac would have it (certainly quoting someone else anyhow), comparisons are odious. We've not offered a clue in these sentences, please understand. We dont' seek to be mysterious for mystery's sake. That is sincere.........

Posted by: Gina      Permalink         Source

August 12, 2006, 1:53 PM CT

1 hour alphabet

This alphabet was drawn and colored over the course of an hour, just to see if I could do such a thing.

I tried to make the process as quick as possible by skipping the "penciling" phase and using a Photoshop action I've used on other projects for the coloring.

Try it!........

Posted by: Tom      Permalink         Source

August 12, 2006, 1:31 PM CT

CounterStrike

Diego Roa, an apparently retired CounterStriker fiend has done some gorgeous work with his CS team:

Would love to see someone do the same with a model that they had re-assigned textures to, using OGLE's texture coordinate (UV) capture and the texture maps that GLIntercept's writtes to disk.........

Posted by: Tom      Permalink         Source

August 11, 2006, 9:30 PM CT

Fossils Links from Ape-men

A team of scientists working in an eastern Ethiopian desert has discovered fossil bones and teeth from individuals they believe link the genus Australopithecus--precursors of humans--to a decidedly more ape-like animal of the genus Ardipithicus. Because the fossils were found in areas known to contain evidence of both older and younger specimens, the scientists say evidence of when the three hominid types existed will provide valuable information about human evolution.

Still, 'it is fair to say that some species of Ardipithicus gave rise to Australopithecus," said Tim White, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California-Berkeley and one of the team leaders.

White and coworkers from 17 countries have published their findings in the April 13 issue of the journal Nature.

The fossils are from the most-primitive Australopithecus species, known as Au. anamensis, dating from about 4.1 million years ago, said White, and push the species closer in time to its last known ancestor. "This new discovery closes the gap between the fully blown Australopithecines and earlier forms we call Ardipithecus," White said. "We now know where Australopithecus came from before 4 million years ago".

Even though the two are separated by only 300,000 years, Au. anamensis could have rapidly evolved from Ardipithecus. Or, fossils placing the two hominid types on Earth at the same time may yet be found. Nevertheless, White said, the new fossils show clear descent from the genus Ardipithecus, two species of which have been identified over the genus's 2 million years of existence.........

Posted by: William      Permalink         Source

August 9, 2006, 11:36 PM CT

How angry customers get revenge

In the first study to explore how consumers attempt to gain revenge against corporations that have wronged them, scientists from Arizona State University find strong parallels between consumer complaint Web sites and other civic protest movements. Consumer Web sites use rhetorical tactics to address injustice, identity, and agency turning personal betrayal into a "cause" worthy of public attention and support.

"The Internet is changing the power of negative word-of-mouth," write James C. Ward and Amy L. Ostrom in the recent issue of the Journal of Consumer Research. "Customers who create these Web sites frame their grievances to the broader public much like civic protesters".

Consumers are now creating complaint Web sites that reach out to millions, tell stories of injustice at length, and sometimes attempt to create "communities of discontent" focused on particular companies. When analyzing hundreds of complaint sites focused on personal product or service failures but not political or environmental grievances the scientists observed that, like in a number of other protest movements, consumer protesters often "stereotype those they identify as responsible for an injustice as not just mistaken or wrong, but evil." Companies targeted by the complaint Web sites include American Express, United Airlines, and DaimlerChrysler.........

Posted by: Tom      Permalink         Source

August 9, 2006, 11:33 PM CT

Kodak pianos? Buick aspirin?

Ever heard of Kodak pianos? How about Buick aspirin? While most consumers may correctly infer that these products are not made by the same companies that make the cameras or the automobiles, a new study in the recent issue of the Journal of Consumer Research presents compelling evidence that well-known brand names are weakened by the existence of imitative brand names even in different product categories. The process is known as trademark dilution.

"Eventhough the FTDA does not require consumer confusion to establish harm from dilution, it appears that the presence of confusion magnifies the amount of harm likely to be incurred by the first user of the brand name (and provides a greater benefit to be enjoyed by the second use of the brand)," write Maureen Morrin (Rutgers University), Jonathan Lee (California State University Long Beach), and Greg M. Allenby (Ohio State University).

The scientists measured trademark dilution by looking at brand-exclusive recall, that is, the proportion of customers who only think of one brand's products when asked about the brand name in question. The scientists observed that a single exposure to another, similar logo reduces brand-exclusive recall by one-third, on average.

"The results also indicate a factor not typically considered by the courts, the consumer's relative knowledge about the two product categories involved, also may have an impact on retrieval," add the authors. "When consumers are confused about the sources of two products, or when they believe the two logos are similar in appearance, the first user's category is less likely to be recalled, eventhough the second user's category is more likely to be recalled".........

Posted by: Tom      Permalink         Source

August 9, 2006, 11:28 PM CT

Fair price hikes vs. unfair price hikes

A new study from the recent issue of the Journal of Consumer Research shows that consumers align material goods and services separately when considering explanations for price hikes. Consumers think it is fair to raise the price of a good when the cost of obtaining that good also increases for the vendor, for example with produce during a low-yield season. Similarly, consumers think raising the cost of a service is fair when the cost of providing that service increases. However, consumers do not consider it fair if the price of a good is raised in conjunction with an increase in service cost to the vendor, or vice versa.

"We show that inherent differences between goods and services can exert a large influence on perceived fairness," write Lisa E. Bolton (University of Pennsylvania) and Joseph W. Alba (University of Florida). "Goods provide consumers with a link between the offering and the vendor's costs, such as the material costs to a manufacturer or cost of goods sold to a retailer".

When the price of a good goes up but material costs do not, consumers infer greater profits and less fair prices. Services do not have material costs such as the price for raw material to serve as a price comparison point against the price to consumers.

Thus, less tangible cost increases such as overhead are not necessarily deemed fair reasons for producers to increase prices. It seems that consumers feel that some costs are aligned with service and not with the material good, and "in the face of increased costs, not all efforts to maintain profit are viewed equally."........

Posted by: Tom      Permalink         Source

August 9, 2006, 7:20 AM CT

New Rocket Technology From Purdue

Purdue University engineers are conducting research to help NASA develop rockets faster and less expensively for future missions to Mars and the moon.

The NASA-funded research at Purdue focuses on liquid-fueled rockets. Specifically, the work deals with understanding how fuel and a component called the oxidizer interact inside the rocket engine's fuel injectors to cause unstable combustion. The instability results in extreme bursts of heat and pressure fluctuations that could lead to accidents and hardware damage.

Purdue engineers involved in the research earned a best paper award in July from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

"Combustion instability is a complex phenomenon that has hindered rocket development since the beginning of the Space Age," said Nicholas Nugent, a doctoral student in Purdue's School of Aeronautics and Astronautics. "We have to learn more about instability before future engines can be developed and used for space flight. Predicting combustion instability is one of the most difficult aspects of developing a rocket engine".

The paper's findings demonstrate that an experiment can be specifically designed to study instabilities occurring spontaneously, as they do in real engines.

"There haven't been many, if any, experiments in the past that have been able to achieve an instability without actually forcing it by introducing artificial influences not ordinarily seen in the operation of a rocket engine," said doctoral student James Sisco.........

Posted by: Tom      Permalink         Source

August 8, 2006, 9:51 PM CT

Smooth Transition To College

As fall quickly approaches, so does the time for which many parents and students have long been waiting - some would say, dreading - the first day of college.

Your child's departure for college is a monumental step and one that you can start preparing for when your child is just taking his or her first steps, says a Washington University in St. Louis expert on the college experience.

"The journey from cradle to campus is filled with countless little steps - each an opportunity to prepare for letting go," says Karen Levin Coburn, assistant vice chancellor for students and dean for the freshman transition at Washington University.

"One of the keys to a successful transition to college life, both for parents and students, is starting the letting go process early in life," says Coburn, who is co-author of the acclaimed book "Letting Go: A Parent's Guide to Understanding the College Years." In its fourth edition, "Letting Go" has sold more than 300,000 copies.

Coburn provides the following tips to making the letting go process happen more smoothly for both parent and child:

Take a deep breath before you act. Give your child a chance to work things out. "Even a crying infant eventually learns to fall asleep without being held. When your homesick freshman calls in tears, listen and give her a chance to work things out," Coburn says.........

Posted by: Tom      Permalink         Source

August 8, 2006, 0:30 AM CT

System To Put Wastewater To Work

In the midst of the worldwide energy crisis, scientists at Washington University in St. Louis have been continuing their work on a microbial fuel cell that generates electricity from wastewater. Advances in the design of this fuel cell in the last year have increased the power output by a factor of 10 and future designs, already in the minds of the researchers, hope to multiply that power output by 10 times again. If that goal can be achieved, the fuel cell could be scaled up for use in food and agricultural industries to generate electrical power - all with the wastewater that today goes right down the drain.

Lars Angenent, Ph.D., assistant professor of chemical engineering, and a member of the University's Environmental Engineering Science Program, has devised a continually fed upflow microbial fuel cell (UMFC). In a paper published online in the Environmental Science Technology, Angenent describes how wastewater enters from the bottom of a system and is continuously pumped up through a cylinder filled with granules of activated carbon. A number of prior microbial experiments used closed systems with a single batch of nutrient solution, but because this system is continuously fed from a fresh supply of wastewater, Angenent's UMFC has more applications for industry since wastewater is continually outputted during industrial production.........

Posted by: Kevin      Permalink         Source

Older Blog Entries   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20