OpenEEG
Posted 12:52 AM

Mostly I'm posting this for self-reference since I'm excited about the idea of putting together an OpenEEG system and testing some ideas I have about using EEG to help you remember dreams, but my wife is hollering at me from the other room to come to bed. Ah the irony.

I know Neurosky has a product that's cheaper and available to buy online, but it seems to not be a serious EEG connection. I think you'd need at least a half-dozen electrodes for any kind of useful resolution, and I'm not interested in biofeedback "wave" nonsense. I'm going to do some serious pattern detection in response to stimulus events. Emotiv has a product with at least 2 real electrodes and an API cluttered with lots of facial recognition stuff. But why get those or $300 when I can buy 5 good electrodes for $30? Might even skip the OpenEEG stuff and do my own for now.

Also want to experiment with voltage *generating* (EEG record-replay and subsequent recognition). Not too many people have tried that, and I think it might be interesting.

Hmm... that's it for now.
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Zero Pollution Motors
Posted 4:28 AM

In an amazing development, it looks like all of the electric vehicle makers may be trumped by Zero Pollution Motors. The company is licensing new drive systems to India's Tata and France's MDI.

The cars will get 125 miles per plug-in "charge", but the charge is not a battery or a fuel cell.

It's compressed air.

Using extreme air compression, ZPM's s technology might beat battery-driven vehicles on price, performance and time to market.

Indian consumers should see the new Air-Tata this year, Euro consumers might have to wait until MDI gets approval in 2010, but U.S. consumers, due to tougher crash-testing standards, might have to wait longer.

ZPM claims their vehicle can be charged at an outlet within 7 minutes. They also have a duel-fuel version that compresses air as needed, similar to the way the Volt's serial-power drive train works.

Skeptics:

Some experts believe that the heat-exchanger problems with compressed-air cars might prevent them from ever going mainstream. U.S. critics have claimed that ultralight cars like these cannot pass crash testing standards. Engineers also critique the efficiency of using air, as opposed to Li-Ion, as a storage medium with the resulting energy losses causing more electricity to be needed per KM.
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Unemployment Worse than Stress Tests
Posted 4:40 AM

Government stress tests had an unemployment rate of 9.1% in May. Most analysts expect unemployment to hit 9.2% in May.

In other words... we're outpacing the "adverse scenario" stress tests.

If we pass 10.3% unemployment, then we will *exceed* the stress scenario.

With an additional 1% unemployment, we're talking about 10 billion more in write-downs on credit card debt and real-estate defaults, This will exceed what major banks than have in reserve... and the market has eaten its full in stock issuance and bond conversions, so where will the banks get the money from?

Answer: Expect another round of bailouts in the Fall... right about when the second phase of swine flu will hit.
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Cure for Chronic Arthritis ... But Not For You
Posted 6:19 PM

I just read an article where a $3000 stem-cell treatment cured chronic arthritis.

First, the patient's fat cells were sent to a lab. The stem cells were extracted, propagated, and sent back. The enriched solution of cells was injected into arthritic joints. The results happened fast... reduced swelling, no pain, etc.

In this story, prior to treatment, the patient couldn't even walk. But afterward, he could chase a ball, roll over and even fetch...

Dogs, cats and horses can get long-lasting arthritic relief with this inexpensive and safe procedure. The procedure is called "HSCT" (hemopoietic stem cell transplantation).

Looking at recent abstracts it's sort of a foregone assumption that the procedure works, and works well. Tests of HSCT have been done over and over.... as early as 1999. All the tests, even the older ones, seems to result in a large percentage of patients being symptom-free for long periods of time, ranging from 6 months to 2 years. You can read a history of research at the NIH website.

But even with all this research, the treatment isn't used on humans very often. No large-scale clinical trials of an inexpensive autologous HSCT treatment for non-life threatening RA is underway. Most experts believe it will never be tried. All the literature talks about using lots of drugs in conjunction with the treatment, and only doing the treatment on people who are going to die, etc. For most people, the solution is still pharmaceutical, and will probably stay that way....forever.

Why?

In 2003, the CDC estimated that $80 billion was spent on medical expenses related to arthritis. That's over 80 billion per year.

If all 8.6 million people with arthritis in the U.S. got a $3000 stem cell treatment, it would cost $25 billion. But that assumes there's no economy of scale. The price tag for large-scale treatment would easily be as low as $500. Something like the way LASIK is today. Lab culturing isn't that expensive. And it's very likely that the cure would last many years to come (the human patients from 2004 are still cured).

Unfortunately this would, effectively, bankrupt the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, leading to an 60-80 billion dollar shortfall per year. Over time, we're talking trillions of dollars of revenue losses.

So.... there is no way this is *ever* going to get approved in the U.S. Not even in Obama's "change lite" vision of America. IMO, no chance at all.
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Yahoo News is better than Google
Posted 6:04 PM

I've been noticing that at least one Yahoo offering is better than Google. Nothing can touch Google's search, or Gmail for that matter. But Yahoo's news feeds seem way more interesting and relevant. I looked once, and haven't looked back since.

Yahoo's finance pages are nicer too, esp for having after-hours/premarket, volume, moving average.

The FTC talks about Google having a monopoly, but I think their competitors are just a few AJAX scripts shy of beating them on many fronts.
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Why the big deal about same-sex marriage?
Posted 12:10 PM

I always thought that "civil unions" were the same and what was being argued about was some sort of semantics that truly was the purview of culture and not government. I mean, what's the real difference? It's something that never seems to be talked about in the news, or at least, it never passes my automatic sound-byte filter.

Anyway, since it's cropping up again in the news i did a search and read this very interesting and exacting article on about.com.

Apparently, the word "marriage" is a very legal term, and the words "civil union" essentially convey no rights whatsoever. In the Federal Defense of Marriage Act, they essentially throw out same-sex marriage, and ignore civil unions.

I honestly think that most same-sex couples would give up the word "marriage", in exchange for well-reasoned "federal civil unions". Well, some of them might. Certainly enough to back-burner the whole issue for a long time.

Obama's a bit boxed into a corner now, he should talk to leaders on both sides and find something, perhaps federal civil unions, before his hand is forced.
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Samarost-Style Games
Posted 7:25 AM

Samorost is a genre-defining classic "room escape" game, so much so that people often call other similar games "samorost-style games" instead.

Noakai loves Samorost, but I still haven't paid for Samorost-2, mostly because what he likes is *easy* ones, and I've heard the new one is harder.

My room escape bookmark list for Noakai. He's 4, so they are all easy.

• Samorost 1
  
• Rocketman
  
• Small Forest Story
  
• Castle
  
• Sangar Sabrina (HINT)
  
• Sabrina in North Pole (HINT)
  
• Sabrina on Fraser Island
  

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Viral Batteries Now Viable
Posted 7:38 AM

Viral battery experiments have paid off with a breakthrough in battery assembly.

"Current lithium batteries are expensive to produce, requiring high temperatures and toxic organic solvents."

The new technology uses viruses as workhorses to move around molecules and assemble microscopic battery components. If developed, this promises cheap, scalable, non-toxic Li-ION batteries - exactly what electric cars need to push out liquid fuel rivals. The problem has gone from a research issue to an engineering issue.

For anyone who's been investing in lithium mining (i own some SQM), one big downside has been the toxicity of the batteries and their expense of production .... it looks like, with investment, it's now *possible* to scale this up globally - which it was not before. I think just the existence of this tech removes some key risk components of the electric-lithium play.
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Roxana's Book Deal
Posted 9:20 AM

A reporter from Iran comes to America, operates without press credentials for 2 years and is later arrested for buying illegal substances. Because of his working status, he is detained without trial for a while, and then subjected to a closed-door hearing.

Will he get national press and a book deal? Will presidents and pundits pine for his release? It happens over and over in one form or another, really, it's not even news anymore. U.S. jails, offshore prisons and immigration detentions centers are full of similar cases.

But when the tables are turned and it's a pretty American woman named Roxana.... well, that's just not fair.

No, I'm not saying Iran is right here, far from it. But I am saying that, given how we treat foreigners who work in the U.S. without credentials and buy illegal things, it should come as no surprise.
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Vector TD 2 Challenge
Posted 9:16 PM

Vector TD and Vector TD 2 are my new favorite TD's.

Why Tower Defense games all the sudden? Blame the customer service rep at Sprint who gave me "unlimited data" for 90 days to "try out" their online services. There was a TD game on the phone, and that brought back a fondness for the genre. Sorry to those of you who became addicted because of my last post and have been emailing me to stop posting new games. This is the *last one!*

Some of the TD high scores posted at candystand are impossible, based the 30% fund excess bonus per level, but mine aren't hacks and I can, after about 3 days of puzzling, get on the "monthly" leaderboard for any level/puzzle combo of both games.

I'm not anywhere near good enough to post my games to Youtube, but here's a challenge ... open to friends and former business associates only, not random internet packet hackers ... register at candystand, tell me your username, and then beat any of my monthly leaderboard games within the next 5 days (that's how long I had) and I'll give you 50 bucks and a picture of me doing something ridiculous (you decide ... not porn).

My name at Candystand is "simulx".


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