“Everyone Ever in the World” is a visual representation of the number of people to have lived versus been killed in wars, massacres and genocide during the recorded history of humankind. (via)
bastilog
Eine willkürliche Publikation von Sebastian Kippe.
Killing mosquitos with lasers…
When an invading insect is detected, our software identifies it by training a nonlethal laser beam on the bug and using that illumination to estimate the insect’s size and also to measure how fast its wings are beating. Using this method, the system can not only distinguish among mosquitoes, butterflies, and bumblebees, but it can even determine whether a mosquito is male or female! (Females are significantly larger than males and have slower wingbeats.) This is useful because only female mosquitoes bite humans.
Our software is able to track a mosquito in flight once it establishes that it is a valid target. After running safety checks to ensure no unintended object is in view, the system activates a second, more powerful laser that zaps the mosquito, causing death either by damage to its DNA (an unconfirmed hypothesis) or by overheating. The energy levels and light frequencies used are not capable of damaging human tissue, but even so, we’ve built in safeguards that ensure that the system doesn’t fire when anything much larger than a mosquito is in the photonic fence.
The cool thing is, it’s not developed for rich people in industrial nations, but to fight Malaria everywhere on the planet:
In 2007, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation asked Intellectual Ventures to create new technologies that will not only fight malaria but will eventually eliminate this scourge of humanity altogether. Already our team of entomologists, epidemiologists, physicists, and other scientists have come up with innovative approaches that attack the parasite that causes the disease from several angles. Some make it easier to diagnose the disease quickly and accurately. Others destroy the parasites directly. Still others target the mosquitoes that serve as hosts to the parasites and spread malaria from person to person.
We believe that introducing the right combination of these technologies—while keeping older approaches in place—will lead to a real chance of completely eradicating malaria.
via Geekologie
Tumblr Backup App Beta
Unlike other publishing sites’ approach to backups, our goal was to create a useful copy of your blog’s content that can be viewed on any computer, burned to a CD, or hosted as an archive of static HTML files.
Wherever possible, we use simple file formats. Our backup structure is optimized for Mac OS X’s Spotlight for searching and Quick Look for browsing, and we’ll try to use the same structure and achieve the same benefits on other platforms.
Supports incremental backups and each post file has the Tumblr-API-based XML included so you can do anything you want with the data later. Awesome.
“ Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.
Martin Golding (via wtfcode)
Wahlwerbung von Blumentopf
