Long-exposure shots in St Petersburg, Russia turn people into ghosts

Alexey Titarenko's "City of Shadows" is a series of haunting, gorgeous long-exposure shots of street-scenes in St Petersburg, Russia. The long exposure-times turn the people in the shots into ghosts and suggestions of motion

Starting your own country on the open sea

How would you start your own country, with its own government, low taxes and a civilized way of life? With freedoms eroding around the world, with speed cameras and invasive laws, this seems like a key question.

Patri Friedman, grandson of legendary economist Milton, puts it like this:

"Government is an industry with a really high barrier to entry," he said. "You basically need to win an election or a revolution to try a new one. That's a ridiculous barrier to entry. And it's got enormous customer lock-in. People complain about their cellphone plans that are like two years, but think of the effort that it takes to change your citizenship."

Previous efforts at starting micronations have run afoul of nearby governments, and plopping your new country into the San Francisco Bay Area, with some of the highest living costs in the nation, seems a bit cheeky. Surely that is US territory, not the high seas.

But one thing for sure: Government is ossified, corrupt and dysfunctional pretty much everywhere. Having a world of floating platforms where you could change your government as easily as motoring to another location seems like a compelling way to organize society.

But as a threat to existing governments, it's cheeky ... and likely to be prosecuted vigorously.

Most Functional Folding Knife

Leave it to those ingenious Chinese folks to out-Switzerland the Swiss. The world record-setting Wei Ge knife pictured above includes 87 tools with an intended 141 individual functions. It is the first pocket knife designed to entirely defeat the structural integrity of any pocket that attempts to carry it. Among its many features are a hex screw, carabiner, Wankel rotary engine, flux capacitor, and nail file.

It is unclear if the manufacturer of this knife is a chinese company called Wei Ge, or if it is the Chinese company Weierman that registered the trademark "Wei Ge" (a statement that translates to "Great Man" and was later licensed to pharmaceutical companies selling drugs for erectile dysfunction).

All we know for certain is that a manly Chinese company that may or may not have boner issues designed a Swiss Army knife so amazingly functional that it cannot possibly be used for anything. There is a lesson to be learned there, but we're not sure what it is.

Chernobyl Accident

Chernobyl Accident

(May 2008)

• The Chernobyl accident in 1986 was the result of a flawed reactor design that was operated with inadequately trained personnel and without proper regard for safety.
• The resulting steam explosion and fire released at least five percent of the radioactive reactor core into the atmosphere and downwind.
• 28 people died within four months from radiation or thermal burns, 19 have subsequently died, and there have been around nine deaths from thyroid cancer apparently due to the accident: total 56 fatalities as of 2004.
• An authoritative UN report in 2000 concluded that there is no scientific evidence of any significant radiation-related health effects to most people exposed. This was confirmed in a very thorough 2005-06 study.

The April 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine was the product of a flawed Soviet reactor design coupled with serious mistakes made by the plant operators in the context of a system where training was minimal. It was a direct consequence of Cold War isolation and the resulting lack of any safety culture.

NB: "Chernobyl" is the well-known Russian name for the site; "Chornobyl" is preferred by Ukraine.

Reactor diagram.

Source: OECD NEA

The accident destroyed the Chernobyl-4 reactor and killed 30 people, including 28 from radiation exposure. A further 209 on site and involved with the clean-up were treated for acute radiation poisoning and among these, 134 cases were confirmed (all of whom apparently recovered). Nevertheless 19 of these subsequently died from effects attributable to the accident. Nobody off-site suffered from acute radiation effects. However, large areas of Belarus, Ukraine, Russia and beyond were contaminated in varying degrees.

The Chernobyl disaster was a unique event and the only accident in the history of commercial nuclear power where radiation-related fatalities occurred.* However, its relevance to the rest of the nuclear industry outside the then Eastern Bloc is minimal.

* There have been fatalities in military and research reactor contexts, eg Tokai-mura.

The accident

On 25 April, prior to a routine shut-down, the reactor crew at Chernobyl-4 began preparing for a test to determine how long turbines would spin and supply power following a loss of main electrical power supply. Similar tests had already been carried out at Chernobyl and other plants, despite the fact that these reactors were known to be very unstable at low power settings.

A series of operator actions, including the disabling of automatic shutdown mechanisms, preceded the attempted test early on 26 April. As flow of coolant water diminished, power output increased. When the operator moved to shut down the reactor from its unstable condition arising from previous errors, a peculiarity of the design caused a dramatic power surge.

The fuel elements ruptured and the resultant explosive force of steam lifted off the cover plate of the reactor, releasing fission products to the atmosphere. A second explosion threw out fragments of burning fuel and graphite from the core and allowed air to rush in, causing the graphite moderator to burst into flames.

There is some dispute among experts about the character of this second explosion. The graphite - there was over 1200 tonnes of it - burned for nine days, causing the main release of radioactivity into the environment. A total of about 14 EBq (10¹⁸ Bq) of radioactivity was released, half of it being biologically-inert noble gases. See also appended sequence of events.

Some 5000 tonnes of boron, dolomite, sand, clay and lead were dropped on to the burning core by helicopter in an effort to extinguish the blaze and limit the release of radioactive particles.

The damaged Chernobyl unit 4 reactor building

Immediate impact

It is estimated that all of the xenon gas, about half of the iodine and caesium, and at least 5% of the remaining radioactive material in the Chernobyl-4 reactor core (which had 192 tonnes of fuel) was released in the accident. Most of the released material was deposited close by as dust and debris , but the lighter material was carried by wind over the Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and to some extent over Scandinavia and Europe.

The main casualties were among the firefighters, including those who attended the initial small fires on the roof of the turbine building. All these were put out in a few hours, but radiation doses on the first day were estimated to range up to 20,000 millisieverts (mSv), causing 28 deaths in the next four months and 19 subsequently.

The next task was cleaning up the radioactivity at the site so that the remaining three reactors could be restarted, and the damaged reactor shielded more permanently. About 200,000 people ("liquidators") from all over the Soviet Union were involved in the recovery and clean up during 1986 and 1987. They received high doses of radiation, average around 100 millisieverts. Some 20,000 of them received about 250 mSv and a few received 500 mSv. Later, the number of liquidators swelled to over 600,000 but most of these received only low radiation doses. The highest doses were received by about 1000 emergency workers and on-site personnel during the first day of the accident.

Initial radiation exposure in contaminated areas was due to short-lived iodine-131, later caesium-137 was the main hazard. (Both are fission products dispersed from the reactor core, with half lives of 8 days and 30 years respectively. 1.8 Ebq of I-131 & 0.085 Ebq of Cs-137 were released.) About five million people lived in areas contaminated (above 37 kBq/m² Cs-137) and about 400,000 lived in more contaminated areas of strict control by authorities (above 555 kBq/m² Cs-137).

On 2-3 May, some 45,000 residents were evacuated from within a 10 km radius of the plant, notably from the plant operators' town of Pripyat. On 4 May, all those living within a 30 kilometre radius - a further 116 000 people from the more contaminated area - were evacuated and later relocated. About 1,000 of these have since returned unofficially to live within the contaminated zone. Most of those evacuated received radiation doses of less than 50 mSv, although a few received 100 mSv or more.

Reliable information about the accident and resulting contamination was not available to affected people for about two years following the accident. This led to distrust and confusion about health effects.

In the years following the accident a further 210 000 people were resettled into less contaminated areas, and the initial 30 km radius exclusion zone (2800 km²) was modified and extended to cover 4300 square kilometres. This resettlement was due to application of a criterion of 350 mSv projected lifetime radiation dose, though in fact radiation in most of the affected area (apart from half a square kilometre) fell rapidly so that average doses were less than 50% above normal background

5 amazing technology in the future

5 amazing technology in the future (probably)

This innovative “Transparent Toaster” concept uses special heating glass to warm a single slice of bread. Unfortunately, the glass does not reach a high enough temperature — at this time — to actually toast the bread. No word yet on if this concept will go into production.we’ll wait of course,energy saving dude! hehe.

Electronic paper, a thin, flexible display technology that reveals digital images in full color, was invented by Israeli company Magink. Inventables imagines that the material could be used to create a portable “origami DVD player,” which would unfold to reveal a big screen. Now you wouldnt need of a boxy portable dvd player!

Tempra Technology and Crown Holdings have partnered to develop the world’s first self cooling beer can. It looks like a normal 500ml can, but features an integrated self-cooling device that reduces the “contents by a minimum of 30° Fahrenheit (16.7° C) in just three minutes.”

“When activated, the all natural desiccant contained within a vacuum draws the heat from the beverage through the evaporator into an insulated heat-sink container.”

Set back into each urinal is a pressure-sensitive display, which activates an interactive game when used. This game includes sounds and images, bringing entertainment value to where you’d least expect. It will most likely will be installed in airports and schools “with the functional purpose of improving hygiene”. I want this gadget please!! :p

The projection of the project into a museum space was conceived of as a critical-ironic measure, questioning the concept of art, but extending it at the same time

The Bright Walk shoes, designed my Alberto Villarreal for the safety of all nigh-time joggers. The shoes illuminate dark paths by converting the energy from walking or running into electric energy. Sensors on the soles tell the shoes to light up. Now that the issue of running safely in the dark has been addressed, wonder when they’ll come up with anti-mugging shoes to make night runs that much safer

The 'Great Letters' of the Korean writing system

Korean writing is an alphabet, a syllabary and logographs all at once. Each word is made from alphabet letters that combine into syllables,which are combined into a compact character block.

The remarkable Korean writing system, Hangul, is little known outside Korea, and conflicting statements may be read about it.

The changeover from Chinese-origin hanja characters to the versatile hangul at the end of half a century of Japanese occupation facilitated Korea's explosion of literacy from 1945 on. It could well be a major factor in Korea's massive leap in thirty years from being the backward, semi-medieval, war-torn country that I knew in 1950 to one of the most industrialised and fastest growing economies in the world.

The hangul script, literally, the 'Great Letters', sometimes called Onmun, shows the ingenuity possible when an orthography is carefully designed to be frendly to its users at every point. Letter names signify their sounds, and the shape of each symbol was supposedly designed to represent its phonetic articulation (although others claim anecdotally that the shapes were taken fortuitously from the design of a lattice that happened to be around.)

The simple 24 letters of the script represent the phonemes of the language. They build up logically to make about 120 very common syllables and nearly 400 in common use, making around 2000 altogether of mostly square-framed syllable blocks, by stacking the geometric shapes of the consonants on to the bar shapes of the vowels, either horizontally or vertically, The blocks have the memorable visual qualities of gestalts, like simple Chinese characters, but with very different constituents.

This orthography suits the Korean language, which is composed mostly of polysyllabic morphemes, with an elaborate inflexional system based on suffixes. I. Taylor (1980) found that the three levels of complexity in hangul characters were better for discriminating and recognising syllable blocks than single levels. The syllables then string into words, with wider spacing between the words, and this facilitates word recognition within the sentences. Logical distinctions reduce homographs. Western scholars have admired its phonetic accuracy, perfect match to the language, internal structure and its 'sheer creativeness'. Dictionaries are not needed for spelling.

A language with thousands of syllables (like English) could be represented in this syllabic writing, because it is built up alphabetically. The next stage of building up syllables reduces sequencing errors, and simplifies parsing. For example, the notorious English word 'antidisestablishmentarianism', which is 28 letters in English, would be condensed into ten syllable-blocks if in hangul. Unfamiliar words can be decoded at any of its three levels of sound, syllable and whole-word character, and by either visual or auditory perceptual mode. The different levels of present English spelling, however, operate to make it 'a psycholinguistic guessing game' (Goodman, 1976).

In South but not in North Korea, the visually distinctive Chinese hanja characters are also often still used as a useful discriminant in mixed text, to represent traditional Chinese loan words. They continue links with Chinese and Japanese culture, as well as being a status symbol of better education. In 1956 Gray's Korean subjects read this type of mixed script faster than the pure phonetic hangul, but 20 years later, Noh Hwang Park & Kim (1977, cited by Taylor & Taylor, 1983: 90) found that hangul was read faster - a difference which may be due to the decreasing familiarity of hanja.

Korean keyboards of mechanical typewriters have been cumbersome, since consonants can be in both top and bottom positions in syllables, but electronic word-processing is simple. Symbols are simply typed in alphabetically, and automatically packaged and adjusted into high letter-quality syllable blocks.

Blood Trivia!

Q. What common chemical added to blood keeps it from clotting until it is ready to be transfused to a patient?

A. Salt

Q. What common chemical added to blood greatly increases its storage time without adversely affecting the quality?

A. Sugar

Q. When and how was the first administration of blood given?

A. The early Egyptians and Romans prescribed it orally as a life-giving tonic and to transmit youth from donor to recipient.

Q. What was the nickname of the Queen of England and Ireland who resigned from 1553-1558?

A. Bloody Mary (Mary Tudor)

Q. Which ancient culture, believing that blood had magical powers, painted their bodies with it and bathed their kings in it as part of their tribal ritual to appease the gods?

A. Aztecs

Q. In ancient times, what profession became known by the name of an animal they frequently employed in their work?

A. Doctors used leeches to remove blood (which supposedly removed demons which were thought to be the cause of illness). Soon their patients started referring to physicians as "leeches."

Q. When were the four blood types identified in humans?

A. Blood transfusions were first attempted around 1600 by transfusing animal blood into humans - with disastrous results. Then, in the early 1800s an English obstetrician, James Blundell, came up with the idea of human blood for human beings. The results were better, but still some patients inexplicably died. Finally, in 1920, Karl Landsteiner identified the four basic blood types, and subsequently, the success of blood transfusions was significantly increased when patients were transfused with their same type.

Q. Which RH factor is most needed, RH+ or RH- ?

A. Both. A greater percentage of people have RH+, so this means more RH+ blood donors are needed. Fewer people have RH- blood so there are fewer donors to provide this type when needed.

Q. What is the origin of the red & white striped pole designating a barber shop?

A. In the Middle Ages, bloodletting was a popular cure for many ills, and barbers became known as professional bloodletters. Red & white barber poles symbolize the practice of hanging bloodstained bandages outside their shops.

Q. What English aristocrat believed that bathing in blood would keep her young (which may have contributed to the beginning of the vampire legend)?

A. Mary Bathory

Q. What blood type did Mr. Spock of Star Trek have?

A. His blood type was T-negative (and colored green because of the copper content)

Q. What nation has popularized the belief that blood type is an indicator of personality traits?

A. Japan

Q. What percentage of a person's body weight is blood?

A. 7%

Q. What percentage of Chinese people have RH+ blood?

A. 100%

Q. Which blood type must receive only their own specific type, even in an emergency?

A. O-

Q. How many blood types do cats have?

A. Four

Q. How many blood types do cows have?

A. Over 800