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Yesterday, a team of researchers from MIT introduced a new computer chip optimized for deep-learning, an approach to artificial intelligence that is gaining popularity. The chip, dubbed “Eyeriss” could allow mobile devices to perform tasks like natural language processing and facial recognition without being connected to the internet. It’s the latest attempt to make the complex operations of machine learning more portable. That means that our smartphones, wearables, robots, self-driving cars, and other IoT devices could begin performing complex deep learning processes locally — something that until now has been very difficult to do.

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Ségolène Royal, France’s minister of ecology and energy, has said that the government intends to pave 1,000km of road with photovoltaic panels in the next five years, supplying power to millions of people.

Ah, but at what cost? Government never takes that into account.

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University of South Australia associate professor Drew Evans has created proof-of-concept work that could in the future lead to computerised contact lenses.

The conducting polymer lens is an early step into what could lead to circuitry being etched into contact lenses.

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“Tell a French chef,” begins Patrik Johansson, “that the French didn’t invent butter, and he won’t be very happy. But they didn’t! The Vikings showed them how to do it.”

Johansson and his partner Maria Håkansson style themselves as the “Butter Vikings”, a small and merry band of butter lovers and makers. Johansson has been churning butter in his native Sweden for eight years, and is known for selling his “virgin” butter to the famous Noma restaurant in Copenhagen. Now he’s setting up a dairy on the Isle of Wight.

Vital Sign Tracker.

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The Grade-1 listed Wentworth Woodhouse, near Rotherham, has been sold to the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust. The sale of the mansion and 82-acre estate was funded by grants, pledges and donations, including £3.5m from the National Heritage Memorial Fund. The trust said the house would remain open to the public and has announced plans for a 15-year repair project.

The model for ‘Pemberley’ in Pride and Prejudice, it was the seat of the Marquesses of Rotherham and their heirs the Earls Fitzwilliam.

It is also believed to be the largest private house in the UK, with 250,000 sq ft (23,000 sq m) of floor space.

The 300-room house was put up for sale in May following the death of owner Clifford Newbold.

The major problem is that it sits on top of the Wentworth coal seams, and was subject to some rather explicit class warfare on the part of a Labour government.

In April 1946, on the orders of Manny Shinwell (the then Labour Party’s Minister of Fuel and Power) a “column of lorries and heavy plant machinery” arrived at Wentworth. The objective was the mining of a large part of the estate close to the house for coal. This was an area where the prolific Barnsley seam was within 100 feet (30 m) of the surface and the area between the house and the Rockingham Mausoleum became the largest open cast mining site in Britain at that time: 132,000 tons of coal were removed solely from the gardens. Ostensibly the coal was desperately needed in Britain’s austere post-war economy to fuel the railways, but the decision has been, and is, widely seen as useful cover for an act of class-war spite against the coal-owning aristocracy. A survey by Sheffield University, commissioned by Peter Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, the 8th Earl, found the quality of the coal as “very poor stuff” and “not worth the getting”; this contrasted to Shinwell’s assertion that it was “exceptionally good-quality.”

Shinwell, intent on the destruction of the Fitzwilliams and “the privileged rich”, decreed that the mining would continue to the back door of Wentworth, the family’s East Front. What followed saw the mining of 99 acres (400,000 m²) of lawns and woods, the renowned formal gardens and the show-piece pink shale driveway (a by-product of the family’s collieries). Ancient trees were uprooted and the debris of earth and rubble was piled 50 ft (15 m) high in front of the family’s living quarters.

The opencast mining moved into the fields to the west of the house and continued into the early 1950s. The mined areas took many years to return to a natural state; much of the woodland and the formal gardens were not replaced. The current owners of the property allege that mining operations near the house caused substantial structural damage to the building due to subsidence, and lodged a claim in 2012 of £100 million for remedial works against the Coal Authority.

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Body mass index (BMI) is not a reliable measure of health, according to a study which claims 47.4 per cent of Americans considered to be overweight are actually “perfectly healthy”.

For years BMI has been considered a direct indicator of a person’s health, even used by life insurance companies to determine eligibility, but new research suggests this is misleading.

A team of psychologists analysed the link between BMI and a number of other health markers, such as blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

They found that nearly half of the 24.4 million Americans considered to be “obese” are, in fact, healthy, as are the 19.8 million deemed “overweight”.

Hah!

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Jukka-Pekka Bohm’s supercut doesn’t just collate ‘I should have killed you when I had the chance’s, but also the numerous ‘You should have killed me when you had the chance’s and ‘You should have killed him when you had the chance’s.

And, of course, watch the video.

Annoyingly however, the creator didn’t list which films the clips were from.

“You should’ve named all the movies in the description box, when you had the chance,” one commenter wrote.

Ah, well.

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Therapists linked to a leading American Jewish group that tries to convert gays into heterosexuals say they have found a haven for their work in Israel, after it was forced to close in the US.

Israel’s health ministry advises against so-called “gay conversion” or “reparative” therapy, calling it scientifically dubious and potentially dangerous, but no law limits it. An organisation called Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (Jonah) was shut in December for violating New Jersey consumer fraud laws by claiming therapy could “heal” homosexuality. But gays in Israel who contacted Jonah say they were referred to some of the 20 to 30 licenced psychologists and social workers, and 50 non-licensed therapists, who practice some form of conversion therapy in Israel.

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Driving on a two-lane road behind a tractor trailer can be an exercise in bravery, especially on a twisty road with limited passing opportunities. Can I make it around the truck? Is there someone coming that I can’t see until I’m halfway into the lane? If I try to pass right now will I die?

That’s the problem that Samsung is trying to solve with its Safety Truck, a big rig with four huge, weatherproof TV screens on the back. Those screens are hooked up to a camera installed on the front of the truck, so a car behind the truck can see what’s going on in front of the truck and know when it’s safe to pass.

The truck, which had previously debuted as a concept, will soon enter testing in Argentina. If the test is successful, the technology could be available worldwide later this year.

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U.S. intelligence agencies are closely watching what appears to be a buildup of Russian military forces in northeastern Syria, very close to the Turkish border.

The buildup has been underway for the past several weeks, and defense officials say there are concerns Moscow is creating a new military air base and outpost similar to the current base near Latakia, on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.

Defense officials said there are indications the Russians are planning to deploy their most advanced air defense weapons, the S-400, at Qamishli, located very close to the Turkish border. Russian-Turkish relations soured in November after Turkish forces shot down a Russian Su-24 jet that strayed into Turkish airspace.

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Wax seals have largely fallen out of favor today, but in Medieval times, they were everywhere, used as an official signature on all kinds of important documents.

But in addition to an impression of the seal itself, the warm wax also recorded something else–the fingerprints of people applying the seal to the document. Now, researchers at the University of Lincoln in the United Kingdom are taking a closer look at these old fingerprints using modern forensics.

James E. Miller doesn’t much like Bernie Sanders.

Sanders has propelled himself to the near-top of the Democrats’ favorite list based on, among many things, his support for a “living wage.” “The current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is a starvation wage,” the irascible senator proclaimed at a Capitol Hill rally last year, “and [it] must be raised to a living wage.” That’s a nice, and unrealistic, sentiment. But the problem is that Sanders doesn’t think his own employees deserve that kind of pay. According to the Media Research Center, the Sanders campaign pays its interns only $12 an hour. That’s a hefty sum for phone bankers and coffee fetchers. But it’s not enough to pay apartment rent and feed a family. Does Bernie not think his college-age employees deserve to live securely?

Sanders’ “do as I say, not as I do” approach also pertains to the app economy. Not one to let an industry operate away from the watchful eye of the government, the senator says he has “serious problems” with companies like Uber because they are “unregulated.” And yet, as a study by National Journal showed, Bernie used the ride-sharing service Uber for 100% of his taxi rides for the first six months of his campaign. For a company that skirts worker protection laws, one might think Mr. Solidarity would refuse to patronize Uber.

Then there is the coup de grâce: Sanders used his congressional campaign war chest to enrich his family members. An investigation by the neocon outlet Washington Free Beacon reveals that Sanders’ wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders, collected a cool $90,000 from her husband’s House campaign in return for consulting services from 2002 to 2004. Bernie’s stepdaughter Carina Driscoll also collected $65,000 from the campaign during the same period.

The shady dealings don’t stop there. O’Meara Sanders reportedly abused her privileged position as president of Burlington College from 2004 to 2011. Under Mrs. Sanders’ tenure, the college paid $500,000 to the Vermont Woodworking School, which was run by Driscoll. Additionally, the school gave an all-inclusive Caribbean resort run by family friend Jonathan Leopold $68,000 for a study-abroad program. After O’Meara Sanders stepped down from head of Burlington College (not before inflating donor pledges for a loan application from the local Roman Catholic Diocese that cost the bishopric administration nearly $2 million), payments to the resort and woodworking school ended. Funny, that.

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About 1-in-4 federal employees would consider leaving their jobs if Donald Trump is elected president, according the results of a recent survey conducted by the Government Business Council.

Overall, about 2-in-3, or 67 percent said they would not think about leaving the federal government if Trump becomes president, but 14 percent said they would and 11 percent said they would “maybe” leave. Just 8 percent said they did not know. The share of Democrats who said they would leave is higher, with 42 percent indicating that they would exit or could exit.

He’s got my vote.

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That sounds about right.

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At the heart of this issue is a single unit of measurement–the calorie–and some seemingly straightforward arithmetic. “To lose weight, you must use up more calories than you take in,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dieters like Nash and Haelle could eat all their meals at McDonald’s and still lose weight, provided they burn enough calories, says Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. “Really, that’s all it takes.”

But Nash and Haelle do not find weight control so simple. And part of the problem goes way beyond individual self-control. The numbers logged in Nash’s Fitbit, or printed on the food labels that Haelle reads religiously, are at best good guesses. Worse yet, as scientists are increasingly finding, some of those calorie counts are flat-out wrong–off by more than enough, for instance, to wipe out the calories Haelle burns by running an extra mile on a treadmill. A calorie isn’t just a calorie. And our mistaken faith in the power of this seemingly simple measurement may be hindering the fight against obesity.

…

Wrangham and his colleagues have since shown that cooking unlaces microscopic structures that bind energy in foods, reducing the work our gut would otherwise have to do. It effectively outsources digestion to ovens and frying pans. Wrangham found that mice fed raw peanuts, for instance, lost significantly more weight than mice fed the equivalent amount of roasted peanut butter. The same effect holds true for meat: there are many more usable calories in a burger than in steak tartare. Different cooking methods matter, too. In 2015, Sri Lankan scientists discovered that they could more than halve the available calories in rice by adding coconut oil during cooking and then cooling the rice in the refrigerator.

Portable Collapsible Bathtub.

Swiss Robotic Barista.

Designer Dog Houses. I am not making this up.

The Exotic Virtual Adventure Run. This is the yuppiest device I have ever seen in my life.

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DNA stores our genetic code in an elegant double helix. But some argue that this elegance is overrated. “DNA as a molecule has many things wrong with it,” said Steven Benner, an organic chemist at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Florida.

Nearly 30 years ago, Benner sketched out better versions of both DNA and its chemical cousin RNA, adding new letters and other additions that would expand their repertoire of chemical feats. He wondered why these improvements haven’t occurred in living creatures. Nature has written the entire language of life using just four chemical letters: G, C, A and T. Did our genetic code settle on these four nucleotides for a reason? Or was this system one of many possibilities, selected by simple chance? Perhaps expanding the code could make it better.

We still don’t know how genes work and they want to make new ones.

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While the idea of timber towers may conjure up visions of multi-storey Swiss chalets, or high-rise log-cabins, these skyscrapers are not the traditional timber-framed buildings we’re used to seeing. Instead, the designs take advantage of recent innovations in “mass wood” to create vast solid timber panels that can support buildings to a much taller height than ordinary wood can.

Green’s Baobab uses Cross Laminated Timber, or CLT. This consists of several layers of timber board glued together at 90 degrees to form large structural sheets up to 40cm thick. The cross-lamination provides the material’s dimensional stability and strength.

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This sort of thing make me appreciate Proctor & Gamble.

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The global warming which recently hit the USA, has spread to a large area of East Asia, with reports of a brutal cold snap which has killed at least 85 people in Taiwan, and confirmed snowfall as far south as the Japanese island Okinawa, on the Northern edge of the Tropics.

How about that Global Warming, eh?

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The University of Missouri communications professor I dubbed “the scowling face of campus repression” has been slapped with a misdemeanor assault charge, according to the Columbia Prosecutor’s Office.

Authorities decided to charge her with third-degree assault for threatening to sic some “muscle” on a student-journalist attempting to cover the rally at Mizzou in the wake of President Tim Wolfe’s resignation in November. The charge, a Class C misdemeanor, carries a max sentence of 15 days in jail, The Kansas City Star reports.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer liberal fascist.

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A deep-sea sonar vehicle searching for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has sunk to the ocean floor after colliding with an underwater mud volcano.

The collision with the 2,200-metre mud volcano on Sunday broke the cable between the sonar vehicle, known as a towfish, and the Fugro Discovery search vessel.

The towfish and 4,500 metres of cable are now resting on the floor of the Indian Ocean, the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) said in a statement.

Let that be a lesson to us all.

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A recent study at the University of Granada in Spain has found that frying vegetables in extra virgin olive oil changes them for the better, adding phenolic compounds, which have antioxidant properties. Boiling and other methods of cooking veggies have no such benefit.

Check it out.

This is sufficiently clever to deserve its own post.

This is an app for your favorite smartphone or tablet that instructs you in how to tie knots.

Those of you who need to know how to tie knots know who you are.

If it were possible to give a smartphone/tablet app as a gift, I have a handful of people for whom I would right now be buying this app.

It is way cool.

Bull’s Eye Power Nozzle.

Swann Ultra HD Security System.

22-oz. Soup Mug. For when you REALLY WANT SOUP.

Straight Edge Clamping Tool Guide.

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This week, the French government announced a plan to standardize the French-language computer keyboard, as part of an effort to help protect and nurture the language. The ministry of culture and communication says it’s “nearly impossible to correctly write French” on keyboards sold in the country today, meaning that the language’s strict grammatical rules are being flouted more regularly. The ministry has partnered with a standardization group to develop a new keyboard norm, which will be presented for public feedback this summer.

Unlike the QWERTY keyboards on most devices in the US and Europe, French-language keyboards follow an AZERTY layout, and they’ve never been standardized. That means that the layout can vary from one manufacturer to another, making it difficult for users to locate important keys or accented characters.

Good luck with that.

More from the BBC here.

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Scientists from University College London (UCL) have developed a high-tech glass intended for self-cleaning, energy-saving windows.

A team led by Dr Ioannis Papakonstantinou has coupled “pencil-like, conical nanostructures engraved onto the glass” with a photochromic 5-10 nanometre film of vanadium dioxide.

The nanostructures trap air and ensure “only a tiny amount of water comes into contact with the surface”. Accordingly, “rain hitting the outside forms spherical droplets that roll easily over the surface – picking up dirt, dust and other contaminants and carrying them away”.

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But that trick never works….

A planet larger than Earth could be hiding in the cold, dark depths of the solar system. The presence of the planet, which would lie far beyond Pluto, is betrayed by the curious orbits of a handful of distant icy worlds.

As described Wednesday in the Astronomical Journal, the gravitational signature of a large, lurking planet is written into the peculiar orbits of these farflung worlds. Called extreme Kuiper Belt Objects, the misbehaving bodies trace odd circles around the sun that have puzzled scientists for years.

It’s tantalizing evidence that a ninth large planet might live in the solar system, though the world hasn’t been detected yet.

“If there’s going to be another planet in the solar system, I think this is it,” says Greg Laughlin of the University of California, Santa Cruz. “It would be quite extraordinary if we had one. Fingers crossed. It would be amazing.”

I’m curious as to what they’d call it. Barsoom?

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Even as the U.S. rig count has retreated like Napoleon from Russia, shale remains the key to understanding the global oil landscape. Consider that despite all of the turmoil in key oil-producing regions, namely the Middle East, oil prices have not spiked. Nothing — not Russian intervention in Syria, not ISIS attacks on Libyan oil infrastructure, not the torching of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran — has been able to stop the oil price collapse. What is going on here? Does turmoil in the Middle East suddenly no longer matter? The American shale oil model has changed the world oil marketplace for the foreseeable future. Shale producers’ ability to quickly throttle down or ramp up upstream investment spending, drilling and production, as oil prices change, is viewed as an effective shock absorber against any potential oil price spikes. Mark J Perry, Investor’s Business Daily, 15 January 2016

My understanding is that cheap energy is typically really really good for economic growth. With the Democrats in power, of course, any disaster can happen.

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I’m happy to see this sort of thing get out into the wider world.

Adjustable Focus Reading Sunglasses.

Bay Area Regional Planner. Be the first on your block to be the Stalin of San Francisco.

Golden Skull Chair. For when you take over the world.

The Viking Coloring Book. Pillage first, then burn.

StinkBOSS.

Totem Recycling Bin.

Gorilla Grip Bath Pillow. I am not making this up.

Hypoallergenic Tongue Cleaner. Those of you who need this know who you are.

The Perfect Bag for a Heist.

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If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

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How does it keep from getting run over?

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How did that happen?

The decision prompted outrage from liberal clergy with one prominent supporter of gay marriage saying he was “thoroughly ashamed to be Anglican” because of  the decision.

I suspect that the feeling is mutual.

“Recent developments in the Episcopal Church with respect to a change in their Canon on marriage represent a fundamental departure from the faith and teaching held  by the majority of our Provinces on the doctrine of marriage,” the document said. “The traditional doctrine of the Church in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds marriage as between a man and a woman in faithful, lifelong union. The majority of those gathered reaffirm this teaching.”

Amazing. They may be Christians after all. Whoda thunkit?

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Global warming caused by fossil fuel emissions is blamed by scientists for intensifying storms, raising sea levels and prolonging droughts. Now there’s growing evidence of a positive effect: we may have delayed the next ice age by 100,000 years or more.

The conditions necessary for the onset of a new ice age were narrowly missed at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s, researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research near Berlin wrote Wednesday in the journal Nature. Since then, rising emissions of heat-trapping CO2 from burning oil, coal and gas have made the spread of the world’s ice sheets even less likely, they said.

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Scientists who scoured the DNA of brain tumors, searching gene by gene for bad actors, were puzzled. The cancers had none of the mutations in growth-causing genes that are typical of other tumors, yet they grew quickly, with no brakes. The question was why — what had altered their genetic instructions to lead to runaway cell division?

The surprising answer, researchers reported Wednesday in the journal Nature, is that the three-dimensional structure and organization of the DNA had been disrupted. As a result, two genetic neighborhoods that are usually separated, as if they are two gated communities, were merged. The effect was to allow a powerful snippet of DNA from one neighborhood into the one next door, where it woke up a near-dormant growth gene. And the cells took off.

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A man was head-butted at London Bridge station after another man had become angry about music being played from a mobile phone.

A special snowflake gets what’s coming to him.

“There is no excuse for such violent behaviour and we need people to help us find the person responsible.

Yeah, I’d like to buy him a beer.

Let that be a lesson to us all.

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The investigation is the first time that scientists have been able to pinpoint on a large scale how different genes are linked to developing the disease, as well as the mutations involved.

Researchers also found important information on how mutations associated with breast cancer are also linked to other forms of the disease.

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Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

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Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

Trac-Grabber Traction Solution for Vehicles

Electric Violin

Vegaline Food Release Spray. What the professionals use, apparently.

Digital Sundial. I am not making this up.

Log Liquor Dispenser. I presume for those who get a woody from getting sozzled.

Nano Membrane Toilet.

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To make life easier for its owners, Hyundai has built an augmented reality app called the Virtual Guide. It allows owners to use their phones to get more familiar with their cars and learn how to perform basic maintenance. I saw a demo of the app from Hyundai at CES and it works as advertised.

You can use the app to get an augmented reality view of the engine compartment or interior of the car, with floating digital dots illustrating different points of interest like the windshield washer bottle or the location of the air filter. Tap one of the dots and you can get an illustrated, step-by-step walkthrough of the related maintenance item or, if you’re inside the vehicle you can get a tutorial in how to use different functions of the car like pairing a phone with Bluetooth.

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A 4-month-old girl is alive today thanks to a dramatic seven-hour surgery performed with Google Cardboard — those inexpensive handheld viewers that allow you to see 3D images on your iPhone.

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Closer … closer….

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On the other hand, he could be all wet.

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I’m surprised they can get away with this in these degenerate modern times.

Still … sometimes the old ways are best.

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Welcome to the 1595 Club. As its name suggests, the club teaches a martial-arts system dating back to the 16th century. Inspired by the Italian-born master-fencer Vincentio Saviolo, the combination of fencing, self-defence and keep-fit can be adapted to swords, sword and dagger, cane and unarmed combat.

But no white scarves.

“I see [the 1595] as an art, not a sport,” the quietly spoken Chatfield tells me. “The old Italian word for swordsman is giocatore – a player, not of a game, but of a musical instrument. You learn to use your body like an instrument. The sword is like a paintbrush.”

…

Our knowledge of this technique is found in what amounts to an advertising brochure, Vincentio Saviolo: His Practise, in Two Bookes, written in 1595 by John Florio. Florio may well have known Shakespeare via Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, the playwright’s patron and possible lover. This may explain why phrases from Florio’s text can be found in As You Like It and, more strikingly, Romeo and Juliet. The duel between Mercutio and Tybalt is narrated through Saviolo’s instructions: “…with one hand beats/ Cold death aside, and with the other sends/It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity/Retorts it…”