My uncle pointed out the “Virtual Haircut” clip about two weeks ago and I’ve been slowly spreading it around to everyone’s delight (and discomfort). It’s a play on stereo-sound extraordinaire and, most importantly, a play on your brain.

Click the link below to listen, but you need headphones (not speakers!) for the clip to have the desired effect.

Yesterday I was handed a link to the most bizarre pictures I’ve seen in a while: A Hexagonal shape on Saturns surface, roughly the size of four Earths.

The hexagon is nearly 15,000 miles (25,000 kilometers) across. Nearly four Earths could fit inside it. The thermal imagery shows the hexagon extends about 60 miles (100 kilometers) down into the clouds.

That just makes my head spin in bewilderment. Why, in the midst of the sinuous formations of gas, would there appear a shape with straight sides and corners? Moreover, this thing has existed for over 20 years. First spotted by patching together images from Voyager 1 and 2, the spacecraft Cassini has now pictured it again.

I don’t know of any other cornered shape on such a grand scale, at least not such a primitive one. Moving up levels of complexity in the Universe, we get continually curvier lines such as our cloud formations. What we’re seeing are the interactions of a soup of shapes (gas) - I don’t see how they could sustain a global primitive geometric shape like a hexagon for an extended period of time. Totally bizarre.

[via space.com and NASA]

Unfortunately I didn’t have a professional camera with a powerful zoom so the pictures are not much to wow over. I’m quite sure the new colors of the Moon would have looked incredible up close. These were taken from my roof, the color variations took place during the mere 5 minutes I spent looking and taking pictures.

I read an article yesterday by Tyme White (one of the people behind the 9Rules network) on the importance of not getting caught up in reader and hit statistics of your blog. I think, in light of the overabundance of metablogs (blogs about blogs, blogging, SEO, etc.), that this important issue is often overlooked.

I’m going to admit up front that I love checking my reader numbers, knowing that there’s actually a point in writing publically rather than jolting my thoughts down in an offline doc for myself. I write publically to open possibilities of making contributions to the world (amongst other reasons). However, I’ve been curbing my enthusiasm because I’ve come to realize that it inevitably affects my writing and choice of content. Seeing a jump in reader statistics, comments or links to you will give you a feeling of accomplishment. In contrast, a drop will potentially make you feel bad — and so inadvertantly you risk having it mold your choice of content. Let’s face it: no matter how balanced or smart you are, the only way this wouldn’t affect you is if you didn’t care about your readers (and society in general, for that matter). If that were the case, then why would you be checking your stats in the first place?

Constantly checking stats will contribute to a conditioning effect — the risk of falling into a category of Pavlov’s Blogs. That’s not to say you shouldn’t check them at all, simply maintain a balance. Don’t overdo it. I recommend reading Tyme’s article, it provides a good perspective on personal and business choices when it comes to blogging and statistics.

I started blogging for several reasons which I won’t go into now (they’re enough to fill a few entries), but one of the challenges I’ve encountered and spent a lot of time on is deciding what should I write about?. I have a very wide range of interest, even though my main interests revolve around technology and artificial (or biological) intelligence. Of course, I could write about everything I find interesting — but that would leave the blog rather themeless content-wise and possibly drive away readers who can’t figure it out. Obviously the point of having a public blog is to share your thoughts, so there must be some balance between writing for yourself and the public. And then there’s the question of choosing between material because you don’t have all the time in the world to write. You have to pick out something worthy.

Looking at popular blogs, most of them have a specific theme. LifeHacker is a productivity guide. Cool Hunting revolves around design.

I’ve been blogging for about 3-4 months now (only two on inkblot earth) and in that time my writing style, speed and general presentation has changed dramatically. I’m sure this is the same for every beginner blogger, and this is partly the reason I haven’t been making any drastic changes on my blog’s theme or content emphasis: I wanted to see it evolve gradually. And I’ve identified some emerging trends in my writing; I often pick out A.I. news, or pick on religion/promote science.

One of the ideas I’ve been juggling is having seperate blogs for seperate issues; but that would mean that each blog would have less activity (or shorter entries). So for someone that doesn’t have a lot of time (non-professional blogger), I think a themeless, evolving blog is the best option. That way you can also look back and see how you evolve as a writer. I’m quite sure that over a year of writing, the beginning and end entries are dramatically different.

It would be very interesting to know other people’s reasons for blogging, how they choose their content — and if they put any thought into the process (sometimes I don’t and just write what’s on my mind, like this entry you are reading). With all the Top 10 blog entries out there, there must be someone who’s compiled a Top 10 Reasons Why People Blog — didn’t find one after a quick search.

Just got myself a MacBook, fresh from sweet Manhattan. Let’s just say that the Apple service back here (Iceland) is rather … limited, which forced me to pull strings across the Atlantic. Forced decisionmaking is kind of the theme of 2007 it seems, as I’m buying it now (rather than later) due to a class I’m attending in which MS SQL Server is used — instead of MySQL. This means I need a computer with the superability to boot any operating system (No, buying a cheap PC which would afterwards sit around collecting dust, spyware and viruses is not an option).

In any case the new MacBook is fantastic. I got myself the 2.0Ghz model (not Pro), as I already have the muscle at home for heavy duty work and just needed a compact machine for traveling. Here at the side is when I was syncing between my desktop machine and the new laptop. OS X prompts you to sync files, folders, preferences and settings (e.g. e-mail, network) via FireWire everytime you buy a new computer. That’s an absolutely brilliant feature — although I would have liked to see a bit more control over which files and folders you can choose move.

I really don’t feel like describing anything, as this model has been out for quite some time and by now everybody must know the details. But the built in iSight is new for me, as is the “Apple Remote”. The iSight is a nice-to-have feature and the remote will definitely come in handy during presentations. I caught myself thinking, however, that I wished it worked like the new WiiMote.

Just stumbled onto this article explaining how it has been shown that sound, in a sense, can travel faster than the speed of light — Mach c. From the article:

For the first time, scientists have experimentally demonstrated that sound pulses can travel at velocities faster than the speed of light, c. William Robertson’s team from Middle Tennessee State University also showed that the group velocity of sound waves can become infinite, and even negative.

[…] the researchers achieved superluminal sound velocity by rephasing the spectral components of the sound pulses, which later recombine to form an identical-looking part of the pulse much further along within the pulse. So it’s not the actual sound waves that exceed c, but the waves’ “group velocity,” or the “length of the sample divided by the time taken for the peak of a pulse to traverse the sample.”

Perhaps it’s time to brush up on the physics, as at first glance I’m having a hard time understanding the article.

Bush has intuitively signed laws granting rights to read peoples’ emails without a court order. How exceptionally insightful and clever (feel the sarcasm). A Digg user noted that it really didn’t matter because Bush couldn’t read.

But wait, there’s more: any recent cell phone sold in the USA has a built in tracking device which (a) allow the cellphones’ microphones to be remotely turned on and used as an eevesdropping device, and (b) pinpoint the users location. The phone does not have to be switched on for this to work, battery removal is the only countermeasure. The FBI recently used this phone feature in a case against a crime family.

I think it’s almost surreal how America has changed since Bush assumed power. I’ve caught myself comparing the Oxxford suit of Bush to the Hugo Boss outfit of Hitler. This is a sticky situation for the world, there’s no doubt about that — terrorists aren’t official forces. They’re civilians with an attitude and delusions of a higher purpose. How do you find civilians in a stack of civilians? Hardly without partially sacrificing the freedom of the rest of us it seems.

But then of course, Bush himself has an attitude and delusions of a higher purpose. Let’s just ask Bush himself: Mr. Bush, how can you do your job so well?

“I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job.” — to a group of Amish he met with privately, July 9, 2004

But Mr. Bush (or am I addressing god? I get confused), why would you want to sacrifice the freedom of your own country to kill the people in an unfree one?

“I’m the commander — see, I don’t need to explain — I do not need to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being president.” — quoted in Bob Woodward’s Bush at War

Fascinating. So that must mean that you have very good, top secret reasons for what you do?

“I’m also not very analytical. You know I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things.” — aboard Air Force One, June 4, 2003

That must be very … enlightening. Definitely explains how you can get through the day, doing what you do.

The quotes were found here (mirror here).

I believe that roughly an hour ago, Saddam Hussein was hanged. The news spread instantly across the web. The Execution of Saddam Hussein page on Wikipedia is being actively edited, and you can find most of the details emerge there.

I’m always opposed to murder. By executing Hussein we’ve effectively terminated any chances of learning from the man and thereby redeeming something from the terror he’s caused. By ‘we’ I mean the human race. Hussein is was a relic of things gone wrong, but there will be no more questions.

Saddam is dead.

I really just felt compelled to post this. For those who didn’t read the interview I posted earlier — here’s what I found as the most impacting of Dawkins’ answers. The question is bold.

What is there to distinguish your intolerance from that of a religious fanatic?

It would be intolerant if I advocated the banning of religion, but of course I never have. I merely give robust expression to views about the cosmos and morality with which you happen to disagree. You interpret that as ‘intolerance’ because of the weirdly privileged status of religion, which expects to get a free ride and not have to defend itself. If I wrote a book called The Socialist Delusion or The Monetarist Delusion, you would never use a word like intolerance. But The God Delusion sounds automatically intolerant. Why? What’s the difference?

I have a (you might say fanatical) desire for people to use their own minds and make their own choices, based upon publicly available evidence. Religious fanatics want people to switch off their own minds, ignore the evidence, and blindly follow a holy book based upon private ‘revelation’. There is a huge difference.

- From The Independant Online

Quite brilliant, and so very true. Think about it, for the sake of humanity.