Bai-Baikonur

Russia confirms shiny new cosmodrome - The Register:

"Putin stressed the non-military nature of the project, and indicated that Russia is keen to cut its reliance on Kazakhstan's Baikonur spaceport."

Another Toss of the Shuttle

Life isn't so much a fabric as it is a fascinating, intricate tangle of seemingly unrelated things.

I've long been a fan of Richard Feynman's stories. In 1992 I read about his last adventure, a quest to visit Tannu Tuva: "Tuva or Bust." A central element of the story is Tuvan throat singing.

My grandfather had had a distinctive singing gimmick, one which had helped him establish his character of "Frog Millhouse" in old western movies. As I read the description of throat singing in "Tuva or Bust", I began to wonder whether Grandpa had in fact been a country and western throat singer.

Fast forward to 2005. I was living in Santa Fe, not far from the site of one of Dr. Feynman's early adventures. My friend Bobi, who had once worked at Los Alamos, was getting ready to adopt a baby from Kazakhstan. As we prepared for her trip we came across the story of Paul Pena, a blind R&B musician who among other things had written the Steve Miller Band hit, "Jet Airliner." Listening to a San Francisco radio station, Mr. Pena had heard some intriguing vocal music which turned out to be Tuvan throat singing. The music was being aired because a group of Tuvans was visiting the United States, in a cultural exchange visit which was a posthumous result of Dr. Feynman's efforts to visit Tuva.

Paul Pena taught himself to sing in the rumbling style of kargyraa, somehow became connected with the author of "Tuva or Bust", Ralph Leighton, and ended up traveling to central Asia, where he won a prize in a throat-singing competition.

Mr. Pena's adventure, and some of his life's trials, were captured in the bittersweet movie "Genghis Blues."

Almost a year after Mr. Pena died, Bobi departed to Kazakhstan. I went along, and we came together with one of the most wonderful people I've ever known. She's now Bobi's daughter, and my god-daughter.

We made a video of the trip. The obvious choice of background music for the air travel segments was Mr. Pena's "Jet Airliner."


With all of this as background, today I came across an NPR interview with Billy West, who provides much of the voice of Futurama:

On Popeye

I loved Jack Mercer, and I got him. I understood him. And what helped me understand that Popeye voice — it's a high voice and a low voice at the same time — cause when I was a kid, we all used to try to do that and we all stunk. It didn't sound right. So one day, I see this film — it was an independent film called Genghis Blues. And it was about [Paul Pena] ... And he was listening to a world-band radio one night, and he heard this strange noise. And it was a program about Tuvan singers. And Tuvans had a way of singing where they could do one and two voices. And I realized, 'Oh man, that's how this guy did it. Jack Mercer.' [He imitates both voices.] There'd be two voices, an octave apart. And he'd put them together."

---

• The Last Journey of a Genius - Richard Feynman - Nova - Google Video
• Kargyraa Rap - Kongar-ol Ondar and Richard Feynman - YouTube
• Momma Don't Allow No Music Playin' Round Here - music by Smiley Burnette - YouTube
• Jet Airliner - Paul Pena - YouTube
• Kargyraa Moan - Paul Pena - YouTube
• Genghis Blues - DVD
• NPR Interview w. Billy West

Smart grid emergent

Virtual power plants fill supply gaps in heat wave | Green Tech - CNET News:

"...automated efficiency technology, particularly dialing back electricity usage during peak times, is becoming one of the most effective smart-grid tools for maintaining the balance between electricity supply and demand."

Scratch for your Phone

App Inventor for Android:

"To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a developer. App Inventor requires NO programming knowledge. This is because instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks to specify the app's behavior."

PhysOrg.com: Sharp-eyed robins can see magnetic fields

Sharp-eyed robins can see magnetic fields:

"a new study shows that [birds'] internal compass also depends on the birds having clear vision in their right eyes.

Cryptochrome also affects the light sensitivity of retinal cells, which suggests it may also affect sensitivity to magnetic fields. In effect, the magnetic fields create light or dark shadings over what the bird usually sees, and the shadings change as the bird turns its head, giving it a visual compass from the patterns of shading."

Wow.

The urge to quote Shakespeare is almost irresistible.

Via Engadget

Juxtaposition: American jobs

BusinessWeek posted this on 1 July:
Andy Grove: How America Can Create Jobs:

"A new industry needs an effective ecosystem in which technology knowhow accumulates, experience builds on experience, and close relationships develop between supplier and customer. The U.S. lost its lead in batteries 30 years ago when it stopped making consumer electronics devices... U.S. companies did not participate in the first phase and consequently were not in the running for all that followed. I doubt they will ever catch up...

These [Asian] countries seem to understand that job creation must be the No. 1 objective of state economic policy. The government plays a strategic role in setting the priorities and arraying the forces and organization necessary to achieve this goal..."

BBC News posted this today:
BBC News - US to provide nearly $2bn for two solar energy projects:

"Nearly $2bn... in loan guarantees will be given to two companies to kick-start the US solar energy industry, President Barack Obama has announced...

Abound Solar Manufacturing, will manufacture state-of-the-art thin film solar panels...

Plants will be built in Colorado and Indiana, creating 2,000 construction jobs and 1,500 permanent jobs, the Associated Press reports...

'We're going to to keep competing aggressively to make sure the jobs and industries of the future are taking root right here in America,' he said on Saturday."

Groves's article contains many thought-provoking assertions. Well worth reading.

GIS + global warming = k * Archaeology

CU Researcher Finds 10,000-Year-Old Hunting Weapon in Melting Ice Patch | News Center | University of Colorado at Boulder:

"Over the past decade, Lee has worked with other researchers to develop a geographic information system, or GIS, model to identify glaciers and ice fields in Alaska and elsewhere that are likely to hold artifacts. They pulled together biological and physical data to find ice fields that may have been used by prehistoric hunters to kill animals seeking refuge from heat and insect swarms in the summer months."

"Ninety-five percent of the archaeological record that we usually base our interpretations on is comprised of chip stone artifacts, ground stone artifacts, maybe old hearths, which is a fire pit, or rock rings that would have been used to stabilize a house," Lee said. "So we really have to base our understanding about ancient times on these inorganic materials. But ice patches are giving us this window into organic technology that we just don't get in other environments."

(Via Stone Pages Archaeo News)

Using Dropbox to implement OS X / iOS app sync?

Hog Bay Software Blog:

"Then the Dropbox public API showed up. That changed everything again. I've never wanted to write and maintain my own simpletext.ws sync service, but there was no other choice. Now I can outsource all that work to Dropbox. But to do this I still need to rewrite my model layer to support Dropbox sync."