The Zincan Slate

It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Americans are drawing down on their personal savings at the fastest rate since the Great Depression, Japan’s debt is so large that it pushes the world’s financial systems to the limit and consumers in the UK are racking up more debt than ever before …

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The last refuge for Martian life, if it exists, might be deep below the planet’s surface–and beyond the reach of any currently planned missions, according to a new study.

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Kaprekar’s Constant is 6174. Now lets have some fun with this number.

Follow this simple algorithm to see the magic of this number.

1. Pick a four digit number. Each digit should be unique; no repeating digits. ex. 4367
2. Order the digits from largest to smallest. This is your large value. ex. 7643
3. Order the digits from smallest to largest. This is your small value. ex. 3467
4. Subtract the small value from the large value. ex. 7643-3467=4176
5. Return to step two unless the result is 6174 ex. 7641-1467=6174

The process can take up to seven iterations and will always give a result of 6174.

Once 6174 is reached, the answer will always be 6174.

Why is this so? Plus magazine! has the detailed explanation.

The Sun is midway through its stable hydrogen burning phase known as the main sequence. But when the Sun enters the red giant phase in around 5 billion years things are going to get a lot rougher in the Earth-Moon system…..

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I was reading about Ben Franklin today and found his “Poor Richards Almanac” on the web presented as a WordPress blog.

http://www.poorrichardsalmanac.info/

Researchers are reexamining the data from the Mars Viking mission. Once again they are looking for signs of life, but it’s not the kind the probes were originally designed to find. Most of us have read or heard about researchers recently studying organisms in extreme environments. Any organisms that would have evolved and survived to present day on Mars would have had to adapt to a relatively extreme environment. The researchers believe that organisms on Mars may have developed a water/hydrogen peroxide solution instead of the water/salt solution that organisms on Earth developed.The original test that the Viking probe used would not have detected signs of life if the organisms were made of a water/hydrogen peroxide solution.

New Analysis of Viking Mission Results Indicates Presence of Life on Mars from PhysOrg.com
We may already have ‘met’ Martian organisms, according to a paper presented Sunday (Jan. 7) at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle.

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.
— Albert Schweitzer

How did Rush Limbaugh become so popular, when he can’t even make a good argument? Attack the idea or claim, not the man. It’s a shame that the MSNBC broadcaster, Keith Olbermann, and his host, Sam Seder, couldn’t follow this rule in their own rebuttal. They end up ridiculing Limbaugh for his past drug abuse. I guess they were trying to contrast Limbaugh’s past actions with his current behavior. It failed. Limbaugh’s inexcusable and poorly researched attack on Michael J. Fox was the subject here, not Limbaugh’s past drug use. Personal attacks don’t make your argument any stronger, it only makes the speaker look weak and ignorant.

Regardless of which side you take in the stem cell issue, Michael J. Fox made a great case for his cause. He simply wants the issue to be intelligently and openly discussed. Yes, his disease does give him an edge in making his case, but it only exemplifies the reality of human frailty. Both sides raise important issues. Communication is a beautiful thing.

How long would man’s trace on the earth remain if we would all disappear today? This hypothetical timeline, from Times Online, outlines the decay of our impact on the world if such an event would happen.

Stonehenge is considered one of Neolithic man’s engineering marvels. How could a primitive civilization move and build a monument that has stones that weigh twenty to fifty tons? Wally Wallington shows us how, in this you tube video, using only simple tools and ingenious engineering techniques. I was amazed by what this guy can do.

We’ve all read that North Korea is a mismanaged and poor country. I wasn’t able to put this into perspective until I saw the picture below (from the Wikipedia Commons). It’s a shame that Kim Jong-il won’t put aside his senseless military and political ambitions. I found a clearer picture of North Korea at night on Yahoo! News.

I don’t know what Kim Jong-il expects to get out of his current foray into the nuclear club. Does he want respect? Didn’t he see what the United States did to Hussein? If there were an invasion of North Korea Kim Jong-il would face a similar fate, unless he could flee to China. I guess we can’t expect a man who is delusional to think rationally.

What can the civilized world do about North Korea’s nuclear ambitions? If we don’t act we risk the proliferation of nuclear arms. Kim Jong-il would undoubtedly sell his arms to organizations or nations that would be unafraid to use them. Inaction would also increase the costs of an invasion. If North Korea became capable of delivering its nuclear weapons to their intended targets, the economic and human costs would be enormous and felt worldwide.

How about sanctions? How could they work on a country that is already in despair? China feeds the North Korean economy with its trade. Even if China agreed to a trade embargo, how could the west know it’s being enforced?

Is an invasion of North Korea the answer? The costs of an invasion would be high, but no one can argue that the west’s victory would be inevitable if it were to face an unallied North Korea. South Korea is not anxious to see a reunified Korea. The costs of reunification would be staggering and make German reunification seem pale in comparison. Would China aid North Korea in the case of an invasion? If it did it would bring its economy to a halt. The U.S. would suffer from this also, but it would recover, as other countries such as India would pick up the business for inexpensive goods.

I wonder if China is considering it’s own options if North Korea continues to go rogue? It doesn’t want a democratic state to border its country. Nothing is more poisonous to a totalitarian state than freedom. Could China be considering a regime change in North Korea, perhaps installing, forcefully or subtlety, a new leadership that would be more obedient to China?

This video by the E.M.C. – Martial Arts For Hire shows one their performers showing off his skills. This guy has moves that would give Jackie Chan some serious competition. Note that he’s doing some of those flips with his head, not his hands. I just hope that he can accept the arthritis that he’s going to get in 15-20 years.

Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt’s comment about stocking up on tuna and canned milk prompted me to talk with my friend about the bird flu. We ended up joking about isolating ourselves from the world and irradiating our mail with ultraviolet rays. My friend laughed and said that he’d patent the idea. I couldn’t help but look to see if somebody had already had. Here is the link.

I discovered Gibson Research Corporation’s (www.grc.com) Shields UP! website today. Shields UP! is a utility that allows you to check how secure your connection is to the Internet. It’s easy to use: no registration is required and it’s web based, so there’s no files to download.

My machine passed the file sharing and common ports tests. After that, I decided to put Shields UP! to the test. I tested ShieldsUP! by activating XAMPP, a simple Apache distribution. I ran XAMPP because I knew that the machine would be insecure while it was running. It successfully displayed that ports 80 and 443 were open.

I’m not a computer security professional, so I don’t know how stringent these tests are. But, I like the idea that I can perform a hassle free security checkup on my computer.

I was going through some of the pictures that I took last year and I sorted out a few of my favorites. I took this one last August at the Cleveland Zoo. I’ve seen Eagles before in the wild, but I’ve never been this close to one before. If it wasn’t for the enclosure, I could have reached out and touched him. (Click on the picture for a 1024 x 768 version - 373kb)

If you were a Transformer, GoBot, or Robotech fan when you were a kid then you’ll want to click here (techeblog.com) to see your childhood fantasy come to life. My girlfriend’s nephew got geeked when he saw the machine transform then show off its battle stance. I hope they market an affordable RC version of a similar transforming robot someday. It wouldn’t be worth it for me to buy one though. I’d get into BattleBot mode and end up destroying it.

An international team of astronomers led by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics* may have found definitive proof of a super-massive black hole (Sagittarius A) at the center of our galaxy. They used the Paranal Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and other instruments to photograph the galactic core for ten years. One star near the core, designated as S2, came within 17 light-hours of the core at its perihelion (in relation to the core). The Sagittarius A’s gravity was directly detected by the movement of S2. This amazing video shows the influence of S2 by Sagittarius A’s gravity.

(*That just sounds cool, doesn’t it?)

Wow. I just got done reading a story from the Associated Press about a farming accident in Turkey. One sheep ran off a cliff and ~1,500 other sheep followed his lead. I would like to know if anyone watched this happen from bellow the cliff? Hey pop, you know it’s raining sheep out there? Whaddya mean you don’t believe me? Just look at the pile in the back yard.

I wonder if this is one of those sensational stories that just happen to make their way through the AP? If it’s true, somebody has a mess to clean up.