Monday, November 24, 2008
The Unity Between Obama and Bush
President-elect Obama has announced that he and Bush are "united" in getting the economy back on track. He called the financial crisis one of "historic proportions". He also said that there isn't a moment to waste when it comes to getting the economy fixed. Personally, I think that until Obama's inauguration, that the economy will either stay the same or go even more downhill than it is now, don't you?
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Tool Bag Lost in Space
On Wednesday, 11/19/08, the NASA crew was repairing the ISS. While the space-walker (Capt. Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper) was outside the spaceship,she discovered that one of her grease guns broke open in the tool bag she was carrying. (here is a video). Her tool bag contained 2 other grease guns, scrapers and other sorts of tools. She cleaned the mess up but she had not noticed that her tool bag had started to float into the infinite expanse of space. NASA tried to recover it, but it had been lost and it wasn't coming back. It is a good thing that there weren't electronics in the bag!
source
source
Saturday, November 22, 2008
The Good and Bad Decision of Hillary Clinton
I have received intelligence that Barack Obama has offered Hillary Clinton the position of US Secretary of State. Hillary accepted, which I would also do if I were offered this position. However, it did involve giving up her seat in the Senate; the Daily Telegraph says "she could most likely have occupied [the Senate seat] for the rest of her career," which also makes this a bad decision.
Also, Obama might have decided to nominate Timothy Geithner as the Treasury Secretary. It was probably involved with the $700 billion bailout plan that was mentioned so many times, mostly in the Presidential Debates.
What would you have done if you were offered the position of US Secretary of State, but had to give up your Senate seat?
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Our grammatical President-elect
Obama’s Use of Complete Sentences Stirs Conversation
In the first two weeks since the election, President-elect Barack Obama has broken with a tradition established over the past eight years through his use of complete sentences, political observers say. Millions of Americans who watched Obama's appearance on CBS' "Sixty Minutes" on Sunday witnessed the president-elect's unorthodox verbal tick, which had Obama employing grammatically correct sentences virtually every time he opened his mouth to speak.
But Obama's decision to use complete sentences in his public pronouncements carries with it certain risks, since after the last eight years many Americans may find his odd speaking style jarring. According to presidential historian, Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota, some Americans might find it "alienating" to have a President who speaks English as if it were his first language.
"Every time Obama opens his mouth, his subjects and verbs are in agreement," says Mr. Logsdon. "If he keeps it up, he is running the risk of sounding like an elitist."
The historian said that if Obama insists on using complete sentences in his speeches, the public may find itself saying, "Okay, subject, predicate, subject, predicate - we get it, stop showing off." President-elect Obama's stubborn insistence on using complete sentences has already attracted a rebuke from one of his harshest critics, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.
"Talking with complete sentences there and also too talking in a way that ordinary Americans like Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder can't really do there, I think needing to do that isn't tapping into what Americans are needing also," she said.
That confuses me a bit, her grammar could use some work! That quote is right from her mouth, word for word. I still think it unplausable that she was even in consideration for VP, as I have stated before. I think it shows professional views if you use good grammar, but that's me talking, you can't really use me as a basis for judging these ideas!
In the first two weeks since the election, President-elect Barack Obama has broken with a tradition established over the past eight years through his use of complete sentences, political observers say. Millions of Americans who watched Obama's appearance on CBS' "Sixty Minutes" on Sunday witnessed the president-elect's unorthodox verbal tick, which had Obama employing grammatically correct sentences virtually every time he opened his mouth to speak.
But Obama's decision to use complete sentences in his public pronouncements carries with it certain risks, since after the last eight years many Americans may find his odd speaking style jarring. According to presidential historian, Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota, some Americans might find it "alienating" to have a President who speaks English as if it were his first language.
"Every time Obama opens his mouth, his subjects and verbs are in agreement," says Mr. Logsdon. "If he keeps it up, he is running the risk of sounding like an elitist."
The historian said that if Obama insists on using complete sentences in his speeches, the public may find itself saying, "Okay, subject, predicate, subject, predicate - we get it, stop showing off." President-elect Obama's stubborn insistence on using complete sentences has already attracted a rebuke from one of his harshest critics, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.
"Talking with complete sentences there and also too talking in a way that ordinary Americans like Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder can't really do there, I think needing to do that isn't tapping into what Americans are needing also," she said.
That confuses me a bit, her grammar could use some work! That quote is right from her mouth, word for word. I still think it unplausable that she was even in consideration for VP, as I have stated before. I think it shows professional views if you use good grammar, but that's me talking, you can't really use me as a basis for judging these ideas!
Economy Crashing Wave by Wave
Warning! This economic crises floods our economy as we speak! This chart (second) displays what went on with Dow Industrials just today. For the first time since 2003 it sank below 8,000. It suddenly dropped 5.07%in just one day.It especially slides down between 3 and 4 pm ET. Many specific types of businesses got harmed even more. Citigroup descended by over 22%. General Motors 10% about $2 per share, and Ford Motor Company 24% about $1 per share. These companies are 2/3 of the leading American automakers. The threat of their bankruptcy aligns them on the edge of the cliff. Oil drops to a record low for 22 months or about $56 a barrel. Nasdaq, including many video game companies descended 6.53% (first chart). Markets from some other countries also descended although not as much. If you want more information on this topic, I recommend that you visit my source.Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Astronaut Loses Tool Bag While Working On the International Space Station
Astronaut Stefanyshyn-Piper was working on a solar panel of the International Space Station when she dropped her bag. Everything floated away! She couldn't do anything about it though, so she used the other astronaut's on the space walk. The mission otherwise went well. Too bad she dropped her bag. It probably cost a lot of $!
Daniel--Who is Uncle Sam
Do you ever wonder who Uncle Sam is ? Well, according to history, Upstate New York would have barrels of meat that had the initials U.S. branded on it. The troops joked around that the initials,U.S. meant "Uncle" Samuel Wilson (who was born Troy, New York and the U.S meat supplier). So, the troops may have thought that since he feeds us it means that he's our mascot. Which may have led to Uncle Samuel Wilson becoming Uncle Sam. He didn't really become Uncle Sam until The 87Th United States Congress said on September 15, 1961 said that "Resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives that the Congress salutes Uncle Sam Wilson of Troy, New York, as the progenitor of America's National symbol of Uncle Sam". That day on Uncle Sam became a national mascot of the military.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Reuniting of the rivals!
President-elect Barack Obama and Senator John McCain agreed on Monday, in their first meeting since the election, to work together on some of the nation’s most pressing challenges, from the financial crisis to national security problems. I think it's funny that Obama is now called "President-elect".
After a private meeting in the Obama transition offices on the 38th floor of the Kluczynski (however you would pronounce that) Federal Building in downtown Chicago, the two former opponents issued a joint statement saying that they agreed “that Americans of all parties want and need their leaders to come together and change the bad habits of Washington so that we can solve the common and urgent challenges of our time.” I quote the New York Times.
The statement continued: “We hope to work together in the days and months ahead on critical challenges like solving our financial crisis, creating a new energy economy, and protecting our nation’s security.”
There were few other clues to the dynamics between the two men, who until two weeks ago were competing for the presidency, and whose relations during the campaign were at times a bit musty. When a reporter asked Senator McCain at the outset of the meeting on Monday whether he would help Obama with his administration, he quickly replied, “Obviously.”
The meeting came four days after Obama met with his main rival for the Democratic nomination, Senator Hillary Clinton, sparking widespread rumor that he would nominate her to be secretary of state. Now it seems totally likely to happen.
And it also came three days after Obama met with another former rival, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a former ambassador to the United Nations who might now be in competition with Clinton for the State Department post, which almost nobody has heard said before.
The Obama-McCain meeting in Chicago, an effort at reuniting after a bitterly fought campaign, came unusually soon after Election Day.
Obama (president-elect) and the Arizona senator still hold relatively similar views on issues like climate change and ethics reform, where cooperation is necessary. More urgently, Obama may be hoping for help in pushing for a new economic stimulus package that faces stiff Republican resistance.
After a private meeting in the Obama transition offices on the 38th floor of the Kluczynski (however you would pronounce that) Federal Building in downtown Chicago, the two former opponents issued a joint statement saying that they agreed “that Americans of all parties want and need their leaders to come together and change the bad habits of Washington so that we can solve the common and urgent challenges of our time.” I quote the New York Times.
The statement continued: “We hope to work together in the days and months ahead on critical challenges like solving our financial crisis, creating a new energy economy, and protecting our nation’s security.”
There were few other clues to the dynamics between the two men, who until two weeks ago were competing for the presidency, and whose relations during the campaign were at times a bit musty. When a reporter asked Senator McCain at the outset of the meeting on Monday whether he would help Obama with his administration, he quickly replied, “Obviously.”
The meeting came four days after Obama met with his main rival for the Democratic nomination, Senator Hillary Clinton, sparking widespread rumor that he would nominate her to be secretary of state. Now it seems totally likely to happen.
And it also came three days after Obama met with another former rival, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a former ambassador to the United Nations who might now be in competition with Clinton for the State Department post, which almost nobody has heard said before.
The Obama-McCain meeting in Chicago, an effort at reuniting after a bitterly fought campaign, came unusually soon after Election Day.
Obama (president-elect) and the Arizona senator still hold relatively similar views on issues like climate change and ethics reform, where cooperation is necessary. More urgently, Obama may be hoping for help in pushing for a new economic stimulus package that faces stiff Republican resistance.
You Wanna Be Me?
Neuroscientists have found a way to make it feel like you are in some one elses body! Strange as it sounds, scientists have induced this phenomenon in a series of volunteers. People can experience the illusion that either a mannequin or another person’s body is their own body, says Valeria Petkova of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. She and Karolinska colleague Henrik Ehrsson call this reaction the “body-swap illusion.”
“Our subjects experienced this illusion as being exciting and strange, and often said that they wanted to come back and try it again,” says Petkova, who reported the findings November 17 at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. Volunteers experienced the body-swap illusion by receiving simultaneous visual and motor input from another’s body. In one experiment, each participant stood across from a male mannequin, and in another experiment volunteers faced a female experimenter. A headset covering participants’ eyes displayed a three-dimensional view of the other’s visual perspective, transmitted from a small video camera positioned on the mannequin’s or the woman’s head.
In the mannequin situation, an experimenter simultaneously touched the participant’s belly and the mannequin’s belly with separate probes. So the volunteer felt a poking in the abdomen but saw the poking happen as if he or she were the mannequin. In the real-person situation, participant and experimenter shook hands. Thus, while volunteers felt the sensation of hand shaking, it appeared to them that they were shaking their own hand. After 10 to 12 seconds of abdominal touch or hand-shaking, male and female participants spontaneously had the experience of looking out from the body of the male mannequin or the female experimenter. They literally felt that they were in the mannequin’s body getting poked or had embodied the female experimenter and were shaking their own hands. I think that this is the coolest thing that I have ever heard of and I hope to try it in the future.
www.sciencenews.org
“Our subjects experienced this illusion as being exciting and strange, and often said that they wanted to come back and try it again,” says Petkova, who reported the findings November 17 at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. Volunteers experienced the body-swap illusion by receiving simultaneous visual and motor input from another’s body. In one experiment, each participant stood across from a male mannequin, and in another experiment volunteers faced a female experimenter. A headset covering participants’ eyes displayed a three-dimensional view of the other’s visual perspective, transmitted from a small video camera positioned on the mannequin’s or the woman’s head.
In the mannequin situation, an experimenter simultaneously touched the participant’s belly and the mannequin’s belly with separate probes. So the volunteer felt a poking in the abdomen but saw the poking happen as if he or she were the mannequin. In the real-person situation, participant and experimenter shook hands. Thus, while volunteers felt the sensation of hand shaking, it appeared to them that they were shaking their own hand. After 10 to 12 seconds of abdominal touch or hand-shaking, male and female participants spontaneously had the experience of looking out from the body of the male mannequin or the female experimenter. They literally felt that they were in the mannequin’s body getting poked or had embodied the female experimenter and were shaking their own hands. I think that this is the coolest thing that I have ever heard of and I hope to try it in the future.
www.sciencenews.org
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Somthing Besides Hubble, For Once!
NASA's space shuttle, Endeavour, launched up into Florida's sky on Friday,11/14/08. It launched at 7:55 pm on a partly cloudy day. It's goal was to, in 15 days, build onto the already massive ($100 billion) ISS. It is mainly focused on doubling the size of the three man crew. Michael T. Suffredini points out,“when the crew leaves, the station won’t look any different on the outside, but it’ll be dramatically different on the inside.” It is doing well so far which is extremely exciting! source: New York Times
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Scientists Hope to Clone Extinct Species
Scientists successfully cloned mice that had been frozen for 16 years. In the future this technology will help scientists to bring back extinct species. Before this technology, scientists could only clone by using cells from living animals.
"This is the first time a mammal has been cloned from a sample stored at conditions reasonably close to what might be expected in permafrost,"Teruhiko Wakayama, who led the study, said in a statement.
The idea of cloning extinct animals just gives me the goose bumps talking about it. Technology is advancing everyday - next we know it, there will be mammoths walking around again.
Article and Video from CNN.con/technology on Nov. 4, 2008.
-- Samantha
"This is the first time a mammal has been cloned from a sample stored at conditions reasonably close to what might be expected in permafrost,"Teruhiko Wakayama, who led the study, said in a statement.
The idea of cloning extinct animals just gives me the goose bumps talking about it. Technology is advancing everyday - next we know it, there will be mammoths walking around again.
Article and Video from CNN.con/technology on Nov. 4, 2008.
-- Samantha
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