Higher efficiency organic solar cell created: Plastic harvests sun energy

Using plastics to harvest the energy of the sun just got a significant boost in efficiency thanks to a discovery made at the Center for Polymers and Organic Solids at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Read about it.

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$27M Creationist museum opens

(Click the Read More link below for the news article)

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From the Yahoo! article: “While the $27 million museum near Cincinnati has drawn snickers from media and condemnation from U.S. scientists, those who believe God created the heavens and the Earth in six days about 6,000 years ago say their views are finally being represented.”

Quote from a Digg.com reader: “I’m don’t mind teaching creationism in schools, so long as it’s not only Christian creationism. Why stop at Adam and Eve? Why not include the “5 Ages of Man” from the Greeks, along with the other stories for we how got here: from the Egyptians, Hindus, Romans, Zoroastrians, Aztecs, Inca, Australian Aborigines, etc?”

My thoughts: I found this to be a really top notch solution. How could one argue with equal time for all religions? Well, one might argue with it if they thought it would cast their own faith in a bad light. Come on Christians, get your act together! If you believe God is the creator, then simply accept the overwhelming scientific theory as the “how” of God’s creation and take another good look at the book of Genesis. If you read it as a parable (you know, like Jesus used a LOT to help people understand things?) it makes perfect sense.

I hate to give more publicity to this shrine of ignorance, but here’s a link to a pictorial walk through of the place. http://studentweb.eku.edu/zachary_lynn/museum/index.html

I know it takes a lot of effort to think for yourself, it’s so much easier to be spoon fed your morality and science, but I’m reaching out to those of you who might think this “museum” is is something that should be patronized. Please, just for a single moment, try to think for yourself. And hey, if I’m completely wrong, God will forgive you for listening to me. You can’t lose!

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Beautiful photos from National Geographic a Best Of for 2006

Be sure and download the Powerpoint using the link on the right. Slide show set to the John Lennon song “Imagine”. Worth a look!

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Gates Foundation to Give D.C. Students Push to College

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will announce today a $122 million investment to create a new crop of high school and college scholars among some of the city’s poorest and lowest-achieving students. It is the foundation’s largest investment to date in D.C. education and one of the largest grants it has made for education.

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Movie companies suck…

EFF article says it best.  Check here:

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005028.php

Intact Soft Tissue Recovered From Tyrannosaurus Rex Fossil

When scientists found a massive Tyrannosaurus Rex thigh bone in a remote region of Montana a few months ago, they were forced to break the bone in two in order to fit it into the transport helicopter. This act of necessity revealed a startling surprise: soft tissue that had seemingly resisted fossilization still existed inside the bone.

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Doing business on the Web

Since I don't really do any digital shirt printing anymore and I don't even have my equipment set up for it, I recently had to look for a service to make some shirts for my Mom to take to a dog show.

I settled on a company called Get In Print and filled out an order for 100 shirts (about $850 with quantity discount) and submitted my CC info. Then I emailed the image as instructed and waited for confirmation. They confirmed the order via email and then sent out a link to a page with a "sample" on it. The sample was simply a thumbnail of the digital image I had submitted, so I decided to email them a question. Here's the email I sent:

Will we be able to see a digital image of an actual product? What you sent me appears to be a thumbnail of the digital image that I sent via email, and it is, of course, correct.

I am familiar enough with digital print to textile processes to know that sometimes saturation and/or gamma need to be adjusted to achieve a reasonably accurate image on the final product. I'd feel better if I got at least one shot at "tweaking" the image before the full production run.

If you already planned to do this, please accept my apologies for thinking the worst, and accept my thanks for your efforts with this order. If this is not already part of your process, please consider implementing it, perhaps on a "by request" basis.

Thanks for your time,

Nice enough request, or so I thought until I got this venom filled and mocking reply.

Your order cannot be accepted. It appears from your comments that this order may or may not be processed. The web site clearly shows that you can order one sample shirt. It is not realistic to think that we will send one shirt allow for "tweaking" and still make your deadline. Your comments "I am familiar enough with digital print to textile processes to know that sometimes saturation and/or gamma need to be adjusted to achieve a reasonably accurate image on the final product. I'd feel better if I got at least one shot at "tweaking" the image before the full production run."

Perhaps it would be better if you printed the shirts since you are "familiar enough" with the printing process.

We would have to do research on you to determine if there is a competitive agenda in play rather than an order. Your deadline does not allow time for this.

We are familiar enough with this business to know that we have will not print this order under any circumstances as is.

This pretty much floored me, so much so that I had to go back and read my original post to try to see what I had said that evoked such a negative response. Obviously part of it is a miscommunication, since they seemed to think I was asking them to send a sample shirt. I didn't expect that at all and was aware from the start that I could order a single shirt from them. There really isn't time for this, and I understand that. What I did not understand was what they meant by a "sample" as they refered to it on the website. I called their info number and the person I spoke to did not know how a sample was done either. So I assumed they did what I have done in the past when I wanted someone to see something on the internet, which is to say, take a digital picture of it and email or post it somewhere. (like we all do on eBay)

One of the most interesting statements was about investigating me to see if there was a competitive agenda in play. I'm not sure how ordering and paying up front for $850 dollars in merchandise could be part of a competitive agenda. If I ran a business, I'd dream of competitors like this!

I have never been really shy about purchasing things on the internet. I try to be fairly cautious, and haven't had too many bad experiences. I've always had the impression that the buyer was taking a fair bit more of a chance than the seller, but the folks at Get In Print seem to feel that it's the other way around. I don't know how much business they do on a regular basis, but it's pretty apparent to me that they don't need mine.

Scientists hail discovery of hundreds of new species in remote New Guinea

** Now with Photos! ** Click here for article with photos

An astonishing mist-shrouded “lost world” of previously unknown and rare animals and plants high in the mountain rainforests of New Guinea has been uncovered by an international team of scientists.

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Hitachi claims world’s smallest microchip

Japan’s Hitachi says it has developed the world’s smallest and thinnest microchip, that can be embedded in paper to track down parcels or prove the authenticity of a document.

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The Wisdom of Parasites

Ampulex compressa, a species of wasp, is able to modify the neural networks of cockroaches, turning them into “zombies”.
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