Looking Back In Time

They pointed the Hubble space telescope into a part of the sky that seemed utterly empty. A patch to avoid planets, stars, and galaxies. This area was close to the Big Dipper, a very familiar constellation. And the patch of sky was no bigger than a grain of sand...


This was a somewhat risky move by the scientists. After all, observation time on this telescope is in very high demand, and some questioned whether it should be wasted trying to look at nothing. There was a real risk that the images returned would be as black as the space at which it was being pointed. Nevertheless, they pointed the telescope and slowly hovered the course of ten full days.


Photons that had been traveling for over 13 billion years finally ended their journey on the detector of humanity's most powerful telescope. Their feeble signals collected almost one by one. When the telescope was finally closed, and the images were processed, the light from over three thousand galaxies had covered the detectors, producing one of the most profound and humbling images in all of human history. Every single spot, smear and dot...


...was an entire galaxy. And each one containing hundreds of billions of stars. Later in 2004 they did it again. This time pointing the telescope towards an area near the constellation Orion. They opened the shutter for over 11 days and 400 complete orbits around the Earth. Using detectors with increased sensitivity, and filters that allowed more light through than ever before, over 10 thousand galaxies appeared and what became known as the Ultra Deep Field. An image that represented the farthest we've ever seen into the universe.


The photons from these galaxies left when the universe was only five hundred million years old, and 13 billion years later they end their long journey as a small blip on a telescope CCD. These galaxies, while standing absolutely still, are racing away from us, in some cases, faster than the speed of light.


The space time between us and everything else grows larger by the minute, pushing the galaxies in this image to a distance of over 47 billion light years. And because of universal expansion, the farther something is away from us, the more its light is shifted toward the red and the faster it appears to be moving. Edwin Hubble himself discovered this by measuring the red shift of many galaxies. And it's a measure of not only speed but distance as well.


Recently, Hubble scientists put the icing on a cake; using the measured red shifts of all the galaxies inside the image, they made a 3-D model of Ultra Deep Field. This is how it looks when we apply the distances of the galaxies in the most important image ever taken. There are over one hundred billion galaxies in the universe. Simply saying that number doesn't really mean much to it because it doesn't provide any context. Our brains have no way to accurately put that in any meaningful perspective.


When we look at this image however, and think about the context of how it was made, and really understand what it means, we instantly gain the perspective and cannot help but be forever changed by it. We pointed the most powerful telescope ever built by human beings at absolutely nothing for no other reason than because we were curious and discovered that we occupy a very tiny place in the heavens.


Hat tips: DeepAstronomy.com and Papa B*.

* Who, astoundingly, didn't email us about guns, women or liquor. We surmise his email account may have been compromised by progressives. Or the Chinese. But I repeat myself.

STUDY: Men like me more likely to have right wing political views*

The science is settled.

Men who are strong are more likely to take a right-wing stance, while weaker men support the welfare state, researchers claim.

Their study discovered a link between a man’s upper-body strength and their political views. Scientists from Aarhus University in Denmark collected data on bicep size, socio-economic status and support for economic redistribution from hundreds in America, Argentina and Denmark.

The figures revealed that men with higher upper-body strength were less likely to support left-wing policies on the redistribution of wealth. Men with less upper body strength are more likely to support the welfare state... But men with low upper-body strength were more likely to put their own self-interest aside and support a welfare state.

Researchers also released a series of photos from their study:



*Eh, headline concept "borrowed" from Dan Foster and Ace.

MIND-BOGGLING: A Day in the Life of the Internet - an Infographic

Interesting data from HostGator.


A Day in The Life of The Internet via HostGator
Hat tip: BadBlue Tech News.

CERN celebrates 20th birthday of world's first website

It's safe to say that the web was a tad successful, eh?

The web as we know it was famously invented by Tim Berners-Lee while working at CERN, but it wasn't until a few years later -- 1993 to be precise -- that it'd truly be set free. On April 30 of that year, Berners-Lee's then employer would make the technology behind the WWW available license free, bundling a basic browser and some key chunks of code into the deal.


To commemorate the 20th anniversary of this event CERN has recreated the first ever website, complete with its original URL [Ed: http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html]. The preservation doesn't stop at copying over some old files, either, with CERN also looking to preserve the first servers used, restoring as much as possible to its original state. Beyond a little geeky nostalgia, the project hopes to safeguard the web's earliest days, before it became the ubiquitous phenomenon it is now, so that future generations can enjoy (and scoff) at the web's origins. Best of all, no drawn-out field trip is required to enjoy the spectacle, you can see it just as nature intended by heading to the source.

Even more amazing: the first website didn't involve cats or porn.


Hat tip: BadBlue Tech News.

Anonymous leaks sensitive data from Israeli defense firm Decell

BadBlue Tech, the automated tech news portal, points us to a file of sensitive data leaked a few hours ago by Anonymous (PDF):

1. #Anonymous #OpIsrael
2.
3. Greetings Citizens of the world,
4.
5. This is Anonymous.
6.
7. Decell Inc. is (apparently) a privately held company founded in
2000, fully owned by Israel ministry of defense.
8. Decell Technologies Ltd.,” Decell “ leverages its unique
technology to provide accurate, real-time traffic information to
public services, private traffic management companies and not
surprisingly Israeli intelligence services (MOSSAD & Shin Bet).
9. Using sophisticated analysis of different raw data sources such as
CFCD (Celluar Floating Car Data) and GPS (Global Positioning
System) Decell provides GIS (Geographic Information System)
services to both MOSSAD and Shin Bet.
10. Colonel Abraham (Avi) Peri acts as current CEO of Decell, He
served as CEO for number of high-tech companies, and earlier, as a
Colonel in the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces). He was in charge of
all computer centers and software development activities in the
IDF! (He is just too sexy!)
11.
12. Source:
(http://www.decell.com/About_Us/Board_of_Directors/board.html)
13.
14. Now after all of this impressive introduction it is our
pleasure to announce that we have managed to hack Decell servers,
acquiring some highly sensitive information, including exact GPS
coordinates of every City, Highway, Streets and of course every
sensitive buildings located within Israel boarders!
15.
16. We are asking every Zionist around the world to pay careful
attention to the following statement:
17.
18. You have a CHOICE to make, either
19.
20. STOP MURDERING CIVILIANS, WOMEN AND CHILDREN,
21. STOP MASS-KILLING PALESTINIANS,
22. STOP STEALING PALESTINIANS LAND,
23.
24. Or ELSE
25.
26. WE WILL PUBLISH MORE OF WHAT WE HAVE GOT, INCLUDING
COORDINATES OF SPECIAL BUILDINGS!
27. THEN HAMAS MISSILES WOULDN'T LAND IN DESERT OR OCEAN THIS
TIME..........
28.
29. Here are some sample of what we have access to:
30.
31. Decell customers usernames and passwords...

Of course, a quick review of the full, illustrated history of Israel would clear up any misconceptions about the Middle East. Namely, which side advances civilization and which promotes barbarism.

Epic fail by analytics company Sitemeter: forgets to renew domain name

Tens of thousands of websites rely upon Sitemeter to provide tracking capabilities: to find out who's been linking to their sites, to count the number of visitors, and so forth. Well, it would appear that the folks who run the service forgot the first rule of Internets:

Dude, sitemeter forgot to renew their domain. It expired yesterday. Wonder if they'll be back! Now cheesy spam page loads #FAIL

— rachel clarke (@fiktshun) April 4, 2013

Nice home page!


Sure enough:

Ironically Juxtaposed Headlines o' the Day

Hat tip: me.

ING Fights Euro-Zone Woes With Data

April 3, 2013, 7:44 AM ET
Dutch banking giant ING hopes to right its own ship in the middle of this storm by using data to improve not only its understanding of who its customers are, but how they want to be treated. It is using traditional and next-generation data analytics to improve its execution of even the simplest transactions, such as sending out new bank cards, or contacting customers who have forgotten to take their cash out of the ATM using their preferred mode of communication.

“If we need to work on consumer trust, then we need to know what influences trust,” ING’s CIO, Ron van Kemenade, tells CIO Journal...

###

Dutch bank ING's online customers find wrong balance in accounts

April 03, 2013 / Reuters
Dutch bank ING was inundated with complaints from retail and business customers in the Netherlands on Wednesday because their online accounts showed incorrect balances.

ING said that it had a problem with processing payments on Tuesday night and that balances online appeared incorrect even though the actual balances in the accounts were not affected. It said the problem was not caused by computer hacking.

Angry customers complained by phone, on social media and in person at bank branches. ING said that it did not know how many customers had been affected.

Reports: ING Bank Accounts Suffering From Catastrophic Errors

Twitter was ablaze earlier today with reports that global super-bank ING was suffering from catastrophic accounting errors, with some Dutch accounts incorrectly showing negative balances and others registering millions of Euros.


Several of the comments (translated by Google):

• "Problem solved. Before you look through - €1.3M"

• "Say # ING, where the f * ck is my money now gone?"

• "Balance for the third time changed today # ING"

• "Thanks ING from € 500, - to € 2,317,650 in the bank. - on the couch! Hope it also remains after jam! # ing # error "


Unconfirmed reports claim that the errors -- along with banking problems at the Netherlands' Rabobank -- are the result of a cyber-attack:

From top level sources I can confirm to you what you are seeing is an emerging pattern of various beta-tests using Stuxnet like algorithms to affect the banking networks the world over.

Although unsubstantiated, the reports have some level of credibility as the global banking system has been under a concerted series of attacks for the last several weeks.

The Sublime Genius of Dr. Paul R. Krugman

Oh, my.


Krugman's resume -- including his work with Enron, Fannie Mae, subprime mortgages, the Fed's preternaturally low interest rates, and his Cypriot-style deficit lunacy -- is one only fellow Democrat hack Jamie Gorelick could envy.


Hat tip: Amalaur.

Ridding your Chrome browser of Flash

I've been running Chrome for a couple of weeks without Flash and the differences are exhilarating.

• Fewer "disappearing pages"

• Fewer "sick" pages

• Zero "Flash not responding" pages

• Fewer reboots due to memory leaks

Best of all, most video sites no longer require Flash to deliver video streams (using HTML 5, I suppose).

Ready to take the plunge? It's simple. In your Chrome address bar, type about:plugins. You'll see something like this:


Find the Adobe Flash Player section and click any of the Disable links you see. If you have a master Disable link (see arrow), just click that one. Now close your browser and restart it.

My guess is you'll soon be enjoying your surfing experience a great deal more. And, as an added bonus, your security posture will be vastly improved.

Stuxnet, the first known cyber-weapon, found to have been introduced into Iran years earlier than originally thought

Symantec recently released a fascinating report on an early version of Stuxnet that it dubs version 0.5. It too appears to have been specifically developed to sabotage Iranian nuclear facilities by targeting the centrifuges hat perform uranium enrichment.

• Stuxnet 0.5 is the oldest known Stuxnet version to be analyzed, in the wild as early as November 2007 and in development as early as November 2005.
• Stuxnet 0.5 was less aggressive than Stuxnet versions 1.x and only spread through infected [Siemens Programmable Logic Controller (PLC)] Step 7 projects [which control centrifuges].
• Stuxnet 0.5 contains an alternative attack strategy, closing valves within the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, Iran, which would have caused serious damage to the centrifuges and uranium enrichment system as a whole.


The success of Stuxnet 0.5 remains unknown. However, the chart in figure 4 references uranium enrichment production at Natanz to key milestones of Stuxnet development. Interesting events are dips in feed or production amounts and lower levels of production given the same or greater feed amounts (shown as gaps between the two lines).

...When Symantec first disclosed details about how Stuxnet affected the programmable logic controllers (PLCs) used for uranium enrichment in Natanz, Iran, we documented two attack strategies. We also noted that the one targeting 417 PLC devices was disabled. We have now obtained an earlier version of Stuxnet that contains the fully operational 417 PLC device attack code.

After painstaking analysis, we can now confirm that the 417 PLC device attack code modifies the state of the valves used to feed UF6 (uranium hexafluoride gas) into the uranium enrichment centrifuges. The attack essentially closes the valves causing disruption to the flow and possibly destruction of the centrifuges and related systems. In addition, the code will take snapshots of the normal running state of the system, and then replay normal operating values during an attack so that the operators are unaware that the system is not operating normally. It will also prevent modification to the valve states in case the operator tries to change any settings during the course of an attack cycle.


...This version of Stuxnet extensively fingerprints the target system to determine whether it is in the right location before it will activate the payload. To make this determination, Stuxnet checks if the infected system is running Step 7 software and parses the symbol table of the target system. The symbol table holds identification labels for each physical device in the target system. For example, each valve, pump, and sensor will have a unique identifier. The symbol labels loosely follow the ANSI/ISA-5.1 Instrumentation Symbols and Identification standard, which is used in piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&ID)...

...During fingerprinting, Stuxnet keeps a counter for each device that matches the expected configuration. Once the counter surpasses a particular threshold, Stuxnet considers the system that is being fingerprinted to match the target system configuration and will inject the attack PLC code...

...Similar to version 1.x of Stuxnet, the 417 PLC device attack code consists of a state machine with eight possible states. The states conduct an attack by closing valves within six of the possible 18 cascades...

• State 0 – Wait: Perform system identification and wait for the enrichment process to reach steady-state before attacking (approximately 30 days).
• State 1 – Record: Take peripheral snapshots and build fake input blocks for replaying later.
• State 2 – Attack centrifuge valves: Begin replaying fake input signals. Close valves on most centrifuges with the exception of the initial feed stage valves.
• State 3 – Secondary pressure reading: Open valves in the final stage of a single cascade to obtain a low pressure reading.
• State 4 – Wait for pressure change: Wait for desired pressure change or time limit. This can take up to two hours.
• State 5 – Attack auxiliary valves: Open all auxiliary valves except valves believed to be near the first feed stage (stage 10). Waits for three minutes in this state.
• State 6 – Wait for attack completion: Waits for six minutes whilst preventing any state changes.
• State 7 – Finish: Reset and return to state zero.

By closing almost all valves except the initial feed stage valves, UF6 will continue to flow into the system. This act alone may cause damage to the centrifuges themselves. However, the attack expects the pressure to reach five times the normal operating pressure. At this pressure, significant damage to the uranium enrichment system could occur and the UF6 gas could even revert to a solid.

Whether the attack succeeded in this manner or not remains unclear. Even if the attack did succeed, the attackers decided to switch to a different strategy, of attacking the speed of the centrifuges themselves instead, in Stuxnet 1.x versions.

One can only hope that Stuxnet badly wounded the Iranian nuclear effort.


Related:

• Stuxnet In Pictures: The Cyber-Weapon Said to Target Iran's Nuclear Infrastructure

• All the President's Leaks

• The 5 Most Amazing Details of the Stuxnet Cyberbomb

DUDE: Astrobiologists may have confirmed extraterrestrial life

This news appears, eh, somewhat important:

Researchers in the United Kingdom have found algae-like fossils in meteorite fragments that landed in Sri Lanka last year. This is the strongest evidence yet of cometary panspermia — that life on Earth began when a meteorite containing simple organisms landed here, billions of years ago — and, perhaps more importantly, that there’s life elsewhere in the universe.

In December 2012, a fireball was seen over the skies of Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka. Over the following few days, fragments of the fireball were collected and sent to Sri Lanka’s Medical Research Institute, where initial microscopic analysis revealed siliceous microalgae known as diatoms. As you can imagine, with this being the first ever evidence that life might’ve arrived on Earth via a meteorite, the scientific community was skeptical of the results — and so some fragments were sent to Cardiff University in Wales for further analysis. The researchers at Cardiff are now reporting that they’re sure that these fragments come from an extraterrestrial meteorite — and that there are definitely “fossilized biological structures” within them. Panspermia, it seems, is a go.


There are a few competing theories for how life began on Earth. Panspermia, where life arrived on the back of a comet or asteroid, is one. Abiogenesis, the theory that life spontaneously erupted from inorganic molecules in Earth’s primordial soup, is another. Directed panspermia, where an alien race intentionally sent an asteroid or spacecraft loaded with living organisms to Earth, is another slightly more exotic theory. As for which theory is correct, we’ll probably never know — but the Polonnaruwa meteorite definitely puts the odds in panspermia’s favor...


These findings aren’t a slam dunk, though. According to our in-house biologist John Hewitt, there’s a strong possibility that the fossils aren’t actually biological in nature — they simply look biological. “This is kind of like finding a Q from Scrabble floating in space; it may be worth 10 points, but finding a few Es first would be a bit more convincing,” Hewitt says. There’s also the fact that the research was published in the Journal of Cosmology, a peer-reviewed journal that has come under critical scrutiny numerous times since it was established in 2009. The journal faced a lot of controversy when it published a paper by NASA engineer Richard Hoover claiming to have found fossils “similar to cyanobacteria” in meteorites...


...One thing’s for certain, though: For this to actually become science — for Chandra Wickramasinghe’s dream of panspermia to become a reality — this work will need to be replicated by many other groups around the world. It would be very, very exciting indeed if biological fossils have been found on an extraterrestrial meteorite. It would be proof that there’s life on other planets — and essentially a guarantee that the universe is full of life. But, as always, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Indeed. There are plenty of physicists expressing skepticism, so it may be a tad premature to abandon literal interpretations of religious texts.

MEET THE NEW SUPER TOILETS: I never knew toilets could be so cool

We've come a long way from the outhouse, eh?

Fancy electric high-tech toilets, which the Japanese call super toilets, can be found in more than 72 percent of Japanese households. At minimum they include a bidet feature and often a seat warmer.

High-tech features vary, but most of the toilets use electricity to provide warming, automation and bidet functions.

The Kohler Numi’s squarish, angled shape, subtle buttons and strange automatic lid make it look like it's anything but a toilet.

It has a motion-activated lid that automatically opens when anyone stands in front of it and what Kohler calls “advanced bidet functionality,” which is an integrated air dryer.

The appliance, however, goes beyond the normal functions of a toilet and adds atmosphere. It has a heated seat and even a subtle air vent that warms the floor in front of the fixture.

It even has an atmosphere light and a music player. A touch-panel remote, which attaches to the toilet with a magnetic docking station, lets you customize all the settings.

The leading super toilet maker in Japan is a company called Toto. And if you’ve ever visited a nice hotel in Japan with a Toto toilet, you know you’re not in Kansas anymore.

Toto’s most advanced toilets are sold only in Japan, with controls labeled only in Japanese. The most advanced Toto toilet you can buy in the United States is the Washlet S300.

It has a heated seat, a remote-controlled bidet feature with air drying and the option of an oscillating bidet stream of water.

Roca W+W, which stands for "washbasin plus water closet," uses advanced technology to help the environment.

The water appliance saves, filters and chemically treats the sink water you use to wash your hands and brush your teeth, then reuses that water for flushing the toilet.

The net effect is that you use the same amount of water in the sink but zero extra water for the toilet.

To be fair, you don't often think of the words toilet and innovation together.

How Search Works: Fighting Spam

Google has introduced a new portal that attempts to clarify how their monumentally successful search engine actually works under the covers. One of the more interesting aspects of their presentation relates to the search engine's "War on Spam" -- bogus content of little or no value that is intended to deceive the search engine to generate traffic (and ad revenue).


It would appear that one of the more recent "innovations" in spam is hacking reputable sites for the purpose of influencing search-engine optimization (SEO) scores. Along with "Watering Hole Attacks," the trend of exploiting legitimate sites to effect malicious ends is certainly an ominous development.

Curiosity Takes a Panoramic Self-Portrait

Very cool.

This remarkable self-portrait of NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover includes a sweeping panoramic view of its current location in the Yellowknife Bay region of the Red Planet's Gale Crater. The rover's flat, rocky perch, known as "John Klein", served as the site for Curiosity's first rock drilling activity. At the foot of the proud looking rover, a shallow drill test hole and a sample collection hole are 1.6 centimeters in diameter. The impressive mosaic was constructed using frames from the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) and Mastcam. Used to take in the panoramic landscape frames, the Mastcam is standing high above the rover's deck. But MAHLI, intended for close-up work, is mounted at the end of the rover's robotic arm. The MAHLI frames used to create Curiosity's self-portrait exclude sections that show the arm itself and so MAHLI and the robotic arm are not seen...

There's also an interactive version of this panoramic series.

Stunning new electronic eyewear -- Google Glass -- nears its debut #IfIHadGlass

Google's electronic eyewear -- dubbed "Google Glass" -- is nearing a milestone beta release for developers (or is it alpha, I always forget).

Google ... announced a promotion in which people who share interesting ideas about what to do with the device get the chance to become a "Glass Explorer," who can then pre-order a $1,500 prototype. The application deadline is February 27.

I offered up several ideas including one with a simulated picture:

#ifihadglass I would automatically recognize QR codes and project previews of web pages in their stead (now w/pic: 4.bp.blogspot.com/-4Tx-3lcdVOA/U… )

— Doug Ross (@directorblue) February 20, 2013

In other words, Glass would offer up semi-transparent views of the pages/content represented by QR codes in magazines, on posters, etc. -- helping to bridge the physical to the virtual world. If you like the idea or some of my other ones, please consider retweeting!

Search engine spins audience reaction to boost Obama's farcical State of the Union speech

Bias? What bias?

Sometimes in school exams are graded on a curve so that students who should've failed don't.

Well, Bing graded Obama on a HUGE curve. Below is the partisan breakdown, but they did it on gender, and probably everything.

See the original raw data chart here, and the full infographic from Bing here.

Worse news? It may not just be Microsoft's Bing search engine.

RedState has labeled Google "The Democrats' Private Intelligence Agency".

But I'm not ready to buy into that assertion. If Google ever got caught using personal data to deliver proprietary election data to Democrats, it would raise a hellstorm of biblical proportions. And Google just seems too smart to engage in that sort of skulduggery.

The Top 10 Innovations of All Time?

Innovation Excellence's Braden Kelley ranks his top 10 innovations of all time and I don't disagree with either his rankings or the rationale behind them.

Accelerating Innovation Requires Accelerating Knowledge and Insight

...It is my contention that the pace of innovation accelerates when the speed of knowledge sharing accelerates, that knowledge acceleration leads to innovation acceleration. As we have developed more efficient ways of accelerating the pace of knowledge sharing, our pace of innovation has sped up.

It is shocking to think that if you go back only two hundred years as a species we had no idea how disease was transmitted, couldn’t send a message from one side of an ocean to another without using a ship, and that most human beings on this planet would not travel farther than 50 miles from the place of their birth during their lifetime.

Now we can travel to outer space, levitate objects using sound or magnetism, create life, destroy whole cities in an instant, build things smaller than the width of a human hair, and do some other things that even twenty years ago would have seemed impossible...

...We are inventing and innovating today at an astonishing rate, and for companies or nations that want to outpace their competition, they should be laser-focused on accelerating the pace of knowledge sharing if they are intent on being faster and more efficient than their competition at innovation... It is because of these important linkages that I believe the below ten items are the Top 10 Innovations of All Time:

1. Paper (105AD – Europe 10th century – Germany 1400)
2. Printing Press (1450)
3. Telegraph (1837)
4. Telephone (1876)
5. Modern Public Library (1850-1945 depending on country)
6. Commercial Radio (1920)
7. Commercial Television (1936 UK, 1948 US)
8. World Wide Web (1991)
9. Wikipedia (2001)
10. YouTube (2005)

Kelley includes some cautionary notes about over-reliance on technology. But the theme is clear.

"Information diffusion" -- transforming the methods by which ideas are disseminated and thereby accelerating human collaboration -- is the meta-innovation that facilitates nearly all other useful inventions.


Hat tip: BadBlue Tech News.

And the winner of the Superbowl was... Twitter!

Data assembled by the Altimeter Group indicates that Twitter was the dominant branding mechanism during the Superbowl, blasting Facebook in terms of volume.

Overall, we saw brands still hold onto corporate websites, although a big jump in hashtag usage, and decline in Facebook integration...

75% of Brands integrate second screen experience, up 7%. Overall, 75% of brand ads integrated social, mobile, hashtags, or apps in their $4m, 30 second spot (that’s $133k per second), this is up from 68% integration in 2012. This second screen promotion extends engagement to their websites and social sites, fostering a further integrated experience. Of note, Oreo was able to quickly create ads on social channels that tapped into the unexpected blackout, showing their advertising and marketing prowess, cross-screen. Expect this growth rate to only continue in 2014, as ads should cross the 80-90% integration rate.

Hashtags, presumably aimed for Twitter, dominate over Facebook. Hashtag integration in ads dominated the airtime, with 38% of ads including Hashtags in visual display on ads, up 31% out of a total of 64 ads. Twitter, a media-centric, network serves better for real time interactions of live events, rather than Facebook, which may spur deeper engagement through interactive media, social interactions, and applications...

And if you're not following me on Twitter, you're missing out on a veritable avalanche of borderline useful information.


Hat tip: BadBlue Tech News.

DAZZLING: Composite Hurricane Map: 1851 to 2010

Spotted at Australia's Courier-Mail, stunning graphics created by information architect John Nelson map every tropical typhoon, cyclone and hurricane since 1851:

The storm map offers an unusual perspective of the Earth from below, centered on Antarctica, with the rest of the planet unfurling around the southern continent like flower petals.

While the Caribbean is the clear global hot spot for tropical storm activity, the major southern hemisphere active zone is across Australia's north, with cyclones forming everywhere between Mozambique and Tahiti...

...Mapmaker John Nelson, mapping manager for data visualization company IDV Solutions, told Our Amazing Planet why the map's oddball point of view was the best way to tell the story of the data.

"When I put it onto a rectangular map it was neat looking, but a little bit disappointing," he said.

The unusual perspective beautiful showcases the curving paths the storms make across the world's oceans...

It reveals that tropical storms abhor the Equator, and can never cross it.

Nelson's map employs US government data on tropical storms and hurricanes from 1851 through 2010.

Interestingly, the "proportionality of storm severity looks to be getting more consistent year to year with the benefit of more data." In other words, warmal colding appears to have no effect on storms, just as it has no impact on temperatures.