Erick

//"This is my page."// - Erick

I'm about to read some articles in the the magazine called //Wired.// It has an interesting article about the fuel of the future called thorium. It is called __The New Nuke__ by Richard Martin. It basically explains the problems with nuclear reactors that use Uranium and that Thorium is more efficient. I chose the article because I'm mostly interested on how the future will plan out and how will it affect me. I concluded that in the near future, many plants will have switched over to thorium (lustrous silvery-white metal named after the Norse thunder god) energy. India and China are currently doing research about this source to help create more electricity. This source of energy is better because it is more environment friendly. A normal uranium plant produces wastes that takes thousands of years to decompose while thorium plants produces wastes that takes hundreds of years to decompose. The plant also takes up less space than a regular plant. So in my conclusion, I think that thorium is the energy of the future. []
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Another article I read was about stop-motion animators using the iPad to paint with light. It sounds crazy at first but it's actually interesting. I did a little research and sort of figured out how they do it. They create a 3-D model using a software program. They scan the model and replay the stills using the iPad. The camera takes pictures of the stills as a person drags the iPad across and it forms the model. I recommend anyone who has an iPad and is interested in photography to try this. [] []
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[|A New Planet, a New Dimension, and a Final Goodbye] and [|A Habitable Exoplanet — for Real This Time] It is said by many people that there are other planets out there that can support life. I am one of those believers. Gliese 581g is the new planet said to be hospitable. It has most of the requirements to support life: it is the perfect distance from the sun and has water. Isn't that how we started out, I started thinking. With a water environment and a good distance from the sun, it won't be surprising to see life spring up on this new planet.
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[|What’s your body trying to tell you?] Wow, I never thought of this. I just say, "Ah, it's just one of those little sounds that happen when twist or turn." (It can mean I have arthritis.) This article gives me ideas on how my body works and I looked up on how aging works.(I'm still not done reading it.) It seems pretty cool how your body works. It releases gases in your joints and has bacteria you haven't heard of before.
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__Why can't we live forever?__ by Thomas Kirkwood in the //Scientific American// magazine It basically explains why we can't we live forever. For a time when I was younger, I thought that science will make me immortal. I started to think that that wasn't in my lifetime and I just gave up on science. And science, just gave me more bad news: we can't live forever. It seems our bodies spends more time trying to pass on our DNA than to remain healthy. So as we get older, our body neglects our situation and (males only) still can pass on our genetic code. Well, I have one thing to say to our bodies, "Damn."
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[|Finding history: Web, vets help unearth war wrecks] A WWII plane dubbed C-47B Dakota was found near Malaysia on a mountain. The plane's purpose was to deliver supplies to american troops. The real problem with this crash is that it is a recent discover so there is no news on how it happened. In my opinion, it was probably a storm that may have caused it to collapse. Back in the day, many planes weren't "weather proof".
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[|Internet Explorer usage falls below 50%] I remember back in the day where Microsoft dominated everything. When I first saw a computer, which was a Microsoft computer, I clicked on the Internet Explorer icon and it took me to a whole different world. Now a days, there are others that are doing the same: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple's Safari. In order to counter attack the other companies, Microsoft decided to start on Internet Explorer 9 with a bunch more features that are still in testing. (I'm not sure what.) I'm rooting for Microsoft and hopefully they will pull through.
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[|New Facebook Feature Lets Users Interact in Small Groups] Man, Facebook has grown a lot. It started with some hacking and now it's the basis of our social life. I don't think I would even know who was who without Facebook. (It's sad, but true.) Now they came up with a new feature which is called "Group". What you do is choose what certain people can see or not see on your profile. Facebook wants to increase privacy so they developed this system. They wanted more people to upload their pictures and videos. If you ask me, this is just a smart way to hide info but it ruins the fun in Facebook. Facebook is supposed so be a "sharing" network in which you share what you're doing and what you did. This ruins it for me.
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[|Microsoft sues Motorola over Android phones] Apparently Microsoft wants to get richer so it picks on the little guy. They are suing Motorola because they think that Motorola was using some of the patented features that Microsoft created. Some of the Motorola devices involved were Motorola Droid 2 and Motorola Charm. Some of the feature supposedly taken by Motorola are notifying applications and changes in signal strength. I have to go with Motorola on this fight. I think they are being sued for some basic features that many phones have that may look similar.
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[|Aiming to Learn as We Do, a Machine Teaches Itself] This is yet another example of how we are going to far in our technology. I wouldn't be surprised if they come to take us over in the future. Basically, a team of researches are creating this machine to do what we do and "achieve" human intelligence. The program it uses is called NELL which scans hundreds of millions of webpages for info and gathers it as facts. This is basically how we learn. Instead of programing a computer to a certain thing, you can tell it to learn from other sources. This is how we learn also; we learn from third parties.
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