Y. Karp? Why Not!

In a conversation with the Mars Curiosity team at NASA, US President Barack Obama asked them to call him if they find aliens . Later on he said: It’s really what makes us best as a species – the curiosity we have, yearning to discover, the pushing boundaries of knowledge. But these sentiments don't jive with his proposed 2013 budget, which includes drastic cuts to NASA funding . In his opinion, government-funded space research and exploration (even with its valuable tie-ins with military advancement) should not be the government's concern. Despite the obvious advantages to the economy and defense, space is just not a priority. But Obama has badly misread the landscape. The world is abuzz with space news: the Curiosity mission to Mars (Aug 2012) the death of Neil Armstrong (Aug 2012) the international space station (Sep 2012) the retirement of the Space Shuttle Endeavor (Sep 2012) amazing images beamed back from Voyager 1 from the edge of interstellar space (S...

Zynga reported a $22.8m loss . Its shares plummeting, analysts are forecasting an uncertain future for the maker of the hugely popular game, Farmville, and six other top games on Facebook. Whoa! Unsatisfactory revenues for the developer of popular games? Yes, because the number of users of largely free games doesn't reflect earnings. Zynga makes its money by selling virtul goods, like tractors for Farmville. Selling virtual goods for a web-based game is a relatively new business model. No inventory to warehouse, no deliveries to make, and no storefront to pay for. Selling virtual bits and bytes (things that don't exist but that people pay for) sounds great, but is the experiment failing? I am tempted to argue that paying real money for a virtual tractor in a game that I don't personally own, is a waste. But consider this - we have been trading in virtual goods for quite a while. Some examples: Virtual money (credits) for online stores - eventually you can exchange ...

Leonardo da Vinci was obsessed with manned flight. He never successfully built a flying machine, although he did design a helicopter-like machine that would have worked, had he built it, and he was reported to have successfully tested the first parachute. But a working flying machine eluded him because he was fixated on flapping wings. Had he thought of fixed-wing aircraft, nobody would ever have heard of the Wright brothers. But you can't blame Leonardo. It is only natural that we look to our environment for clues. The practice of nature-inspired inventions is called biomimicry. Examples of biomimicry abound. Velcro, for example, is an invention inspired by plant burrs. The design of turbine blades is based on the shape of the flippers of humpback whales. Gecko Tape was invented by Manchester University scientists who observed how geckoes are able to climb along ceilings leaving little to no residue. Biomimicry is a brilliant starting point for inventions. It is a sort of challe...

The other day I was traveling to work and the conversation on the bus was more animated than usual, which means that there was conversation on the bus. One of my colleagues joked that although he is 40, he has a mental age of 17. In other words, he still thinks he's Superboy when he's actually more like the father from the Wonder Years. This got me thinking about what my mental age is. I also sometimes feel like I'm still a teenager. In fact, I cracked a joke the other day and my daughter's friend remarked that my jokes are just as good as Eitan's. Who'se Eitan? Her nearly-thirteen-year-old brother. The phrase "act your age, not your shoe size" would not really apply in this situation because using the  Australian shoe size chart , my joke was almost spot on, give or take 2.5 years. There are a number of ways I can measure my mental age: Self assessment Friend Psychologist I decided that none of these options would be accurate enough. For st...

I'm from the future. The problem is, I can't prove it. That's the most frustrating part. If I was going to travel through time, it would be handy to have at my disposal a ready way to prove to you that I am from the future. But I don't. I'm only from two weeks in the future, so the technology is pretty much the same as today. There's no point in pulling out my new iPhone, e-book reader or some such other device because you could easily say that all I have is a prototype of a soon-to-be released version of the product. Besides, I didn't bring any of them back with me. I suppose I could give you tomorrow's winning lottery numbers if only I had taken note of them. Sorry. I didn't mean to travel back in time, but here I am. I'm stuck in your timeline now and have to make the best of it. Truth be told, if I was going to purposely time travel, I don't think I would travel two weeks into the past. That's pretty boring. Perhaps I'd go back to...

I just want to know when I am entitled to have a mid-life crisis. Is it possible to actually calculate how long I am going to live and then time my crises to occur exactly at middle age? According to Wikipedia : Middle age is the period of life beyond young adulthood but before the onset of old age. Various attempts have been made to define this age, which is around the third quarter of the average life span of human beings. So I looked up the average life-expectancy of males and found that in Israel, that age is 76.46, at least according to the CIA World Factbook Estimates, 2008, as quoted in Wikipedia . So that schedules my mid-life crisis at between 38-57 years old. I don't know if I can wait that long. I'm quite stressed out now and only 35. Actually, it's worse than that. Since I am from Australia, where the average life expectancy of males is supposed to be 77.8 years, I shouldn't have my mid-life crisis until I'm between 39-58 years old. So this begs the ques...

Where did you go for your last vacation? Disneyland? Hawaii? Europe? Colin went to Mongolia. He wrote about it in his most fascinating blog, creatively titled " Colin's Mongolian Adventure ". Let's not knock Colin. He went to a different destination - to a place where he could see something new and exciting, to challenge himself and come back with engaging stories and lasting memories. I hope Colin doesn't mind if I reproduce a small section of his blog: To summarize, everything in Mongolia can accurately be explained by merely adding the words "Crazy Mongolian" at the beginning of the name. (E.g. Crazy Mongolian bus drivers; Crazy Mongolian jungle birds; Crazy Mongolian construction workers; and Crazy Mongolian liver diseases.) This is truly the best I can explain the country. After all the planning, effort and expense he put into his adventure-trip to Mongolia, the best way he can summarize the place is to call the people "crazy"? Whatever wo...

It is that time of year again when all good little children write down their wish lists and hope for the best: firetrucks, footballs, fluffy bunnies. However, parents' shopping lists this year featured a $300 robotic dinosaur called Pleo , who, incidentally, is the most popular toy of 2007 (at least according to some website or other, which probably makes it true). According to the blurb: "This techno dino is equipped with sensors (35 in total) throughout his tiny body, allowing Pleo to react instantly to sight, sound and touch. They also make Pleo capable of expressions and reactions. They also make each Pleo unique. As Pleos learn, Ugobe says, they begin to form their own distinct behaviors and personalities developed from their environment". From the sounds of it, Pleo is better than a real pet because you can go away for a vacation and not have to worry about it. You ...

I think that the point of scientific, theory, conjecture and experimentation is for our entertainment pleasure. I can just see all the white-coated scientists with their rotten tomatoes at the ready, aiming for my good typing hand. How dare I minimise the importance of scientific wisdom! Think of all of the good that science has brought to the world! In one line I reduced to mockery millennia of effort and thought. Entertainment, indeed! In the hope of causing a ruckus, I am prepared to defend my viewpoint - feel free to disagree. Take a look at this website . It lists the top 20 most bizarre scientific experiments of all time (note that they are only the top 20. This implies there are more!) Some of them are truly revolting, others are interesting and the rest are amusing. But they are all entertaining. I mean, reading them is fun. Science = Entertainment. I know you are thinking that the scientific experiments on a website called " museumofhoaxes .com" can't possibly ...