Gary Mikola is the Business Development Manager for the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) and is the Event Manager for Rapid 2010 & 3D Imaging Conference & Tradeshow coming this May in Anaheim. Gary has 31 years of experience at SME with responsibilities including conferencing, tradeshows, membership and training.

Fine art is going to be a part of this year’s Rapid show through the SculptCAD Rapid Artists Project, an effort that combines the creativity of working visual artists with the cutting edge of 3D modeling, 3D visualization, rapid prototyping and digital sculpture tools. SculptCAD’s Nancy Hairston is spearheading the project and is participating as an artist.

This interview with Mikola is the second of many coming blog posts about the SculptCAD Rapid Artists Project (you can find the first post here) and is the first interview with a project principal. Future posts include a discussion with Hairston on her artwork and her work as a 3D industry leader, and posts with individual participating artists covering how they are approaching the technology. Hopefully future posts will include some sneak previews of the art being created in this fusion of fine art and high technology.

And without further delay, here’s the interview with SME’s Gary Mikola:

I understand SME is interested in the intersection of fine art and technologies like rapid prototyping, additive manufacturing, 3D visualization/modeling, etc. (I’m sure I’ve left some tech areas out of that short list.) What would you like to see in the future in terms of integrating SME and fine art? What comes next after RAPID 2010 and the SculptCAD RAPID ARTISTS Project?

SME is fortunate to have dedicated members and event advisers including the Rapid Technologies and Additive Manufacturing (RTAM) group. RTAM advocated the addition of a presentation addressing the use of the technology applied to art. Most recently, many prominent artists, including speaker Bathsheba Grossman, have associated with and used the technology to create and present art.

Tell me a little about the genesis of making fine art a part of RAPID 2010?

A tension exists between design engineers and manufacturing engineers. Starting with concurrent engineering philosophy to present, the task of manufacturing products designed by someone outside of manufacturing has slowed product to market. RAPID will be an outlet for engineers from both camps to come together and turn ideas and designs into reality.

Artists have an ability to think outside the lines of traditional concepts. Contemporary art exemplifies that. The challenge of creating products that appeal to all kinds of markets and multiple applications presents a catalyst for change for design and manufacturing engineers. The SculptCAD Rapid Artists projects here at RAPID will introduce this concept to a wider range of people. We have confidence that the SculptCAD Rapid Artists Project will be a beginning, expanding thinking and creating future applications.

Looking toward this year’s show, how did Nancy Hairston (VanDuzen, SculptCAD) and the SculptCAD RAPID ARTISTS Project get involved with RAPID 2010? Did you know Nancy before this project?

SME members and Technical Advisers Kevin Ayers, FBI and Vesna Cota, Tyco Electronics Canada, were instrumental in pushing for the inclusion of art at RAPID. After Kevin introduced SME to Nancy, we formalized the inclusion of the SculptCAD Rapid Artists Project at our event. Nancy also contributed ideas to promote the Contemporary Art Gallery at RAPID.

Going beyond the fine art element, give me the quick overview of this year’s RAPID show. What really excites you about RAPID 2010?

RAPID 2010 will bring manufacturing professionals, designers and even artists together to view, explore and discuss new innovations in 3D scanning and rapid prototyping technology. Exhibits, keynotes and presentations will illustrate applications in aerospace and defense; automotive; arts and entertainment, including games; medicine; and sports and recreation. Buyers and end-users of design, prototyping, tooling and direct manufacturing equipment will get a chance to compare processes, talk to industry experts and participate in more than 70 technical presentations.

A few examples of really exciting stuff to see at RAPID 2010:

o Medical presentations will explore uses of additive manufacturing for organ replacement, prosthetics, spinal injuries and even eye lenses.

o The Arts and Entertainment track will show how additive manufacturing can create special effects for movies, produce new types of sculptures and develop video games for education.

o In the Aerospace and Defense track, speakers will discuss rapid prototyping for airplane parts.

o Presentations in the automotive/motor vehicle session will cover the technology’s application for machining and tooling.

o An interactive session will use social media to solicit questions before the event and a panel of experts will review and answer them in a live broadcast

We also have outstanding keynote presenters that will start the conference daily. And, as always, the technology on the show floor will provide an experience that enhances one’s knowledge of the industry.

We are also excited to be in Anaheim at the Disneyland Hotel. Walt Disney was an individual with an amazing imagination. He contributed much to our creative thinking as a county and to the development of American culture. Our industry supports art and creativity in a similar way.

Do you have any final thoughts on SME and fine art?

Personally, I love art. My early training as an industrial arts instructor taught me the value of using your hands as a learning tool. In that environment, a student is encouraged to be creative; mixing that with traditional industrial skills. SME is also committed to education. SME’s Educational Foundation supports summers camps and numerous activities to encourage careers in manufacturing. With rapid technologies, art is another option for further study.

For more information, visit www.sme.org/rapid, or follow us on Twitter: @Rapid_Event.

Via KurzweilAI.net — I’ll just let the quoted bit below do all the explaining …

A Stellar, Metal-Free Way to Make Carbon Nanotubes

Physorg.com, Feb. 22, 2010 A new method of growing carbon nanotubes without requiring platinum or another metal as a catalyst has been developed by researchers at NASA’s Goddard  Center. The carbon nanotubes are produced when graphite dust particles are exposed to a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen gases. The method was suggested by a 2008 discovery that the long, thin carbon structures known as graphite whiskers — essentially, bigger cousins of carbon nanotubes — were identified in three meteorites. Researchers suspect that it could have produced at least some of the simple carbon-based compounds in the early solar system. The work also could help researchers understand puzzling observations about some supernovas. Nanotubes grown on graphite (Yuki Kimura, Tohoku University) Read Original Article>>

But they only cover consumer credit, so keep a watch on business and corporate credit cards because the Truth in Lending Act does not cover that plastic.

From the link:

A batch of new restrictions aimed at curbing the most egregious credit card practices kick in Monday, but business owners will need to stay alert — the new rules don’t cover cards used for corporate purposes.

The bill Congress passed in May reforms the Truth in Lending Act, which governs only consumer credit. The measure fulfills a wish list of long-sought reforms. Issuers won’t be able to hike the interest rates on existing balances as long as customers pay their bills on time, and they’ll need to notify customers at least 45 days in advance of interest rate increases and most fee changes.

Those two changes alone will save consumers an estimated $10 billion annually, nonprofit research firm Pew estimated in a recent report.

“Regulation” is often a dirty word to small business owners, but few would object to new laws offering them similar protection. With bank loans and credit lines drying up, credit cards are one of the only sources left for fast capital injections.

Nearly 60% of business owners polled recently by the National Small Business Association said they use plastic for their capital needs — and 79% said the terms of their credit cards have grown worse in the past five years.

“Regulation, particularly in the long-term, is good for the consumer. But these regulations won’t be there for the small business owner,” says Curtis Arnold, founder of CardRatings.com. “They’re going to have to be on their toes to protect themselves.”

If you are a college student or young adult living in apartments, you may move fairly often. If you own your home — house, condo, townhome, loft or something else — you probably don’t move nearly as often, but relocations through moving to a new city for a new job, or just buying a new home in your current city do happen. No matter how often you move there is one common denominator — it is a hassle. You either start calling friends with trucks and vans and hope you can assemble a team big enough to get the job done quickly, or you start calling professional movers and begin the process of sorting out the varying price structure, bids for different levels of service and even doing your best to vet each company for reliability and work quality. If you happen to live in the New York City area and are looking for New York movers, you are in luck.

Two software engineers became frustrated with moving in Manhattan and created CityMove.com, a website that provides two key services for people needing to relocate. First the site is a forum for moving company customers to post about their experience good and bad. With this you can read about actual moving transactions from different companies and how positive – or negative — the experience was for the customer.

The major benefit of the site is it acts as a matchmaking service between moving companies and customers. When you need to move, sign in at the site and enter the details of your project then post the job to allow moving companies to bid on your relocation. Once you accept a bid and complete the move, head back to CityMove and leave a review on your experience for future moving customers. Best of all? CityMove is a free service for the moving customer.

This sounds like a service people in other cities would love to have access to. I know my last move entailed collecting bids from companies myself and then trying to sort through all the apples-to-oranges bid comparisons. CityMove would have made the process a whole lot easier.

_(sponsored)

This sounds like a real step forward in improving artificial skin, plus anything involving quantum physics is just cool.

From the link:

The UK company Peratech, which last month signed a deal to develop novel pressure-sensing technology for screen maker Nissha, has announced that it will use the same approach to make artificial “skin” for the MIT Media Lab.

Peratech makes an electrically conductive material called quantum tunneling composite (QTC). When the material is compressed electrons jump between two conductors separated by polymer insulating layer covered with metallic nanoparticles. QTC has already been used to make small sensors for NASA’s Robonaut and for a robotic gripper made by Shadow Robot Company.

Just the thing for the technically challenged wanna-be cybercriminal. It’s bad enough having to deal with nefarious coders, but these tools (and various “virus making for dummies” tools have been around forever) allow bored kids and garden variety criminals in on the lucrative world of botnets.

From the link:

In 2005, a Russian hacker group known as UpLevel developed Zeus, a point-and-click program for creating and controlling a network of compromised computer systems, also known as a botnet. Five years of development later, the latest version of this software, which can be downloaded for free and requires very little technical skill to operate, is one of the most popular botnet platforms for spammers, fraudsters, and people who deal in stolen personal information.

Last week, the security firm NetWitness, based in Herndon, VA, released a report highlighting the kind of havoc the software can wreak. It documents a Zeus botnet that controlled nearly 75,000 computers in more than 2,400 organizations, including the drug producer Merck, the network equipment maker Juniper Networks, and the Hollywood studio Paramount Pictures. Over four weeks, the software was used to steal more than 68,000 log-in credentials, including thousands of Facebook log-ins and Yahoo e-mail log-ins.

“They had compromised systems inside both companies and government agencies,” says Alex Cox, a principal analyst at NetWitness.

A survey conducted by another security firm–Atlanta-based Damballa–found Zeus-controlled programs to be the second most common inside corporate networks in 2009. Damballa tracked more than 200 Zeus-based botnets in enterprise networks. The largest single botnet controlled using the Zeus platform consisted of 600,000 compromised computers.

If you’re following the current story on the John Yoo and Judge Jay Bybee torture memos you know the Office of Professional Responsibility report found the memos shameful, but Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis has recommended the Justice Department will not refer a finding of professional misconduct. With this announcement many talking heads on the right, often ex-officials of the Bush 43 administration, have gone on the attack claiming all this news totally exonerates Yoo and Bybee. Not so. Margolis basically says their legal advice was very questionable and essentially straddles the line of misconduct enough he can’t rule against them.

One thing the OPR report does illuminate is simply how shameful and shameless the United States government, particularly the executive branch and Department of Justice, behaved during the Bush years. These individuals may escape personal and professional repercussions, but history will not be kind to anyone who is associated with dragging America down into the ranks of states that torture.

Jack Balkin offers a great explanation/take-down on just how low of bar Yoo and Bybee barely escaped through Margolis’ decision not to find for professional misconduct.

Here’s a quick sample:

Instead, Margolis argues that, judging by (among other things) a review of D.C. bar rules, the standard for attorney misconduct is set pretty damn low, and is only violated by lawyers who (here I put it colloquially) are the scum of the earth. Lawyers barely above the scum of the earth are therefore excused.

And here’s Balkin’s excellent concluding graf:

Whether or not the DOJ refers Yoo and Bybee for professional discipline, no one should think that either man behaved according to the high standards we should expect of government attorneys. They, and the government officials who worked with them, shamed this nation. They dragged America’s reputation in the dirt. They severely damaged our good name in the eyes of the world. They undermined the values this country stands for and that the legal profession should stand for. Nothing the DOJ does now–or fails to do–will change that.

Glenn Greenwald certainly sees a lot more libertarian-minded purity in the Tea Party movement than I do. As a little “L” libertarian watching the movement from afar I see a lot of doctrinaire GOP ideals in Tea Party rhetoric and a whole lot of christianist nannyism to boot.

He does make a very salient point about the disconnect between what the Tea Partiers are purportedly for and what the Republican Party stands for.

From the link:

But that GOP limited government rhetoric is simply never matched by that Party’s conduct, especially when they wield power.  The very idea that a political party dominated by neocons, warmongers, surveillance fetishists, and privacy-hating social conservatives will be a party of “limited government” is absurd on its face.  There literally is no myth more transparent than the Republican Party’s claim to believe in restrained government power.  For that reason, it’s only a matter of time before the fundamental incompatibility of the “tea party movement” and the political party cynically exploiting it is exposed.

Here’s the auto response I received from Kay Bailey Hutchison on impending legislation that would apply a “performance tax” on every song played on the radio. Just one more bad idea from the flailing and dying music industry. Kay Bailey was the only politician to send something other than a blanket “thanks for contacting me” response.

Hutchison’s email:

Thank you for contacting me regarding royalty fees for performers whose work is played on over-the-air radio, also known as performance fees. I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Current law requires free over-the-air radio stations to pay song royalties to songwriters and producers. However, unlike cable, satellite and Internet radio, over-the-air radio stations have historically been exempt from paying performance fees. This exemption recognizes both the unique role played by free over-the-air broadcasters in the communities they serve, and the fact that performers receive exposure from air play that promotes album and merchandise sales.

Recently, new mediums in broadcasting, including satellite and Internet radio, have emerged. Performers are paid for their music in these mediums, raising questions about parity and fairness. While the emergence of new broadcasting mediums has caused some to question over-the-air broadcasters’ longstanding exemption, I remain concerned about imposing royalties on them in these difficult economic times. This concern is particularly relevant to small broadcasters.

I will closely monitor this legislation as it evolves, particularly with respect to addressing the potential financial impact on the smallest broadcasters, and I will keep your views in mind. I appreciate hearing from you, and I hope that you will not hesitate to contact me on any issue that is important to you.

Sincerely,
Kay Bailey Hutchison
United States Senator

Hit this link if you want to do something about this ridiculous piece of legislation.

I tweeted this news from the AAAS 2010 annual meeting yesterday, but it’s worth a full post because this is news we can all get behind — naps are good for you!

The release:

A midday nap markedly boosts the brain’s learning capacity

Findings suggest that a biphasic sleep schedule not only refreshes the mind, but can make you smarter

If you see a student dozing in the library or a co-worker catching 40 winks in her cubicle, don’t roll your eyes. New research from the University of California, Berkeley, shows that an hour’s nap can dramatically boost and restore your brain power. Indeed, the findings suggest that a biphasic sleep schedule not only refreshes the mind, but can make you smarter.

Conversely, the more hours we spend awake, the more sluggish our minds become, according to the findings. The results support previous data from the same research team that pulling an all-nighter – a common practice at college during midterms and finals –- decreases the ability to cram in new facts by nearly 40 percent, due to a shutdown of brain regions during sleep deprivation.

“Sleep not only rights the wrong of prolonged wakefulness but, at a neurocognitive level, it moves you beyond where you were before you took a nap,” said Matthew Walker, an assistant professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and the lead investigator of these studies.

In the recent UC Berkeley sleep study, 39 healthy young adults were divided into two groups – nap and no-nap. At noon, all the participants were subjected to a rigorous learning task intended to tax the hippocampus, a region of the brain that helps store fact-based memories. Both groups performed at comparable levels.

At 2 p.m., the nap group took a 90-minute siesta while the no-nap group stayed awake. Later that day, at 6 p.m., participants performed a new round of learning exercises. Those who remained awake throughout the day became worse at learning. In contrast, those who napped did markedly better and actually improved in their capacity to learn.

These findings reinforce the researchers’ hypothesis that sleep is needed to clear the brain’s short-term memory storage and make room for new information, said Walker, who is presenting his preliminary findings on Sunday, Feb. 21, at the annual meeting of the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Diego, Calif.

Since 2007, Walker and other sleep researchers have established that fact-based memories are temporarily stored in the hippocampus before being sent to the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which may have more storage space.

“It’s as though the e-mail inbox in your hippocampus is full and, until you sleep and clear out those fact e-mails, you’re not going to receive any more mail. It’s just going to bounce until you sleep and move it into another folder,” Walker said.

In the latest study, Walker and his team have broken new ground in discovering that this memory- refreshing process occurs when nappers are engaged in a specific stage of sleep. Electroencephalogram tests, which measure electrical activity in the brain, indicated that this refreshing of memory capacity is related to Stage 2 non-REM sleep, which takes place between deep sleep (non-REM) and the dream state known as Rapid Eye Movement (REM). Previously, the purpose of this stage was unclear, but the new results offer evidence as to why humans spend at least half their sleeping hours in Stage 2, non-REM, Walker said.

“I can’t imagine Mother Nature would have us spend 50 percent of the night going from one sleep stage to another for no reason,” Walker said. “Sleep is sophisticated. It acts locally to give us what we need.”

Walker and his team will go on to investigate whether the reduction of sleep experienced by people as they get older is related to the documented decrease in our ability to learn as we age. Finding that link may be helpful in understanding such neurodegenerative conditions as Alzheimer’s disease, Walker said.

###

In addition to Walker, co-investigators of these new findings are UC Berkeley post-doctoral fellow Bryce A. Mander and psychology undergraduate Sangeetha Santhanam.

Another release from the AAAS 2010 annual meeting — this covers how cutting edge biology and nanotechnology can help meet the growing demand for food across the globe.

The release:

Biotech, nanotech and synthetic biology roles in future food supply explored

AAAS panel mulls science and public acceptance

SAN DIEGO – Some say the world’s population will swell to 9 billion people by 2030 and that will present significant challenges for agriculture to provide enough food to meet demand, says University of Idaho animal scientist Rod Hill.

Hill and Larry Branen, a University of Idaho food scientist, organized a symposium during the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting Sunday to explore ways biotechnology could provide healthy and plentiful animal-based foods to meet future demands.

Synthetic biology, nanotechnology, genetic engineering and other applications of biotechnology – and the public’s role in determining their acceptable uses — were all addressed by panelists during the session.

The goal for the session, which was part of the nation’s largest and most prestigious general science meeting held annually, was to encourage a dialogue among scientists and the public, said Hill, a Moscow-based molecular physiologist who studies muscle growth in cattle.

“There will be a significant challenge for agriculture and the science that will be required to provide a healthy, nutritious and adequate food supply in coming decades for a rapidly growing population,” Hill said.

A key question, he said, is whether the Earth can continue to provide enough food without technological support. The history of civilization and agriculture during the last 10,000 years suggests otherwise.

“Unaided food production is an unattainable ideal – current society is irrevocably grounded in the technological interventions underpinning the agricultural revolution that now strives to feed the world,” Hill said.

Branen serves as the university’s Coeur d’Alene-based associate vice president for northern Idaho. He also remains active as a researcher working with nanotechnology in a variety of ways, including uses as biological sensors to detect disease or spoilage.

Nanoparticles may be used to target certain genes and thus play a role in genetic engineering of food animals. Branen said, “There’s also no question that nanomaterials may help increase the shelf stability of food products and assure their safety.”

Other panelists include University of Missouri Prof. Kevin Wells who believes genetically modified animals will have a future place on humanity’s tables, just as genetically modified plants do now.

Panelist Hongda Chen serves as the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s national program leader for bioprocessing engineering and nanotechnology. He will explore how scientific methods like nanotechnology may be applied to help meet the world’s growing demand for safe and healthy food.

Synthetic biology, the use of novel methods to create genes or chromosomes, will be explored by panelist Michele Garfinkel, a policy analyst for the J. Craig Venter Institute, which pioneered the sequencing of the human genome.

The public’s acceptance or rejection of new technologies that could determine future food supplies will be the domain of Susanna Priest, a professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. A communications researcher, she has argued that public debate is essential to public attitudes toward such technologies.

For Idaho’s Branen, the panel provides an opportunity to advance that public discussion.

“I think that’s essential,” he said. “We’ve seen lots of technologies where we didn’t get adoption because we didn’t get consumer acceptance and understanding. Irradiation of food has been possible for over 50 years but we still haven’t gotten to general use because there is still a fear and lack of understanding of it.” Branen added, “To me everything we’re doing today requires an extensive discussion and an interdisciplinary approach. We can’t just focus on the technology but must look at the social and political aspects of the technology as well.”

###

About the University of Idaho

Founded in 1889, the University of Idaho is the state’s flagship higher-education institution and its principal graduate education and research university, bringing insight and innovation to the state, the nation and the world. University researchers attract nearly $100 million in research grants and contracts each year; the University of Idaho is the only institution in the state to earn the prestigious Carnegie Foundation ranking for high research activity. The university’s student population includes first-generation college students and ethnically diverse scholars. Offering more than 130 degree options in 10 colleges, the university combines the strengths of a large university with the intimacy of small learning communities. The university is home to the Vandals, the 2009 Roady’s Humanitarian Bowl champions. For information, visit www.uidaho.edu

Okay, I admit I’m running this release for the most part to run the title above (hit this link for part one), but robot-assisted surgery is an idea that will continue to gain acceptance and improve as a discipline.

The release:

Comparison shows robot-assisted option offers advantages for kidney surgery

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – A comparison of two types of minimally invasive surgery to repair kidney blockages that prevent urine from draining normally to the bladder found that robot-assisted surgery was faster and resulted in less blood loss and shorter hospital stays.

Reporting in the Canadian Journal of Urology, Ashok Hemal, M.D., a urologic surgeon from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, compared laparoscopic and robot-assisted surgery for repairing the blockage, known as uretero-pelvic junction obstruction. Following the patients for 18 months showed that both options were equally successful, but the robot-assisted technique had several advantages.

On average, robot-assisted surgery was 50 percent faster (98-minute versus 145-minute average), resulted in 60 percent less blood loss (40ml versus 101ml average), and required a two-day hospital stay, versus 3.5 days for laparoscopic surgery.

“This was one of the first studies where a single surgeon at one center performed both types of surgery and compared the results,” said Hemal, director of the Robotic and Minimally Invasive Urologic Surgery Program at Wake Forest Baptist. “It allows for a more accurate comparison of surgical options than multiple physicians performing the surgeries. The results showed that robot-assisted surgery had significant advantages for this condition. It is also generally easier for surgeons to learn.”

All 60 patients had a procedure known as pyeloplasty that involves reconstructing the narrow area where part of the kidney meets the ureter, the tube that carries the urine from the renal pelvis into the bladder. Blockages in this area can be the result of birth defects or, in adults, from injury, previous surgery or disorders that can cause inflammation of the upper urinary tract.

Previously the repair required a large incision. New technology led to minimally invasive approaches that require only small incisions — laparoscopic surgery, in which the surgeon directly manipulates a viewing device and operating instruments inserted into the abdomen, and robot-assisted surgery, in which the surgeon sits at a console and uses hand and finger movements to control centimeter-size instruments while viewing the surgical site on a screen.

Various studies have reported on the results of the options, but this is one of the first studies in which a surgeon with expertise in both options compared them. Hemal treated 30 patients with laparoscopic surgery and 30 with robot-assisted surgery.

“The evolution of laparoscopic surgery in urology has been limited because it is technically challenging and requires the surgeon to be proficient in advanced suturing,” said Hemal. “Robot-assisted surgery offers a way of overcoming some of the major impediments of laparoscopic surgery. This study shows the two options are equally effective and that robot-assisted surgery has several advantages.”

###

Hemal’s colleagues on the report are Satyadip Mukherjee, M.D., and Kaku Singh, M.D., both with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, where the surgeries were performed.

Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center (www.wfubmc.edu) is an academic health system comprised of North Carolina Baptist Hospital, Brenner Children’s Hospital, Wake Forest University Physicians, and Wake Forest University Health Sciences, which operates the university’s School of Medicine and Piedmont Triad Research Park. The system comprises 1,154 acute care, rehabilitation and long-term care beds and has been ranked as one of “America’s Best Hospitals” by U.S. News & World Report since 1993. Wake Forest Baptist is ranked 32nd in the nation by America’s Top Doctors for the number of its doctors considered best by their peers. The institution ranks in the top third in funding by the National Institutes of Health and fourth in the Southeast in revenues from its licensed intellectual property.

Well, I suppose this falls more under conjecture than news, but quite frightening nonetheless.

From the link:

Even as the American economy shows tentative signs of a rebound, the human toll of the recession continues to mount, with millions of Americans remaining out of work, out of savings and nearing the end of their unemployment benefits.

Economists fear that the nascent recovery will leave more people behind than in past recessions, failing to create jobs in sufficient numbers to absorb the record-setting ranks of the long-term unemployed.

And:

Every downturn pushes some people out of the middle class before the economy resumes expanding. Most recover. Many prosper. But some economists worry that this time could be different. An unusual constellation of forces — some embedded in the modern-day economy, others unique to this wrenching recession — might make it especially difficult for those out of work to find their way back to their middle-class lives.

Labor experts say the economy needs 100,000 new jobs a month just to absorb entrants to the labor force. With more than 15 million people officially jobless, even a vigorous recovery is likely to leave an enormous number out of work for years.

We may have avoided a second Great Depression to date, but the long-term effects on the U.S. economy may be very severe. Hopefully the economists who see major downturns rebounding with equally major expansions are correct. If this recession creates a large class of the permanently unemployed and drives more of the middle class down toward, or into, poverty, the social, political and economic repercussions probably are beyond our ability to imagine right now. A sizable and battered lower class does not make for a stable society.

… the GOP is not for you. Really. The Republican Party platform includes explicitly anti-gay planks. I have gay friends who vote GOP for purely economic reasons, but they stay far out of the political trenches. The Log Cabin Republicans have long been relegated to bottom of the party latrine, and a new group — GOProud — joined the festivities at the latest CPAC only to get knee-capped by the National Organization for Marriage.

From the second link:

One of the odd coincidences of CPAC is the location of the National Organization for Marriage’s booth just 20-odd feet away from the booth of GOProud, the upstart gay Republican organization. On Thursday, leaders of both groups posed for an impromptu meeting in view of CNN’s cameras, joking about the possibility of a beer summit. But on Friday morning, the National Organization for Marriage preemptively blasted GOProud in a surprisingly acid press release.

Many reporters, including Politico, have asked us how we feel about the fact GOProud is just a few booths over from us. We welcome everyone’s right to participate in the democratic process, but we have a message for GOProud on marriage: If you try to elect pro-gay-marriage Republicans, we will Dede Scozzafava them. The majority of Americans, and the vast majority of Republicans, support marriage as the union of husband and wife, and NOM is here to make sure these voters and their voices are heard loud and clear.

Now I don’t harbor any ideas that NOM speaks for the Republican Party as a whole, but commenter ACCESSlineIOWA at the Washington Independent link has a very good point on NOM’s “threat:”

Wouldn’t the definition of “Dede Scozzafava-ing” be “Splitting the conservative votes so an even less conservative candidate can with the election?” The big tent has definitely been torn down, and NOM does not play well with others.

The 2010 AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) annual meeting is going on as I type, so there is a lot of news coming out fast and furious from the conference. I’m going to try and restrain myself and only post what really strikes my fancy, or what sounds like a game-changing advancement in any particular field.

Like I regularly do, this news will presented in the form of the raw press release. Yeah, it’s a bit lazy to drop the release on you with minimal, if any, commentary from me, but I don’t want to be a gatekeeper of the information being put out and I don’t want to spin the news by selectively writing from a release. With a raw release you get all the information the organization/scientist/whoever put the release out wanted to make public and you can use that information as you see fit. Do keep in mind any release is going to have some manner of bias, even science releases, so read them with that in mind, but do enjoy this exciting news as it comes out.

This release is on nanotechnology and how it is allowing for paper batteries and supercapacitors and is creating a new fabric technology called “eTextiles.”

The release:

Nanotechnology sparks energy storage on paper and cloth

Stanford researcher Yi Cui and his team are re-conceptualizing batteries using nanotechnology

		IMAGE: Bing Hu, a post-doctoral fellow in Yi Cui’s research group at Stanford, prepares a small square of ordinary paper with an ink that will deposit nanotubes on the surface that… Click here for more information.

By dipping ordinary paper or fabric in a special ink infused with nanoparticles, Stanford engineer Yi Cui has found a way to cheaply and efficiently manufacture lightweight paper batteries and supercapacitors (which, like batteries, store energy, but by electrostatic rather than chemical means), as well as stretchable, conductive textiles known as “eTextiles” – capable of storing energy while retaining the mechanical properties of ordinary paper or fabric.

While the technology is still new, Cui’s team has envisioned numerous functional uses for their inventions. Homes of the future could one day be lined with energy-storing wallpaper. Gadget lovers would be able to charge their portable appliances on the go, simply plugging them into an outlet woven into their T-shirts. Energy textiles might also be used to create moving-display apparel, reactive high-performance sportswear and wearable power for a soldier’s battle gear.

The key ingredients in developing these high-tech products are not visible to the human eye. Nanostructures, which can be assembled in patterns that allow them to transport electricity, may provide the solutions to a number of problems encountered with electrical storage devices currently available on the market.

The type of nanoparticle used in the Cui group’s experimental devices varies according to the intended function of the product – lithium cobalt oxide is a common compound used for batteries, while single-walled carbon nanotubes, or SWNTs, are used for supercapacitors.

Cui, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford, leads a research group that investigates new applications of nanoscale materials. The objective, said Cui, is not only to supply answers to theoretical inquiries but also to pursue projects with practical value. Recently, his team has focused on ways to integrate nanotechnology into the realm of energy development.

“Energy storage is a pretty old research field,” said Cui. “Supercapacitors, batteries – those things are old. How do you really make a revolutionary impact in this field? It requires quite a dramatic difference of thinking.”

While electrical energy storage devices have come a long way since Alessandro Volta debuted the world’s first electrical cell in 1800, the technology is facing yet another revolution. Current methods of manufacturing energy storage devices can be capital intensive and environmentally hazardous, and the end products have noticeable performance constraints – conventional lithium ion batteries have a limited storage capacity and are costly to manufacture, while traditional capacitors provide high power but at the expense of energy storage capacity.

With a little help from new science, the batteries of the future may not look anything like the bulky metal units we’ve grown accustomed to. Nanotechnology is favored as a remedy both for its economic appeal and its capability to improve energy performance in devices that integrate it. Replacing the carbon (graphite) anodes found in lithium ion batteries with anodes of silicon nanowires, for example, has the potential to increase their storage capacity by 10 times, according to experiments conducted by Cui’s team.

Silicon had previously been recognized as a favorable anode material because it can hold a larger amount of lithium than carbon. But applications of silicon were limited by its inability to sustain physical stress – namely, the fourfold volume increase that silicon undergoes when lithium ions attach themselves to a silicon anode in the process of charging a battery, as well as the shrinkage that occurs when lithium ions are drawn out as it discharges. The result was that silicon structures would disintegrate, causing anodes of this material to lose much if not all of their storage capacity.

Cui and collaborators demonstrated in previous publications in Nature, Nanotechnology and Nano Letters that the use of silicon nanowire battery electrodes, mechanically capable of withstanding the absorption and discharge of lithium ions, was one way to sidestep the problem.

The findings hold promise for the development of rechargeable lithium batteries offering a longer life cycle and higher energy capacity than their contemporaries. Silicon nanowire technology may one day find a home in electric cars, portable electronic devices and implantable medical appliances.

Cui now hopes to direct his research toward studying both the “hard science” behind the electrical properties of nanomaterials and designing real-world applications.

“This is the right time to really see what we learn from nanoscience and do practical applications that are extremely promising,” said Cui. “The beauty of this is, it combines the lowest cost technology that you can find to the highest tech nanotechnology to produce something great. I think this is a very exciting idea … a huge impact for society.”

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The Cui group’s latest research on energy storage devices was detailed in papers published in the online editions of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in December 2009 (“Highly Conductive Paper for Energy-Storage Devices”) and Nano Letters in January 2010 (“Stretchable, Porous and Conductive Energy Textiles”).

Cui’s talk at the symposium “Nanotechnology: Will Nanomaterials Revolutionize Energy Applications?” is scheduled for 9:50 a.m. Feb. 20 in Room 1B of the San Diego Convention Center.

Video/photos:
Conductive eTextiles: Stanford finds a new use for cloth
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/february1/batteries-from-cloth-020510.html

At Stanford, nanotubes + ink + paper = instant battery
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/december7/nanotubes-ink-paper-120709.html

I’m going out on a limb to guess this tax year an entire slew of one time full-time employees have started businesses out of their homes, either because they became unemployed, their job was scaled back or they were forced into serious pay cuts. As a long-time freelance writer I’ve taken the home office deduction for years. When you work out of your home it’s a deduction you deserve, and should, take. My best advice on the topic? Find a reputable CPA and schedule a meeting immediately (these professionals are already very busy with the 2009 tax year season) to discuss how to handle your home office deduction. This is one tax dedution that pretty much requires professional help.

From the link:

IRS Publication 587, Business Use of Your Home, spells out the rules under which you can take a deduction for using your home as your office, manufacturing facility or warehouse.

Your home office should be used:

—Exclusively and regularly as your principal place of business, or

—Exclusively and regularly as a place where you meet or deal with patients, clients or customers in the normal course of your trade or business.

“Exclusively” refers to the requirement that the part of your home that you use for business cannot be used for any personal reason. The IRS doesn’t require that it be a complete room in a house, or that the space you use be partitioned. It does require that your home office or workspace be a “separately identifiable space.”

This almost doesn’t seem real, but the date isn’t April 1 and the source isn’t the Onion.

Yikes!

From the link:

Tracy residents will now have to pay every time they call 9-1-1 for a medical emergency.

But there are a couple of options. Residents can pay a $48 voluntary fee for the year which allows them to call 9-1-1 as many times as necessary.

Or, there’s the option of not signing up for the annual fee. Instead, they will be charged $300 if they make a call for help.

(Hat tip: Fark)

Via KurzweilAI.net – Sounds like a decent idea, and when Drake talks about searching for extraterrestrial life people better be listening.

Drake wants off-world listening post for alien messages

New Scientist Space, Feb. 18, 2010 SETI founder Frank Drake wants to take the search for aliens about 82 billion kilometers away from Earth, where electromagnetic signals from planets orbiting distant stars would be focused by the gravitational lensing effect of our sun, making them, in theory, more easily detected. Gravitational lenses could also be used to increase the range of transmitted signals. Read Original Article>>

I haven’t blogged about Google Buzz, but I have done some tweeting and expressed privacy concerns about the social media add-on to Gmail. Looks like I’m not the only Gmail user out there with privacy issues surrounding Buzz.

From the last (third) link:

Google (GOOG) Buzz has barely entered its second week of operation, and the new social network continues to be dogged by privacy issues. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada said late Tuesday it is looking into privacy concerns surrounding Buzz, according to Canada’s CBC News. This announcement comes on the heels of the news the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has filed a privacy complaint over Google Buzz with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

And:

While Google continues to work with Canadian officials, the search giant may have to contend with an FTC investigation into Buzz’s treatment of user privacy. In a complaint filed on Tuesday with the FTC, EPIC says that “emails and associated information [are] fundamentally private,” and that “email service providers have a particular responsibility to safeguard the personal information that subscribers provide.”