The Ontario government has given approval for a California company to construct a massive 40MW solar power plant near Sarnia that will blanket an area larger than all three Toronto islands with hundreds of thousands of solar panels. It will be the largest solar power station in North America and among the most expansive in the world to use photovoltaic cells. Once complete, the 40-megawatt Sarnia project will be able to supply enough emission-free electricity to power between 10,000 and 15,000 homes on sunny days. If all goes according to schedule, the Sarnia solar plant will be fully functional in 2010 and will continue supplying clean electricity to the grid for the next 30 to 50 years.
Monthly Archive for April, 2007
Researchers from the IBM Almaden research lab and the University of Nevada have created a simulation that was as big and as complex as half of a mouse brain on the BlueGene L supercomputer. Half a real mouse brain is thought to have about eight million neurons each one of which can have up to 8,000 connections. Using the BlueGene L supercomputer the researchers created half a virtual mouse brain that had 8,000 neurons & had up to 6,300 connections.
In other smaller simulations the researchers say they have seen characteristics of thought patterns observed in real mouse brains. In these other tests the team saw the groups of neurons form spontaneously into groups. The researchers say that although the simulation shared some similarities with a mouse’s mental make-up in terms of nerves and connections it lacked the structures seen in real mice brains. For future tests the team aims to speed up the simulation, and make it more neurobiologically faithful, by adding structures seen in real mouse brains
Ever think about getting a dog to protect your home, but think against it because you just don’t have the time? Well fear no more, the Virtual Dog is here designed by Obscura Digital. Combining high-definition media; this dog can be projected on to almost any surface. It looks real, except for the fact that it is transparent and seems to glow in the dark. However, the technology isn’t exactly mainstream yet, so don’t expect to see this in stores any time soon.
Researchers at IBM’s Almaden Research Center have developed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques to visualize nanoscale objects. The new techniques are a major milestone in the quest to build a microscope that could “see” individual atoms in three dimensions. Using Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy (MRFM), IBM researchers have captured two-dimensional images of objects as small as 90 nanometers.
MRFM offers imaging 60,000 times more sensitive than current MRI technology. MRFM uses what is known as force detection to extend the limits of conventional MRI and view structures that would otherwise be too small to be detected.
This 8-bit classic probably one of the greatest boxing games of its day - designed, developed, and published - by Nintendo, was sold for $299.99 (£150) a few weeks ago on eBay. As you can see it’s still factory sealed.
Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! was released in 1987 and was the sequel to the arcade game Punch-Out!! You play as a boxer named Little Mac working your way up the professional boxing circuits, facing a series of fictional boxers, leading to a final fight with Mike Tyson.
A group of Students at the UCSC have gotten together to recreated the first level of Donkey Kong by sticking 6,400 Post-it notes to the windows of the E2 building it took the group just over five hours to complete the Donkey Kong masterpieces There is also a time-lapse video of the construction process.
Thought I would post this it reminds me of someone I know and his never ending quest for tea.
Shortly after the release of Red Hat Enterprise 5 The CentOS team is pleased to announce the availability of CentOS 5.0. Major changes in CentOS 5 compared to CentOS 4 include:
These updated software versions: Apache-2.2, php-5.1.6, kernel-2.6.18, Gnome-2.16, KDE-3.5, OpenOffice.org-2.0, Evolution-2.8, Firefox-1.5, Thunderbird-1.5, MySQL-5.0, PostgreSQL-8.1.
Better desktop support with compiz and AIGLX.
Browsing google code the other day and came across this little project.
Avant Window Navigator (Awn) is a dock-like bar for Gnome which sits at the bottom of the screen (in all its composited-goodness) tracking open windows.
There’s a lot more information on the project site http://code.google.com/p/avant-window-navigator/ & some good video footage of it in action on the developers blog.
Awn is currently under development, however you can try it out by either downloading the latest release from the downloads page or you could try downloading from the SVN.
David Hewlett probably best know as “Rodney McKay” (the best character) from the TV series Stargate Atlantis has Written/Directed and Stared in A Dog’s Breakfast I only found out about this a few weeks ago. From the trailer (below) and a few other bits and pieces I’ve seen around the web it looks pretty good. The only way to see this film for now is to request a screening hopefully not to long and it will end up on DVD.
From the official website: A Dog’s Breakfast If you’ve never been good at anything in your life, why would murder be any different?
Patrick has always had a somewhat combative relationship with his little sister Marilyn. But when she brings home her new sci-fi-soap star fianc Ryan, it’s all out war. When Patrick fails to drive a wedge between the happy couple, he reaches for sharper instruments. Every family has a few skeletons in the closet; A Dog’s Breakfast is the nightmarishly funny mess Patrick makes when he tries to add another to his.
