83 per cent of radiologists can’t see a gorilla in this CT scan

CAN you see the gorilla? CBS news reports that 83 per cent of radiologists didn’t see the beast.

The 24 qualified radiologists were given lung CT scans, which each had about 10 nodules (abnormal spots), and were asked to find anything strange on the scans. On the last one, the dancing gorilla – about 48 times the size of an average nodule – was placed in the scan. The radiologists found the correct nodules 55 per cent of the time. But only 20 of them saw the gorilla, despite scrolling past it 4.3 times, on average.

Anorak

Posted: 14th, February 2013 | In: Technology | Comment

Consumerism, Eh? The £7,000 mobile phone

THIS did rather make me giggle. A company that makes outrageously expensive mobile phones. Their latest model costing £7,000.

The Vertu Ti costs 7,900 euros (£6,994) and is made at the firm’s headquarters in Church Crookham, Hampshire.

The device had a titanium frame and sapphire screen but was not 4G-enabled, said its designer Hutch Hutchison.

Tim Worstall

Posted: 13th, February 2013 | In: Money, Technology | Comment

Is Microsoft’s Excel the most dangerous software in the world?

IS Microsoft’s Excel the most dangerous software in thewWorld? It could be actually. That is, that the very existence of Excel itself makes it the most dangerous software in the world.

There’s two parts to this. One is that we’ve got the regulators trying to warn banks on the dangers of using it badly.

Both the Switzerland-based Basel Committee on Banking Supervision¹ (BCBS) and the Financial Services Authority² (FSA) in the UK have recently made it clear that when relying on manual processes, desktop applications or key internal data flow systems such as spreadsheets, banks and insurers should have effective controls in place that are consistently applied to manage risks around incorrect, false or even fraudulent data. The citation by the BCBS is the first time that spreadsheet management has ever been specifically referenced at such a high level, a watermark in the approach to spreadsheet risk.

Tim Worstall

Posted: 13th, February 2013 | In: Money, Technology | Comment

Robert Crumb predicted twitter and the internet (photo)

DECADES before it went live, Robert Crumb predicted Twitter and the internet:

“Everyone will be tuned into everything that’s happening all the time! No-one will be left out. We’ll all be normal!”

Crumb – a life in photos; the Crumb Bible; the Crumb rejected.

Anorak

Posted: 10th, February 2013 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Technology, The Consumer | Comment

Cosmos watch: Earth like planet spotted but Apophis is going to blow us up

Anorak

Posted: 7th, February 2013 | In: Technology | Comment

Naples driver’s U-turn meets Monty Python (video)

TO Naples, where a man in a small car is attempting to execute a U-turn in a narrow street. The action heats up at the 1:30 mark when the cast of local Monty Python Appreciation Society arrives:

Anorak

Posted: 7th, February 2013 | In: Technology | Comment (1)

1976: the Star Trek cast meet the Space Shuttle Orbiter Enterprise

IT was no coincidence that the first Space Shuttle Orbiter was called Enterprise. Originally named Constitution (in honor of the U.S. Constitution’s Bicentennial), Star Trek fans wrote to President Gerald Ford suggesting an alternative name: Enterprise. The vehicle debuted  at Palmdale California on Sept. 17, 1976. Many from the cast of Star Trek were there to see it.

Anorak

Posted: 6th, February 2013 | In: Flashback, Technology, TV & Radio | Comment

France bans lights at night

THE Dark Ages are returning to France. French environment minister Delphine Batho says that from July 1, all non-residential buildings will have to switch off interior lights one hour after the last worker leaves the premises. The outside lights must all be extinguished by 1 am.

Anorak

Posted: 5th, February 2013 | In: Technology | Comments (2)

No, really, Apple still isn’t avoiding UK tax

THE Sunday Times has done yet another of its pieces on how tech comapnies are avoiding tax in the UK. Given that that paper’s gated, here’s the Telegraph telling us all about it. The real problem here is that Apple just isn’t indulging in tax avoidance: this is what the system is set up to encourage it to do

Tim Worstall

Posted: 5th, February 2013 | In: Money, Technology | Comment

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad goes looking for gays in space

HAS Iran run out of monkeys to fire into space? News is that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is ready and willing to be the first Iranian to orbit the Earth in space. As he says:

“I am ready to be the first human to be sent to space by Iranian scientists. Sending living things into space is the result of Iranian efforts and the dedication of thousands of Iranian scientists.”

To say nothing of reading textbooks of what the Russians did in the 1960s.

Anorak

Posted: 4th, February 2013 | In: Politicians, Technology | Comment

Iran’s space monkey was faked: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad invents cheesecloth pantaloons

IRAN did not fire a monkey into space. When Anorak read the news that Iran had done what the USA had done in 1961, we feared that before long Iran’s go-ahead leaders would be wearing cheesecloth pantaloons, reinventing the TV dinner and invents computer smaller than a one-bedroom flat.

Anorak

Posted: 1st, February 2013 | In: Technology | Comment

Go-ahead Iran invents machine to decapitate fingers and fires monkeys at Israel

EARLIER this week Iran shot a monkey into space. It is feared that very soon Iran will firing monkeys at Israel. Anorak’s security expert tells us that at the current rate of technological progress, the next forty years should see Iran: discover Pot Noodle; build a computer smaller than a bedroom; have hands free dialling; syndicate Deal or No Deal; and learn that taking two bottles into the shower is not always necessary. For now, though, Iran is rejoicing that a monkey has made it into the great known, an event that follows the news that the country has invented a machine for amputating the fingers of thieves.

Iran’s ISNA news service has released images of three hooded officials holding a man’s hand in a vice as another turns a blade attached to what appears to be 1962 Signer sewing machine.

Anorak

Posted: 30th, January 2013 | In: Technology | Comment

Downton Abbey game for Super Nintendo

TIME to play Downton Abbey on the Super Nintendo:

Anorak

Posted: 30th, January 2013 | In: Technology, TV & Radio | Comment

Car of the day: 1959 BMW Isetta Whatta Drag with 730 hp Chevrolet V8 engine – photos

CAR of the day is a 1959 BMW Isetta Whatta Drag with 730 hp Chevrolet V8 engine. It’s a three-wheel bubble car on fire. Would anyone be game enough to drive the thing? The Isetta never had a reverse gear. The only way in is through the front door. Once in, you stay in – unless you brake very hard and you can the car fall on your faces…

It has dual-circuit disc brakes with an AP balance bar, while the suspension is taken from an M3. The front wheels are wrapped around in B.F. Goodrich G-Force tires, while the rear custom 18×13 inch drag racing wheel has a Sumitomo HTRZ II tire.

Although developed to be fully functional, the vehicle is strictly for show and shouldn’t be used on roads or track because the “massive amount of torque produced by the Chevrolet 502 motor can be dangerous if driven improperly.”

The 1959 BMW Isetta Whatta Drag is expected to fetch between 75,000 – 100,000 USD.

bubble-racing-1

Image 1 of 10

Anorak

Posted: 29th, January 2013 | In: Technology | Comment

Apple’s sales rise, profits rise, shares tank: WTF?

A USEFUL little reminder of something that economists keep trying to tell people but which often doesn’t seem to get through. Stock markets are forward looking.

So, we have Apple reporting its financial results for the most recent quarter. Profits were up (only very slightly, but they were). Sales were well up. Everything’s looking pretty rosy in hte Cupertino garden. At which point the shares drop 10% in minutes.

Tim Worstall

Posted: 29th, January 2013 | In: Money, Technology | Comment

How Las Vegas casinos show Britons the future of CCTV

TED Whiting is director of surveillance at Las Vegas’s Aria casino in Vegas. The control room works like London: everyone is observed in a hunt for the cheats:

Despite that, Whiting says facial recognition software hasn’t been of much use to him. It’s simply too unreliable when it comes to spotting people on the move, in crowds, and under variable lighting. Instead, he and his team rely on pictures shared from other casinos, as well as through the Biometrica and Griffin databases. (The Griffin database, which contains pictures and descriptions of various undesirables, used to go to subscribers as massive paper volumes.) But quite often, they’re not looking for specific people, but rather patterns of behavior. “Believe it or not, when you’ve done this long enough,” he says, “you can tell when somebody’s up to no good. It just doesn’t feel right.”

Anorak

Posted: 28th, January 2013 | In: Technology, The Consumer | Comment

US military scans dogs’ brains to find best combat soldiers

>ONE day they’ll be doing this to people:

DARPA’s mission is to prevent technological surprise for the United States and to create technological surprise for its adversaries.  The DARPA SBIR and STTR Programs are designed to provide small, high-tech businesses and academic institutions the opportunity to propose radical, innovative, high-risk approaches to address existing and emerging national security threats; thereby supporting DARPA’s overall strategy to bridge the gap between fundamental discoveries and the provision of new military capabilities.

Anorak

Posted: 27th, January 2013 | In: Technology | Comment

China shows why Microsoft is screwed

THERE been some recent whining from Microsoft about how they get to sell bugger all in China. As opposed to Apple who can’t make things fast enough. Some of this is of course because Microsoft sells software, something often ripped off in that lovely country. But there’s something else as well: and it’s a neat illustration of why Microsoft is, essentially, screwed.

China’s Internet population surges to 564 million, 75 percent on mobile

Tim Worstall

Posted: 25th, January 2013 | In: Money, Technology | Comments (3)

Aberdeen receptionist accidentally sends entire office sexy email meant for fiance

OOPS! Melanie Anderson accidentally sent a racy email intended for her finace Eric Knisz to everyone at her work. Melanie works at Aberdeen-based oil company ISS. Bruce Webster, HR director of ISS, says:

“Personal emails are not encouraged at work and we have taken the appropriate action with the members of staff concerned. They are absolutely mortified by the content of the email trail which was meant to be private and apologise for any offence caused by it going out with our organisation.”

Anorak

Posted: 25th, January 2013 | In: Technology | Comment

The ban on tasteless diners taking photos of their meals

EVER taken a photo of your meal and posted it to a social media site? No, not pictures of terrible food, like this RyanAir disaster. This is about those pictures of fine dining. Some eateries in the US have banned diners from photographing their dinners. Rebecca Jane Stokes is delighted:

I don’t like people taking photographs of their food at restaurants because it takes the food out of its context. Whatever people might say — and I’ve heard it so many times from so many diet proponents — food is inherently social. Do you need to have food around to have a good time with someone? No, of course not. But there is something primal and nourishing in sharing a meal with people you enjoy. Social interaction sustains us, so does ingesting food — and when both are of the highest quality in a place designed with respect for that, taking a quick pic with my iPhone feels like giving the entire event short shrift.

Anorak

Posted: 24th, January 2013 | In: Technology, The Consumer | Comment

Petter Kverneng gets 1million likes to earn Facebook sex with Cathrine

MODERN love: If pimply teenager Petter Kverneng gets 1million likes on Facebook, Cathrine will shag him.

Anorak

Posted: 20th, January 2013 | In: Strange But True, Technology | Comment

Giant Panda bears blood is good for you

GIANT PANDA blood is good for you. The bears create an antibiotic in their blood stream that can kill off bacteria and fungi.

Dr Xiuwen Yan, of the Life Sciences College of Nanjing Agricultural University in China, tells us:

“It showed potential antimicrobial activities against wide spectrum of microorganisms including bacteria and fungi, both standard and drug-resistant strains. Under the pressure of increasing microorganisms with drug resistance against conventional antibiotics, there is urgent need to develop new type of antimicrobial agents.”

Anorak

Posted: 17th, January 2013 | In: Technology | Comment

A tour of the Space Station Commander Provides Orbital Laboratory

IN this video a departing Space Station Commander Provides Tour of Orbital Laboratory.

Given the muscle atrophying effects of living in space, in the future, the space station might be used as a fat farm, where the super rich go to lose weight:

Anorak

Posted: 17th, January 2013 | In: Technology | Comment

Woman fails to find Belgium with GPS – ends up in Croatia

IT can be hard to find the ends of Belgium. This woman’s adventures  might even lead to discussion about what Belgium is?

A 67-year-old Belgian woman set out to drive 38 miles to Brussels under the guidance of her GPS navigation system but arrived in Zagreb two days and 901 miles later.

Anorak

Posted: 14th, January 2013 | In: Strange But True, Technology | Comment