10+ Amazing Short Films You’d Not Believe Were Made With Free Software Blender is cross-platform so you can learn the basics right now with the QuickStart and plenty of other tutorials on the official site and all over the net. Blender’s not the only 3D content creation software available for free though. Just to name a few, there’s: Google SketchUp that’s great to create buildings and objects,Wings 3D, a cross-platform, open-source 3D modeler,MakeHuman, another cross-platform, open-source tool to model human characters,Sculptris, free Windows-only 3D modeling and sculpting software,MeshLab, cross-platform and open-source tool to process 3D scans,trueSpace, a free Windows-only 3D content creation tool. There are a few more alternatives which you can see here but Blender seems to be very popular so most of the following open-source-generated masterpieces are made with this powerful suite. Short Films Big Buck Bunny is an award-winning animated short film released online by the Blender Foundation in 2008. Shorts
Australian scientists discover new immune cell Red blood cells (red) and platelets (orange) amidst different immune cells. The newly discovered cell belongs to the family of lymphocytes, here depicted in blue. Credit: STEVE GSCHMEISSNER / SGS / Science Photo Library LONDON: A new type of white blood cell that plays an important role in the immune system has been discovered by Australian scientists. This research, published in the current issue of Nature Immunology, could improve our understanding of conditions such as infections and cancer, and may help develop new therapies for these diseases. “The discovery of these cells was accidental,” said Adam Uldrich, a biomedical researcher at the University of Melbourne and one of the investigators in the study. “We observed a population of cells that we did not expect to find. How immune cells sense their enemy A large family of immune cells, called T-cells, have special receptors on their surface to identify invading germs. Discovering unknown cell Synchrotron fast-tracking research
Lucid Dreaming/Using Dream stabilization[edit] Once you are able to dream lucidly, you may find that it is difficult to stay in the dream; for example, you may wake instantly or the dream may start “fading” which is characterized by loss or degradation of any of the senses, especially vision. Alternatively, a new lucid dreamer could easily forget that they are in a dream, as a result of the shock of the sensation. Don't worry if you wake immediately after becoming lucid. You can avoid more gradual fadings by stimulating your senses. Ideally you should be able to use the techniques below to stabilize your dream before it starts to fade (or “black out”). If you still can’t stabilize your dream, you may decide to try and wake up with the aim of remembering your dream as accurately as possible while its still fresh in your mind. Hand Touching[edit] Rub your hands together and concentrate on the rubbing. Spinning[edit] You spin around in your dream much as you would if you suddenly want to feel dizzy in real life.
Japanese breakthrough will make wind power cheaper than nuclear NOTE: Some major wind projects like the proposed TWE Carbon Valley project in Wyoming are already pricing in significantly lower than coal power -- $80 per MWh for wind versus $90 per MWh for coal -- and that is without government subsidies using today's wind turbine technology. The International Clean Energy Analysis (ICEA) gateway estimates that the U.S. possesses 2.2 million km2 of high wind potential (Class 3-7 winds) — about 850,000 square miles of land that could yield high levels of wind energy. This makes the U.S. something of a Saudi Arabia for wind energy, ranked third in the world for total wind energy potential. The United States uses about 26.6 billion MWh's, so at the above rate we could satisfy a full one-third of our total annual energy needs. Now what if a breakthrough came along that potentially tripled the energy output of those turbines? Well, such a breakthrough has been made, and it's called the "wind lens." Editor's note: Want more info?
Linear algebra for game developers ~ part 1 When I posted about decals last week, a number of readers commented that they would be interested in posts about linear algebra as it applies to game development. I decided if I'm going to write about that, I might as well start at the beginning! This will be review to many of you who have written games before or taken classes in kinematic physics, so please bear with me for this introductory post -- I will get to more advanced topics later. Why do we care about linear algebra? Linear algebra is the study of vectors. What is a vector? In games, vectors are used to store positions, directions, and velocities. The position vector indicates that the man is standing two meters east of the origin, and one meter north. As you can see, a vector by itself is just a set of numbers -- it is only given meaning by its context. For this reason, it's important to keep track of your units. Now that we've gone over the basics of vectors, we need to know how to use them. Vector addition Vector subtraction
Behind Intel's New Random-Number Generator Imagine that it's 1995 and you're about to make your very first online purchase. You open your Netscape browser, sipping coffee as the home page slowly loads. You then navigate to Amazon.com, a new online bookstore your friend told you about. Unfortunately, your first online transaction was doomed from the start: It will soon be discovered that the supposedly secure transfer protocol your browser just followed wasn't very secure after all. The problem was that the secret keys Netscape was using weren't random enough. Netscape's programmers would have loved to use a completely random number to form the encryption key, but they had a hard time figuring out how to come up with one. Researchers have managed to devise pseudorandom-number generators that are considered cryptographically secure. Fortunately, it's not hard to harvest truly unpredictable randomness by tapping the chaotic universe that surrounds a computer's orderly, deterministic world of 1s and 0s.
Hands-On With Sony’s New Wedge-Shaped Tablet S | Gadget Lab Still got tablet fever? Somebody must, because they just keep coming. Sony unveiled the final versions of its two new Android tablets Wednesday. These are the same two devices we saw last month — the curvy, wedge-shaped full-sized tablet is now called the Sony Tablet S, and the dual-screen tablet that folds up into a pocket-sized burrito is now called the Sony Tablet P. The Tablet S will land in stores this September, priced at $500 for a 16GB version and $600 for the 32GB version. From the front, the S looks like every other tablet: boring, shiny and flat. The hardware was officially announced at the IFA trade show in Berlin. From the front, the S looks like every other tablet: boring, shiny and flat. This goes against the unspoken Code of Tablet Design, which mandates thinness above all else, and from which we’ve seen very little deviation. The screen is lovely. Two unfortunate things to note. We did see some demos of the apps that will be shipping with the Tablet S.
LulzSec and Anonymous police and FBI investigation sees two more arrested | Technology LulzSec, which uses this logo, and Anonymous are being investigated by UK police and the FBI over claims the online groups hacked websites. Two men have been arrested in connection with online attacks by hacking gangs Anonymous and LulzSec, Scotland Yard said. The men, aged 24 and 20, were arrested on Thursday in Mexborough, near Doncaster, South Yorkshire, and Warminster, Wiltshire, for conspiring to commit offences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. Scotland Yard said the arrests were part of a continuing investigation in collaboration with the FBI, South Yorkshire Police and other law enforcement bodies, into activities of Anonymous and LulzSec, especially in connection with suspected offences under the cover of online identity "Kayla". A spokesman said the men were arrested separately. He said the Doncaster address was searched by police and computer equipment was removed for forensic examination. All four will appear on bail at City of Westminster Magistrates Court on September 7.
France: Copyright Is More Important Than Human Rights It's no secret that Nicolas Sarkozy is a strong supporter of more draconian copyright laws, and has also been talking about the need to clamp down on free expression online. Even so, it's still a bit shocking to see him outright declare that copyright is more important than human rights online: The Foreign Ministry said that France does not wish to sign a UN declaration favorable to the defense of human rights on the Internet until there is no consensus on the fact that freedom expression and communication does not take precedence over other rights, including intellectual property. That's from a Google translation of the French which is a little awkward. As Glyn Moody writes in the link above, this very much goes counter to France's actual interests. The worst thing the French government can do would be to make it *harder* to access French culture in the form of literature, music, films, etc through increasingly punitive enforcement of outdated copyright laws.
Patriot Act - 9/11 Encyclopedia - September 11 10th Anniversary – NYMag The authors of the Patriot Act always intended that its provisions would be permanent. The politically expedient thing to do would have been to include a sunset provision, to acknowledge a temporary moment of crisis that required special measures for prosecutors to pursue terrorists. But the lawyers wanted no sunsets; some of them had been working Al Qaeda cases since the first World Trade Center bombing and imagined a long-term struggle that could last a generation. “I said, ‘Don’t think of this as an emergency measure,’ ” Viet Dinh [P1] recalled on July 20. At the time, Dinh was an assistant attorney general under John Ashcroft and was tasked on the morning of September 12 with writing a bill to fix whatever laws might impede investigation. In those patriotic weeks, partisan conflict dissipated easily. “Patriot Act” was appropriately overt. The Patriot Act was mostly a Republican project at its origin, but it would have died long ago without the support of Democrats.
200 – Ode to Minions (If the above sound file isn’t playing, make sure you have Quicktime and Flash plugins installed and refresh!) (Or, you can always check out the YouTube video!) Friday, November 2009 — 1:30 AM Whew! So in the spirit (hur hur) of strips like Stomp, I decided to elaborate on those minions–those lovable, meandering peons just doing their jobs–that get wiped out by the hundreds. There are a pretty big number of game references and cameos in this strip–see how many you can spot, or in a couple cases hear (hint: listen for the marimba). So blathering about today’s 68-panel behemoth aside, what lies in the near future for Brawl in the Family? A WEEK BREAK. But I’ll be back on Tuesday, December 1st with something…interesting. So, yeah, woo! *drinks Pep Brew* -By Matthew PS.
Oliver James on whether absent fathers trigger early puberty in girls A young girl's puberty may be linked to her relationship with her father Photograph: Sarah Lee/Sarah Lee A particularly startling example of the impact of our relationship with our children is the age at which girls enter puberty. Girls are entering puberty younger and the main reason seems to be the absence of dads. The average age at which a British girl had her first period was 13 and a half in the 1950s and 1960s. This is not an insignificant fact, because entering puberty young (before 11) correlates with a host of problems, from teenage pregnancy to depression. Changing genes could not possibly explain the trend (they take millennia to alter), although there is some evidence that it could be partly due to the greater quantity of body fat in our increasingly obese child population. On average, a girl whose father divorces or separates from her mother and leaves the family home before she is 10 comes into puberty five months earlier than a girl from an intact family.
Doctors campaign against 'risky and painful' circumcision of boys Doctors campaign against 'risky and painful' circumcision of boys Wednesday 14 September 2011 The Dutch doctors federation KNMG has again called on ministers, MPs and human rights organisations to speak out against the practice of circumcising young boys. Between 10,000 and 15,000 boys are circumcised in the Netherlands every year, often on religious grounds and without anaesthetics, the organisation says. The intervention is not without risk and is increasingly being seen as 'not normal', the organisation says. It is not calling for an outright ban because of fears this would drive the practice underground and lead to more complications. In particular, the KNMG says insurance companies should ask if they should be using public funds to pay for an unnecessary operation. © DutchNews.nl