0ink! » Guaranteed to contain absolutely zero ink!

That’s right, Sanyo have come up with a way of creating optical disks from corn starch. Not only will the new disks be biodegradable, but they will also taste good with cheese and guacamole dip!

Jokes aside, apparently corn starch can be made compatible with Blu-ray, the storage device format supported by Sony and Matsushita. It has a storage capacity of 25 gigabytes, about five times that of a DVD, and offers high performance for recording and playback performance.

Since resin made from corn starch costs less than ordinary types, Sanyo calculates that mass-producing the disk will bring its price down to about the same level or less than those of conventional optical disks.

Manufacturing Process

Production of the plastic used in the MildDisc begins with Cargill Dow in the U.S. It mills kernels of corn to separate out the starch and then processes these to get unrefined dextrose. Using a fermentation process similar to that of beer production, the dextrose is converted into lactic acid, according to the company’s Web site.

Sanyo converts the lactic acid into a polymer used in the disc substrate using a method developed with Japan’s Mitsui Chemicals.

Sanyo estimates that around 85 corn kernels, each weighing an average of 0.5 grams, are needed to produce enough polymer for a single 4.7-inch optical disc, so an average ear of corn can produce around 10 discs. The International Recording Media Association estimates world demand for CDs at around 9 billion annually, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates world corn production at about 600 million tons, so less than 0.1 percent of the world’s corn production is theoretically required to produce enough polymer to satisfy worldwide disc demand. — PC World

The disk which was supposed to be introduced last December, but has been delayed due to some problems associated with heat resistance.

“There was a concern that if the disc was exposed to heat greater than 50 degrees Celsius that it wouldn’t work properly,” says Ryan Watson, a spokesperson for the Osaka-based company. “A timely topic now as the heat is blazing down on Tokyo, so the main obstacle that they are working on now is trying to improve the disc’s resistance to heat. They can easily improve its resistance to heat with a mix of material but that kind of defeats the purpose of the MildDisc.”

At the moment Sanyo does not know how long it will take to resolve this hurdle, but we will have our ears to the ground in anticipation for the release of this eco-friendly disk.

I came across an interesting article the other day about new landmine clearing technology.

In Mozambique giant hamster rats are being recruited to clear the numerous landmines left there after decades of war. The furry rodents are perfect for the job because of their keen sense of smell and their light-footedness. Dogs which have also served as mine detecters in the past are not as efficient and safe due to their weight as well as their tendecy to get bored easily.

Giant hamster rats on the other hand don’t need much to keep them focussed on the job at hand. Simple rewards of banana or peanuts are enough to keep them going.

Very novel. I wonder how they’d be as pets…they look about the same size as a small dog!

Freaky stuff, but they have managed to culture an embryonic rat’s neural cells in a petri dish and…taught it how to fly an F-22 jet simulator!

At first, it crashed the plane a fair bit, but after a while, the “brain-in-a-dish” learnt how to keep the plane stable, even in rough flying conditions. Amazing. And I thought using hamster rats to help in de-mining was clever!

It is a step closer to having living components in computers. Wasn’t that sci-fi not long ago?

We are Borg. You will be assimilated - resistance is futile.

It seems that George W Bush has signed in a new law that essentially cuts off hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid to countries that refuse to grant Americans immunity from the world’s first war crimes tribunal, to be held by the ICC.

It reeks of hypocrisy.

You can read more about it here.

It’s not often that you see a koala hanging onto a channel marker pole surrounded by water. I guess some are more adventurous than others. This koala went looking for gum trees in the wrong direction. Lucky for the little fella someone spotted him and called the Koala Rescue!

Finally got round to working on my fortune cookies plugin. I’ve managed to integrate it into the admin panel, so now it has it’s own options page.

The options page provides a list of cookie files available. It’s also possible to edit any file on this the list via the template edit form. Indexing is still done manually (needs to be done when a new cookie file is added ayway), but I’m also working on a way to automatically re-index a cookie file after it’s been edited.

Integrating it into the admin panel was quite educational, since I knew nothing of how Wordpress actually worked before this plugin. I did have some programming experience, so that helped.

I started the learning curve by integrating WP Grins (by Alex King) into the Quicktags panel, i.e. no need to edit Quicktags file to get the plugin working. Just drop it into the plugins directory, activate it and you’ll get smilies on the Quicktags panel (the Word Statistics plugin by John Watson provided the knowledge I needed).

After working out how that worked, I read some more code done by others (notably Owen’s Spam Action, by Owen Winkler). Finally, I understood enough to get the plugin to do what I wanted.

I still want it to do more, but I’m pleased with the result so far.

Hopefully, it will be released in the not too distant future. Right now I need sleep.

Get it here.

I’ve decided to call my plugin KFC. It stands for Khanh’s Fortune Cookies. Why KFC? Simple - because KFC is finger lickin’ good!

Hang on, who is Khanh?

Khanh is me!

O.K. then who is John? Well, that’s me as well!

Confused?

Well, let’s just say John is my name on paper, while Khanh is my birth name.

Still confused?

It’s a long story. I might tell you the whole story behind it one day.

Anyway, there are a few things I’d like to add to this plugin. I’d like to be able to have a setting whereby you’d be able to choose whether a new cookie is fetched everytime the page is loaded or, to have a cookie persistant for a certain time period.

Another option would be for cookies to only be fetched from selected cookie files i.e. “Activate” certain cookie files. Maybe, control which category to display when page is loaded depending on category variable passed to plugin.

If all goes well, I might release the plugin this weekend. Well, that’s all the thinking I’m prepared to do tonight. Zzzzzzz time!

57 Elm Street
Bethlehem, Pa.
11:51 p.m., December 24th.

“We’re too late! It’s already been here.”

“Mulder, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Look, Scully, just like the other homes: Douglas fir, truncated, mounted, transformed into a shrine; halls decked with boughs of holly; stockings hung by the chimney, with care.”

“You really think someone’s been here?”

“Someone, or something.”

“Mulder, over here–it’s a fruitcake.”

“Don’t touch it! Those things can be lethal.”

“It’s O.K. There’s a note attached: ‘Gonna find out who’s naughty and nice.’”

“It’s judging them, Scully. It’s making a list.”

“Who? What are you talking about?”

“Ancient mythology tells of an obese humanoid entity who could travel at great speed in a craft powered by antlered servants. Once a year, near the winter solstice, this creature is said to descend from the heavens to reward its followers and punish disbelievers with jagged chunks of anthracite.”

“But that’s legend, Mulder–a story told by parents to frighten children. Surely you don’t believe it?”

“Something was here tonight, Scully. Check out the bite marks on this gingerbread man. Whatever tore through this plate of cookies was massive–and in a hurry.”

“It left crumbs everywhere. And look, Mulder, this milk glass has been completely drained.”

“It gorged itself, Scully. It fed without remorse.”

“But why would they leave it milk and cookies?”

“Appeasement. Tonight is the Eve, and nothing can stop its wilding.”

“But if this thing does exist, how did it get in? The doors and windows were locked. There’s no sign of forced entry.”

“Unless I miss my guess, it came through the fireplace.”

“Wait a minute, Mulder. If you’re saying some huge creature landed on the roof and came down this chimney, you’re crazy. The flue is barely six inches wide. Nothing could get down there.”

“But what if it could alter its shape, move in all directions at once?”

“You mean, like a bowl full of jelly?”

“Exactly. Scully, I’ve never told anyone this, but when I was a child my home was visited. I saw the creature. It had long white shanks of fur surrounding its ruddy, misshapen head. Its bloated torso was red and white. I’ll never forget the horror. I turned away, and when I looked back it had somehow taken on the facial features of my father.”

“Impossible.”

“I know what I saw. And that night it read my mind. It brought me a Mr. Potato Head, Scully. It knew that I wanted a Mr. Potato Head!”

“I’m sorry, Mulder, but you’re asking me to disregard the laws of physics. You want me to believe in some supernatural being who soars across the skies and brings gifts to good little girls and boys. Listen to what you’re saying. Do you understand the repercussions? If this gets out, they’ll close the X-files.”

“Scully, listen to me: It knows when you’re sleeping. It knows when you’re awake.”

“But we have no proof.”

“Last year, on this exact date, SETI radio telescopes detected bogeys in the airspace over twenty-seven states. The White House ordered a Condition Red.”

“But that was a meteor shower.”

“Officially. Two days ago, eight prized Scandinavian reindeer vanished from the National Zoo, in Washington, D.C. Nobody–not even the zookeeper–was told about it. The government doesn’t want people to know about Project Kringle. They fear that if this thing is proved to exist the public will stop spending half its annual income in a holiday shopping frenzy. Retail markets will collapse. Scully, they cannot let the world believe this creature lives. There’s too much at stake. They’ll do whatever it takes to insure another silent night.”

“Mulder, I–”

“Sh-h-h. Do you hear what I hear?”

“On the roof. It sounds like … a clatter.”

“The truth is up there. Let’s see what’s the matter.”

by Frank Cammuso and Hart Seely
(from the 12/16/96 New Yorker)

‘Tis the season to be jolly!

Indeed. Five days till Christmas.

It’s a bit weird…it doesn’t feel at all that festive to me yet. Is it because I haven’t gone out and spent a day or two Christmas shopping? Maybe we should put up the Christmas tree and play some carols to get into the “right” mood.

So, what does give us that “Christmas” feeling?

I remember a time when we used to go to Christmas mass followed by supper with family and friends.

As a kid, mass was a bit boring, since it tended to be longer than usual, but I always looked forward to the supper afterwards, because presents always followed supper.

I guess it’s all the “looking forward” to that made it an exciting time of the year. No school. Hang out with friends. Christmas presents. Lots of food. Christmas trees with flashing lights. Carols by candlelight.

Christmas as a kid was fun. It’s a bit different as an adult though. “No school” is replaced with work. “Hang out with friends” is replaced with hang out with work colleagues. “Christmas presents” now means hectic last minute shopping.

However, there are a few constants that we can all take comfort in. Trees, lights, carols, friends, family and food (Lots of it! Hooray for that!)…

…and the spirit of giving and forgiving.

Ah yes, I think I’m getting the Christmas feeling now.

Have a Safe and Merry Christmas!

Upgraded to a newer nightly build (2004-12-21 2004-12-23) of Wordpress once again. There was a problem with comments displaying properly. Couldn’t figure it out and hence the fresh install. As it turns out it was due to a buggy wp-comments.php, so the upgrade didn’t help much.

So, I went back to the code repository and dug up a version that worked. I think this will be the last time I upgrade until the beta for 1.3 comes out.

Aside from that, I fixed some CSS (cleared a float) so that KFC would display properly in the permalinks page, and made minor cosmetic changes here and there.