Review – new MacBook Air has great performance improvements, no design changes

You have to give it to ars technica, they write the best, most in-depth reviews. If you’re interested in buying the new MacBook Air the whole 4-page article is worth reading.

But, to cheat, I skipped to the last page and copied the conclusions below:

 

Conclusion

The 2012 MacBook Air doesn’t look any different than its last couple of predecessors, but the upgrades on the inside are what make the machine. Although Apple elected not to try and squeeze a “retina” class display into the MacBook Air this year, such a change would have come with great sacrifice to performance and battery life. And let’s be honest—with the MacBook Air, there’s very little wiggle room on either of those metrics. For me at least, I would rather have the performance and battery life.

For someone like me upgrading from a 2010 MacBook Air, or even a MacBook Pro from the last couple years, it would be no question: go ahead and buy one of Apple’s latest MacBook Airs. The performance increase is noticeable even during everyday use (even while using the lowest-end 2012 machine), and Apple finally gives users the option to upgrade from the soldered-on 4GB of RAM to 8GB of RAM in the Air.

Finally, this makes it a more serious machine than it was pre-WWDC, and the battery life of the MacBook Air has reached a respectable level as well. With the addition of Thunderbolt for I/O and USB 3.0 this year, it’s going to be difficult to convince me (or most other existing Air owners) to go back to a MacBook Pro—unless they are hankering for that shiny new retina display or even more significant performance improvements.

 

Review: The 2012 MacBook Air soars with Ivy Bridge

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Los Angeles updates zoning in Hollywood – moving towards metro-centric city

A plan that could dramatically remake the Hollywood skyline and form the blueprint for denser development around the city’s growing rail network has won unanimous approval from the Los Angeles City Council.

Revised zoning guidelines for Sunset Boulevard and surrounding streets will make it easier for developers to build bigger and taller buildings, especially around subway stations and along bus routes. Supporters say the plan is a visionary change that will allow Hollywood to complete a 20-year-transformation from a seedy haven for drug dealing and prostitution into a more vibrant, cosmopolitan center of residential towers, jobs, entertainment and public transportation.

“If we’re going to spend billions of dollars to build a rapid-transit system, it only makes sense to put development there,” he said.

Learn more – L.A. council OKs plan to concentrate growth in Hollywood

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Irvine Company completes donation of 20,000 acres of permanently protected natural parks

April 11, 2012 – Ushering in a sweeping new era of public ownership and access to thousands of acres of Orange County’s most prized natural lands, the (Orange County) Board of Supervisors today accepted the long-anticipated final gift of more than 20,000 acres of pristine, permanently protected open space and parklands from the Irvine Company.

These lands have been designated both a California and National Natural Landmark and are part of a grand total of 50,000 acres of permanently protected open space and parklands located on The Irvine Ranch and donated to Orange County. This unprecedented gift was created through collaborative conservation efforts spanning over 100 years involving the Irvine Company, community organizations, municipalities, government agencies and environmental groups.

This exceptional 50,000-acre gift is over 10 times the size of Griffith Park in Los Angeles (4,210 acres) and almost 60 times the size of Central Park in New York (843 acres).

The vast donation of permanently protected land includes: Bommer Canyon, Crystal Cove State Park, Upper Newport Bay, Laguna Coast Wilderness Park, and Quail Hill. Today’s gift adds the spectacular Limestone, Fremont, Weir, Black Star and Gypsum canyons to that list.

More details about the donation – Donald-Bren.com

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The highly productive habits of Alan Turing

On the week of his 100th birthday, we celebrate the mathematician’s life.

June 23 marks the 100th birthday of Alan Turing. If I had to name five people whose personal efforts led to the defeat of Nazi Germany, the English mathematician would surely be on my list. Turing’s genius played a key role in helping the Allies win the Battle of the Atlantic—a naval blockade against the Third Reich that depended for success on the cracking and re-cracking of Germany’s Enigma cipher. That single espionage victory gave the United States control of the Atlantic shipping lanes, eventually setting the stage for the 1944 invasion of Normandy.

But even before this history-changing achievement, Turing laid the groundwork for the world we live in today by positing a “universal computing machine” in 1936. “It is possible to invent a single machine which can be used to compute any computable sequence,” he contended. His proposed device could read, write, remember, and erase symbols.

 

Keep reading for – 7 Turing Qualities we should all emulate – and also be sure to participate in:

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Amazing photo of a blue whale feeding on krill (her mouth is full)

After reading a recent story about local blue whale sightings, San Diego photographer Jerry Allen shared a stunning image of a blue feeding on krill off the county’s coast at Nine Mile Bank.

He took the photo in November. “There were about 10 blue/fin whales that day. I now call it the ‘magic day,'” Allen said.

Allen said blues are very difficult to photograph. “I figure I’ll get a photo op about one time in 10 trips,” he said. “It’s also illegal to chase them, so you have to get lucky with an animal choosing to come to you.”

 

More on the story – ‘Magic’ image shows blue whale munching krill

 

 

 

More Photos from Jerry Allen – visit his website

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The stop-motion story of a bookmark that comes alive – Much Better Now

Narrative:

The main character is a bookmark, stuck in a forgotten book. Both are connected by chance, in a life marked by standstill in a deserted room.

One day a window is pressed open by a gust of wind, knocking over the book and blowing the bookmark onto the table. As they become separated, the journey begins. While the bookmark watches from a distance, the wind catches the pages, turning them into ocean waves.

Unfolding hands and feet, the bookmark is swept back into the book. With a surfboard taken from the book, the character is given the opportunity to experience its environment in a new way – wipeouts, washouts and nosedives in a wild ocean follow. Just as our hero is willing to resign, the ocean carries it higher and higher on a wave frozen in time – they become one. The wave breaks, releasing everything back into motion.

The bookmark enjoys the ride of its life, carving and floating its way in and out of tubes, until the last page is reached. The book cover closes with a snap, spitting out the surfer. The journey through this episode of its life is over. As the protagonist tries to get back into the book, light reveals other parts of the room, fully packed with bookshelves. It faces endless challenges in its newly gained freedom.

 

A short video – Making of…

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The Art of Fermentation in coffee, bread, beer, cheese, yogurt…

The list of fermented food in our lives is staggering: bread, coffee, pickles, beer, cheese, yogurt and soy sauce are all transformed at some point during their production process by microscopic organisms that extend their usefulness and enhance their flavors.

The process of fermenting our food isn’t a new one: Evidence indicates that early civilizations were making wine and beer between 7,000 and 8,000 years ago — and bread even before that.

But was exactly is fermentation? And how does it work? Those were the questions that fascinated Sandor Katz for years. Katz calls himself a “fermentation revivalist” and has spent the past decade teaching workshops around the country on the ancient practice of fermenting food.

“If you walk into a gourmet food store and start thinking about the nature of the foods that we elevate on the gourmet pedestal, almost all of them are the products of fermentation,” he tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross.

 

Listen to the full interview on NPR’s Fresh Air – ‘Fermentation’: When Food Goes Bad But Stays Good

 

The book – The Art of Fermentation.

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Easter Island excavations reveal huge bodies beneath the heads

There’s more to the world-famous heads of Easter Island than meets the eye.

Ask archaeologist Jo Anne Van Tilburg, a research associate at the UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology and director of its Rock Art Archive, who has been lecturing and writing about Easter Island’s iconic monolithic statues for years.

She and her team of resident Rapa Nui have spent nine years locating and meticulously documenting the nearly 1,000 statues on the island, determining their symbolic meaning and function, and conserving them using state-of-the-art techniques.

After spending four months over the last two years excavating two of the statues and posting the results of their digs on the project’s website, Van Tilburg was surprised to discover that a large segment of the general public hadn’t realized that what they knew only as the Easter Island “heads” actually had bodies.

The two “heads” in the quarry where Van Tilburg’s team dug are standing figures with torsos, truncated at the waist, that have become partially buried by eroded dirt and detritus over centuries.

 

Learn more – Archaeologist digs deep to reveal Easter Island torsos

 

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Surfline adds 34 new/upgraded cameras to its lineup – from Ireland to CA, NC

Surfline has added/upgraded 34 cams in the last five months with many more to come.

Make sure you check back because there’s a good chance there will be a new or upgraded cam near you.

 

NEW HD CAMS
Beacons, CA (Feb 2012)
Oceanside Pier SS, CA (April 2012)
Salt Creek, CA (Jan 2012)
Ponce Inlet, FL (April 2012)

 

UPGRADED HD CAMS
Mission Beach, CA (May 2012)
Cardiff, CA (Jan 2012)
Grandview, CA (Feb 2012)
The Wedge, CA (June 2012)
Goldenwest, CA (March 2012)
Casino Pier, NJ (April 2012)
North End, VA (March 2012)
Rodanthe, NC (May 2012)

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