Reshared post from +Ahmed Zeeshan

#mindblown #universe

The Known Universe

A few days back I posted a youtube video that gave us an idea of how planets from the solar system would look like if they were as close to us as our Moon. The realization of how small we are is actually quite over whelming.

Usually we're presented with numbers and light years of distance which doesn't really give us the kind of visual representation of scale we're looking for. Hence, when I say that at 13.7 billion light years from earth we reach the extent of our known universe, even though it's a seemingly massive number the scale of it still doesn't sink in properly.

Therefore, today I give you this video from a couple years ago. It does an amazing job of showing us our known universe and how our Earth fits into it. The video has 8 million views thus far but the whole planet needs to watch this.

Everytime I am faced with some big hurdle in my life I watch this and realize:
- how insignificant I am in the grand scheme of things
- there is so much out there to explore and discover
- we're slowly destroying earth, our only home, in so many ways
- and most importantly how frikking big the universe is and that's just the known bit

So share this with everyone everywhere. We all need to watch it.

**************************
Permalink to post: bit.ly/a_knownuniverse

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26 Billion Dollars of the Alphabet

http://remythequill.com/head-space/billionaire-alphabet

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Double whammy gene therapy clears HIV from body - New Scientist - New Scientist

http://www.newscientist.com/mobile/article/dn20948-double-whammy-gene-therapy-clears-hiv-from-body.html

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Thought about this just last week on a flight!

TrayVu: In-flight Android with your peanuts
Please make sure that your Android tablet is in an upright and locked position...
http://pulse.me/s/1ETin

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http://phandroid.com/2011/09/13/samsung-galaxy-s-ii-monitors-new-ford-electric-e...

http://phandroid.com/2011/09/13/samsung-galaxy-s-ii-monitors-new-ford-electric-e-bike-concept/

Embedded Link

Samsung Galaxy S II Monitors New Ford Electric E-Bike Concept
First it was the Nike Mags and now this -- the Ford E-Bike Concept. I think it's safe to say, the future has finally arrived. This Android powered hybrid

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Audi Introduces A2 Concept In Frankfurt

With the Frankfurt Motor Show 2011 set to kick off, luxury automobile manufacturer Audi is releasing details of a concept vehicle called the A2,...
http://pulse.me/s/1ATQV

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The million dollar space pen hoax [Debunkery]

There's a famous legend that America spent millions on the development of a 'space pen' that writes upside down, while the ...
http://pulse.me/s/1AWXK

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Fancy a coke, sweets, kruger rand?

Fancy a coke, sweets, kruger rand?

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Only in Dubai....

Only in Dubai....

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MTN Internet still World Class: ASA « Cellular « MyBroadband Tech and IT News

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/cellular/32816-mtn-internet-still-world-class-asa.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

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Watch "Danny MacAskill Plays Capetown (complete video)" on YouTube

Danny MacAskill Plays Capetown (complete video)

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Like a diamond in the sky?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20832

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RIM’s New QNX BlackBerrys Will Run Android Apps

RIM announced well in advance of the PlayBook's launch that it would be able...
http://pulse.me/s/1kkGr

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Preparing Multimedia for Sony DAV TZ130 DVD player USB

Bear with me while I attempt preparing a mencoder command that converts my multimedia files into something that this darn DVD player can understand.

mencoder -mc 0 -noskip -vf expand=:::::16/9,scale=720:480,hqdn3d,harddup -ovc xvid -oac lavc -channels 6 -xvidencopts fixed_quant=3.8:me_quality=6:noqpel:nogmc:trellis:chroma_me:
chroma_opt:hq_ac:vhq=4:lumi_mask:max_key_interval=300:quant_type=mpeg:
max_bframes=2:closed_gop:nopacked:profile=asp5:autoaspect:bvhq=1
-lavcopts acodec=ac3 -o outfile.avi

The player thinks about playing the file..... then stops thinking and returns to the menu. :(

This works, but only 2 Audio channels:

mencoder -mc 0 -noskip -vf expand=:::::16/9,scale=720:576,hqdn3d,harddup -ovc xvid -oac mp3lame -xvidencopts fixed_quant=3.8:me_quality=6:noqpel:nogmc:trellis:chroma_me:
chroma_opt:hq_ac:vhq=4:lumi_mask:max_key_interval=300:quant_type=mpeg:
max_bframes=2:closed_gop:nopacked:profile=asp5:autoaspect:bvhq=1
-lameopts vbr=2:q=6:aq=2 -o output.avi input.m4v

Halaal Gelatine – Should you know better? (Part 2)

This post is a follow on from here.

After some informative comments from a reader, Emre Metin, I've decided to highlight some of the things that he's researched on the topic.

Emre referenced the following sources:

1. Bazmool M. The Fiqh Principle of Istihala – Changing from impure to pure, (translated by Moosa Richardson and a fatwa given by Shaykh al-Albaani)


2. Venien, A., & Levieux, D. Differentiation of bovine from porcine gelatins using polyclonal anti-peptide antibodies in indirect and competitive indirect ELISA. Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis, 2005;39:418–424.


3. Zhang G, Liu T, Wang Q, Chen L, Lei J, Luo J, Ma G, Su Z. Mass spectrometric detection of marker peptides in tryptic digests of gelatin: A new method to differentiate between bovine and porcine gelatin Food Hydrocolloids,2009;23:2001-2007

The crux of the argument is summed up in the following statement from Emre:

According to Islam, when something changes its composition until it can not be related to its source, it is considered as a completely different material. This is called istihala.

The paper referenced above in [3], finds that it is possible to identify the source of Gelatin by looking for "marker peptides" that will point the source of the Gelatin as being either Bovine or Porcine. So, has the Gelatin then in face been changed in composition to the point that "it can not be related to its source" ?

Allah knows best. Let's not deceive ourselves thinking we can deceive our Creator?

Huge Rose

MashaAllah! This one has a 'Sarbat' fragrance too.

 

 

Android Web Gallery Example

I’ve been dabbling since last Friday with Android development. So far, I’ve already released one app on the marketplace because its pretty straight-forward to get something done on the Android platform.

My next challenge was to implement a picture gallery app and I found the following example:

http://www.androidpeople.com/android-gallery-imageview-example/

Also found an example of how to fetch images from the Web:

http://www.androidpeople.com/android-load-image-from-url-example/

So, all I needed to do was merge the two together…

main.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout android:id="@+id/LinearLayout01"
android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent"
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:orientation="vertical">
<Gallery xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:id="@+id/gallery"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
/>
<ImageView android:id="@+id/ImageView01"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
/>
</LinearLayout>

webGalleryExample.java

package za.co.mtn.webGalleryExample;

import java.io.InputStream;
import java.net.URL;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.Context;
import android.content.res.TypedArray;
import android.graphics.drawable.Drawable;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.ViewGroup;
import android.widget.AdapterView;
import android.widget.BaseAdapter;
import android.widget.Gallery;
import android.widget.ImageView;
import android.widget.AdapterView.OnItemClickListener;

public class GalleryExample extends Activity {
private String[] jamCamURLs = {
“http://path.to.image1.jpg”,
“http://path.to.image2.jpg”,
“http://path.to.image3.jpg”,

};
Drawable[] drawablesFromUrl = new Drawable[3];
/** Called when the activity is first created. */
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main);
for (int i = 0; i < drawablesFromUrl.length; i++){
drawablesFromUrl[i] = LoadImageFromURL(jamCamURLs[i]);
}
final ImageView imgView = (ImageView)findViewById(R.id.ImageView01);
imgView.setImageDrawable(drawablesFromUrl[0]);
Gallery g = (Gallery) findViewById(R.id.gallery);
g.setAdapter(new ImageAdapter(this));

g.setOnItemClickListener(new OnItemClickListener() {
public void onItemClick(AdapterView parent, View v, int position, long id) {
imgView.setImageDrawable(drawablesFromUrl[position]);
}
});
}
private Drawable LoadImageFromURL(String url)
{
try
{
InputStream is = (InputStream) new URL(url).getContent();
Drawable d = Drawable.createFromStream(is, "src name");
return d;
}catch (Exception e) {
System.out.println("Exc="+e);
return null;
}
}
/*public static boolean StoreByteImage(Context mContext, byte[] imageData,
int quality, String expName) {

File sdImageMainDirectory = new File("/sdcard/myImages");
FileOutputStream fileOutputStream = null;
String nameFile = null;
try {

BitmapFactory.Options options=new BitmapFactory.Options();
options.inSampleSize = 5;
Bitmap myImage = BitmapFactory.decodeByteArray(imageData, 0,
imageData.length,options);

fileOutputStream = new FileOutputStream(
sdImageMainDirectory.toString() +"/" + nameFile + ".jpg");
BufferedOutputStream bos = new BufferedOutputStream(
fileOutputStream);

myImage.compress(CompressFormat.JPEG, quality, bos);

bos.flush();
bos.close();

} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IOException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}

return true;
}*/

public class ImageAdapter extends BaseAdapter {
int mGalleryItemBackground;
private Context mContext;

public ImageAdapter(Context c) {
mContext = c;
TypedArray a = obtainStyledAttributes(R.styleable.JamCam);
mGalleryItemBackground = a.getResourceId(
R.styleable.JamCam_android_galleryItemBackground, 0);
a.recycle();
}

public int getCount() {
return jamCamURLs.length;
//return mImageIds.length;
}

public Object getItem(int position) {
return position;
}

public long getItemId(int position) {
return position;
}

public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {
ImageView i = new ImageView(mContext);

i.setImageDrawable(drawablesFromUrl[position]);
i.setLayoutParams(new Gallery.LayoutParams(70, 57));
i.setScaleType(ImageView.ScaleType.FIT_XY);
i.setBackgroundResource(mGalleryItemBackground);

return i;
}
}
}

And voila!

The Mountain

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="422" caption="Dude, its the mountain. Like fully. Wicked."][/caption]

Table Mountain Live Webcam

Howto: Vuvuzela filter using Linux (Ubuntu)

By now there are more than a few bog posts like this on how to filter out the resonant frequencies produced by the vuvuzela.

I wasn't too happy with any of them and thought I'd share what I came up with after some tinkering.

For the impatient:

To install required tools:

sudo apt-get install sox

To test:

play vuvuzela.wav vol 0.9 bandreject 116.56 3.4q bandreject 233.12 3.4q bandreject 466.24 3.4q bandreject 932.48 3.4q bandreject 1864 3.4q

The test file can be downloaded here.

My starting point for this was a post by Russell Beattie, where he describes his attempts at using SoX.

You can test both approaches (using an equalizer vs. using a band-reject filter), and I think the latter does a better job. I also used slighty more accurate frequencies as suggested here and added an additional lower resonant frequency at 116.56 because I could still here a faint toot.

Russell chose to use Octave to define the width around the central frequency that is removed (.1o), whereas I prefer using the Q-factor as did the original German Blog post on this subject (3.4q)

To use:

rec -d|play -d vol 0.9 bandreject 116.56 3.4q bandreject 233.12 3.4q bandreject 466.24 3.4q bandreject 932.48 3.4q bandreject 1864 3.4q

Assuming your default sound input source is the your line-in or tv-tuner.

Updated: I updated the fundamental and harmonics as per this site.

Updated again: The above update should have been better, theoretically, but it isn't.

Vuvuzela Frequencies

Fundamental: 232.4 Hz

Harmonic 1: 464.8

Harmonic 2: 697.2

Harmonic 3: 929.6

Harmonic 4: 1162

Harmonic 5: 1394.4

Harmonic 6: 1626.8

Harmonic 7: 1859.3

Kiddo and I are playing outside despite cold because...

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