Cristopher Hall, Author at Argyll Free Press

New Theory Regarding How to Find Intelligent Aliens

March 1, 2016 By Cristopher Hall Leave a Comment

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence is a heavily treaded but equally unsatisfying road. Mankind has been attempting to find signs of other life forms in the universe as we know it for as long as it realized planet Earth is neither the center of the universe nor a plane surface floating somewhere in space. But not many worlds that could nurture any life whatsoever have been found so far, never mind ones that could allow species to develop to the point of becoming highly intelligent extraterrestrials.

But mankind continues to hope nonetheless, much too disheartened by the idea that our species may have just been that one happy accident that brought us into existence. And come to think about it, it a very difficult to grasp idea – the enormity of the universe only allowing the ‘flaw’ that created humans to only form in one single place. While scientists are very much aware that planet Earth and its inhabitants were the result of an abysmally low chance and mix of factors, it’s near impossible to consider it was the one and only.

So scientists now attempt to apply a different kind of thinking in their search for intelligent aliens. To be more precise, they start off with the belief that we should ‘put ourselves in the shoes of the aliens’ if we are to find them. By interpolating the very methods we employ to look for other intelligent species, so could other species.

Thus, by making use of the concept of the ‘transit method’, we may end up more successful than before. While there have been a number of ‘habitable’ planets detect via the Hubble Space Telescope or the Kepler Telescope, it’s certain many other have been missed. The transit method is a way scientists can detect previously unobserved planets by studying a star’s small drop in brightness that would normally occur when one of the orbiting planets passes in front of the star.

Scientists believe that as long as aliens exist in a form that is at least as intelligent as mankind, chances are they would employ the same methods of detecting other life forms such as us. In other words, even if they do not use the exact same ways of detecting planets as we do, they are still limited by the same physical principles. That way, by detecting what zones of the universe our planet can be detected that way, we could narrow down our search.

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Dark Souls Spin-Off Is Hitting App Store and Google Play

February 29, 2016 By Cristopher Hall Leave a Comment

In preparation for the soon and last to be released Dark Souls release – Dark Souls III – Namco Bandai made Dark Souls spin-off is hitting App Store and Google Play. They were made available for both iOS and Android just yesterday, a production made in partnership with GameStop. Anyone who has played the original PC and/or console version of the Dark Souls series (any of them really) and is in tune with what is about to go down in the next Dark Souls game will recognize a lot of familiar and classic aspects of the series.

Slashy Souls is a free to play endless runner kind of game that so far hasn’t attempted to trick any one of us or lure us into the trap of microtransactions. The point of the game is to wade your way through levels filled with Hollows and other casual Dark Souls cameos (I swear that was Nito at one point) while making use of the seemingly simple yet rather difficult to perform controls. You tap to slay and you swipe to roll, jump or backstep out of sticky situations, trying to get as far as you can. Similar to how many other platformer games out there work, you collect coins in the form of points, trying to beat your and others’ personal bests.

While, in all fairness, the game isn’t exactly something you will download for its amazing gameplay, Dark Souls fan will most likely still get it because it’s just… more Dark Souls. Even if we’re talking about a 16-bit adaptation of the much acclaimed series. There is no direct connection to the original series than the seemingly similar looking elements that you hack and slash at or the vaguely familiar, yet pixelated skybox. Or what do you call it in mobile games, background? One of them is the very same place that is depicted in the Dark Souls 3 cinematic, showing the ashen desert place with the Drangleic-like looking castle in the background.

Nevertheless, you play as a knight that can equip a few of the very classic and iconic weapons and armor from the series such as the Greatsword or the Battle Axe, picking up Souls of a Lost Undead and Divine Blessings (although they’re just there to give off a nod to the original series and just count as points here) and doing battle against dragons and hollows. The game doesn’t bother to explain to you how to play and what is worth what, but then again, when has any game of the Souls series ever done that?

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Inbuilt Blurring Tool Is Now Available on YouTube

February 26, 2016 By Cristopher Hall Leave a Comment

In order to help out video creators with post-production issues that may come up in the last second, an inbuilt blurring tool is now available on YouTube. Basically anything that you realize is not supposed to be in your video after you’ve completed recording and editing it, such as car plates, particular faces, objects, or ‘wardrobe malfunctions’ – as YouTube itself puts it – can be blurred out immediately. It’s a great alternative to having to reshoot scenes or dealing with the unfortunate event where someone decides they want to be taken out of a video just after you’re done with it.

The number of content creators on YouTube is constantly increasing, with more and more people deciding to undertake one or more types of video content to their channel. Whether it’s vlogs, social experiments, interviews or even the amateur-level variety, the blurring tool can give creators a last-minute fix to anything that may simply risk ruining your video.

And because you may not even be able to recapture the essence of the original video once again – which is usually the case with a lot of spontaneous shots – this new addition is small but amazingly useful.

A less advanced form of the blurring tool has been part of the offered tools by YouTube before, too. Starting with 2012, the platform offered creators a way to blur faces but they would be limited to that. Now, the tool is a lot more dynamic and easier to use. You can straight out just pause a video, use the box selection tool around the item you wish to blur and then let it run by itself. The drawn selection box will continue to follow the selected object as it detects it moving in the video.

While the proprietary motion tracking algorithms that YouTube has will continue blurring the object that you selected, you will have to manually select the duration that you wish to keep that object selected for. Similarly, you can ensure that the selected area is static and doesn’t follow a particular object. This can be done via the “Lock” option. Similarly, the option can be applied to more than just one object or face present in the video, meaning that you can have multiple blurs happening at the same time, whether the subjects are in motion or not.

This new tool allows creators to protect both their videos and the people featuring in them. It’s a very small yet tremendously useful tool as it can help with preventing claim trademark infringement as well as protecting identities and private data.

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Scientists Are Looking for Milky Way Newborn Solar Systems

February 24, 2016 By Cristopher Hall Leave a Comment

There has been a tremendous amount of star gazing, galaxy hunting and dreams of expeditions in outer space lately, not to mention that scientists are looking for Milky Way newborn solar systems. But while prospects may seem like distant goals for mankind to anyone not in touch with the scientists’ sheer ability to perform these studies, they are far from it. Just recently, plans of telescopes being built in China or sent out to orbit in outer space promise us capabilities that we hadn’t even thought of before, extending the reach of our eyes at least to the vast grandeur of the universe we live in.

While just recently scientists reported their discoveries regarding a different galaxy that lies about 55 million light years away, another group took a glance at a place that’s a little closer to us – the Milky Way. After a long session of photographs and prolonged studies of our galaxy that started years ago, astronomers have just managed to complete a detailed map of the dense and cold gas in our galaxy. The reason behind it? The gasses in question are the places where new stars are made. In other words, scientists marked the places where new solar systems will once day form.

Everything was done with the help of the Apex telescope that rests at an altitude of 5,100 meters in the Atacama Desert. Over the length of many years, it slowly looked around and mapped as far as it could see inside our own Milky Way. In between its extensive search for answers and insight into the activity of our galaxy, it found an extremely long strip of star-forming gasses in the southern sky.

The way this was achieved was by making use of a special detector, known as a super-chilled thermometer that reads radiation between radio and infrared waves. But it’s most important feature is the Large Bolometer Camera (Laboca) that it has; consisting of 295 sensors that are maintained at a temperature of 0.3 degrees above absolute zero, it is the ‘weapon of choice’ for the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment.

The map that was created with the help of Laboca was dubbed Atlasgal and provides a great amount of information regarding the high-mass stars and clusters that will appear in the Milky Way Galaxy over the next hundreds of thousands or even millions of years. The map rendered covers an area of sky that is 140 degrees long and merely 3 degrees wide but provides a good starting point for future descoveries.

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NASA Laser Propulsion System Could Revolutionize Space Travel

February 23, 2016 By Cristopher Hall Leave a Comment

A new project from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration currently being developed, the NASA Laser Propulsion System could revolutionize space travel. This would allow for much faster space travel than it has been known until now; trips to Mars could be completed in as little as 3 days, in comparison to their current estimated time of completion of 6 months to 2 years, depending on the orbital position of both the Earth and the Red Planet in relation to the sun.

Sadly, however, this concept is still a bit of technological marvel when it comes to scientists to put it in practice right away. The way researchers are thinking of making this work is by finding a way to apply the rules and methods they do in the case of particles used in accelerators. With the current knowledge and technology it’s not an issue to get particles to move at the speed of light, but larger scale objects – such as a spacecraft would be – are a completely different story.

So far, large scale objects have not been able to achieve 3% of that speed because of physical limitations of the human-made technology so far. There are simply some laws of nature that mankind has yet to discover workarounds to.

However, one scientist working for NASA has considered a different method of making it work, and it feels like it was partly inspired by Bill Nye’s solar sail idea that was depicted in the ‘Think Big’ scenario. However, this time around it won’t be photons coming from the sun carrying space crafts to other places in our solar system, but instead it would be lasers.

And this time around, the theory is actually applicable at a larger scale too, not just applicable at a small scale like particle accelerators do. Laser propulsion is something that is already used and there’s little to no limitation from taking it up to a larger scale; large enough to send space shuttles all the way to Mars. This is the kind of idea that is not only feasible in a realistic, ‘to-be-achieved’ in the next decade method of reaching further parts of our solar system, but also a much better way of launching various types of shuttles as part of manned or unmanned expedition.

The fuel-based propulsion is not only inefficient, expensive but also potentially harmful to a number of things. By employing laser propulsion technology instead, launching space crafts into outer space would be easier, does not face fuel limitations and comes with a lot more efficiency when it comes to long distances.

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Oculus Rift and Rift Bundle Preorders Are Now Available

February 22, 2016 By Cristopher Hall Leave a Comment

The much expected Oculus Rift and Rift Bundle preorders are now available, after a very long, drawn out wait, filled with nothing but snippets, teasers and preliminary checks. While the virtual reality headset itself has been up for preorder for a fair amount of time, it hadn’t yet come in the bundled version – together with gaming PCs, controllers, remotes and so on.

The reasoning behind the company’s decision to start selling the bundles was fairly easy to understand. Virtual technology is certainly the next big step in what gaming – but not only resuming itself to that – has to offer or where it’s heading. And because the technology itself still requires an external engine to run it all, for example, just getting an Oculus Rift VR set alone may not allow you to begin enjoying it right away.

Just earlier this year, the Oculus Rift website was made host to a new tool for potential buyers that involved a program that would make an assessment of the computer you are running it from to figure out whether you can use a virtual reality headset with it or not. And to the regular, casual, non-gamer person, the specifications that you need to pack up in a PC in order to have the Oculus Rift work on it aren’t exactly something that easily achievable.

To the avid gamer, the specs needed won’t exceed the ‘average’ status, however.

Some of the bundles that the Oculus Rift comes in take the overzealous leap of packing in the finest technology that one can find and end up with a directly proportional price tag on it. Therefore, one of the most expensive versions of bundles you can find goes all the way up to $3,000. However, if you’re happy to stick to a very basics, Oculus VR comes packed with various PCs set up by Dell, Alienware and Asus.

Therefore, a basic PC plus Oculus Rift virtual reality headset bundle that includes the very basics that one needs in order to run VR games and experiences will cost you $1,499. For that amount of money you will get an Intel Core i5 Skylake processor, 8 GB of DDR4 RAM, the Nvidia GeForcce GTX 970 video card, as well as 1TB of storage space on a regular SATA drive. Surprisingly, the much more expensive version of the bundle doesn’t include exponentially more powerful hardware than the lower end version.

Regardless, the Oculus Rift was made to function on both PC and consoles, so if you’re already the owner of one, you should expect support for it to come in a timely manner too.

The Oculus Rift alone costs $599 and will start being shipped out on March 28^th.

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Ads Are Making Their Way to Facebook Messenger App

February 19, 2016 By Cristopher Hall Leave a Comment

If you thought the messaging lightweight application was your way to escape the ads on social platforms, you were right; ads are making their way to Facebook Messenger app, but not in the way you expect. Luckily, the way the messenger application looks and loads remains the same, allowing users to be able to chat in a low-memory consumption and fast loading manner.

However, it would appear that starting Q2 of 2016, the Messenger app will allow advertisements to come in the form of messages. As harrowing as that sounds, you shouldn’t despair thinking that your inbox will get flooded by all the weight loss and kitchen appliances ads on a daily basis.

Apparently, the way it will work is that businesses will be able to send advertisements as messages to users who have contacted a particular company. Think of it like businesses being allowed to ‘text’ you first, only after you texted them.

This will be able to be done by the user opening a message thread with a particular company, which will remain open as long as the user wishes for it. In that window, whenever the company has a new advertisement or piece of news, it will simply display it in the thread. Think of it as a replacement for newsletters; the kind that fills up your e-mail’s inbox and makes you wish there was a better, lighter way of handing it.

Well, there you have it, by allowing companies to ‘contact’ you in such a manner, without allowing them to feel invasive or overwhelming and sluggish, Facebook may have just found a way to make the entire concept a lot more acceptable for both the user and the businesses who want to advertise themselves to potential consumers. The only difference is that it only allows companies to advertise to already loyal public, but doesn’t give them a method of attracting new customers.

This was a very insightful and inspired move on behalf of Facebook. The company only recently released statistics pointing at Facebook Messenger as being one of the most used apps on the mobile platform. Just recently, it was reported of having 800 million monthly active users, which scores many more visits than the basic Facebook app. Using it as a platform that allows advertising was a clever method employed by the company in order to start monetizing Facebook Messenger.

The kind of ads that you should expect to see once the change hits our smartphones is news regarding product launches, flash sales, free gifts, promotions, videos, photos or posts of the business, follow-up reminders on availability and costs and so on.

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National Donor Day Events Asked for Help and Applicants

February 16, 2016 By Cristopher Hall Leave a Comment

Last Sunday was more than just Valentine’s Day, 14^th of February marking the moment when National Donor Day events asked for help and applicants. Naturally foreshadowed by more popular holidays, many may not even know of the existence of National Donor Day. It is a moment during a year when any kind of donation – whether it is organs, blood or bone marrow – is celebrated while also trying to shed as much information regarding the need for donors.

Officials have been urging people to register as an organ donor and maybe one day become a hero and save someone else’s life. They made an effort to increase awareness regarding the 122,000 cases of patients currently on the waiting list in United States alone, hoping that various organs or blood will be donated in order to save their lives.

Because of the very small number of donors, statistics show that in Pennsylvania, for example, a patient dies every 18 hours due to the lack of available transplants. This is most likely caused by an overall lack of understanding on behalf of the populace who has not gone through experiences of this nature and miss out on the importance of organ transplants.

The National Donor Day was first established in the 1998 by the United States Department of Health and Human Services in an attempt to get more people to sign and register their donor cards to maybe try and solve the issue of transplant needs.

The non-profit organization behind the National Donor Day is attempting to find more people willing to donate things such as organs, bone marrow, tissue and corneas to help the always increasing numbers of people in need. In order to achieve that, they bring out stories of the lives that were saved over the past years.

One particular story describes the tale of an unborn child that was diagnosed with a congenital cardiac defect which rendered the child with an undeveloped part of her heart. Out of desperation, the parents signed up for a transplant. Another mother who had lost her 5 year old daughter agreed to donate her child’s heart to baby Faith, who now, years later is growing up and thriving.

There are countless of stories of saved lives on behalf of selfless acts of donating organs post-death, but unfortunately hundreds stories more of unfortunate events where patients died waiting for a transplant. You can find more information on how you can register as a member on the official donatelife.net website.

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Tales of the Earth as They Are Seen from Outer Space

February 15, 2016 By Cristopher Hall Leave a Comment

Scott Kelly, an astronaut currently onboard the International Space Station tells us tales of the Earth as they are seen from outer space in his most recent tweets. As of right now, he has been aboard the ISS for a year and thus remained in orbit longer than anyone in American history as well as getting the record for total days spent in space – currently his 502^nd day.

Kelly will continue his mission in outer space until March this year, when he will return with more than one kind of insightful information. He happens to have a twin brother – Mark Kelly – who is still on Earth. The two are the subject of an ongoing study that attempts to understand and investigate the effects and changes that occur in humans during spaceflight.

So far, the astronaut has reported several issues that he himself has sensed in his own body. Most revolve around affected eyesight, bones, microbiome and circulatory system. Scott Kelly reported having started to feel signs of a weakening set of body functions but not in a degree that would be worrying. However, there is no doubt that the human psyche ends up being affected as well.

Recently, Kelly has done an entire Reddit AMA all the way from outer space in addition to carefully posting constant pictures of the Earth as it is seen from the International Space Station nearly every single day during his stay aboard the ISS. His photos depict the way cities and phenomenal geographical sites on Earth look like from up there, with several ‘sunrises’ and ‘sunsets’ becoming incredibly emotional views of our planet.

However, there is also a huge amount of worrying pictures of our own planet, that Kelly also carefully called “very, very fragile” and that is something we should dutifully take care of. In a conversation with CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Kelly said that if he were to look at planet Earth as if it was a human, he would say that the planet looks kind of sick. He mentioned that there are plenty of visible parts of Asia and America that, when looked at from space are not as easily seen because of a haze of pollution.

Kelly also said he happened to notice multiple weather phenomena in unexpected locations such as tropical cyclones that should not take place in those locations under normal circumstances.

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The Reason Why We Should Cover Our Mouth When We Sneeze

February 14, 2016 By Cristopher Hall Leave a Comment

It would appear there’s a lot more we can discover about the way things happen as soon as we put a slow motion camera to work, and here’s the reason why we should cover our mouth when we sneeze – as this is one of the latest and best examples of the staggering reality of such a common act such as sneezing.

The act was studied by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) scientists in a laboratory on three different subjects. By making use of two high-speed cameras and having the subjects stand in front of a black backdrop while they were having a sneezy fit induced, the researchers captured some nearly frightening images. While we may have previously thought that only the really bad sneezes were the times when we would become like a human Mount Vesuvius, we couldn’t have been more mistaken.

While there is some variation, it would appear that every sneeze launches a cascade of fluid of similar amounts that flies out in the air, collapsing into droplets and spreading on a surprisingly wide range. The variation is caused by things such as saliva and respiratory tract fluids elasticity or volume.

After analyzing a little over 100 different sneezes and their patterns, it was observed that the previous belief regarding the act was wrong. While it was believed that the droplets of fluid are formed before they leave the respiratory tract, it turns out that the truth is the polar opposite.

When we sneeze, the expelled fluid comes out in the form of a balloon that progressively breaks down more and more into smaller fragments that manage to spread onto a very large area. This was a very important discovery for researchers as it can help them understand and map the spread of infections and diseases as well as sort out the individuals who are most prone to spreading viruses.

Lydia Bourouiba, the lead of the team in charge of this experiment and the person who runs MIT’s Fluid Dynamics of Disease Transmission Laboratory, discussed the effect of the new discoveries in addition to the research that was done back in 2014. According to that study, it was revealed that sneezing and coughing may result in a far wider spread than droplet expelling.

This study is an important step in the researcher’s attempt to understand and try to contain seasonal viruses that get spread through coughing and sneezing. Even if just a starting point, researchers could manage to measure, map and even simulate the effects and spread of virus contamination in order to build prevention strategies.

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