Leap Day: When There Are Too Few Hours in the Year

It is here, in all its quadrennial springiness, like a cartoon Slinky boinging into the wall calendar.

Ah, Leap Day. It's so topsy-turvy, sounding too whimsical for its placement at the end of what everyone knows is the cruddiest month of the year. It's the day when, oh, anything can happen, like women proposing to men, like pirates turning 5 when they think they're turning 21 ( c'mon-- Gilbert and Sullivan! "Pirates of Penzance"! Whistle! Trill!).

It is a curly, twisty day hanging off the only month that divides neatly into four weeks, and it is there to tidy up time. The Romans were the first to get that Earth's rotation and its revolution didn't quite match up; it was taking a smidge more than 365 days to circumnavigate the sun. They gave the calendar an occasional breath in the form of Feb. 29, to set things right again. (February deserved the extra time, what with Caesar Augustus stealing a day, according to legend, to make August longer.)

There are all kinds of reasons to mess with the calendar. In centuries past these reasons have included, but were not limited to: farmers, the decimal system, Napoleon Bonaparte and Kingsford charcoal briquettes, instrumental to the successful lobby to extend daylight saving time in the name of summer barbecues.

Current proposals for calendar reform are all about common sense. The most orderly among us need to rectify this ridiculous system in which 30 days hath September and nobody knows the next line but everyone tries to make something rhyme with February. These proposals are brandished every decade or so by right-thinking astrophysicists who suggest that each year start on the same day of the week, floating holidays be anchored and algorithms dedicated to figuring out what to do with Leap Day.

Dick Henry, a physics professor at Johns Hopkins, deals with the leap conundrum in his "common civil calendar" by inserting an occasional extra week in December -- extra time to get business filings in order before the new year. In his plan, all months would have either 30 or 31 days, and your birthday would always fall on the same day of the week. "The fact of the matter is that economic organizations have to reorganize their calendars every year," says Henry. "With my calendar, once it's done, it's done."

Think of the order that could be achieved.

Think of it, and understand why we must keep our messy calendar, leaps and all.

Leap Day functions for us the same way it functions for Earth, after all: as a breather, a day to catch up, a wild card in the synced order of the rest of our lives.

It's a prolonged version of the languidness found on daylight saving days, where no one really knows what time it is and everyone uses that to their advantage:

I'm sorry to be four hours late/early/at the wrong location. The time change caused me to sleep in/zone out/get drunk by 3, which I thought was 6.

We loll through those days like characters in an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, raising our heads from the divan to weakly ask what time it is, only to express disbelief at the answer. And to think, just yesterday at this time it was 9 o'clock, not 10.

Leap Days are like this, but longer, and grander in their utter lack of ambition. Nobody makes plans for Feb. 29, because nobody remembers when there is a Feb. 29. And so the day arrives like a snow day, an empty calendar slot with no obligations and no expectations. Just a pause.

"It's mostly just a busy work day for me," says John Lowe, who leads the Time and Frequency Services section at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Leap Day is his tax season; yesterday he gave 10 media interviews to explain where . . . time . . . goes.

And to think, just last year at this time it was March 1.

By Monica Hesse || Washington Post Staff Writer || Friday, February 29, 2008; Page C01

Ref: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/28/AR2008022804152.html?hpid=topnews

Bendable cell phone - Demo by Nokia

Nokia and the University of Cambridge are showing off a new stretchable and flexible mobile device of the future called Morph.

 

The new concept phone is part of an online display presented in conjunction with the "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibition underway through May 12 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The device, which is made using nanotechnology, is intended to demonstrate how cell phones in the future could be stretched and bent into different shapes, allowing users to "morph" their devices into whatever shape they want. Think Stretch Armstrong for cell phones. Want to wear your cell phone as a bracelet? No problem, just bend it around your wrist.  Nokia says the concept device demonstrates handset features that nanotechnology might be capable of delivering, including flexible materials, transparent electronics, and self-cleaning surfaces. "Nokia Research Center is looking at ways to reinvent the form and function of mobile devices," Bob Iannucci, chief technology officer for Nokia, said in a statement. "The Morph concept shows what might be possible."

Even though Morph is still in early development, Nokia believes that certain elements of the device could be used in high-end Nokia devices within the next seven years. And as the technology matures, nanotechnology could eventually be incorporated into Nokia's entire line of products to help lower manufacturing costs.
 

Ref: http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9878005-7.html?tag=cd.blog

Blu-ray Won the Battle, but Now Comes the War

There is a concept rattling around the blogosphere that Sony's victory over Toshiba in the war to define the high-definition video disc format is moot because soon people will be downloading high-definition videos rather than buying them on discs.

I suspect Blu-ray will have a hard time for a few years, but not because of downloading. That is simply too hard for the mass market. Buying discs is easy to do and easy to understand.

The competition for Blu-ray players is the latest generation of DVD players which can generate a high-definition signal from a standard-definition disc.

Right now, Blu-ray players cost $350 to $400. Sony PlayStation 3 game machines, which also play Blu-ray discs, also cost about $400.

I called Mike Abt, the president of Abt Electronics, the big Chicago-area electronics retailer, to ask about his take on demand for Blu-ray players in the wake of the withdrawal of Toshiba's HD DVD format.

He said the biggest question is how Sony and the other manufacturers approach pricing.

"If Blu-ray is really smart they won't raise prices even though they can, now that they have no competition," he said. "They haven't got everyone to join in and want a Blu-ray."

"Most people are happy just buying a better DVD player, instead of spending $350 or $400 for Blu-ray," Mr. Abt said. "An upconverting DVD for $79 is a great value. It has a great picture, really better than an old DVD. You really see a difference."

What is more, he said, consumers will be put off because Blu-ray discs cost $5 to $10 more than standard DVDs.

Sure, the super-high-end home theater buyers will start to get Blu-ray players, Mr. Abt said. They had already been buying the combination Blu-ray and HD DVD players from Samsung and other makers. (Those are the folks who may experiment with Apple TV or other ways to download movies, I suspect, but they will have disc players too.)

But Blu-ray will represent far less than 25 percent of disc players sold until the price falls below $200 or even $150, he said.

What about all the people who bought HD DVD players, prompted by Toshiba's aggressive price cuts? Mr. Abt hopes he can at least partially mitigate their anger and frustration by pointing out how well the players can display standard DVDs.

"We have a lot of people who bought HD DVD players in the last few months," he said. "We are going to communicate with them: you have an upconverting DVD player, enjoy it. You paid $150 for it, so you didn't lose too much."

Ref: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/blu-ray-won-the-battle-but-now-comes-the-war/?hp

Toshiba, Sony Agree On Chip-Making Deal

Toshiba Corp. and Sony Corp. said they have agreed formally on a chip-making venture that will start operations next fiscal year.

In line with an accord in October, Toshiba will buy some of Sony's 300-millimeter-wafer production lines in western Japan for about 90 billion yen ($835 million). The companies said the deal will be completed by the end of March, and Toshiba will lease facilities to the venture, which will start operations April 1.

The venture will be 60% held by Toshiba, 20% by Sony and 20% by Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., Sony's game unit. The venture, which will be capitalized at 100 million yen, will make advanced chips used in Sony's PlayStation game consoles as well as in Toshiba's digital consumer goods

Ref:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120356678345282449.html?mod=googlenews_wsj