Author Archive for Philip
Muhammad Sven Kalisch, Germany’s first professor of Islamic theory came up with the conclusion that the Prophet Muhammad probably never existed, outraging Muslims everywhere. His research shows that Prophet Muhammad’s earliest biography is written a century after his death in 632 and that coins with Prophet Muhammad’s name only started appearing late 7th century, 60 years after the religion did.
Other theories suggest that the Prophet Muhammad is a title, however Prof. Kalisch weighed the odds and considers it more improbable than not, and in respect of the Quran “God doesn’t write books,” he says. Prof. Kalisch despite opposition is determined to keep investigating and that he considers religions crutches to help believers obtain spiritual truth. To him, the main issue is not whether Prophet Muhammad actually lived but the philosophy embodied in the name and Islam.
Read about it from the Wall Street Journal here.
French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin has been working the last few years on the mystery of how the Great Pyramid was built and he thinks he’s cracked it. Conventional theory suggests it was built by either 1) external 1.6 km ramp, 2) external spiral ramp 3) aliens and 4) other means. Jean-Pierre constructed a theory that there is an internal ramp, still undiscovered in the pyramid that the workers used to transport the blocks up with a corner at each end removed to enable the blocks to be turned around.
Watch the video (4:50) to see what happens. What’s interesting is that nobody has come close to figuring it out for centuries however Greek historian Herodotus in 450 BC suggested something quite close to Jean-Pierre’s theory. Text from National Geographic and original link here.
While taking some time to cruise Whirlpool out I came across a post about some guys whose Canon iP4000 keeled over and they were thinking of upgrading to the iP4500 or iP4600. Since I was uncertain about which to buy and curious about the cool new features in the iP4600 I checked it out. It’s pretty much exactly the same as the iP4500 but a bit lighter and smaller. However the ink yield is a different story…
| Pigment Black | Black | Cyan | Magenta | Yellow | |
| 6″x4″ iP4500 | 4130 | 1510 | 459 | 300 | 334 |
| 6″x4″ iP4600 | 3160 | 665 | 205 | 206 | 211 |
| iP4500 Capacity + | 31% | 127% | 124% | 45% | 58% |
| A4 iP4500 | 525 | 5475 | 935 | 715 | 750 |
| A4 iP4600 | 350 | 1875 | 505 | 471 | 505 |
| iP4500 Capacity + | 50% | 192% | 85% | 52% | 49% |
| iP4500 Cartridges | $20.00 | $17.50 | $17.50 | $17.50 | $17.50 |
| iP4600 Cartridges | $18.00 | $18.00 | $18.00 | $18.00 | $18.00 |
So it seems you get on average 81% more capacity over the new iP4600 cartridges at the same price. You’d have to be crazy to get the iP4600!
While in Japan visiting Hiroshima and Miyajima I came across Mazda’s Hydrogen/Petroleum hybrid RX-8 they call the “RX-8 Hydrogen RE” they have on the island which I think people can lease out for the day to drive around on. It uses Mazda’s new RENESIS hydrogen engine and can work on either standard premium unleaded petroleum or hydrogen fuel.
Specs from Mazda (Hydrogen then Petroleum), full specs here:
• Range: 100 km/549 km
• Power: 80 kW/154 kW
• Torque: 140 Nm/222 Nm
You can switch between hydrogen and petrol on the fly once the hydrogen runs out. At the moment only 8 cars are leased out to the Japanese public with more planned for Norway.
As usual Gonzo has come up with another anime called “Linebarrels of Iron” which sounds, well, pretty lame to anyone who knows English. Zac Bertschy decided to watch it and pretty much regretted it ever since. We have lame high school students with legendary Shinji’itus, naked mysterious girls, tsundere pseudo-girlfriends and giant robots that come from… somewhere. With more generic CG enemies coming from somewhere else.
Read Zac’s review here, he gets it spot on that the Japanese anime industry needs to quit with the generic garbage and start doing some real storylines rather than junk that appeals to the lowest common denominator and a plot line that looks like it came out of a random plot-line generator muxing all the semi-successful elements of the last 10 years of anime shows.
Found this one a bit late, but if you haven’t seen it it’s pretty funny. Alternative spoof of what Terminator 3 would be like if Arnie was saving Jesus instead.
One of my favourite B-grade horror movies, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is getting a sequel called The Lost Skeleton Returns Again. The first one was awesomely bad in a good way if you like that sort of thing, from what I heard one of my friends nearly died laughing too hard watching it.
Trailer for Movie 1:
Some previews of Movie 2:
More fun from I Can Has Cheezburger…
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