Google Maps: Philadelphia, PA to Liverpool, UK.
The 24th leg of this trip is brutal.
Into the Void
Back off, man, I'm co-creating my reality.
Anti-Terrorism Dolphins
Military.com: Navy to Deploy Anti-Terrorism Dolphins
LaPuzza said that because of their astonishing sonar abilities, dolphins are excellent at patrolling for swimmers and divers. When a Navy dolphin detects a person in the water, it drops a beacon. This tells a human interception team where to find the suspicious swimmer.
…
Sea lions can carry in their mouths special cuffs attached to long ropes. If the animal finds a rogue swimmer, it can clamp the cuff around the person’s leg. The individual can then be reeled in for questioning.
This gives new meaning to the name “Navy Seals.”
There was a truly pitiful movie out in the ’70s called “Day of the Dolphin.” In it, George C. Scott plays a scientist who trains dolphins to talk and to place magnetic mines on ships’ hulls for the military. The high point of the movie was when the male, named Alpha, squeaked and whistled his love for the female dolphin, Beta. Oh, and there was a secondary plot in which the dolphins were being used to kill a politician.
Talking dolphins. The ’70s were a cultural and intellectual wasteland.
Photo credit: Pablo Fernández
What Mad Pursuit
‘J.B.S. Haldane was once asked what the study of biology could tell one about the Almighty. “I’m really not sure,” said Haldane, “except that He must be inordinately fond of beetles.” There are thought to be at least 300,000 species of beetles. By contrast there are only about 10,000 species of birds.’
Nobel Laureate Prof. Francis Crick
in “How I Got Inclined Towards Atheism,” an excerpt from What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery
Netflix WatchNow, but use IE
Netflix started rolling out their WatchNow instant video feature in January. If it hasn’t shown up in your account yet, try the link above to activate it.
Oh, but try it in Internet Exploder. It doesn’t work in Firefox.
Netflix WatchNow tests your connection speed to choose what video quality to stream. Other computers on your network can take away bandwidth, so if you plan to do any downloads or play interactive games online, well, don’t. Wait until the movie is over.
By way of Uneasy Silence.
miniUSB for RCA Lyra RD2850
Molex 54819-0572
USB On-The-Go (OTG) Mini-B Receptacle, Right Angle, SMT Solder Tails and Shell Tabs, with Cover Tape, Lead-free
FYI, this is a drop-in replacement for the miniUSB connector in the RCA Lyra RD2850 MP3 player.
Philip Morris USA Supports U.Va.
Philip Morris USA Supports Medical Research and Business Leadership with $25 Million Gift to U.Va.
We are pleased to receive this gift from Philip Morris USA. The gift supports research that may ultimately prevent or cure addictions and serious diseases, such as lung cancer, heart disease and emphysema, said U.Va. President John T. Casteen III. “Faculty researchers here are engaged in ground-breaking molecular research aimed at identifying the genes that make certain people susceptible to chemical and nicotine dependencies, and others apparently not susceptible, and at developing medical-imaging techniques to enhance medical understanding of smoking-related illnesses. This generous gift will provide the means to continue that research and to expand on it.
$5M of that gift is earmarked for the business school. I guess Philip Morris expects U.Va. to produce graduates who are capable of coming up with marketing strategies for selling tobacco in a world where cigarette smoking is banned in public places.
Am I the only person who thinks there might be a conflict of interest here?
ThinkGeek :: Dear Timmy
ThinkGeek :: Dear Timmy
Win a $50 gift certificate from ThinkGeek. Ask Timmy a question and if he answers, you’re in!
Help, Timmy!
My smooth-foreheaded mother-in-law is on an extended visit and I’d like to serve her a Klingon delicacy that is so unappetizing to her Terran palate that she leaves in dishonor and *never* comes back. And she can take her pahtk of a son with her – he’s not worth the effort of sharpening my ba’tleth.
Do you have a good recipe for qach?
What NOT to Do With an Industrial Robot
Part of my engineering curriculum was a very fun hands-on robotics course. A robot like this one can move so fast that you don’t have time to get out of its way. Factories that use robotics will have black-and-yellow danger lines on the floor around around each workstation and flashing lights on top of the robots. The factory floor looks like a crazy Christmas show, especially when the lights are low.
A workstation ideally is defined as the maximum reach of the robot, not the extents of its motion in a given job, so that if there is a mechanical failure or a glitch in the program nobody gets surprised.
For the clueless, there are also multiple emergency stop switches. I can’t tell whether the fellow twirling around on the robot-ride end effector in this video has an emergency stop switch within reach. I kind of doubt it. Not that he’d have time to actually use it.
Breaking the rules is fun.
Tricorder
EE Times: Star Trek’s ‘tricorder’ realized
The 20-pound, battery-powered unit combines a mass spectrometer with a desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) source.
This device, which doesn’t have a cute name yet, is a general purpose sniffer that can take samples from the air and identify just about any substance known to man. The 300+ pound explosive detectors in use now require that samples be placed in the unit, and they are looking for just a few specific, common substances.
Considering that my PDA is much smaller than the electronic tablets in the original Star Trek series, I suspect a pocket-sized version will be available soon.
Author! Author!
BlipVerts
Politics
Sponsors
Bad Behavior
Member of American Mensa, Ltd.
Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
Potential Threat To The Nation
Amazon.com Daily Deals