Posted on Wednesday 25 February 2009
From the Office of Naval Research [pdf]. (this is reading for the weekend, or a late night)
A related article from the Times of London and Fox News.
browsing Just Weird
Posted on Tuesday 3 February 2009
Forget face recognition, retinal scans or fingerprint technology – vein authentication is where it’s at, according to Sony.
Posted on Wednesday 17 December 2008
from kinda scary
The most energetic particles in the electromagnetic spectrum could pose a danger to commercial airline passengers. About every 3000 hours of flying time, a plane is hit with a bolt of lightning. Recently, spacecraft have found gamma rays can be created by thunder storms and the rays could be intense enough to cause radiation sickness.
Posted on Wednesday 3 December 2008
There might be something to this…However, I’m not sure what it says about the current state of our educational system.
from digg:
Left to fend for himself after budget cuts, His tests cost over $500 a year to print, but this year he only got $316, one calculus teacher resorted to selling ads on quizzes and tests to cover his printing costs. $10 for quizzes, $20 for tests, and $30 for a final.
Posted on Tuesday 2 December 2008
from digg:
(btw, I love snakes)
An Australian woman says she hated snakes even before she found 14 young carpet pythons in her bedroom. A snake catcher believes a female python living on the roof laid her eggs there and the babies slithered down through air-conditioning vents. Since carpet pythons usually lay 25 to 30 eggs, the woman could have some more unwelcome guests.
Posted on Wednesday 26 November 2008
This is awesome. I need these.
These illustrative arm slings show onlookers exactly how you broke that arm, so you can save precious seconds from not having to repeat that boring story. Of course, your coworkers seeing this will then ask about where you got the sling design, how exactly you fell down the stairs when you live on the first floor of a one story house, and why you’re such a big liar. A quick search turned up nothing on where these originated, so if anyone knows, post it in the comments!
Posted on Wednesday 26 November 2008
Things not to do when you’re arrested for assault - keep singing ‘Spider-Pig’ from The Simpsons Movie when in the back of the Police van. Result? 8 months in jail for the assault, and a further 3 months for singing.
Posted on Tuesday 25 November 2008
I was looking at my server logs today and noticed a hit from Quantico, specifically quantico.nmci.usmc.mil. Quantico is the home of the the Marine Corps (one of their biggest bases), also it’s the home of their intelligence division . Quantico hosts the FBI training center and the DEA training center, as well. I hope whoever was looking found something interesting, although it probably means nothing (I’ve actually had much more suspicious hits before). My life is a pretty ‘open book’, so I encourage any feds to look around. If there’s anything you need, I’m sure you can find me.
Posted on Monday 17 November 2008
from digg:
Scientists are in an unprecedented project to restore Japan’s largest coral reef by planting thousands of baby corals growing on tiny ceramic beds.
Posted on Wednesday 6 August 2008
Posted on Tuesday 22 July 2008
We found two homes we like this evening!!! TWO! We’re putting in a bid/offer tomorrow on one!!! Woo Hoo!
Posted on Sunday 20 July 2008
I piddled away too much of my time this weekend playing with the iPhone. It was only two or three hours, but it was still too much time to waste.
Posted on Tuesday 8 July 2008
from digg and the nytimes.
In the early 1950s, American troops were being killed and captured by the thousands in Korea. Panic spread that China’s Communists had learned how to penetrate and control the minds of American prisoners of war. Finding out what others are thinking is the job of spies. The Korean experience spurred the C.I.A.’s search for mind-control techniques.
Posted on Saturday 21 June 2008
I’ve written about distributed computing before, it’s important. Folding@Home is important. SETI@Home is important.
So…a reprint (and another list):
In the age of Dual Core Pentium’s and AMD’s, we’ve got computer power to spare. The average home computer is able to process an exponentially ever increasing number of calculations, faster than commercial supercomputers of only a decade ago.
In an effort to put these extra CPU cycles to work, a number of distributed computing projects have emerged. These projects take your free/unused CPU cycles and use them to compile data that is latter analyzed by a centralized system. This is most famously used by SETI with their SETI@Home project.
Below are some other distributed computing projects, from the profound to the profane:
- Folding@Home - looking for protein disease cures. Run this!
- Einstein@ Home - looking for gravitational waves
- A Thousand Monkeys…
- Climate Prediction
- FightAids@Home
- DrugDesign
So get of yr lazy bum, stop stealing music, playing games and downloading porn. Put yr computer to good use. It could save yr life.
And from Discover:
| Stardust@Home What it is: In 2006 the NASA spacecraft Stardust brought back cometary and interstellar dust. This program continues the scrutiny of minute aspects of the universe from Earth. |
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| SETI@Home What it is: The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence scans the sky for signs of life. David Anderson, SETI’s cocreator, says beyond finding E.T., he hopes to promote interest in science. |
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| Folding@Home What it is: This program looks at ways proteins go awry by running? simulations of how the molecules are supposed to fold. Researchers hope to shed light on diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. |
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| Cosmology@Home What it is: Cosmology@Home is run by the Department of Astronomy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The goal: sifting through theories of the universe. |
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| FightAIDS@Home What it is: Run by the Olson Laboratory at the Scripps Research Institute, this is the first biomedical and the first humanitarian distributed-computing project. |
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| Climateprediction.net What it is: Roughly $2 billion is spent each year on modeling the impact of global warming. This project attempts to vet the varying predictions. |
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| Einstein@home What it is: So far none of the gravitational waves that Albert Einstein predicted in his theory of general relativity have been detected. But if spinning neutron stars are creating ripples in space-time, the thousands of home computers chugging away at the data from the U.S. Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory may have the best chance to find them. |
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| Help Defeat Cancer Project What it is: One of several research initiatives supported by World Community Grid, a public computing grid dedicated to humanitarian causes. By the time Help Defeat Cancer had completed its project a few months ago, more than 2,909 years of work had been completed in eight months. |
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| GIMPS What it is: Insomniacs who count prime numbers to fall asleep are in for a treat. The mathematicians behind the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) recently broke their own record to find the largest known Mersenne prime number, a whopping 9,808,359 digits long. |
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| BURP What it is: The Big and Ugly Rendering Project (BURP) is still in its infancy, but it’s already attracted a close-knit group of 3D animation enthusiasts. According to BURP creator Janus Kristensen, “no lengthy analysis or scientific know-how is necessary to understand the images and movie clips that are produced. They speak their own universal language.” |
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| Electric Sheep What it is: If Darwin returned as an artist with a knack for computer science, he might be Scott “Spot” Draves, creator of Electric Sheep, a collective of computers that renders artwork. Animations, or “sheep,” evolve into high-definition abstract paintings, spawning off in random mutations. But it’s more science than you’d expect. “I want people to see the power of evolution,” Draves says. “I’d like people to accept evolution and randomness as the ultimate creative force in our universe.” |
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| LHC@home What it is: When the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) switches on this year, it will be the most powerful particle accelerator ever built—protons will zip around its 27-kilomter-long tunnel and smash into one another with an energy of 14 teraelectron volts (that is, rather a lot). |
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| Malariacontrol.net What it is: A part of Africa@Home, malariacontrol.net works with population models to determine the best strategy to control malaria—from researching vaccines to deploying mosquito nets. |
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| Spinhenge@home What it is: The group researches nanomagnetic molecules, which may eventually be targeted for local tumor chemotherapy and the development of tiny memory modules. |
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Posted on Thursday 12 June 2008
I’ve had a weakness for fancy guppies since when I was a child. They’re really beautiful for freshwater fish and are reasonably easy to keep. They also breed prolifically. Our fanciest guppies, the sunburst, have been having similar looking male offspring as of late. It is a little creepy, like a eugenics program though. Either way, guppies make me happy. I’m looking forward to having a large freshwater tank when we move. Our tank is currently a 4.5 gallon…very tiny. I’m also going to save for a small saltwater setup, I really would like an octopus. It might seem frivolous, but I’ve always been fascinated with their intelligence.
Posted on Tuesday 27 May 2008
You can’t make this stuff up. I present: Baby Toupee.com
Awesome! Capitalism and creativity are a dangerous combination. I’m just jealous I didn’t think of it.
As soon as I showed this to Steph, she told me about Wiggles Dog Wigs. Amazing. I love America.
Posted on Tuesday 27 May 2008
found on digg:
The discovery of wreck of the Titanic was a cover story to camouflage the real mission of inspecting the wrecks of two Cold War nuclear submarines. When Bob Ballard led a team that pinpointed the wreckage of the liner in 1985 he had already completed his main task of finding out what happened to USS Thresher and USS Scorpion.
Posted on Tuesday 13 May 2008
Found this pic online. Make fun if you will, but this would be something of a dream home for me. It even has a pond! It needs ramps though.