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Tuesday, 29 November 2011
So it turns out that Governor Sam Brownback has an internal team that works for Governor Sam Brownback that searches social media for instances of the name Governor Sam Brownback.Now, rather than use this knowledge to troll Governor Sam Brownback's policies or bash Governor Sam Brownback personally...well...readers of this blog know that I recently applied to be a NASA astronaut.So (operating under the assumption that Governor Sam Brownback's social investigation team will find this post) I'd like to use this opportunity to send a message to Governor...
Wednesday, 23 November 2011
Against massive troop deployments (without Congressional consent) to countries where the locals hate us? You're an isolationist.Willing to consider raising taxes to cover national debt? You're a socialist.Not willing to universally support whatever Israel does? You're an anti-semite. In this country, we got right to the most extreme rhetoric we can think of, and then try to find an even worse extrem...
Monday, 21 November 2011
Let me just bounce this off Hanson's post about the probability that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the galaxy, on 100 or so planets.Let's assume for the sake of argument that this is true. The dilemma is this: if aliens live on another planet in our galaxy, and drive their alien-cars to their alien-work and read the alien-news and occasionally blast radio waves into space in hopes that other aliens (us) will detect it, and if they are 40,000 light years away (relatively close in galactic terms - the Milky Way is 100,000 or so light years...
Thursday, 17 November 2011
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
One of the annoying things about television is summarized by the immortal phrase "hundreds of channels and nothing on." One reason for this (though not the only one) is that channels are provided in bundles. For example Discovery Channel typically comes with a cadre of other channels like Discovery Health, the Military Channel, TLC and BBC America. If a cable provider, like AT&T Uverse, wants to provide Discovery Channel to its users, it must buy the bundle from Discovery Communications, Inc. Similar bundles exist from many outlets (for example...
Long time readers of this blog know that on more than one occasion I have taken potshots at NASA. I've complained that manned spaceflight, while a noble pursuit, seems perilous and without point unless a clear direction is given. For example, if manned spaceflight involves building an orbital launch vehicle to send terraforming equipment to Mars...I'm all for it. Manned spaceflight as an economic stimulus mechanism for east Florida, on the other hand, I do not like.I've laid out on this blog a time or two what I think should happen, going so far...
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
Computer animations of robotic animals are pretty easy to produce. I know this because my roommate and I used to do it for fun in college.So earlier this year when BostonDynamics robot cheetah animation came out...I held my breath.Now we have a robot ostrich animation complete with weird render that looks like a Halflife 2 creature! It'd be neat if it was built, sure. But I'll hold my breath in the mean tim...
Thursday, 10 November 2011
Scott Adams thinks that health monitoring will be the first substantial step in our "cyborg evolution." Welcome to the club, Scott.Here at TAE, the inevitable seamless integration of machine and man has been discussed too many times for me to link to. Heh.But I want to make a point about Adams' piece, because I think he understates the ideal. His vision:I predict that health monitoring will be the next substantial phase of cyborg evolution. I think we'll have embedded chips to continuously monitor our blood for sugar levels, cholesterol, vitamins,...
Tuesday, 8 November 2011
You know, I don't have a Twitter account. I never really see the utility in it; always seems like just a bunch of white noise. People who trumpet it as an innovation usually point to its power for news dissemination, for example when the East Coast experienced an earthquake earlier this year. Others contend that Twitter was instrumental in the Arab Spring uprisings, helping to organize protests. That's a fallacious argument to me, because people...
Thursday, 3 November 2011
Micro-sensor-embedded-fiber-optic-super-prosthetics may hold promise for future American soldiers that lose limbs...but what does that uninsured amputee in Botswana do? As medical breakthroughs become more and more expensive to develop...they become more and more disconnected from the places they are truly needed.The counter-argument, that these technologies need to be developed in the First World and become profitable and then the patents run out and then it gets cheaper and then eventually it trickles down to the Third World...that argument falls...
First off, I applaud this effort. Amazing science in progress.However, look at that diagram...they want to create an awfully complicated design. Tiny optical mirrors are placed along equally microscopic optical fibers, which are then wound around individual nerves. A nerve signal headed for an amputated limb is detected by these microsensors and they transmit the signal via the optical fiber to a CPU of some sort which will then move the limb. Theoretically...
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