“Swiss space-cleaning bot grabs flying junk, hurls itself into furnace”
What is this, the Roombas-in-Space hour? Now the Swiss are getting into the act too!
Archive of posts filed under the Robotics and/or Computing Hardware category.
“Laser used to cool semiconductor”
I can imagine the marketing blurb now: “Now with lazer cooling!” (Yes, I know laser is spelled wrong, but marketing guys are very fond of their Zs. Which might explain why it’s so tempting to sleep through most of their presentations, but I digress.) With some work, this sort of thing might someday be employed …
“The Pirate Bay torrents printable 3D objects”
Ever since I read Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, I’ve been wondering what would happen when anyone could download a set of plans and print their own, for example, Star Wars toys. And more to the point, what would happen when those plans could be pirated. Anything digital can easily be copied; the Internet is …
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Linux compiles and massive IOWait delays, Part II
WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! The changes below are NOT RECOMMENDED! See part III for details! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! It’s been several weeks since I touched on this subject last, and I’m sorry to say that the solution I came up with in the earlier article just wasn’t good enough. It was forcing the system to swap, …
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“Printed jaw lets woman swallow again”
This sort of thing might have come directly from a science-fiction action story, where the hero is patched up in an unbelievably short time between epic space battles. Who says the future is always far away? 😉
“Incoming! Self-guiding bullet could strike from a mile away”
I have decidedly mixed feelings about this. Like any tool, it could be either good or evil depending on who wields it, but the amount of power it provides greatly amplifies both possible outcomes — and in another five or ten years, it will probably be available to anyone who’s willing to spend the money. …
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Linux compiles and massive IOWait delays
As mentioned previously, I use a 13″ mid-2009 MacBook Pro as my development machine, with virtual Linux and Windows machines running under Parallels. All was mostly well, except that I’m doing a lot more compiling in the last few months than I had been previously, and the IOWait problem on the Linux VM — always …
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“US killer spy drone controls switch to Linux”
So you’ve got an unmanned flying drone with deadly weapons, controlled by ground stations that could be hundreds or thousands of miles away. Of course you run it with the most popular and least secure operating system on the planet! I mean, what could possibly go wrong? I’ve said it before, in all-caps and bold …
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“H&M Under Fire for Using Fake, Computer-Generated Models”
That’s not data models, it’s women who model clothing. 🙂 There was a near-future SF novel I read many years ago (I don’t recall which one) that posited that actors would be replaced almost entirely by computer-generated models. We’re already seeing the precursors of it — all the Pixar releases, for instance. And characters in …
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“Technology confuse lizard! Lizard no like!”
I can’t figure out whether this is EPIC LIZARD-BRAIN FAIL or simply hilarious. Maybe I’ll settle for both. I especially find it amusing when, between rounds, the lizard looks up at the guy behind the camera, as if he really wants to convey his disgust at the proceedings. Here is a short clip of a …
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