Finally, the killer app for robotics has been found! 😉
“Inventables”
Neat stuff: “Translucent concrete, rubber glass, unwetable sand, suction cup tape, etc.” Stretch-sensing rubber, silver-plated nylon thread, and bendable wood too.
Dr. Cal Meacham: (paging through mysterious catalog) A catherimine tube with an endiom complex of plus four.
Joe Wilson: What’s that?
Dr. Cal Meacham: I don’t know, but this outfit has ’em.
— From the movie This Island Earth
🙂
“Breakfast is Overrated”
You know, there’s something to this. For the last couple decades, I generally haven’t eaten breakfast, and I’ve found the morning to be my most productive time. I’ve heard other people talk about the link between being hungry and being energetic or creative too. It’s worth a thought.
“Space shuttle Endeavour: ‘An incredible ship'”
I think I was nine or ten the first time I saw a Space Shuttle on TV. I believe it was one of the first landing tests, and I saw clips of it being carried up, piggy-back style, on a huge airplane, then detaching and gliding to a landing on its own. Even at that age, I knew I was seeing something special.
I also remember watching a couple televised launches, and thinking that the countdown timer was a huge lie because of all the times it was stopped.
I wasn’t watching the launch on January 28th, 1986, but I knew about it because of all the publicity around the first Teacher in Space, Christa McAuliffe. Everyone did. It reawoke my ambition to go to space myself one day.
The shuttle Challenger exploded that day, seventy-three seconds after launch.
The six professional astronauts and one teacher that died that day weren’t alone: my previously-unshakable faith in technology, subconsciously bred from years of reading science fiction, did as well.
Two days ago, the last second-to-last shuttle returned from its final mission.
I really can’t tell just how I feel about that… a subdued, empty feeling of grief, I think. As if a person of legendary stature, admired by all, had died after a long illness.
There will be other space programs, and newer and fancier vehicles, but to me none of them will ever be quite the same as the Space Shuttle.
EDIT: Correction, the above is a little premature: the final shuttle mission will be flown by Atlantis, and is currently set to launch on July 8th. Same sandwich, different bite. 😉
“Lock Down Your Computer Like the NSA”
Feeling particularly paranoid today? Have the time and inclination to read several hundred pages of information and instructions on locking down your computer systems? Well, you’re in luck. 😉
Apparently the NSA doesn’t like Ubuntu. They provide instructions for locking down Red Hat, but no other Linux distribution.
“‘Thinking cap’ makes you better at art, math”
Remember how your parents/grandparents/schoolteachers used to use the phrase “put on your thinking cap”? Someone has actually come up with one. And it apparently works, too.
“Planet with British weather found 20 light years away”
Sounds like a fun planet to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. 😉
3D Printing
3D printing is a really interesting technology that’s quickly gaining steam. With a 3D printer (like the RepRap), you can quickly make everything from shoes to your own parts for long-dead technology to your own action figure souvenirs. Future (and much larger) 3D printers might just build your next house for you.
Today’s 3D printers are the direct precursor to science fiction devices like Star Trek’s replicators and the replicator-like nanotechnology device in Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age. It’s fascinating to think of a day when your kids can be kept occupied by an endless number and variety of toys cheaply created by your own living room 3D printer, or the structure of a house can be created in twenty-four hours with a large but fairly simple machine and almost no manpower.
The “no manpower” part also concerns me a little, but that’s for another post.
EDIT, 2011-06-02: 3D printers can now print working keys too.
“Princess Leia demo with Kinect and holographic projector”
How fitting that a scene from a science fiction movie is not only the direct inspiration for a technology, it’s also the first demonstration of it.
The demo doesn’t look all that impressive here, but I suspect it would be a lot more impressive if seen in person.
“How exercise jogs the brain”
I kind of wish that someone had thought of this when I was in school. My younger self would have considered it torture, but it would have helped me get more fit, and I think my general lack of fitness contributed to my depression.