Day: March 10, 2006

Work out harder, recover more quickly

I don’t know if this is contrary to conventional wisdom or just unexpected, but it’s making the news – The Harder You Exercise, the Quicker You Recover.

Researchers studied the exercise regimens and recovery times of 25 men competing in an Ironman triathlon, a three-part race consisting of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bicycle leg, and a 26.2-mile marathon run.

Although this competition is much more taxing than your standard cardio kickboxing class, researchers were surprised to see how quickly the athletes’ bodies recovered. It takes about two week for muscles and tendons to fuly recover after an Ironman triathlon.

But one day after the race the competitors’ heart rates, cardiac output, and blood pressures had returned to baseline levels. Within three days, other system changes brought on by activity also reverted to normal.

[tags]Exercise[/tags]

Make mine with frikkin’ laser beams

DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency) has taken another page from science fiction writer William Gibson’s book by creating a neural implant to enable engineers to remotely manipulate a shark’s brain signals. This would eventually allow them to control the animal’s movements and possibly decode their perceptions.

Remote controlled sharks? Awesome. You know Dr. Evil would want some.

[tags]Sharks, DARPA[/tags]

Wall of Quake 3

(via TechEBlog)

Have you ever thought you just really needed to play Quake 3 on a wall sized display? Well, that’s just what the folks over at plastk did. They used their 24 monitor wall display (run by 12 linux nodes – i.e. 2 monitors per node) to play some.

wallofquake.jpg

The end result is Quake 3 running at 10240×3072 resolution at 15-30 FPS.  What gamer wouldn’t want to try that out?
[tags]Quake 3[/tags]

Bang! Howdy

From the folks that did YoHoHo! Puzzle Pirates is the hopefully soon to be detailed Bang! Howdy. From the web site:

Howdy pardner! Thanks fer moseyin’ on over to check out our mighty fine game. We’re still hard at work out on the ranch, but I reckon we can rustle up a bit of info fer a prospective cowhand like yerself.

Have a gander at these here excitin’ features:

  • Multiplayer online tactical strategy game in a 3D Wild West setting, yee haw!
  • Fast-paced hybrid of turn-based and realtime strategy gameplay with a healthy helpin’ of rootin’ tootin’ antics!
  • Dozens of unique units, hundreds of special playfields and over ten wild and crazy gameplay scenarios!Customizable avatars and collectable badges let you show them city folk that you know how to handle yer dogies!
  • Collect and customize Big Shot units that complement your play style whether ya like to take yer sweet time or go in guns ablazin’!

This company seems to be good at deliviring fun gaming in an easy to pick up format. And who wouldn’t love gaming in an old west setting?

[tags]Wild West gaming, Bang! Howdy[/tags]

Sony expects first Blu-ray Vaios by midyear

(via Engadget)

What I’ve been reading lately makes me think this isn’t going to happen, but I’ve been wrong plenty of times before.

While Toshiba has already announced a price and ship date for its first HD-DVD-equipped Qosmio, the G30, Sony isn’t exactly sitting still. At CeBIT, the company announced that its first computers to come with Blu-ray drives, high-end Vaio desktops and laptops, would arrive toward the middle of the year. And that’s it. No model names or numbers. Not even any mocked up pics of superdeluxe Vaios showing HD videos thanks to those Blu-ray drives (which wouldn’t be too hard to do, given that current model Vaios, like the F TV, above, already have tuners and video capabilities). So, er, maybe Sony is kind of sitting still after all.

[tags]Sony, Vaio, Blue-Ray[/tags]

Would AT&T abuse monopoly powers?

(via The Consumerist)

We all believe the break-up of Ma Bell was bad, don’t we?  I mean, this is a company that would never, ever, ever even consider abusing monopoly powers, right?  Or maybe they would.

It’s bad enough that they overcharge domestic customers but we have alternatives.  The soldiers don’t because, according to The Prepaid Press, AT&T has an EXCLUSIVE contract to put payphones in PBXes in Iraq and Afghanistan. But, you ask, can’t the soldiers get cheap calling cards to call the US? No! Because AT&T is using (abusing!) its position as monopoly supplier of payphones to block the 800 numbers necessary to use nonAT&T calling cards.

. . .

The soldiers could probably call cheaper if they used Iraqi pay phones.  But, assuming there are any working payphones on the streets of Iraq, it’s still not a good idea for American soldiers to be standing on the corners talking on them.  That’s why there are phones in PBXes.  Too bad the soldiers have to pay $.21/minute to call home on them.

The wholesale rate for calls to the US is less than one cent a minute.

I don’t think much of a company taking advantage of soldiers.  They have it tough enough over there already.  Let’s not rape them on calls back home, OK?

[tags]AT&T, monopoly powers[/tags]