Month: November 2006

Hamster manual – not what you expect

Sometimes these flashbacks in scientific history that the Modern Mechanix blog gives us just make me laugh. Most recently, I was catching up with MM posts when I found this old advertisement from the April, 1948 Popular Science magazine for the hamster manual. Apparently, back in the 40s, when people thought of hamster manuals, they did think of them in the same way we might in our perverted modern society:

MM-med_hamster_manual.gif

The most complete guide book on the successful breeding and raising of Syrian Golden Hamsters. Tells all about this new, fast growing, profitable and interesting hobby industry. Reveals all the secrets of the largest breeder of these delightfully profitable pets and laboratory animals. 34 Chapters chuck-full of information gleaned from actual experience as a breeder. Twenty Pages of illustrations. A few subjects are: history, housing, three methods of breeding, easy to get feeds, sexing, fertility vitamins, handling, educational, scientific projects, crating, profits and selling, where to buy and how to sell hamsters. Sent postpaid for $1.00.

Albert F. Marsh, 1524 Basil St., Mobile, Alabama

Now there is that brief mention of sexing the hamsters, but that looks to be in reference to breeding the hamsters with other hamsters. No mention of cardboard tubes or other oddities we think about in modern times. Because they weren’t naughty perverts back then like we are now – especially you…

[tags]The hamster manual, Hamsters and sexing – no cardboard tubes necessary[/tags]

Crushed milk – better than pasteurized

I’ve never even heard of this before, but apparently the process of crushing milk results in longer lasting milk.

Crushing milk at high pressures could help it last for seven weeks in the refrigerator without the unfavorable flavors associated with other long-lasting milks, researchers now report.

Conventionally, milk is pasteurized, or heated at high temperatures to kill harmful germs, at roughly 160 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 seconds. While pasteurization kills most germs, it does not wipe out bacterial spores, the dormant versions of the germs, which are extremely resistant to any form of destruction. Bacterial spores and remaining germs eventually spoil conventionally pasteurized milk, which is why it typically has a shelf life of only about 20 days when refrigerated.

. . .

The researchers found pressurizing milk at 85,000 pounds per square inch for five minutes at about 130 degrees kills germs while retaining the taste of fresh milk. The result is milk that stays fresh at least 45 days in the refrigerator. If the researchers can make this process commercially viable, Torres anticipated such milk could appear on the market in three to five years.

The article also mentions heating milk to as high as 300 degrees, resulting in milk that lasts up to 6 months unrefrigerated, but that this milk has not done well in the US due to associated strong flavors the process generates.

[tags]Crushed milk better than pasteurized, Milk purified via pressure lasts longer[/tags]

Will Wright – gaming’s god of god games

For the past six years, Wright has been working on a new game, which will be released in 2007. It is anticipated with something like the interest with which writers in Paris in the early twenties awaited Joyce’s “Ulysses.” At first, Wright called the project Sim Everything, but a few years ago he settled on the name Spore. The game draws on the theory of natural selection. It seeks to replicate algorithmically the conditions by which evolution works, and render the process as a game.

Covering briefly the start of videogaming and the god-game concept, this New Yorker article about Will Wright has information about how Wright works, what meeting with him is like, what he does to get creative, and so on. Anyone who has interest in the backgrounds of gaming’s better known creators will probably like this, long though the article is.

There is also some information on Wright’s new game, Spore, and its published, Electronic Arts, but for me, the real interest to the story is Will Wright himself. Beware – this is a long one, running 4 pages and many thousands of words.

[tags]Will Wright – game god, The New Yorker on Will Wright and Spore[/tags]

Tattoos affect skin sensitivity

This really is a useless swig of information for most people, I suppose. A psychologist in Colorado, Todd Allen, has determined that tattooed areas of skin are less sensitive than non-tattooed areas of skin.

University of Northern Colorado psychologist Todd Allen tested 21 undergraduates who had gotten tattoos within the last couple years, most commonly on their lower back for females and upper arm for males, and found tattooed areas were less sensitive than matching non-tattooed areas.

Allen tested sensitivity with an aesthesiometer-a sort of caliper with two plastic points. The points were gradually moved closer together on the skin until the person could only feel one point of pressure instead of two. Tattooed individuals felt this point sooner on their tattoo than on the same part of the corresponding non-tattooed body part.

By the way, these tattoos on the lower back are called tramp stamps, and if I ruled the world, all hawt chicks would be required to get them just to please me and my love of the freaky chicks. Just to add some additional useless knowledge to the post.

[tags]Tattooed skin less sensitive, Tramp stamps rawk[/tags]

Coolest pinball machine evar!!1!

I’m a gamer. I’m pretty sure everyone who knows me realizes that. My frequent gaming related posts here should give some clue, I suppose. As a gamer, I’ve seen all kinds of gaming things I’ve wanted – consoles, PC upgrades, arcade machines, and more. Nothing I can recall, though, has ever appealed to the gamer geeky gadget gotta-get guy like this LCD-playboard based UltraPin pinball machine the Retro-things folks saw at Pinball Expo in Chicago.

ultrapin.jpg

One interesting development at the show is UltraPin by Global VR. From a distance, this 250 lb machine resembles a machine from the past. When you get closer, you realize that the play field is actually a 32-inch 16:9 flat monitor, and the traditional dot matrix scoring screen on the back glass has been augmented by a second monitor. To keep the experience as real as possible, UltraPin features a force feedback system that allows you to bump (and tilt) the machine in a quest for a high-score.

The machine actually comes with 6 emulated classic tables, with additional table 6-packs for post-sales add-ons. Naturally, it comes with a real downside (as darn near every ultra-cool thing in the world does) – this puppy costs $6500. That, and apparently the pinball graphic does not reflect the surrounding virtual table.

[tags]Pinball hardware with emulated tables, Multiple pinball tables in a single machine, Virtual pinball getting better[/tags]

On 9/11

I’ve been reading a lot of 9/11 information – official government reports, cospiracy theorist musings, average joe thoughts, and so on. While looking for the official 9/11 commission report on Amazon, I came across this post concerning the 9/11 report and a question on why the WTC tower 7 collapse was not mentioned in the report. Here’s a big chunk of the (prettified by me) unformatted first post of one discussion.

You could buy “The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions” – but do you really need to? One little picture named wtc7.gif, you can easily find it on the web, makes it perfectly clear that WTC 7 was blown up in a controlled demolition. That one picture is worth way more than the couple hundred thousand lying words in this flagrant government cover-up.

wtc7.gif (I’m posting the image, so you don’t have to search for it)

If WTC 7 wasn’t an inside job, then why did the report cover it up? Because they have not even the shadow of an explanation for the WTC7 implosion.

Continue reading “On 9/11”

Quantum physics – the nature of stuff

Today’s educating bit of the day – learn a few tidbits about quantum physics and how everything ties together (not really). Learn a bit about light, matter, gravity, and more.

When small cannot get any smaller, you enter the quantum world of quarks, photons, and space-time foam. You’re welcome to take a look at this indivisible side of nature, but just remember to leave your common sense at the door.

. . .

If you split a banana, and then split it again, and again, and again… you eventually get down to cells, molecules, atoms. Each atom has a nucleus of protons and neutrons, with tiny electrons buzzing around. Both protons and neutrons contain three quarks.

But the dissection stops there: electrons and quarks are the smallest pieces of ordinary matter.

Then again, that’s what they said first about the atom, then the proton/neutron/electron. Is that really the smallest piece? Or does the answer to that depend on what “ordinary matter” is? That’s not answered in the article, but I think it’s a question worth asking. I suppose in a few years, we’ll learn there really is something smaller.

[tags]Quantum physics in brief, On light and matter and other quantum things[/tags]