Category: Random Ramblings

Anything that catches my fancy as a topic I want to cover. Truly random crap.

Vision Robotics – building the body-harvester of tomorrow?

Orange_Harvester_Front.jpgSometimes the robots try to hide their steps to world domination. Other times, they get bad humans involved who broadcast the robots’ future build plans to the world. Here, I present to you the Matrix style body harvester being built by Vision Robotics.

Updated_scout_1.jpgSure, they show it as an orange harvester, but just crank the size up an order of magnitude or two and it will be the perfect size to pick the body pods, copper-top.


[tags]Body Harvester – a la Matrix, The robots will take over, The coming robot uprising, Vision Robotics build the body harverster of the future[/tags]

Online open courseware

If you are looking to learn something new on the techie side, here’s another site worth looking in to.

Open-Of-Course is a multilingual portal for free online courses and tutorials. By “free” we not only mean free as in “free beer” but also published as open content. Our focus is on educational information where you can benefit of in daily life.

You will find here lots of free courses and tutorials and you can join a community of over 5000 students. All the courses have their own forum for students to interact and help each other out. You can join the fora after registration. Our privacy policy can be viewed here .

People can also add their own courses or tutorials to our system for free. Open-Of-Course runs on the open source electronic learning environment “Moodle”. Read more about that here.

One of the new tools I’ve picked up lately is Scribus – a layout processing/desktop publishing tool (think PageMaker or InDesign). While looking for some tutorials on learning how to better use the tool, I found open-of-course, and felt that I should pass it on.

[tags]Desktop Publishing, DTP, Open-of-course, Open courseware, Scribus[/tags]

Make your own cotton candy machine

Every once in a while, I find the stuff that would make your kids vote for you in a “Coolest parent of the year” contest (for the record, *I* would vote for you every time, but sometimes the kinds need a reminder of how great you are). Follow this cotton candy machine build guide (or if you don’t want all the instructions on one page, start at the intro page)and you’ll get back high on their list for votes.

Here’s a bit to help you see if you are ready to start:

instructable-cotton_candy.jpg

step 1:Materials / Necessities
Okay, so here’s what you’re going to need to make your own cotton candy machine!
Materials:

  • 1- standard electric motor (preferably 1/4″ motor shaft)
  • 1- 3.25″ X 6+” Aluminum extruded round bar (3.25″ diameter)
  • 2 – 1/2″ bolts of any size diameter (smaller = better, but you need the tap for it)
  • 2 – 1″ bolts of any size diameter (need the tap for the right size)
  • 1 – average toaster heating element
  • ? – .25″ diameter copper pipe (or crimping connectors for wiring)
  • 1 – radio-controller “floppy” antenna
  • ? – lots of miscellaneous screws, nuts, and bolts
  • 1- 3″ (dia) X .125″ piece of wood
  • 1- Light Switch Dimmer or Adjustable power supply ( needs to be able to handle high voltage and amperage output)
  • Teflon Tape
  • Conductive Tape
  • A large, plastic or metal, circular object (if you don’t have one, make one)
  • Some wire mesh (usually used as gutter covering)
  • A Few Sheets of paper
  • Some tape
  • Some heavy gauge wire
  • A small bit of fast drying concrete

Tools:

  • Lathe
  • Tap
  • Electrician’s pliers
  • Band/Hack saw (if using copper pipe)
  • Drill press (and the smallest drill bit you can find, at least 1/16″ or smaller)
  • metal working clamps
  • Tin Snips
  • Alibre Design Express (free at www.alibre.com)

The entire instruction set is a bit long, but we’re talking home-made cotton candy here, folks. You just can’t pass up awesomeness like that.

[tags]Instructables, MAKEzine, Cotton Candy, DIY, Do it yourself, Build your own cotton candy machine[/tags]

Steampunk lamp

The bb_spunklampde.jpgfine folks over at boingboing seem to have a steampunk infatuation lately. Now that’s all and good. I generally don’t have even a passing interest in the steampunk posts, and can quickly skip the articles when I see the header. Perhaps I pause if there are images, but generally these don’t even hold sway on my attention for more than the briefest of moments. Recently, however, they posted a link to Frank Buchwald’s German lamp design site along with a cool image snagged from Buchwald’s. This was the first steampunk post from boingboing that I thought looked good, so naturally:

No word on pricing (although I didn’t really look carefully – it’s probably there and easily found), but that does look worth a bit of cash. If the steampunk motif catches your fancy, then see what else boingboing has on steampunk and report back what you like. (via boingboing)


[tags]Steampunk, Steampunk lamp designs, Retro-future lighting[/tags]

Guide: Smuggling liquids on a place

liquids-on-a-plane_resize.jpg Thankfully, there are more people out there that feel as I do about some of the so-called “security” we are getting for our tax dollars.  And they are way smarter than I am, so they write insightful things about the problem.  So there are frequently new posts out there from which I can draw.  The latest is this simple “guide” to taking your liquids on a plane with you.

My latest experiment with TSA security happened by accident. I recently flew to Memphis on business, and while I was there I bought my wife a souvenir bottle of Vidalia onion salad dressing (pictured at left [well, not on my site when I rip his text]). Vidalia onions are one of the four food groups of the South, the other three being barbecue, fried foods, and gravy.

. . .

I took my time packing up my things, watching her wrap the bottle loosely in the paper and drop it into the trash barrel.

I looked around casually. There weren’t very many TSA agents servicing the area, and they were joking around, screening oncoming passengers, watching the X-ray monitor. Everyone’s attention was focused elsewhere. No one was watching me.

I moseyed over to the walkway and glanced in the barrel. It was filled with half-empty coffee cups and discarded water bottles. There, on top of the trash, wrapped in its protective paper, was my salad dressing.

. . .

Calmly, I reached down into that unstable barrel of atomic liquid and grabbed my salad dressing. Then I calmly boarded the moving walkway, and stuffed the salad dressing down my pants. The TSA lets you keep things there, apparently.

No one came after me. I have to be honest, it was almost like they wanted me to take it. The hardest part was returning a few minutes later to take these pictures on my cameraphone.

Mission accomplished, I suppose.  Read the full article for more details and the camera phone pictures that go along with the story.  This story has been covered by several of my favorite web sites/blogs/smarty-smart folks.  Schneier rightly points out that this probably isn’t a smart thing to brag about online and that he probably wouldn’t have been so glib had he been caught.  Boingboing, other the other hand, looks at this from the critique of DHS security standpoint:

The reason this “smuggling” technique works, of course, is that liquids aren’t dangerous. Everyone knows this — even the TSA. That’s why they don’t guard the barrel after they confiscate your wine, water, and salad-dressing. The point of taking away your liquid isn’t to make airplanes safe, it’s to simultaneously make you afraid (of terrorists with magic water-bombs) and then make you feel safe (because the government is fighting off the magic water-bombs). It’s what Bruce Schneier calls “security theater.”

So take your pick of viewpoints – probably unwise and overly risky or possible because everyone realizes liquids aren’t that risky.  Or both, which is what I think – he wasn’t doing himself a favor by doing this, but it wasn’t likely to be caught given how non-dangerous liquids are and therefore unprotected after “disposal” anyway.

[tags]Liquids on a plane, How to smuggle liquids onto a plane, That Zug guy[/tags]

Watch with phone – Dick Tracy style

Come on – you know you want the SMS M500 GSM Watchfone now.

. . . Now we can all get a little Dick Tracy with “the world’s smallest mobile phone” — or so says SMS Technology Australia. Unlike Dick’s 2-way Wrist Radio which emerged in 1949, this pup goes quad-band GSM while packing a 1.5-inch touchscreen with itty bitty, built-in stylus; Bluetooth 2.0; and all the 120 x 160 pixel MP4 video (or MP3/AAC audio) you can pack into its 128MB of storage. The watch weights just 60-grams and should hold-up to about 200 minutes of talk or 80 hours standby before needing a USB recharge. . .

And you can tell the phone is super cool because phone is spelled fone in the name!

[tags]Watchfone, Dick Tracy style, A phone on your wrist[/tags]

Nancy Grace suit moving forward

I’m not talking about the suits Ms. Grace wears.  The lawsuit against Nancy Grace over the suicide of Melinda Duckett is being allowed to go to trial.

A judge has ruled that a wrongful death lawsuit claiming that CNN’s Nancy Grace pushed the mother of a missing toddler to suicide through aggressive questioning on her show will be tried in federal court.

. . .

Grace grilled Duckett on Grace’s CNN Headline News show in September 2006 about the disappearance of Duckett’s 2-year-old son, Trenton. Duckett fatally shot herself before the network aired the pre-taped interview.

This will be interesting to see how it turns out.  I thought Ms. Grace was unusually obnoxious, even for her, in this interview.  I don’t know that I would have killed myself over it, but for her and her producers to say they had nothing to do with adding to the stress Ms. Duckett felt is absurd.  And stress reaction is what suicide is all about.  Did Ms. Grace cause Ms. Duckett to suicide?  Well, we don’t know, but even I find that improbable.  Did Ms. Grace contribute?  It sure looks that way to me.  Now we’ll let it go through the court system.  At least, until CNN settles out of court while admitting no wrong-doing.

Thanks to reader/former cow-orker TG for the link to this story.  Apologies to him for the delay in getting it posted.
[tags]Nancy Grace, Melinda Duckett, Lawsuit over Melinda Duckett suicide, Nancy Grace in court over suicide contribution[/tags]

MA trying to emulate TX?

Have you heard the saying “Texas! Where men are men and sheep are scarred.” before? Well, looks like a young man in Massachussettsis trying to change the state that gets that claim.

A Sherborn teen was charged this afternoon with allegedly having sex with sheep at a farm near his home, a pattern police suggest may have gone on for nearly a year.

. . .

According to police reports, the incident at the farm in June 2007 was just the latest in at least a dozen break-ins. Prompted by the earlier incidents, the owner of the farm installed surveillance cameras, including one near the sheep pen.

Between 3 and 4 a.m. on June 27, the police report says, “the camera…captured and filmed a light-skinned black male subject identified as Roger Henderson II.

“Henderson is observed in sheep pen grabbing a sheep by its hind legs and dragging it to the corner of the stall. Henderson removes his clothes and appears to have sexual relations with the sheep. Upon finishing, Henderson puts his pants back on and leaves the barn area with his shirt in his hand.”

Really, things like this make me realize I need to add a WTF? category to the blahg.

Oh, and if anyone asks you, I hear it is customary to pet them before leaving. Mr. Henderson didn’t even have the decency to say “Thank you, ma’am.” and scratch her ears.

I do wonder, though, if maybe Roger just misunderstood what folks were saying when they said he was the black sheep of the family? It could have happened.

[tags]WTF?, Sheep abuse, MA looking to replace TX[/tags]

Captain America to be buried at Arlington

If you haven’t kept up with comic culture lately, you might not be aware that Captain America was recently assassinated by a sniper. Sad though this is (in the comic world where it all takes place), it seems that Cap will at least get the hero’s burial he deserves for all the work he has done protecting America.

In the drizzling rain at Arlington National Cemetery, thousands of grieving patriots solemnly watch as the pallbearers – Iron Man, the Black Panther, Ben Grimm and Ms. Marvel – carry a casket draped with an American flag.

Yes, folks, Captain America is dead and buried in the latest issue of Marvel Comics’ “Fallen Son,” due on newsstands the morning after Independence Day. After 66 years of battling villains from Adolf Hitler to the Red Skull, the red, white and blue leader of the Avengers was felled by an assassin’s bullet on the steps of a New York federal courthouse.

I’m not so much into comics that I actually am upset that Captain America was killed – he’s just ink with a strong fiction behind it. Still, for this tie-up to the end of his story (maybe), it is pretty cool that they wrote an Arlington cemetary burial in to the end.

Of course, I also know that dead in comics never means dead. Maybe the story is over. Maybe he’ll be back somehow. I have no idea. I just thought it was pretty cool how the writers put this end of story together.

[tags]Captain America to be buried at Arlington, Arlington cemetary plays in Captain America end of story[/tags]

Kinetica museum

UPDATE: 7-10-2007 – The Orbo demonstration failed due to excessive heat from the lighting used to improve visibility.

This British museum of kinetic art sounds like a pretty cool place to check out. I’ve never been there, but just looked at the website. In concept, I like what they say.

kinetica-museum_resize.jpg

Set strikingly against the backdrop of the old Spitalfields Market in London’s East End, Kinetica Museum opened in October 2006.

Kinetica is the UK’s first museum of kinetic art. It will actively encourage the convergence of art and technology, providing an exhibition space in central London where the most important examples of kinetic, technological and electronic art, both past and present, can be properly stored and displayed.

The thing that makes me wonder about the place, though, is that they are the host site for the new unlimited energy (nee perpetual motion) machine Orbo from energy company Steorn. You might remember that I wrote about this last year. So why suspicion of this? Well, if you can’t see the problem based on the description, you might not understand or care what’s wrong with it, but just the description makes me doubt such a claim.

Orbo produces free, clean and constant energy – that is our claim. By free we mean that the energy produced is done so without recourse to external source. By clean we mean that during operation the technology produces no emissions. By constant we mean that with the exception of mechanical failure the technology will continue to operate indefinitely.

The sum of these claims for our Orbo technology is a violation of the principle of conservation of energy, perhaps the most fundamental of scientific principles. The principle of the conservation of energy states that energy can neither be created or destroyed, it can only change form.

Violates the principle of conservation of energy? Color me skeptical of a machine that produces more energy than it consumes.

[tags]Perpetual motion machine, Unlimited clean energy, Orbo, Steorn, Kinetica museum[/tags]

US court determines Presidents and NSA are not subject to US law

Sadly, I just don’t have time to do this story in the manner it deserves.  I’m preparing for a trip, and won’t have time to completely cover this until returning from travel.  But the story is too important to let wait until then.

Overturning a lower court decision that President Bush’s unlawful wiretap authorization after the 9/11 attacks, a U.S. appeals court has ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit against the NSA for wiretapping.  The simple reason is the court stated that since none of the plaintiffs could prove their 4th amendment rights had been violated by the wiretaps.

The appeals court ruled that the plaintiffs didn’t prove they had been affected by the NSA’s Terrorist Surveillance Program, authorized by President Bush in 2002. The program allowed the NSA to monitor communications between U.S. residents and people in other countries with suspected ties to the terrorist group al-Qaeda.

The plaintiffs argued, among other things, that the program violated the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, protecting U.S. citizens against unreasonable search and seizure. But none of the plaintiffs could prove their Fourth Amendment rights had been violated, wrote Appeals Court Judge Alice Batchelder.

“The plaintiffs cannot show they have been or will be subject to surveillance personally,” Batchelder wrote.

Well, here’s the kicker.  Because the program and all information collected is classified, no one can EVER prove their 4th amendment rights have been violated.  Quite literally, the court has ruled that any program initiated by a President and stated to be classified complete protects the government from all legal repercussions.  Think about this carefully before you dismiss it.  That means, for instance, that if Hillary were to win the election next year (please dear ${diety} no, but just suppose) and she determined she needed to eavesdrop on political opposition.  If she were to start doing this and claim it was classified, no one could bring any legal weight against her.

If any President does anything in violation of current law but declares all information about it to be classified, no one can do anything about it if this ruling stands.  This is an insanely dangerous ruling, and it sets America up for very bad executive branch programs in the future.  It’s especially sad to me that the ACLU actually takes on a case that they should, and because they can only speak of the potential damage of the program, it gets thrown out.  All the cases judges let the ACLU run through that they win, and one this important gets dismissed?  Sad.  A pathetic show of judicial ruling.

[tags]US court appears to hate America, Court declares President above the law[/tags]