Category: Science

Geek Month in Review: August 2012

by Administrator, posted in Geek Stuff, Guest Authors, Science

By JB Sanders

Ah, the dog days…

007 Through the Years
Ever wonder what the highest grossing James Bond film is? Or which one it is, adjusted for inflation? Wonder no more!

Extreme Danger Through Kid’s Chemistry Sets
Isn’t it too bad that chemistry sets (intended for kids) don’t include cyanide, uranium dust (not kidding), or pure iodine (lethal at 2g).

Diving Suit of Nightmares
If this thing doesn’t freak you the hell out, you’ve been looking at Giger art for too long. Special bonus, this diving suit was made in 1882. Seriously.

Spray on Skin Has Reached the Present
Doctors have begun using “spray on skin” to treat long-term skin ulcers (which are notoriously hard to deal with) as a test of the technology. Yay, spray-on-skin!

All US Presidents Except One Related to English King
And I’ll go ahead and spoil the surprise ending for you: Martin Van Buren. Yeah, apparently every US President is descending from old King John. Who’d have thunk it?

Just Roll a d12 and Shut Up
Need an idea for your fantasy RPG session? Stuck for inspiration in your epic fantasy novel? Just curious what the hell I’m talking about? Roll 1d12:

LEGO™ Serenity
There’s a fan of the show, and then there’s this. You just have to click and go look at the pictures. It’s more awesome than I can say.

Stealth Salvage Barge For Sale
No kidding, this Cold War “ship” was designed to retrieve wrecks (like, say, a Soviet submarine) from the depths. Get your radar-proof salvage barge!

How Big is Infinity?
Great animated explanation from TED talks about how big infinity really is. Warning: Math content. Some heads may explode.

Uh, Anyone Else Thinking Mothra
Scientists have discovered that there has been a dramatic increase in the rate and type of mutations in the butterflies in and around the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Ghost Towns of China
China has a HUGE labor force, and sometimes they’re given things to do to keep them busy. Like building cities. Empty cities.

Stop-Motion Animation Still Going Strong
Now with 3D printers! Apparently the folks behind the movie Para-norman are making it using old-fashioned real-life figures, only they’re stepping it up using 3D printers. Because the 3D printers are comparatively fast, they can also use them for things like facial expressions.
Be sure to check out the image gallery.

2500 year old Hipster Tattoos
See the hipster chick — I mean, Siberian Princess and her mythological beast tattoos. It’s history AND tattoo art.

It’s a Terrible Pun AND a Useful Tool
What is it? It’s the Giger counter. It’ll make more sense if you click on the link and see the pictures.

Largest Map Ever
Well, it may not physically be the largest map ever, but it’s large in terms of what it covers: everything visible in our universe. Which is a lot. Check out the 3D fly-through tour, with links to the full data set. Did anyone else know that there’s a 3D button you can press on YouTube videos? I didn’t.
The video is a fly-through of a part of the map. Keep in mind as you watch it that those things you see whizzing by are GALAXIES (not stars or solar systems).

What if Futurama Was Real?
Then the characters would look more like these drawings this fan did. Or 3D renders. Or whatever they are. The Bad Astronomer has a NSFL* warning on these, so beware.

* NSFL

Real Hover-bikes in the Works
Not kidding. Hopefully not an internet hoax (is there an abbreviation for those?). They plan on having them out by 2014. Yes, there’s prototype video.

Teaser? Short? Preview? Who Cares, It’s Got Death Robots!
As it turns out, this is a preview of an upcoming scifi movie about the problems with arming your robots. And maybe not properly reformatting your hard drives before re-using them.

Tesla’s Lab Saved
Interview with the comic book artist who raised money to save Tesla’s lab. Bonus points go to the mention of Tesla’s earthquake machine, which had to be shut off with a sledgehammer to prevent it taking out the whole block.

Sight
Cool, chilling scifi near-future short film. Coolest part of all? It’s a student-made project. Keep that in mind as you see all the Hollywood-quality graphics and effects fly by. STUDENT-made.

Now Everyone, Jump!
What if everyone on Earth jumped up in the air and came down again, all at exactly the same time? SPOILER: pretty much nothing. The guy at xkcd explores this in detail, on one of his What If? articles.

Your Favorite Songs as Sculptures
Don’t even know if they used a 3D printer. These folks took the sound waves produced while playing certain songs and transformed them into 3D sculptures.

Handy Chart: Shakespearean Insult Kit
You can make “goatish fly-bitten giblet” or “vain fool-born clot pole”. Just tons of options.

About John:
John’s a geek from way back. He’s been floating between various computer-related jobs for years, until he settled into doing tech support in higher ed. Now he rules the Macs on campus with an iron hand (really, it’s on his desk).

Geek Credentials:
RPG: Blue box D&D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.
Computer: TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w/reel-to-reel backup tape
Card games: bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993
Science: Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983
His Blog: http://glenandtyler.blogspot.com

Geek Month in Review: July 2012

by Administrator, posted in Geek Stuff, Guest Authors, Movies, Science

By JB Sanders

Is it hot yet? I can’t tell…

Higgs-Bosun Explained
Confused as to what the Higgs-Boson is all about? Here’s a handy animation explaining everything. More or less.

The “British Atlantis” Found
So really what they mean is some underwater archaeologists have found remains of the civilization that existed on the land bridge between Britain and Europe 6500 years ago. Which is still really cool.

Light-Speed Baseballs
What would happen if you tried to hit a ball traveling at 90% the speed of light?

Self-Destructing Poem by William Gibson
More than 20 years ago, William Gibson helped create a poem called “Agrippa (a book of the dead)”, and it was included on a floppy disk (along with some art). After you viewed the poem, the contents of the disk, including the poem itself, were scrambled and unreadable. Now a PhD student is working on the problem, and before he could even work on the disk, he: compiled a disk image of the floppy, a System 7 emulator (Mac OS 7, that is), and most of the source code of the application which displays the poem. Now he’s sharing it online and offering a copy of every book Gibson wrote (NOT including the Agrippa poem) if you can figure out how Gibson did it. You have to show your work!

Movie Posters As If They’d Been Done 1000 Years Ago
You know, Medieval.
Warning: these will seriously warp your brain in amusing and baroque ways.

A Lamp Grown From Salt
Interesting idea in making new light fixtures.

Behind-the-Scenes Photos from Godzilla 1954-65
Because nothing gets your geek juices flowing like Godzilla pics. I’ll reserve the comments about guys in rubber suits.

Star Wars Figures Do the Movies
I know that sounds redundant, but in this case it’s Star Wars minis posed and shot mimicking famous pictures or movie posters.

Trojan Power Strip
It’s a power strip that hides a small computer inside, designed to “test” network vulnerability. Basically, you walk this thing into a company, plug stuff into it, and hack away.

Minecraft and 3D Printing
What’s not to like? It’s a six-minute video on the post-scarcity economy. And it’s way cooler than that makes it sound.

LEGO™ Robots and Wargaming
You probably already clicked on the link, but here’s the deal: it’s a slew of pictures of LEGO™ robots, which are being used to play a war-game. Anyone can play, they just need LEGO ™ robots.
Here are the rules:

About John:
John’s a geek from way back. He’s been floating between various computer-related jobs for years, until he settled into doing tech support in higher ed. Now he rules the Macs on campus with an iron hand (really, it’s on his desk).

Geek Credentials:
RPG: Blue box D&D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.
Computer: TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w/reel-to-reel backup tape
Card games: bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993
Science: Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983
His Blog: http://glenandtyler.blogspot.com

Geek Month in Review: June 2012

by Administrator, posted in Geek Stuff, Guest Authors, Movies, Science

By J.B. Sanders

June!

Vacuum trains
Leave New York City, be in Europe in an hour. How? With technology first proposed by Goddard (yes, that rocket guy) over 100 years ago: vacuum trains. Evacuate a tube to create an airless vacuum, and then shoot trains through it. The technique, with some modern modifications, is surprisingly effective.

Private Colonization of Mars
There’s this company, Mars One, that plans to put people permanently on Mars in 11 years (2023). They’re going to fund the expedition by making the whole thing into a giant media event, including cameras on the selection of the crew, the feed from their rovers and from the Mars-orbiting satellite.

More details on their website:

Over the Weekend, Half of Germany Was Powered by Solar
Apparently the Germans are doing something right. At peak times (mid-day), they’re producing 22 Gigawatt/hours of electricity from their combined solar panels. That’s the equivalent of 20 nuclear power plants.

Alternate Universe Slippage
Scientists postulate that some neutrons are slipping into an alternate universe. Seriously.

Companies That Build Castles
Really. Modern day construction companies that build castles to order.

Just Print That Organ
Screw transplants, these days people who need replacement organs can just print what they need using their own cells and an “ink-jet printer”. No, not in “5 years”, not in “10 years”, this is today, and it’s new enough that airport security doesn’t really understand it.

Holy Levitating Slinky!
And sometimes, these tidbits just write themselves. Slow-motion shots of what it looks like when you drop an extended slinky. Spoiler: it visually makes no sense.

Vertical Ship Goes into Construction Phase
Two-thirds of this beast stays below water to keep the other 170-feet of it buoyant. Anyone else thinking of a James Bond villain hideout?

xkcd Infographic: All Known Exoplanets, To Scale
You know it’s going to be a fun visual when it starts with xkcd. Thems a lot of planets!

Very Neutral
When they say that Switzerland is aggressively neutral, this is what they mean. The article discusses the Swiss redesign of their natural landscape into a country-sized fortress. Bridges designed to blow and take out the railroad beneath it. Artificial landslides which will wipe away important roads. Hidden shelters deep inside their many mountains. Fascinating stuff.

Extreme Planetary Closeness
Astronomers have discovered two planets in a system 1200 light years away that are so close in their solar orbits that they will appear in their respective skies larger than our moon. Scifi authors, start your engines.

Starry Night in Dominoes
Some guy does a pixelated rendition of Van Gogh’s Starry Night using dominoes, and then pushes one over. Time-lapse movie of him setting it up (with some incidental failures along the way) and the final setup. The final collapse visual is amazing.

Brave New Hair
Detailed discussion of how the good folks at Pixar got all that great hair to bounce around in 3D animation the way it does in the movie Brave. Some plot spoilers, though.
[Thanks for the tip, Alex.]

Fanless Heatsink
It’s silent, cools your computer bits and should be here soon. Plus there’s video and Science!
[Thanks for the tip, Alex.]

Human Powered Helicopter
Vertical liftoff has been achieved by an entirely human-powered helicopter. Spoiler: 50 seconds of flight. Still damned amazing.
[Thanks for the tip, Alex.]

New Mineral Found in Meteorite
Not a prelude to a bad scifi movie (that I’m aware of, anyway). A scientist has been probing meteorites for years, and has discovered 9 new minerals as a result. This time, it’s something “primordial”.

About John:
John’s a geek from way back. He’s been floating between various computer-related jobs for years, until he settled into doing tech support in higher ed. Now he rules the Macs on campus with an iron hand (really, it’s on his desk).

Geek Credentials:
RPG: Blue box D&D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.
Computer: TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w/reel-to-reel backup tape
Card games: bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993
Science: Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983
His Blog: http://glenandtyler.blogspot.com

Technological Brushes with Humanity

by Administrator, posted in Geek Stuff, Politics, Science

Excuse me while I step on JB Sanders toes and talk a little tech talk today. I assure you that my stuff is awesome, more awesome than the “Geek Month in Review”. (I didn’t mean it JB, please keep doing the “Geek Month in Review! Please?) Anyway…..

Google, with the help of Vizzuality, has put its technology to work to help experts in the field of language preservation like the First Peoples’ Cultural Council and The Institute for Language Information and Technology (The Linguist List) at Eastern Michigan University start the Endangered Languages Project.

Why does such a website need to exist? According to the site, “Experts estimate that only 50% of the languages that are alive today will be spoken by the year 2100. The disappearance of a language means the loss of valuable scientific and cultural information, comparable to the loss of a species. Tools for collaboration between the world communities, scholars, organizations and concerned individuals can make a difference.”

Not to get all website quote crazy but, “The Endangered Languages Project, is an online resource to record, access, and share samples of and research on endangered languages, as well as to share advice and best practices for those working to document or strengthen languages under threat.”

The website is mind blowing, I can’t wait to see what it’s like when it really gets going! The members of the Alliance for Linguistic Diversity that helped the site launch is already an exciting collective. When you explore the site you’re given a map of the world with dots on locations; green means the language there is at risk, yellow, endangered, red, severely endangered, and gray, vitality unknown. I went to Hawaii and had my mind blown to learn that the Endangered Languages Project estimates that there are only 1000 native speakers worldwide of Hawaiian.

Genuine screen shot! Shiny!

The page has video and audio samples of people speaking the language, and although no documentation has been added to the resources section yet, they helpfully show you relevant Google Books search results. Come on, Google did help put this thing together!

To learn more, and I encourage you to do so, visit the website at www.EndangeredLanguages.com.

Next up, and last up, June 20th was World Refugee Day and apparently the UNHCR (Also called the UN Refugee Agency, but most accurately should be called The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.) put together some real out of the box thinking for the occasion. They have launched the app game “My Life as a Refugee”. This app game recreates the fleeing refugee experience and according to the game’s website is based on the real life experiences reported to the UNHCR by refugees.

From the website, ” Every minute eight people leave everything behind to escape war, persecution or terror. If conflict threatened your family, what would you do? Stay and risk your lives? Or try to flee, and risk kidnap, rape or torture? For many refugees the choice is between the horrific or something worse. See if you’ve got what it takes to survive. Download ‘My Life as a Refugee’.”

Honestly, I’m not sure. I’m going to give them credit for some original thinking, and something to recreate the refugee experience is a powerful tool indeed. However, I can’t see myself downloading it. I mean, holy freakin’ downer Batman! I suspect that I’m not its intended audience though. From some of the press I’ve read, I’m getting a classroom vibe intention. And yet again I find myself going, holy schools full of terrified children Batman! (Seriously, you want to know the “holy Batman” thing I say the most in real life? Holy bed hopping hair hoes Batman! I said it once in junior high and apparently it has decided to never leave my brain. Never.)

If you’re interested in learning more about the refugee experience, making a donation to help the UNHCR, or downloading “My Life as a Refugee”, visit their website.

Geek Month in Review: May 2012

by Administrator, posted in Geek Stuff, Guest Authors, Products, Science

By JB Sanders

April showers bring …

Forgotten Bookmarks
So this guy works in his family’s used book store, and comes across the strangest things people have stuck in between the pages of the books. As the site puts it: “It’s happened to all of us: we’re reading a book, something interrupts us, and we grab the closest thing at hand to mark our spot. It could be a train ticket, a letter, an advertisement, a photograph, or a four-leaf clover.” Fun and weird site.

Underground Park
With sunlight! They pipe it in.

Leonardo Da Vinci: Still the Man
There’s a new exhibition of Leonardo’s anatomy drawings going up this week, and it led to discussions of how accurate those drawings are, 500 years later. The answer? Pretty damned accurate. As one professor of clinical anatomy put it: “Leonardo’s image is as accurate as anything that can be produced by scientific artists working today.” See comparisons of Leonardo’s drawings vs computer renderings of 3D CAT scans.

Cool Things to do With Sand
And a Kinect 3D camera and a projector. The setup uses the Kinect camera to detect the height of the sand, and then calculates and projects a topographic map right on the landscape. Plus you can add in virtual water features, as well. Worth the watch.

Testing Mars in an Ice Cave
An Austrian ice cave, to be specific. Scientists tested a variety of things, including walk-about suits, robots and 3D cameras.

Now That’s a Ring
So this guy, a man who should be inducted into the Geek Hall of Fame, forges his own wedding ring. Sure, that’s fine, you say, nice craft skills. The guy has a forge in his own garage, cool. Now, for the Hall of Fame part: he forges his own wedding ring — out of a meteorite.

Bionic Eye Powered by Light
Who needs those nuclear-powered bionic eyes? This one is powered by light! Extra-clever bit: natural light isn’t powerful enough to drive the eye, so they use “eyeglasses” as light-concentrators to boost the power.

Wi-Fi Blocking Wallpaper
So French researchers have come up with a wallpaper that, with conductive ink using silver crystals, blocks wi-fi and only wi-fi signals — cell phones and other radio waves are fine.

More info on the tech here:

2D Printed Loudspeakers
That’s right — not 3D, but 2D. Speakers which are printed using special inks onto paper. The uses are cool and terrifying (as with all good new scifi innovations): newspapers that shout at you, or wallpaper that plays soothing symphonic tunes. You want surround sound? How about the wallpaper IS your speakers?

Moon Throw
You have to be a real astronomy nut to blow $400 on a moonscape-themed throw blanket, but man, it does look really cool. (Tip o’the Hat to the Bad Astronomer for posting this link & photo.)

Monolithic LEGO iPhone Charger
Fan-made 2001: A Space Oddyssey diorama and iPhone charger. Yes.

What Friction?
Kid in Germany solves centuries-old problem posed by Isaac Newton, the one about figuring out the path of a projectile under the effects of gravity — including air resistance. Yup! No frictionless void for this kid.

Zombie-Proof Condos Sell Out
Yes, that’s the exact headline of this article. Isn’t that just exactly the headline you want to read? These former nuclear missile silos have been converted into luxury condos, with a pool, movie theater, library, fitness room and their own independent power (solar and wind!). For only $2M, they were a steal, too.

Be sure to poke around their website and see conceptual drawings, debris-cleaning photos and some of the amenities planned.

Ice Berg Flips
Not a sight you see every day, unless you live in the right places, I guess.

About John:
John’s a geek from way back. He’s been floating between various computer-related jobs for years, until he settled into doing tech support in higher ed. Now he rules the Macs on campus with an iron hand (really, it’s on his desk).

Geek Credentials:
RPG: Blue box D&D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.
Computer: TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w/reel-to-reel backup tape
Card games: bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993
Science: Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983
His Blog: http://glenandtyler.blogspot.com

Geek Month in Review: April 2012

by Administrator, posted in Geek Stuff, Guest Authors, Science

By JB Sanders

On to summer!

Pipe Organ Puzzle Safe Desk
The creator claims: “It is quite likely this is the coolest desk in the world!” Yeah, it really is that awesome. It isn’t steam powered, but it’s everything else you love about SteamPunk and puzzles. It’s an all-wood desk that uses wood pipes to play music. You push in the drawers to get air moving through the pipes, and if you play the correct tune, it opens a super-secret compartment. The desk has a “logic board” that lets you set the tune by turning a large number of all-wood screws. Plus the drawers have tiny puzzles of their own to open other secret compartments and other drawers.

The Fourth Dimension
It’s not often I pimp out iPad/iPhone apps, but this one is so cool I need to mention it. The app fully explains the fourth spatial dimension and how we can see it in our lousy three dimensions. With plenty of snark. But really, you’re buying it so you can play with a fully interactive tesseract.

So Here’s Your Damn Flying Car

A Dutch company has created a commercial prototype for a hybrid car and helicopter and airplane. The rotors unfold.

MorpHex Robot
Or as I found the link headline “The latest edition to SkyNet’s arsenal”. It’s a spherical morphing robot with hexagonal plates.

Floppy Autoloader
It reads the disk, makes a copy of it, takes a picture of the disk and ejects it. It can do 250 disks in 12 hours. Certainly beats the pants off doing it by hand.

Self-Healing Plastic
A real scientific reality. Not YET a product, but closer than “5 years”. Watch the linked video for the scientific explanation for how it works.

Vanishing Ground
There’s a town in Russia, east of Moscow a ways, that has a sinkhole problem. How bad? They have 24-hour video, seismic and satellite surveillance of the entire town — just to watch for forming sinkholes. The town is built over a now-abandoned mine.

The biggest sinkhole? They call it the Grandfather: “The Grandfather is now 340 yards wide and 430 yards long, and it plunges right to the salt strata underneath the city — 780 feet, or the equivalent of 50 stories, straight down.”

And here’s a web page with actual pictures:

Taking the Time Out of Space
Theoretical physicists have long debated whether time really is the 4th dimension. Now read about how physicists are saying time is NOT part of it at all.

Sonic Screwdriver Invented
Well, technically what the Scottish scientists at Dundee University have done is prove that they CAN make a sonic screwdriver. You know, eventually.

Stay Active
Even moderate activity can help stave off Alzheimer’s. Money shot: granny rock band.

The Lamp that Powers Itself
It’s a 3D-printed LED lamp that spins in the wind, powering itself.

3D-Printed Buildings — On the Moon!
Speaking of 3D printed stuff, here’s a plan to create robots that build 3D-printed-type buildings on the moon. With pictures!

Doing IT Support on Antarctica
As the article so coyly puts it “the coolest IT job in the world”. Yes, very cool: -10 F most days, during the Antarctic summer. Read about the hardships, getting tech support in Antarctica and their unique cooling problems.

Descriptive Camera
Take a picture, and the camera generates a description rather than a photo.

Titanic II
No, NOT a movie sequel. Some billionaire is building a replica of the original Titanic, only with “modern technology”. Seriously. Because nothing will happen on it’s maiden voyage.

About John:
John’s a geek from way back. He’s been floating between various computer-related jobs for years, until he settled into doing tech support in higher ed. Now he rules the Macs on campus with an iron hand (really, it’s on his desk).

Geek Credentials:
RPG: Blue box D&D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.
Computer: TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w/reel-to-reel backup tape
Card games: bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993
Science: Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983
His Blog: http://glenandtyler.blogspot.com

Booze in Space!

by Administrator, posted in Food/Drink, Science

Were you aware, that even as you’re reading this, Ardbeg Single Islay Malt Scotch Whisky is part of an experiment up in the International Space Station? Oh sweet futuristic distilleries it is true!

The BBC News site reports on April 9, 2011, “Compounds of unmatured malt were sent to the station in an unmanned cargo spacecraft in October last year, along with particles of charred oak.

Scientists want to understand how they interact at close to zero gravity.

NanoRacks LLC, the US company behind the research, has said understanding the influence of gravity could help a number of industries, including the whisky industry, to develop new products in the future.

The experiment, unveiled at the Edinburgh International Science Centre, will last for at least two years.

The molecules are tiny parts of the two substances known as terpenes – a set of chemicals which are often aromatic and flavour-active.

It is believed the experiment is the first time anyone has ever studied terpenes and other molecules in near-zero gravity.

The researchers are also measuring the molecules’ interaction at normal gravity on Earth so they can compare the way the particles mature.”

Obviously I think this is the coolest thing to happen in science since a bunch of dudes decided to sling particles around to go looking for the Higgs boson, or the people at Fage figured out how to make such damn tasty Greek yogurt with like, no calories, so I can dump fatty high calorie granola in it and still feel like a saint. Where was I?

Oh yeah, I thought this was really cool so I went to the International Space Station website to learn more, but when I found it listed in the experiments I got “Page Not Found” when I clicked the link. Thanks NASA, I’m sure the page was a victim of budget cuts.

Then I went to the NanoRacks website, the company stated as being behind the research in the BBC article. There I could find NOTHING about the experiment! Even using their site’s search engine!

Are these guys ashamed of their whisky endeavor? Obviously those who know me can guess what I’m going to say. As far as I’m concerned NASA and NanoRacks should be terribly ashamed of themselves and their experiment with Ardbeg Scotch Whisky. It should have been done with rum.

For those who want to learn more about Ardbeg Scotch Whisky, here is their website.

Geek Month in Review: March 2012

by Administrator, posted in Geek Stuff, Guest Authors, Movies, Science

By JB Sanders

Is winter over yet?

There is No Pink
Seriously — the color doesn’t actually exist. It’s not in the light spectrum. What we perceive as pink is actually a gap color. Watch the video in this article for the explanation. It’s Sciency!

Headless Cheetah Robot
It’s faster than you!

Icy Finger of Death
See ice descend into the ocean and freeze creatures in ice. Also, the word “brinecle” (that’s brine and icicle mushed together). This is real nature footage, not scifi.

Noah’s Ark Island
Floating island-city for the future.

Titanic Map
I didn’t realize this, but apparently there’s never been a full, comprehensive map of the full Titanic wreck site. Previous efforts concentrated on specific bits, like the bow or the stern. This all-new map shows everything, including what looks like debris from when it hit.

Las Vegas Sprawl
A time-lapse view of Las Vegas from 1972 to the present, from the perspective of an orbiting satellite. Watch the sprawl happen like it’s some kind of giant fungus.

Darth Vader Bagpipe Unicycle
You already clicked on the video link, didn’t you?

Let the Cloning Begin!
South Korean and Russian scientists are setting their sights on cloning the wooly mammoth.

Abandoned Places
Cities without people. These are places all over the world where humanity was once a vibrant presence, but now lie abandoned. Picture essay.

Connect It ALL!
It’s the “Free Universal Construction Kit”. This set of 82 pieces can connect any construction kit toy with any other construction kit toy. Want to make something out of Tinker Toys™ and an Erector Set™? No problem! LEGOs™ and Lincoln Logs™ ? Got it! Best of all, the “Free Universal Construction Kit” is a set of downloadable plans you can plug into your 3D printer — which doesn’t make them terribly free, since you have to have your own 3D printer, but hey — there you are.

The Jamesburg Earth Station
Long, fascinating article about the ground relay station that hooked up the Apollo 11 broadcast, countless other telephone calls and TV broadcasts, and is now for sale for $3M. It has a few amenities. It’s own backup batteries. It’s own giant satellite dish (90 fee across). Fourteen T-1 lines. Two-foot thick solid concrete walls. It’s own orchard. Oh, and it’s zombie-proof, of course.

Mysterious Booms
It’s never good when everyone in a town hears strange booming sounds, feels the ground shake and yet no one can figure out what’s causing the noise. Town officials are going to pay a company to put 4 seismometers around town to find the epicenter of the disturbances. It all sounds like the start of a great movie.

Behind the Scenes Photos: Metropolis
See some photos on the making of the first scifi movie.

It’s Dr Who Crochet!
You just can’t make up stuff like this. Some of it is even disgustingly cute.

I’ll Take Two
How would you like a bottle of Champagne from 1829? Sparkling wine goes bad after that much time you say? Not if it’s stored at a constant temperature of between 39 and 43 degrees Fahrenheit — 150 feet under the Baltic Sea. That’s right, it’s Shipwreck Champagne. And it’s going for around $40k a pop.

Wind Map
Want to see an active map of the current winds all across the lower 48 states? Got that. Also, it’s pretty.

Archaeology From Space
Scientists have come up with an analysis technique that looks at pictures of the ground taken by satellites, and figures out where there were ancient cities. So far they have about 14,000 sites covering over 8,000 years of human history.

About John:
John’s a geek from way back. He’s been floating between various computer-related jobs for years, until he settled into doing tech support in higher ed. Now he rules the Macs on campus with an iron hand (really, it’s on his desk).

Geek Credentials:
RPG: Blue box D&D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.
Computer: TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w/reel-to-reel backup tape
Card games: bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993
Science: Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983
His Blog: http://glenandtyler.blogspot.com

Geek Month in Review: February 2012

by Administrator, posted in Geek Stuff, Guest Authors, Science

By JB Sanders

Is winter over yet?

Nightingales and Bombers
BBC sound technicians were doing an outdoor recording of nightingales in 1942, when they noticed a slight drone noise. It gradually got louder. Then 197 bombers flew overhead on their way to Mannheim, Germany. Oops. Hear the recording.

Also, if you’re into old stuff, the site where that recording can be found has a truckload of other interesting items:

A Past That Never Was
Lithographs from a history that isn’t ours.

Everything You Know About Learning is Wrong
According to this renown professor guy, who studies memory for a living. So he might know what he’s talking about.

First Science Fiction Film, Now In Color
The French are restoring a copy of Le Voyage Dans La Lune (A Trip To the Moon) by director Georges Melies. This is a film from 1902. Although you might have seen it before, or at least clips of it, the version where the director hand-colored every frame has never been widely released, certainly not in decades. Now they’re not only restoring the rare color version, but they got the French duo Air to do an all-new soundtrack for it. It’s all very surreal. It looks like a vaudeville act, with no sound other than the very modern music playing over it. Neat!

A Swarm of Nano Quadrotors
Look upon the robot future and despair! Or, you know, cackle gleefully. Quadrotors flying in swarm formation, in and around obstacles.

Plastic-Eating Fungus Found
Which is either a lead-in for a scifi disaster flick of epic proportions, or the headline in an eco-green newspaper. However, the fungus just eats polyurethane, not every plastic out there.

Next Generation Space Suits
Or how to get all Forbidden Planet.

Great Science Visualizations of 2011
Some really cool shots in here — carbon nanotubes, cucumber skin at 800-times magnification, and more.

Antarctic Scientists Lose Contact
I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. Russian scientists drilling into a lake buried beneath 2 miles of antarctic ice haven’t been in contact with their American colleagues in over 5 days. And it’s going from the comparatively warm summer season in Antarctica to the “cold” season there (temperatures dropping to -40 C). I’m sure it’s all fine, and not the prologue scene to:

1. A remake of The Thing.
2. A Dr Who episode.
3. An armageddon flick where some Super Disease locked for millions of years below the ice shoots around the globe and kills 99% of humans.

UPDATE: Ok, the Russians finally called back. Apparently they broke through into the lake, but because of the approaching “cold season”, they’re flying away, and will return to do the analysis when the weather is better.

Ten-year-old Discovers Energy-Storing Molecule by Accident
Yeah, the bar keeps going up on these grade-school geniuses. Last time it was a teenager who used the Fibonacci sequence to create a more efficient photovoltaic array.

North Brother Island Photos & History
You might not have heard of it, but this island in the East River near Manhattan has been basically abandoned since 1963 (the same year that Alcatraz was closed). It once housed Typhoid Mary, a small leper colony, a rehab center, a tuberculosis asylum and housing for GIs right after WWII. Now it’s one of the few wilderness areas close to the 20 Million people in the greater NYC area, and one of the few truly forbidden bits of real estate in the US. Tons of creepy photos included in the article.

Rasputin Was My Neighbor, and Other Stories
Sometimes, if people live long enough, history can seem to compress. Civil war widows, people who met Rasputin, this article has all sorts.

32 Megajoule Railgun Delivered to Navy
For testing! Yes, the US Navy now has a railgun. Projected muzzle velocities are estimated to be 4,500 mph to 5,700 mph. I wonder what the waiting period is for one of those?

The Future is Closer: Transparent Aluminum
You heard that right: transparent aluminum, just like in Star Trek IV (subtitle: space whales OR one of the good ones). It’s not metallic aluminum, more of an aluminum / ceramic hybrid, but I think that just makes it cooler.

The Man Who Hears Colors
And not because he has some sort of aphasia. Nope, he has a rare vision disorder which means he can’t see any colors at all — completely color blind. So he made a machine which let him hear the color spectrum.

LED Snowboarder
This is geeky AND weird AND fashion-related (yeah, I know). They put together an LED-embedded snowsuit, put a world-class snowboarder in it and then filmed him at night, using only the light the suit provides. It’s surreal.

Acoustic Stonehenge
A researcher named Waller thinks that Stonehenge might have been constructed based on the interference pattern created from two pipers playing in a field. Yeah, seriously, and he’s got a really intriguing theory to back it up, too. Oh, and get this: “Mr Waller is an expert in “archaeoacoustics””.

Imaginary Nukes
Historian and scholar Alex Wellerstein has created a utility online which lets you pick a spot on the map, and a size of bomb, and then see what the resulting damage would be in lovely concentric circles of nastiness.

DYI Village
I’ve linked to this project before, but it’s so cool I’m linking to it again. The article goes into more detail about the guy who is helping create a foundation with a simple goal: provide free, online instructions for building all the machines that a village would need to be built and survive. Everything. From tractors to windmills, circuit boards to bricks. Oh, and a 3D printer, of course.

Snooper Drones — Not Just for Kids Anymore!
So this animal rights group is trying to breakup an illegal live pigeon shoot. In order to catch the perpetrators in the act, they fly a spy drone over the private land where the shoot is going on — and the hunters shoot down the drone. (You know, allegedly.) Yes, we’re now in a world where we have spy drones and people shooting them down themselves.

Hackerspace Global Grid
On the subject of technology that used to be military-only, a group of hackers are putting together the technology to setup their own satellite GPS system.

Seeds from 30,000-year-old Plant Regenerated
Russian scientists resurrected seeds found buried in a squirrel’s hide-away some 30,000 years ago. The plant flowered! Next on their agenda, pre-historic squirrels and eventually the wooly mammoth.

Is There a Prize for Being Multilingual? Then This Guy Wins
The guy in question is 20, and knows 11 languages. He won a national competition in the UK for the 16 to 22-year-old who knew the most. Yeah, 11 languages. Don’t believe me? See him demonstrate all of them:

The Future is Closer: Space Elevator 2050
A Japanese construction firm has plans to build a space elevator circa 2050.

Blue People
File this under Medical Geeky. Some folks in Kentucky (Appalachia area) had a recessive genetic disorder that made their skin blue. Not kidding. It has to do with blood and hemoglobin and oxygen.

Ocean Depths
Neat info graphic showing the various depths of the ocean, the deepest points and the various inhabitants along the way.

The City of Samba Time-Lapse
Beautiful time-lapse video of Rio around the time of Mardi Gras. I’m not sure why, but whatever they did with the camera makes a lot of this look like (at first glance) some sort of giant model version of Rio with Super Tiny People. It’s not, though, it just looks like that. Highly recommend you use full-screen on this. Come for the samba, stay for the animatronic King Kong (life-sized), the dancing Darth Vader and his many Stormtroopers, the transformers costumes (that REALLY transform) and the velocoraptors (costumes, not animatronics).

Why Do Objects Have Mass? This Guy
Ok, well, “this guy” is Professor Peter Higgs, and it’s not like he’s responsible for objects having mass. However the particle he postulated should exist, the Higgs boson, most certainly (if it exists!) is. And Higgs figured out it should be there — in 1964 (without a computer or even a hand calculator).

About John:
John’s a geek from way back. He’s been floating between various computer-related jobs for years, until he settled into doing tech support in higher ed. Now he rules the Macs on campus with an iron hand (really, it’s on his desk).

Geek Credentials:
RPG: Blue box D&D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.
Computer: TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w/reel-to-reel backup tape
Card games: bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993
Science: Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983
His Blog: http://glenandtyler.blogspot.com

Geek Month in Review: January 2012

by Administrator, posted in Geek Stuff, Guest Authors, Science, Television

By JB Sanders

Ring in the new year

Ghost Village
I don’t know how geeky this is, but it’s High Ranking Weird. UK Ministry of Defense evacuates a village in England and uses it for pre-Normandy Invasion training. Except the village is still “abandoned” today.

Long Exposure
Photography using long exposure times can be interesting, but usually that time is measured in seconds, at most minutes. Here’s a picture of Toronto with a 365 day exposure:

Random Band Names
I don’t know what the point of this website is, other than the obvious, but it’s cool and geeky, no doubt. John Scalzi, renown scifi author and blogger extraordinaire has created/helped with/designed (?) a random band-naming web thing:

Spiderman Silk
Scientists are genetically modifying silk worms to produce something more like spider silk, which is stronger than steel.

Money quote from the scientists, when asked about concerns that the modified silkworms might escape into the wild: “It’s hard to see how a silkworm producing spider silk would have any advantage in nature.”

Around the World in 5 Minutes
Guy quits his job, grabs his camera and travels around the world, taking pictures. Watch an amazing set of time-lapse photos from his trip.

D&D 5th Edition
Yes, Wizards of the Coast is talking about a new edition of the venerable RPG. Woo!

MakerBot
A real, available-now 3D printer that you can buy off-the-shelf, fully assembled (or as fully assembled as any printer ever is when shipped). Also, they use corn-based plastics which are fully biodegradable, so when you’re done with your doohickey, just toss in your compost heap. Still, it’s $1800 (not including shipping, I presume).

See the CES overview of it here:

And the company’s website here:

One Camera, One Picture, Infinite Focus
Imagine taking a picture, just one, and from that picture being able to refocus on anything in the picture AFTER you’ve taken it. Sound like someone drank a little too much something and then watched that scene in Blade Runner over and over again? Well, not quite. By “refocusing”, I don’t mean having an infinite zoom ability — just the ability to focus on something in the foreground or the background using the same image data. How does it work?

I’ll let the good folks at Ars Technica explain:

Oh, and a real consumer product appeared at CES this month, with a target date later this year to bring out a real product.

Want to see it in action, go here:

Digital Rug
The latest in interactive fabrics — now in a rug!

Apocalypse Later, Surf Now
It’s stunning what you can do with a waterproof camera and some digital effects software. And a boatload of talent, of course.

The Serial Killer Formula
Not a way to write novels or movie scripts. Actual scientists have developed a theory about when a serial killer is likely to kill next, or indeed in some way why they kill. Read on for the math and the neuroscience.

How to Format Your Text for Gibbering Madness
You just know this has to involve Cthulhu in some fashion, and it does! The following are the instructions for how to typeset any text so it looks like it was written by a madman.

Stuff You Don’t Know About Firefly
Infographic describing a whole bunch of fun facts about Firefly you probably don’t know:

About John:
John’s a geek from way back. He’s been floating between various computer-related jobs for years, until he settled into doing tech support in higher ed. Now he rules the Macs on campus with an iron hand (really, it’s on his desk).

Geek Credentials:
RPG: Blue box D&D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.
Computer: TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w/reel-to-reel backup tape
Card games: bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993
Science: Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983
His Blog: http://glenandtyler.blogspot.com