The Reverse Geocache™ Puzzle Box
A puzzle box that can only be opened when at a particular location.
Category Archives: Tech
Grab Your Gears(s)
Don't Text on Me
Semi-interesting snippet in a recent Kottke post. I say semi, in part, because the post is about the bandwidth devoted to Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga, and I’m pretty far from the demographic that gives a rat’s ass about Bieber (stands on virtual porch, shakes fist*), and the few times I’ve heard Lady Gaga’s music, I could not differentiate the songs and the saturation point was quickly reached. So, BFD.
However: We all know printer ink is expensive (more expensive than silver, pound-for-pound). So the calculation showing that transmitting the information by text-message is more than an order of magnitude more expensive than by printed text is an eye-opener. One might even go gaga over such a factoid. (FYI, I don’t text, either. All of my thumb ligament damage is old and Gameboy-related. Tetriiiiiis!)
*just as if I were playing Lawnville on some social-networking site
A Pre-Halloween Fright
A Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion Since 1945
Each nation gets a blip and a flashing dot on the map whenever they detonate a nuclear weapon, with a running tally kept on the top and bottom bars of the screen.
I had absolutely no idea of the number of detonations there had been. Now I finally have an inkling of why post-1945 carbon dating is skewed.
Get a Grip
Balloon filled with ground coffee makes ideal robotic gripper
Particulate materials have a so-called jamming transition, which turns their behavior from fluid-like to solid-like when the particles can no longer slide past each other.
This phenomenon is familiar to coffee drinkers familiar with vacuum-packed coffee, which is hard as a brick until the package is unsealed.
Pretty neat (other than the part where they talk about a vacuum sucking the air out — it’s the external pressure that forces the air movement.)
Recursion, Lego Style
MakerLegoBot is made of Lego, makes things out of Lego, is so meta it hurts
Building things out of Lego? Lots of fun. Building a thing out of Lego that itself builds other things out of Lego? That’s totally mindblowing, and that’s what Mindstorm master Will Gorman managed here with his MakerLegoBot masterpiece. The machine takes input from a PC running MLCAD, a sort of industrial design tool for blocknauts, and then churns out anything you like — so long as it is comprised of 1×2, 2×2, 3×2, 4×2, and 8×2 bricks.
All we need is a LEGO robot to play with the finished product, and we’re all set.
It's Not a Gcoffee Gcup
Astronaut Don Pettit invents a zero gravity cup to drink coffee, and anything else, in weightlessness.
Dem Bones
… and Titanium foamy goodness. Titanium foam is just as flexible and rigid as real human bone
The secret behind the new titanium foam implants is a foam-like structure that resembles spongiosa inside human bones, and a powder metallurgy-based molding process that consists of open-cell polyurethane (PU) foams being saturated with a solution that contains a binding medium and a fine titanium powder. The powder adheres to the foams cellular structures, and the binding agents and the PU are vaporized. The end result is a “semblance of the foam structures, which is ultimately sintered.”
Read, Aim, Fire!
The Big Picture: The National Ignition facility
“Creating a miniature star on Earth” is the goal of the National Ignition Facility (NIF), home to the world’s largest and highest-energy laser in Livermore, California. On September 29th, 2010, the NIF completed its first integrated ignition experiment, where it focused its 192 lasers on a small cylinder housing a tiny frozen capsule containing hydrogen fuel, briefly bombarding it with 1 megajoule of laser energy. The experiment was the latest in a series of tests leading to a hoped-for “ignition”, where the nuclei of the atoms of the fuel inside the target capsule are made to fuse together releasing tremendous energy – potentially more energy than was put in to start the initial reaction, becoming a valuable power source. The NIF has cost over $3.5 billion since 1997 and is a part of the federally funded Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Scientists at NIF say they hope to achieve fusion by 2012.
Bio-Dubious
The Difference Engine: Dubious security
Authentication of a person is usually based on one of three things: something the person knows, such as a password; something physical the person possesses, like an actual key or token; or something about the person’s appearance or behaviour. Biometric authentication relies on the third approach. Its advantage is that, unlike a password or a token, it can work without active input from the user. That makes it both convenient and efficient: there is nothing to carry, forget or lose.
The downside is that biometric screening can also work without the user’s co-operation or even knowledge. Covert identification may be a boon when screening for terrorists or criminals, but it raises serious concerns for innocent individuals. Biometric identification can even invite violence. A motorist in Germany had a finger chopped off by thieves seeking to steal his exotic car, which used a fingerprint reader instead of a conventional door lock.
Plus, you can also fake out scanners with digits made from play-doh or gelatin (after which, especially for the latter, you could eat the evidence). Still waiting for that one to show up on CSI.