The Most Amazing Laser Application of All Time Is…
The people have spoken, and it doesn’t get any more amazing than laser cooling, which is hereby awarded bragging rights over all other fields of laser-related physics.
Those of us who do laser cooling already knew this, but it’s nice that we have this stamp of approval. The post has links to explanations of all 12 of the contestants, done with the usual Uncertain Principles style and quality.
No time is wasted. The bullet train is moving all the time. If there are 30 stations between Beijing and Guangzhou , just stopping and accelerating again at each station will waste both energy and time.
A mere 5 min stop per station (elderly passengers cannot be hurried) will result in a total loss of 5 min x 30 stations or 2.5 hours of train journey time!
A 5-min stop is actually a longer delay owing to the time spent accelerating.
Smartphone Domino Machine
Scott Adams Blog: That Lost 4G Phone
Take a moment to marvel at the fact that I didn’t need to add anything to the story as it has been told in the media. All it really needed was Wally.
Maniacal Rage: Photoshop Crash Reports
I changed the canvas size (added 400 pixels to the height while anchoring the existing canvas to the top in case you’re interested in the little details) and everything disappeared. Luckily, I had just saved. I’ve been pretty lucky about that with Photoshop in the past — I’m an over-saver. I save all the time. Probably got into the habit because of applications with terrible stability patterns- You know, like your application. Photoshop. Also, Microsoft Word. Remember that junk? I’m sure you do. You probably refer to that as the ‘Adobe Photoshop of Word Processing’ and laugh and laugh and count your money.
It’s almost like blogging in a crash report dialog window.
Don’t know what you’d do if you wanted a Screaming Viking, with the cucumber bruised.
US Military Developing Poop-Powered Nuclear Reactors
Um, unless you’re crapping U-235, no.
What DARPA wants is a deployable reactor that can provide electricity, plus use locally available material — like poop — to make “mobility fuel” (e.g. biodiesel)
For the purposes of this RFI, DARPA/STO is interested in nuclear powered generator design concepts that produce both electricity and mobility fuel. The total energy output of the generator design should support an electrical load of 5 to 10 MW in addition to producing 15,000 gallons/day of fuel from indigenous hydrogen and carbon feedstocks.
Mieke Meijer came up with the idea to use piles of discarded daily newspaper making it into a renewed material. The layer of paper appear like lines of a wood grain and the rings of a tree just like a real wood when the Newspaper Wood is cut. It can be cut, milled and sanded and generally treated like other type of wood.
