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Category Archives: Tech
Rethinking Edison
Scroll Clock
Tiltonomics
The economics of pinball at its peak, when it took advantage of programmable electronics that would shortly be its downfall.
In 1980, pinball went digital, multi-ball, and multi-media starting with the game Black Knight. Black Knight brought pinball to a new level, literally speaking because it was among the first games with ramps and elevated flippers, but even more importantly because it brought a new challenge that drew in and solidified a pinball crowd. In doing so it also set the pinball market on a path that would eventually lead to its demise.
I remember Black Knight, and reading a story about how it was developed. The voice synthesizer programming had to be tweaked to make the “s” harder, because “I will slay you” was sounding more like an uncomfortable proposition than a challenge. But even then video games were already beginning to displace pinball machines.
The Future of Nuclear Energy?
Meet the Man Who Could End Global Warming
By deploying sodium-cooled fast reactors. It overstates the case, completely ignores wind and solar as contributors to green energy replacements for coal and oil, and I think it glosses over and muddles the physics a bit, but it’s interesting nonetheless. One big hurdle, of course, is getting the masses over their phobia of things nuclear-related.
Not mentioned is the fact that the Sea Wolf (a submarine) was powered by a sodium-cooled reactor, though of a different design than proposed here. There were problems, but at least some of that is tied in with being on a submarine, and it was commissioned more than 50 years ago.
Astronomical Clocks – Literally and Metaphorically
Astronomical Clocks – Literally and Metaphorically
The term astronomical clock is one that is used fairly loosely. Effectively any clock that shows astronomical information – as well as the time – can be so classified. They can show the location of the sun in the sky, for example. In addition to that they can show the position of the moon – and further information such as its phase and its age. Others go further and show the current sign of the zodiac or even go as far as showing a rotating map of the stars.
Bring Out Your Dead
Industrial robot hones virtual autopsies
The researchers are already pioneers of virtual autopsies, or “virtopsies”, which use non-invasive imaging of a body inside and out rather than the radical post-mortem surgery typically used to determine cause of death.
Now they are using a robot, dubbed Virtobot, to carry out parts of that process, making it more reliable – and standardised.
Their virtopsies combine 3D imaging of a body’s surface with a CT scan of its interior anatomy. The result is a faithful, high-resolution virtual double of the corpse (see diagram). This double can be used to accurately determine what killed someone. And it’s a more tactful approach: only needle biopsies are used to sample tissues, leaving a body essentially undamaged.
“Currently, organs are taken out and sliced for analysis of tumours and lesions, but if something is overlooked you have no chance of seeing it again,” says team member Lars Ebert. “All you have afterwards is a huge pile of organ slices.”
Mmmmm. Organ slices …
Roomba Pacman
Let the Chips Fall Where They May
Slow motion machining. (of nothing in particular — just a scrap piece of aluminum being trimmed). Spindle speed is 7500 rpm, film speed is 420 fps.
H1B to be Square
In the past we’ve been told that there is a shortage of tech workers (or rather , there isn’t because we can import them), and businesses have demanded more visas or suggested other solutions to the problem.
Now they’re saying we have enough, they just are leaving the field for richer professions:
The supply has actually remained steady over the past 30 years, the researchers conclude from an analysis of six longitudinal surveys conducted by the U.S. government from 1972 to 2005. However, the highest-performing students in the pipeline are opting out of science and engineering in greater numbers than in the past, suggesting that the threat to American economic competitiveness comes not from inadequate science training in school and college but from a lack incentives that would make science and technology careers attractive.
In addition, the current economy has temporarily eased the problem (if it is a problem)— applications are down because fewer companies are hiring.
I’m beginning to see a more consistent picture here, if it is indeed the case that potential sci/tech workers simply choose other, more lucrative fields. Recipients of H-1B visas only have to be paid the higher of the prevailing wage for the region, or the employer’s actual average wage, but if that average wage is for an average employee, and your visa recipient is more capable than that, you can drive the salaries down, much like evaporative cooling lowers temperatures. Employers are not forced to pay higher wages for highly skilled US workers, so they diffuse to different fields. The average salary can drop, but the skill level increases, and average skill levels must accept lower wages as long as there is a supply via the visa program. Whether this is actually what’s happening, I don’t know. I don’t think the “we’re not capturing their interest” model is discounted, and it’s likely that multiple factors come into play in figuring out why there aren’t more science students entering the workforce.
I disagree with the proposal that we need fewer science students. There’s a mistaken notion that if you don’t directly use your degree in your adult life that the system has somehow failed, and I’d hate for the result to be less emphasis on science. The utility of learning science isn’t that everyone will become a scientist by profession; we want students to learn English literature and philosophy and some even major in these subjects, but do we expect philosophy majors to all become professional philosophers? The utility of science is that it helps teach us critical thinking, and the ability to separate truth from fraudulent mumbo-jumbo helps protect us from those charlatans who would try and peddle perpetual motion machines, or tell you the earth is 6000 years old, or convince you that vaccines cause autism. I agree with Zapperz on this
As far as I’m concerned, my interest in physics education is more towards having student be literate in physics and how it is done, rather than trying to gear them towards specializing or majoring in physics. I don’t care if they end up as physicist or not, but they shouldn’t be ignorant of what physics is, and how we gather our knowledge.