HOW BING CROSBY AND THE NAZIS HELPED TO CREATE SILICON VALLEY
How Bing and his influence in the recording industry helped to enable modern technology.
Bonus commentary on how the new “crooning” was a bad influence on the young. Nothing ever changes.
Category Archives: Tech
Chinese DIY Inventions
One visible sign of China’s recent economic growth is the rise in prominence of inventors and entrepreneurs. For years now, Chinese farmers, engineers, and businessmen have taken on ambitious do-it-yourself projects, constructing homemade submarines, helicopters, robots, safety equipment, weapons and much more. Some of the inventions are built out of passion, some with an eye toward profit, (some certainly safer than others), and a few have already led to sales for the inventors. Gathered here are recent photos of this DIY movement across China. [39 photos]
Some of these are pretty cool.
Nothing New Under the Sun
Energy-Harvesting Street Tiles Generate Power from Pavement Pounder
The marathon runners generated 4.7 kilowatt-hours of energy
That’s a little more than fifty cents’ worth of electricity
I’ve already commented on this system, but I’ll sum up:
– It’s converting roughly a dollar’s worth of food into a penny’s worth of electricity. If they weren’t stealing the energy from people, this would never save anyone any money.
– The energy they steal is not green, so this energy is not, despite the effort to “launder” it.
– It’s still not clear how long it would take to save enough to pay for such a system
Powerful Things in Small Packages
New Microbatteries Are Tiny But Can Jump-Start A Car
With so much power, the batteries could enable sensors or radio signals that broadcast 30 times farther, or devices 30 times smaller. The batteries are rechargeable and can charge 1,000 times faster than competing technologies – imagine juicing up a credit-card-thin phone in less than a second. In addition to consumer electronics, medical devices, lasers, sensors and other applications could see leaps forward in technology with such power sources available.
No indication of when this might be commercially viable, or if it scales up to something that might power an electric car.
A Hexapod Robot Makes a Cameo
No Stork Involved
How are baseballs made?
I'm Glad They Can Make More, Since I've Clearly Lost Mine
Ah, machinery and then glassblowing. As a kid I went to the Corning glassworks several times and took the tour multiple times on each visit.
(1204 ºC = 2200 ºF, so there’s a little significant digit conversion problem that might catch your attention)
Vive la Differential
Pretty good explanation of the differential in your car works and why it’s needed
Nerdgasm, Check
A peek into the control room of space shuttles
[Photographer Ben] Cooper brings us an insider look at the Flight Decks of the Endeavour, Discovery, and Atlantis space shuttles.
Extreme Slowdown
This is a little different.
If you go their youtube page you’ll see they’ve done several Beatles songs.
Slowed this much it sounds a bit like a whale-song chorus. Not for foot-tapping, but maybe for background/relaxation. I’ve played with slowed songs before but I’ve only gone to 3/4 or 2/3 speed; Linda Ronstadt’s “You’re No Good” gives me the mental image of a singer in a black dress, single spotlight in a smoky bar when it’s slowed down. Elvis’s “Burning Love” is definitely more bluesy. There are a few Heart and Blondie songs I like as well (some with the slowed voice pitch, some preserving the original; the Amazing Slow Downer app I use allows one to adjust that. However, it’s limited to 20% of the original speed, or a slowdown of 5x. Still, interesting sounds.)