Category Archives: Tech
Nobody Thought of this Sooner?
Industry’s First Intregrated Triplex Receptacle
Provides three outlets that can accept 3 plugs simultaneously, eliminating the cluttered look of power-strips or necessity for multi-outtlet adapters
But There's No St. Bernard
Preparing to rescue Hubble at The Big Picture (23 photos)
Bringing Home the Gold
From Google Maps to Gold Medal
Kristin Armstrong, who won gold in the Women’s Individual Time Trial in Road Cycling, got a GPS track when she rode the Beijing Olympic course in December of 2007
After returning home to Boise, Idaho, I exported the GPS data to several different formats, one of which I was able to launch with Google Earth. I was then able to trace the entire course from the comfort of my home half a world away and find a similar route to train on back in Boise. This capability along with having the elevation profile proved invaluable in my preparation for my Gold Medal race.
GPS relies on precise time, provided by some colleagues of mine, and knowing where the satellites are relative to the earth, which is aided by some other colleagues of mine. Woohoo! We won gold!
I Don't Like Cell Phones
But it has nothing to do with radiation safety concerns.
Fraud Charges Cast Doubt on Claims of DNA Damage From Cell Phone Fields
The only two peer-reviewed scientific papers showing that electromagnetic fields (EMFs) from cell phones can cause DNA breakage are at the center of a misconduct controversy at the Medical University of Vienna (MUV). Critics had argued that the data looked too good to be real, and in May a university investigation agreed, concluding that data in both studies had been fabricated and that the papers should be retracted.
Serial vs Parallel, Mythbusters Style
Adam and Jamie demonstrate serial vs parallel computation with paintball guns.
Engineering, Meet Art. Art, Meet Engineering.
Full Disclosure
Full Disclosure and the Boston Farecard Hack
This preference for secrecy comes from confusing a vulnerability with information about that vulnerability. Using secrecy as a security measure is fundamentally fragile. It assumes that the bad guys don’t do their own security research. It assumes that no one else will find the same vulnerability. It assumes that information won’t leak out even if the research results are suppressed. These assumptions are all incorrect.
The problem isn’t the researchers; it’s the products themselves. Companies will only design security as good as what their customers know to ask for. Full disclosure helps customers evaluate the security of the products they buy, and educates them in how to ask for better security. The Dutch court got it exactly right when it wrote: “Damage to NXP is not the result of the publication of the article but of the production and sale of a chip that appears to have shortcomings.”
Whither Daisy?
Why “Daisy” in 2001: A Space Odyssey?
Possibly because a Bell Labs computer sang it years earlier, in a demo of voice synthesis and voice recognition.
Screw Archimedes
Who needs a lever, man? I’m Marty McFly.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you needed to move a heavy piece of equipment you’re helping to build. And you have the constraints of not wanting to tip it, and the course you need to navigate has some spots with less than 10 cm of overhead space. (This ignores one doorway that’s actually 10 cm too low — yes, we’ve done the equivalent of having built a boat in our basement. The solution there will either be slapping Daffy Duck with a frying pan in the shape of the equipment and having him run through the door, or a sawzall.) You need a smooth ride, because it’s an expensive, somewhat delicate trinket representing a several dollars and a few person-years of labor.
I tried designing a cart, but couldn’t meet all of the constraints — anything low enough would tend to bottom out on the incline (oh, that’s right, the path isn’t level the whole way. Is that a problem? I need this soon.) One day I was stressing and kvetching about it in front of the right person, who suggested air bearings/air casters. The heretofore unconnected link between the physics and the application clicked, and I knew that was the answer. Float the sucker on air. A small industrial blower and lots of small holes.
Here’s a demo of the system with a dummy load. There are also some lead blocks there, too. (cue rimshot). 160 kg for the optical table, lead and support structure, and another 110 kg or so for me.
(if you want a soundtrack, turn on a vacuum cleaner. Any “Ishmael” wisecracks about my pasty-white legs will be subject to retaliatory editing)
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