No More Office Tuesdays!!

Friends, we have entered a dark time... The weekly TBS Tuesday night Office marathon has been usurped by a mightily inferior show: The Big Bang Theory. Someone please explain to me how The Office can be totally axed in favor of the big bang theory (henceforth left intentionally UN-capitalized)? Tuesday nights are my favorite night of the work week simply because The Office is on from 7 to 10. That was, until my dreams were dashed. I want TBS to bring back Office Tuesday's, or AT LEAST shift it to another night, but just taking it away all of a sudden is unfair! I don't mind the big bang theory but The Office just trumps all!

For 1 million dollars... what are Betavoltaics?

Answer: Batteries that last for 25 years. No, I'm not missing a decimal point. Thats a full 25 years of battery life per battery. Of course, you wont see them in your ipods or cell phones, the places we all would choose first for these charged wonders, but the Military will have first dibs on the battery. The batteries that would certainly see the Energizer Bunny bang his drum all the way to his grave are nulear at heart, and work by absorbing the nuclear energy given off by decaying isotopes. Besides the military, medical companies are cupping their hands for these nuclear batteries, citing their potential use in medical implants and the freedom that patients could enjoy by allowing their implants to run for longer (the ones that use batteries in the first place, obviously). I like the idea, and I think they should find a way to mass produce the batteries for use in tons of applications, like the ones aforementioned. check it out HERE

The Energizer Bunny is in my backpack!!!

So this is really cool... At the Hong Kong Electronics Fair they revealed this backpack that is coated with a dye-sensitized solar panel than can be used to recharge electronic devices inside your backpack while you travel. That is pretty freakin sweet, if you ask me. Dye-coated, semiconductor nanocrystals is the key to this backpack that never quits. The dye absorbs light, turning it into electrons, which is then sent to the semiconductor and out to a circuit. They note that these types of setups aren't the most efficient types of solar technology out there, but they are considerably cheaper to manufacture, and, here's a cool point, these "panels" can be applied to flexible surfaces, opening up a universe of applications for the on-the-go people. This is really cool, because the only limitation that people have faced in being connected on-the-go has been the battery life of their various electronic doo-das, and this allows people to have battery wherever there is sunlight. I think these devices should go right into survival applicaitons as soon as possible, because these things could ensure that stranded and marooned individuals may have the ability to contact help virtually all the time, making sure that rescue efforts don't give up or turn around because the cell phone they were using went dead.

computers "recognizing" objects

A bunch of MIT brainiacs just figured out how to imoprove the algorithm that lets computers essentially "recognize" objects that they read. It basically guesses what one image is based on previous experiences with similar objects. It never has to be trained to understand new objects, it simply transfers old label names onto objects it perceives to be similar. This had grand implications for newsgathering, tourism, and many other applications where digital images are highly important. For example, a woman walking down the street in an unfamiliar city might, one day, be able to take a picture of a landmark she is near to and have her cell phone tell her exactly where she is. Its creepy as hell, but pretty cool at the same time. Our computers are literally going to start recognizing their environments... that is just freaky. All we have left to do is give the computers self-awareness and its into the Matrix we go. :) have a nice day

An Awesome Fall Break

I spent a fantastic FIVE days with the gf in South Bend this past fall break. I had so much fun and we were able to stay pretty busy with running errands and going shopping and getting treated to free meal after free meal! I even went to a Notre Dame hockey game and watched them stomp Alabama-Huntsville! Thanks to Dave, Anne, Karen, and Jon and Alicia for housing, feeding, entertaining, boozing, and putting up with your two visitors over the Fall Break! We had a ton of fun!!!
2ML&B4E :)

The wisdom of crowds

It is incredible to me that a group of people can find the answer to a nearly impossible question, without consulting each other, and simply by averaging their reponses. Its like this, if you ask a group of people to run 100km, their average time will not be faster than those of the fastest runners, it will be quite mediocre in fact. But if you ask a group of people to solve a problem, the solution they come up with, when you average the aggregate of their responses, will be (normally) far more accurate than the response of the smartest person in the group. Its amazing to me, but I'm just one guy, not a hyper-intelligent group of people.

trolls...?

just learned about internet trolls, and just what exactly it is they do. why would a person want to disrupt a bunch of people talking about something as menial and insignificant as wedding dresses or motorcycle preferences? I think it hilarious that some idiots can't stand to let a Usenet group have a conversation about whatever it is they choose to talk. so are they Trolls? definitely. And they definitely all seem to be living under a bridge... or their mothers' basements.