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By Dave, September 18, 2006 6:26 pm

Fish is used to detect terror attacks – Yahoo! News

Bluegill, canary of the water system.  Interesting use of fish.  And reasonable.  But wait till PETA gets involved…

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By Dave, September 18, 2006 6:23 pm

Engine on a chip promises to best the battery – MIT News Office

Looks like MIT is close to getting the micro turbine functional. Article states that they hope to have it operational by the end of the year. 20,000 rpm revolutions per second (thanks for the correction Steve). Sucker is booking!

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By Dave, September 18, 2006 3:07 pm

3D rock carvings recorded with simple equipment – tech – 18 September 2006 – New Scientist Tech

Sounds like a step in the right direction. Wonder if using a solidstate laser with a refraction grid would give any better resolution? Since the article is so sparse info wise there isn’t really much to speculate with though…

Update:  Guess I should have looked harder for a link.  There actually is one!  Company is SINTEF and there is quite a bit more than in the article including a downloadable PDF with some stuff that isn’t on the page.  Says that the resolution is 1/10,000 of the object scanned.  Not shabby at all!

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By Dave, September 18, 2006 1:22 pm

Is Ubuntu Linux a Sensible Alternative for Mac Users?

I do and don’t agree with his reasoning. While it is true that Ubuntu and other linux variants that will work on the mac may not do things better or even easier than OS X, my biggest complaint is the DRM that is now entwined throughout Apples wonder os.

If you don’t like supporting a company that is doing its damnedist to take away your right to do what you like with files on your own machine, then YES make the move away from anything Apple as fast as you can.

I am still hanging on mainly because the airport software in Ubuntu wasn’t (5 days ago when I tried the latest release) (though to be honest I tried the latest Kubuntu so I guess I need to try Ubuntu now) able to connect at the distance that the native Mac OS X software would.

Actions > Mouth… I have just started downloading the latest Ubuntu to try. As soon as I can get the wifi thing working even close to what I am used to then bye-bye OS X and restrictive DRM!

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By Dave, September 18, 2006 1:05 pm

Scientists study ways to safeguard water

Really bad example of a reporter or editor rewriting what was said.  Scientest says to reduce waters loses to evaporation store water underground, headline says scientest calls for letting water run into the ground. Maybe I am just having a bad day but this is just stupid reporting…

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By Dave, September 18, 2006 12:58 pm

The Top 10 Foods to Eat Organically

This is a real good news/bad news thing.  The most used foods have the highest pestiside levels.  These are some of them and a selection of foods to replace them.

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By Dave, September 18, 2006 12:55 pm

Evangelists oppose Leaky’s fossil exhibition | The Register

Talk about narrow minded, pinheaded idiots…  But then again maybe all that evidence doesn’t mean a damn thing.  No, the folks who can’t see the evidence of the fossils for the blinders imposed by their faith need to be kept out of polite society and in a small locked closet somewhere…

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By Dave, September 17, 2006 11:29 pm

Need A Cooker? Use Your Cell Phone

This cook an egg with 2 cell phones came up a while back and was shown up as a hoax but not this particular case.  These folks used over an hours worth of phone operation between the two phones and had a tape recorder running with voices on it playing close by so they would both be transmitting for the whole time.  Makes me wonder what the real story is…

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By Dave, September 17, 2006 11:22 pm

The BraBall

I have no idea why, it just shows up and so I post… 😉

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By Dave, September 17, 2006 11:21 pm

Elderly Instruments – Dopyera Collection – Introduction
The John and Rudy Dopyera Collection

We are very proud to offer for sale the combined collection of John and Rudy Dopyera. Few instrument makers represent the American Dream quite as completely as these two inventors, innovators, marketers, and all-around creative force behind both the National and Dobro companies.

The Dopyera brothers were born in what is now Slovakia, and came to the U.S. with the wave of Eastern European immigrants around the beginning of the 20th century. (In fact, the word “Dobro” is both a contraction of “DOpyera BROthers” and the word for “good” in their native tongue.) Engineers, tinkerers, businessmen, and accomplished musicians (their family had a history of violin making going back centuries, and Rudy was by many accounts an exceptionally talented and soulful Gypsy-style violinist), the two Dopyera brothers combined their Old World skills and traditions with the booming technology and futuristic tastes in art of pre-WWII America. Who else thought that spun aluminum might be a good material for sound projection? Who else engraved beautiful Art Deco designs on the bodies of their guitars? Only the Dopyeras.

The unusual, experimental, and mostly one-of-a-kind instruments in this collection – John’s unusual (and spectacular sounding!) resophonic violin, Rudy’s balalaika-inspired Lullabyka, the Art Deco-influenced steel body uke and tenor guitar, even the actual workbench on which John perfected the fabled tri-cone resonator system – are uniquely American (and uniquely Dopyera) innovations.

There’s no doubt that many of the great blues and slide guitar players owe their careers to these radical innovations of the Dopyeras; and there’s no question that both country and bluegrass music developed a whole new voice after the introduction of the Dobro. Because of the Dopyera brothers, American instruments – and American music – have never been the same.

Some seriously cool instruments!   Interesting guitar vise and workbench too.  Wonderful stuff!

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By Dave, September 17, 2006 11:17 pm

xkcd – A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language – COMPLY

Moment of confusion… 😉

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By Dave, September 17, 2006 8:41 pm

n’ chips on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

Nuff said… 😉

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By Dave, September 17, 2006 4:39 pm

Volkswagen Beetle art car on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

Dave Winer’s new header graphic at Scripting News is a howl!  It’s a picture he took at the “How Berkeley Can You Be parade” today.  Wonderful stuff! Note the tag on the left – GLASQLT, Glass Quilt maybe?  Would fit the car. 😉 Lots of other pictures of interesting stuff there too.  Thanks for sharing Dave!

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By Dave, September 17, 2006 4:24 pm

Just received this from my brother, Mark, and though I have seen it before it is still SO true. Not to mention that the new WordPress makes it so easy to add pictures so I just gotta post it… 😉

Quite often we ask ourselves hard to answer questions, like,”What is a sonofabitch?” The only true thing is that a picture is worth a thousand words.

In this photo, the guy on the right is a member of a bomb squad in midst of a deactivation. The guy behind him, well, he’s a sonofabitch.

Any questions? 😉

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By Dave, September 17, 2006 10:20 am

lf382, Applications: A toolchain for transformation from paper to HTML

Good article on taking old books, scanning, OCR, modifying images and turning into html online docs.  Using old or at least older equipment and FOSS for the entire process.

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By Dave, September 17, 2006 10:07 am

Talk Like a Pirate Day

Arrrr, it be another talk like a pirate site!

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By Dave, September 17, 2006 10:05 am

Talk Like A Pirate Day – September 19

Ay, matey, it be that time o year again!  Tuesday be the day to talk like a pirate!

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By Dave, September 17, 2006 10:02 am

JS Online:The hog that hums

Electric Harley.  The part I have trouble with here is the 560 pounds of lead acid batteries in the frame.  And the exposed belt drive coming out the side.  And the uglyness (sp?) of the beast.  That much weight, build a trike…

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By Dave, September 17, 2006 9:57 am

NEUTICLES.com

Steve mentioned this site in the comments on the “I’m from the internet” picture and I just had to look.  This is just plain WEIRD.  Money making weird I’m sure but still, testicle implants for your neutered pet?  If you want them to have balls, just don’t cut them off!  This is NUT’S! 😉

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By Dave, September 17, 2006 9:49 am

Christiania Bikes UK – homepage

Never seen these before, and I don’t understand why they aren’t everywhere, other than the cost. One of the stories quoted a cost (my price translation from english pounds to us dollars may be off) of around $2,000.00 for a kid carrier version. None the less, these are wonderful! I’m gonna have to build one or more along these lines for use around here.