I am out of touch with the latest look on the controversial "planet" status of Pluto and what is being taught in schools these days.
Does anyone know what the latest textbooks of elementary/high school/college say about the status of Pluto? Have they all been rewritten, or simply footnoted, or .
Blio, officially debuting next week at CES, lets you read your ebooks as they're intended to look on paper. Clearly, Kurzweil is signaling his choice of tablets over e-ink, and his first shots are definitely persuasive.
With apps planned soon for the iPhone and PCs, Blio's cross-platform functionality makes it a natural fit for something like the Apple iSlate, which along with other tablet devices should be perfect for reading cookbooks, children's books, and any other illustrated tome. It marks a natural evolution away from the current stock of ebook readers, which are bound by the drab black and white of e-ink.
E-ink has manifold problems, but maybe the greatest of those is that it's just for text, rendering it essentially useless for any book that requires rich illustration. Blio seems to solve that issue, while at the same time offering text-to-speech capabilities that turn your ebook into an audio book.
Blio will also likely be offering over a million books at launch. While that probably includes a lot public domain filler from Project Gutenberg and Google Books, there are at least a few best-sellers (Twilight, In Defense of Food, John Adams, etc.) on the list as well. Better still, the app is going to be free.
Kurzweil has spent a lot of his time envisioning the future, with mixed degrees of success. But he's also a highly respected inventor with a multitude of patents under his belt, meaning we should pay attention when he makes a move like this. Especially with tablets in line to potentially hit the mainstream next year, this is a product that fills a clear and present need, and fills it right now. Let's hope it lives up to the vision.
He's a libertarian, and everyone knows libertarians are a wing of the GOP
The Gay/Liberal sensationalist celebrity site Gawker highlights Whole Foods Market CEO John MacKay on the top fold. The article: "Meet rightwing hippie CEO John Mackey. He is featured this month on the front cover of Reason, which was the basis of Gawker's attention.
From Gawker:
libertarian magazine Reason stuck Mackey on the cover of their January 2010 issue... is about how this rebel capitalist is playing by his own rules and ruffling a few feathers.
Ayn Rand nothing more than Free Enterprise Porn for Teenage Boys
The piece goes on to describe Mackey's transformation from liberal to money making libertarian. Continuing:
he used to be a liberal but then he started making money and he read Atlas Shrugged and suddenly it all made sense! And he is a political independent! Except, obviously, that means he is a libertarian, which is, still, a wing of the Republican party, even if they pretend it isn't, because it's still primarily about not ever paying taxes for anything while feeling very high-minded about it.
Then Gawker takes even harsher shots at Mackey and more specifically the libertarian movement. Continuing:
the Ayn Rand books that convince teenage boys that they're secretly the masters of the universe happened after he made his first million. Now he's qualified to say Keynes was "proven" wrong about everything, as the financial sector collapses under the weight of decades of Milton Friedman.
Well, we knew it was coming today, and it's here now—Sprint is pushing WebOS's latest update to Palm Pres and Pixis as you read this. It's supposed to bring better performance and battery life as well as a bunch of minor features—let us know in the comments what y'all think. [Palm via Engadet]
At this point, it seems passe to accuse every robot post-Roomba of trying to kill you, but if this one isn't a homicidal psychokiller, somebody should tell its face.
Remo (short for Remote Brain (shouldn't it be Remob? Or RemBra?)) is actual a robot kit that's impressively advanced, even considering its $4,350 price. Its custom CPU talks to a PC over Bluetooth (hence the name) and gives dual color CCD cameras as well as pressure sensors in the feet for better balance. [RobotsSFX via PlasticPals via Botropolis]
I bought my daughter a Toyota Pick-up truck that was a 1993 or 1994. Could it have been a different model than a Tacoma.
after filled w/h2o &pump started,press. builds to aprox 30 psi & then dumps press. may build press.a couple more times but doesn!t continue to supply water. do i have a leak or could it be something else?
Want to see the world's most notorious underwear? ABC News has pictures of the tighty-whiteys that nearly took down a Northwest Airlines flight, complete with Pentaerythritol tetranitrate codpiece. They are—perhaps predictably—rather soiled. [ABC News]
There's a format war you probably didn't even know was going on, right in front of your eyes. It's the battle of four 3D glasses manufacturers to take over movie theaters everywhere.
The New York Times has an excellent piece on the topic that I highly encourage you to read. It looks like a company named RealD has one up on the competition, as they've supplied the simple, polarized glasses distributed for Avatar (which cost about 65 cents each, btw).
Competitors include Masterimage, who uses a similar polarization technology, Dolby, who uses an RBG technology, XpanD, who uses a LCD-based shutter. The catch? Projectors can only be configured to support one of these systems at a time.
It's hard to imagine either Dolby or XpanD succeeding in the market—be they better or not—as both make glasses that are reusable but extremely cost prohibitive, running $28 and $50, respectively. Then again, until I saw Avatar, I didn't imagine 3D succeeding in the first place. [NYT]
Lifechanger is a new section on Gizmodo in which we laud the everyday objects that make life oh so better. In its debut, we're going to talk about a classic culinary icon: Pyrex Colors mixing bowls.
Around 1900, way before silicone spatulas and carcinogenic lids, there was a company named Corning Glass Works. They made a low-expansion glass lantern for use on the railroad—specifically solving the issue of a hot lantern shattering when struck by cold rain or snow.
Apparently, the lanterns were so durable that demand waned and Corning Glass was forced to diversify. Then in 1913, when an engineer's wife spotted the glass' culinary potential and baked a cake in a half-sawed Corning Glass Works battery container, the company realized their new direction. The first Pyrex-branded bakeware arrived just two years later.
My particular passion begins in 1943, with the release of the 400 Series Primary Color Mixing Bowls Set. In my corpulent, Midwestern eyes, this series of four simple nested bowls is the epitome of design.
They are perfect.
Four glass bowls of varying sizes, each marked with their own timeless primary color (of course green is not technically a primary color, but it's allowed to stay out of sheer awesomeness), each contained in another in another—no space is wasted, no gimmick championed.
Each piece is built for utility, and somehow, nothing about the package inherently implies "industrial"—there's an obscene amount of casually present character in these simple bowls.
The painted surface is soft on the hands but rock solid against a whisk. The white interior allows the colors of your mix to pop with accuracy. And, of course, the different bowl finishes become a subconscious cue, a chromatic language, if you will, as to the size of each piece. Is this your smallest bowl that you have in your hand? No, it's the red one, the second smallest.
I grew up mixing in Pyrex's bowls. My mother called them her favorite wedding gift she'd never asked for, and she uses the same set to this day. There are countless other stories like hers, as evidenced by a huge aftermarket following—just check eBay where vintage sets go for far more than anything on the market today. These bowls were crafted to last generations, a build quality that's tough to find in almost any contemporary product. Can you, perchance, imagine using your first gen iPhone in 30 years?
It's a downright tragedy that Pyrex no longer makes their Colors line. It's been replaced by a lifeless clear bowl set with colored plastic lids. But whenever they release the inevitable, limited edition redux, you can bet the sets will move like nesting hotcakes...though I think I may prefer the version I already have. It's already got a whole generation's worth of experience under its belt.
We've seen the ridiculous new airline security rules and we've explained how to cope with them, but now the TSA is easing up and allowing pilots to make the final call on things, including allowing live TV and pillows again.
Apparently an anonymous source told Reuters that
The TSA will now let pilots decide whether to allow passengers to keep items in their laps or require them to remain seated during portions of the flight [and that the TSA] will let pilots and airlines determine whether in-flight entertainment systems that show a plane's location should be turned off to avoid a security risk.
The NY Times has confirmed this claim with Gale D. Rossides, the acting director of the Transportation Security Administration, who says that "her agency had given airline captains discretion in determining when passengers could move about the cabin during a flight and whether they could have blankets or pillows on their laps."
Rossides also remarked that more "changes in security measures will take place in coming days," so who knows who'll be calling the shots about pillows and blankets a few days down the line.
What we know for now is that JetBlue already appears to be turning their in-flight entertainment systems back on and letting pilots make some decisions, so let's enjoy that news for now while we sort out whether it's still time to fire the TSA. [Reuters via Business Insider via CrunchGear]
Remember the original Mac or PC rap? Well, it looks like the guys behind it are back with another Apple-themed tune. This time it's a spoof of "I'm on a Boat," and it's unfortunately kinda catchy. (Heads up: NSFW lyrics.)
If you want to rap along to what these boys are calling "a Mac fanboy's anthem about Apple culture and products," here are the words:
(Shortayyy) Ahh shit!
Get your laptops ready, it's about to go down
Everybody on YouTube, watch the f***in screen
But stay on this muthaf***in page
We runnin this - let's goI'm on a Mac, I'm on a Mac
Everybody look at me
Cause I'm clickin on a Mac
I'm on a Mac, I'm on a Mac
Take a good hard look at the muthaf***in Mac!I'm on a Mac, muthaf***a, take a look at me,
Straight iPhone'in hard, got the 3G
Bumpin iTunes, CoverFlow to be exact
You can't stop me muthaf***a, cause I'm on a Mac!
Eat a virus bro
I'm on a Mac Pro
We rockin 8 cores hard
Watch the screen go
I got my SuperDrive
And my mighty mice-es
I'm pluggin girls
You at work, pluggin in devices
I'm on a tandem fixie
And a 64-bit
Friends are jealous
Cause Parallels can run their sh*t
But this ain't P.C.,
this is real as it gets
I'm on a Mac, mutherf***er
don't you ever forget!
I'm on a Mac and,
it's runnin fast and,
I bought a neopreen green scuba sleve sham
I'm the king of the Jobs, on a Mac for real
If you're on a PC, then you're not C.E.O.Get the f*** up, this Mac is real!
F*** a Zune, I'm on a Mac, motherf***a!
F*** right click, multi-touch, motherf***a!
I'm on iChat with my boys, motherf***a!
These turtlenecks ain't cheap, motherf***a!
Hey, y'all, now I'm an Apple whiz
I never need to learn what a driver is
Gonna say goodbye to all viruses
Like a Nano in pink, anything is possible!
Yeah, never thought I'd be on a Mac
It's like a streamlined good-for-you crack
Wozniiiaaaaak, look at me ooohhhhI'm on a Mac, I'm on a Mac
Take a good hard look at the muthaf***in Mac!
Yeah, this is almost amusing enough to make me want to order a muthaf****in Mac despite it not being the best time to shop for those. [Thanks, Peter!]
I need to calulate the minimum wall thickness for carbon steel pipe that wil be used for potable water transmission line , the operating temperature chosen will not exceed 200 F.
For potable water pipeline application , can I use the Power Piping code ASME B31.1
tm = P Do / (2 S + 2y P)
The Top 25 now up at Rightwing News
From the Editor: Our good friend and partner John Hawkins over at RightwingNews.com and his editorial board, have come up with a list of the Top 25 Videos of 2009. Above is #1. I think just about all conservatives and pro-defense libertarians will agree, this one is the clear winner.
One of my personal favorites is explicitly political - #9. Lots of crazy dogs and cats videos, of course. Though one of them, #18, has a distinctly anti-Obama message. Others, #16, #12, and #10 - non-political - are spectacularly funny. Trust me. #12 will have you rolling on the floor.
Watch them now. RightwingNews.com
You don't spend three months of the year circumnavigating the globe on your houseboat. You don't have a closet full of designer loafers. You're not married to a supermodel. So what: your sink has a mini-waterfall LED faucet.
My favorite part of being in fancy restaurants and small European countries—you know, places where rich people hang out—is checking out the bathrooms. There's always some decadent touch that makes them cooler than the same-old I'm used to using back home. But with this LED faucet, available for $65 at ShopKami, you can bring a touch of that luxury to any old sink.
The easy-to-install, single-handle faucet uses a glass panel lit by a colored LED to convey water, allowing it to cascade gently into your sink while you massage a passion fruit clean or wash your hands with an organic mint soap. See? Your life's already improving. [Coolest Gadgets]
What you see here says a lot about you: A man, contemplating his failures? A construction worker enjoying his lunch? A lucky bastard, about to launch down the most amazing zipline on the planet?
The answer is E.) A photographer, trying repeatedly to make us sick to our stomachs.
The Moscow Bridge, which is actually in Kiev, Ukraine, sits on pylons that are only about 500 feet high, which is lower than the Golden Gate Bridge's, and less than half the height of France's Millau Viaduct, the world's tallest suspension bridge. The Moscow Bridge has, however, earned the coveted title of Tallest Bridge With Fresh Photos On the Internet Today, so there's that. [Vitaliy via English Russia]
In tomorrow’s New York Times, I have an article about the Genomic Encyclopedia of Bacteria and Archaea, a new database that’s designed to span the vast diversity of our planet’s microbes. Check it out!
There is really no good way to end a high speed car chase. Shooting out the tires of a fleeing vehicle or laying down old fashioned spike strips are both terribly dangerous. Ramming the getaway car with a police cruiser until it spins out is obviously risky. Thankfully, the government is hard at work on the problem and they’ve come up with a solution that maybe ready by next year, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The technology is named the Safe Quick Undercarriage Immobilization Device, but you can call it SQUID.
“SQUID was inspired by a sea creature and a superhero,” says [Engineering Science Analysis Corporation] president Martín Martínez. Like its oceanic namesake, SQUID ensnares its prey with sticky tendrils. Like Spiderman’s webbing, these tendrils stretch to absorb the kinetic energy of their fleeing target.
Huge amounts of such counterforce are necessary to stop a heavy, swift vehicle: Think Spiderman II, where Spidey stretched his webbing for blocks to halt a runaway passenger train. The force nearly killed him. Martínez took a different approach that would have made Spidey proud: Don’t fight the Force; just stop the axles from turning. Do that and you can stop (almost) anything with wheels.
The technology is capable of stopping heavy vehicles, and in one demonstration it quickly brought a pickup truck moving at 35 miles per hour to a gentle halt. Check out the video below from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s YouTube channel (?):
Related Content:
Discoblog: Pilots Attacked By Frickin’ Laser Beams
Discoblog: Bomb-Proof Your House With the World’s Toughest Wallpaper
Discoblog: While Military Spends Millions, Two Guys Make Puke-Ray Gun on the Cheap
Video: YouTube / ushomelandsecurity
The Nimbl wheelchair, designed by Lawrence Kwok, is intended for use in a home that hasn't been retrofitted for full handicap access. But why stay home when your wheelchair looks this good.
The Nimbl, living up to its name, features hubless wheels with a short wheelbase for increased maneuverability. But that's not the only unique feature of the chair's design.
The Nimbl also sports a motorized seat that can lift the operator several feet in the air, activated by a control panel in the chair's armrest. Though its currently only a concept, it wouldn't hurt current wheelchair makers to take note of the Nimbl's form or its function. [designboom]
Wind turbines, energy-efficient light bulbs, and hybrid cars and three of the most iconic products in the lineup of green technologies that can help us build a cleaner world. But in an ironic twist, these technologies all rely on elements called rare earths, which are primarily extracted from environmentally destructive mines in China.
The environmental damage can be seen in the red-brown scars of barren clay that run down narrow valleys and the dead lands below, where emerald rice fields once grew. Miners scrape off the topsoil and shovel golden-flecked clay into dirt pits, using acids to extract the rare earths. The acids ultimately wash into streams and rivers, destroying rice paddies and fish farms and tainting water supplies [The New York Times].
Despite the name, many of the 17 rare earth elements are not actually that scarce, but two heavy rare earths that are vitally important to many green technologies, dysprosium and terbium, do live up to their name. More than 99 percent of the world’s supply of these two elements is currently mined in China. Companies want to expand production outside China, but most rare-earth deposits, unlike those in southern China, are accompanied by radioactive uranium and thorium that complicate mining [The New York Times].
Putting small amounts of dysprosium in the magnets used in electric motors can make the magnets 90 percent lighter; that’s a boon for both hybrid electric cars and large wind turbines, where heavy turbines are placed at the tops of tall towers. Meanwhile, terbium is used in lighting systems that are dramatically more energy-efficient than traditional incandescent lighting. But as prices of these elements have soared in recent years, and as concerns about China’s mines are increasing, companies are beginning to investigate other ways to build the technologies of the future.
Related Content:
80beats: Obama Admin. Rolls Back Bush-Era Rules on Mining & Forests
80beats: Andean People Discovered Mercury Mining—and Mercury Pollution—in 1400 B.C.
80beats: This Could Be a Find of Biblical Proportions: King Solomon’s Copper Mines
80beats: 1/3 of China’s Yellow River Not Even Fit for Industrial Use
80beats: Green Group Declares Future Leader in Clean Energy
Image: Wikimedia Commons
