VIDEO: The super-fast Royal Mail robot forced to read your messy Christmas card handwriting

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A super-fast sorting computer and a team of address dectivesare making lightning quick decisions as they filethrough your Christmas mail this year.

Some MPs have claimed that the public should not use red envelopes as they are harder to read and will be sorted slower.

Dont use red envelopes for Christmas cards: MPs call over festive post

But Royal Mail say that they can deal quickly with all properly addressed post, whether red, blue or gold.

AnIntelligent Letter Sorting Machine reads the addresses on letters at hyperspeed when they are first received in a sorting office. It makes split-seconddecisions about where to send the mail in the office.

But in the event it can not read your handwriting a team of 'address detectives' is on hand to help.

The ISLM emails a photograph of any mail it cannot read - about five per cent - to the teams, who use their human eyes to read the addresses, dealing with thousands of images an hour.

A spokesman for Royal Mail said: "As the universal service provider, Royal Mail is proud to deliver the Christmas post for consumers and businesses.

"Our Intelligent Letter Sorting Machines can process up to 50,000 items an hour.

"Anything the machines are unable to read are almost instantaneously passed through to our data centre where our team of address detectives identify the correct address.

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VIDEO: The super-fast Royal Mail robot forced to read your messy Christmas card handwriting

Get High and Do Yoga

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To some people, smoking marijuana is a sport. Then there are those yoga types who consider downward dog the finest high around.

And then there's Ganja Yoga, which combines pot smoking and yoga, both of which are inarguably meditative.

Though cannabis has long been associated with meditation, Dee Dussault , a yoga, tantra, and sex educator who founded Ganja Yoga, says her classes are the first to offer a blend of herb and yoga outside of India. She first started teaching the classes in Toronto in 2009, and now offers them multiple times a day in SoMa. In a San Francisco Chroniclestory today, she emphasized cannabis as a route to spiritual awakening:

"Whether you call it getting high, medicating, or sacramental use," she writes on her website, "this yoga treats cannabis as a medicine and spiritual teacher, and I offer these enhanced yogic journeys as opportunities for trippy relaxation, pain-relief, and the cultivation of inner peace."

Ganja Yoga students partake together in the first 15 minutes of class, provided they have a legal medical marijuana card. Those without the magic card are encouraged to smoke before class. Once stoned, the yoga positions are kept deliberately easy, Dussault said, so as to not strain your altered state of mind (or hamstrings).

So don't worry about falling over or perfecting your warrior one position: This is about getting stoned and taking it slow.

From Leafly:

Check out more about Ganja Yoga at Dussault's website, or signup directly at Meetup.com.

[via SF Chron]

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Get High and Do Yoga

City lights from space

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An urban sprawl engulfs San Francisco Bay in a sea of lights. The three bridges Oakland Bay Bridge, San Mateo Bridge and Dumbarton Bridge glow as straight lines connecting the coasts. From top right going clockwise, freeways pass through Oakland, Hayward, Fremont, San Jose, Palo Alto, Redwood City, San Mateo and San Francisco.

The bright lights of the cities are themselves surrounded by natural parks. Past the coastal Eastern Bay Regional Parks to the right, the cities of Pleasanton and Walnut Creek keep the dark wilderness at bay with their street lighting. To the left, apart from the Half Moon Bay Airport on the coast, the blackness of the Pacific Ocean prevails. This image was taken on December 23, 2012 from the International Space Station.

The European Space Agency developed an automatic camera tripod that compensates for the speed of the Space Station flying at 28,800 km/h to take sharper pictures at night.

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City lights from space

ISRO's Big Launch Today: Testing India's Largest Rocket and an Astronaut Capsule

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Sriharikota: India's space agency is all set for one of its most ambitious tests as it readies for the unique maiden flight today of its heaviest rocket to date - the 630-tonne, three-stage rocket Geo-Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III.

The rocket is scheduled to lift off at 9:30 am from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.

This experimental flight marks a quantum shift in the rocket technology that India has mastered. The new three-stage rocket is capable of doubling the capacity of payloads India can carry into space. The rocket can deposit up to four tonne class of communication satellites into space. ISRO hopes this will become its mainstay rocket in the future. The rocket will later be suitably equipped for ferrying Indian astronauts into space.

On this flight, the rocket will be tested on how it performs during its travel in the atmosphere. The rocket will have the first two stages as active rocket engines, while the third stage that consists of the cryogenic engine is a passive stage. The heavy-duty cryogenic engine

The GSLV Mk III is an altogether new design of rocket by Indian engineers. Incidentally, its first stage consists of twin solid-state rocket engines that carry as much as 200 tonnes of propellant each. "These are the world's third largest rocket boosters," said ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan.

Once ISRO masters this rocket, there may not be any need for India to send its heavy-duty communications satellites to space using expensive foreign launchers. It can also hope to make a dent in the multimillion-dollar global commercial launch market. Astronaut Programme

This flight is a two-in-one mission being undertaken by ISRO. The main passenger in the rocket is an Indian-made crew module. This marks the beginning of what could be India's initiation into the ambitious human space flight programme. While this crew module will be unmanned, the small room-sized cupcake-shaped satellite is indeed capable of carrying two or three astronauts into space. (India Gets Set for Flying Astronauts)

In this flight, the crew module will be hoisted up to an altitude of about a 127 kilometres above Earth. The crew module is also powered by its own engine and will be navigated and made to re-enter the atmosphere at a massive velocity. It will then be slowed down using massive parachutes. Incidentally, the parachutes being used are the largest ever to be deployed by India.

The crew module will then make a splash down near the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. In its flight, several parameters will be tested on the crew module; crucially, ISRO is very keen to understand how the crew module and it's outer lining made of special heat resistant tiles withstands the over-4,000 degree centigrade temperatures it experiences as it comes hurtling back to Earth.

ISRO has proposed that it can fly Indian astronauts into space using an indigenous rocket from Indian soil within seven to eight years of getting a government nod for its astronaut programme. ISRO has sought funding of about Rs 12,500 crores for its human space flight endeavour. When it happens, India will become the fourth country in the world to have indigenous capability of sending humans into space; presently, Russia, USA and China are the only nations to have the necessary technology for this complex mission.

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ISRO's Big Launch Today: Testing India's Largest Rocket and an Astronaut Capsule

ISRO's Big Launch: Testing a Monster Rocket and an Astronaut Capsule

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New Delhi: India's space agency is all set for one of its most ambitious tests. The countdown has begun for the unique maiden flight of Indian Space Research Organisation or ISRO's heaviest rocket till date - the 630-tonne three-stage rocket Geo-Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III. (Watch: India's Monster Rocket Ready for Test Flight)

This experimental flight marks a quantum shift in the rocket technology that India has mastered. This new rocket is capable of doubling the capacity of payloads India can carry into space. The rocket can deposit up to four tonne class of communication satellites into space. ISRO hopes this will become the main stay rocket in the future, which later will be suitably equipped for ferrying Indian astronauts into space.

On this flight, the rocket will be tested on how it performs during its travel in the atmosphere. The rocket will have the first two stages as active rocket engines, while the third stage that consists of the cryogenic engine is a passive stage. The heavy-duty cryogenic engine necessary for this rocket is still under development by ISRO. A full-fledged launch of the rocket can be expected in a few years.

The GSLV Mk III is an altogether new design of a rocket by Indian engineers. Incidentally its first stage consists of twin solid-state rocket engines that carry as much as 200 tonnes of propellant each. ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan says "These are the world's third largest rocket boosters."

Once ISRO masters this rocket, there may not be any need for India to send its heavy-duty communications satellites to space using expensive foreign launchers. It can also hope to make a dent in the multimillion-dollar commercial launch market of the world.

Astronaut Programme

This flight is really a two-in-one mission being undertaking by ISRO. The main passenger in the rocket is an Indian-made crew module. This marks the beginning of what could be India's initiation into the ambitious human space flight programme. While this crew module will be unmanned but this small room-sized cupcake shaped satellite is indeed capable of carrying two or three Indian astronauts into space. (Watch: India Gets Set for Flying Astronauts)

In this flight the crew module will be hoisted up to an altitude of about 127 kilometres above earth. The crew module is also powered by its own engine and will be navigated and made to re-enter the atmosphere at a massive velocity. It will then be slowed down using massive parachutes. Incidentally the parachutes being used are the largest ever to be deployed by India.

The crew module will then make a splash down near the Andaman Islands in the waters of the Bay of Bengal. In its flight several parameters will be tested on the crew module, crucially ISRO is very keen to understand how the crew module and it's outer lining made of special heat resistant tiles withstands the over four thousand degree centigrade temperature it experiences as it comes hurtling back to Earth.

ISRO has proposed that it can fly Indian Astronauts into space using Indian rocket from Indian soil within seven to eight years of getting a government nod for its astronaut programme. ISRO has sought funding of about Rs 12,500 crores for its humans space flight endeavour. When this happens, India will become the fourth country in the world to have indigenous capability of sending humans into space; the only other countries that have the necessary technology for this complex mission include Russia, USA and China.

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ISRO's Big Launch: Testing a Monster Rocket and an Astronaut Capsule

Ascension finale review: Lost in space, or Lost in space?

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The twists and turns of Ascensions three-night mini-series flight landed the earthbound space arks most Right Stuffy space hero and the story itself in a mysterious place strewn with wreckage and reminders of other stories. And more mystery! In the final minutes of part three, we learned that Dr. Harris Enzmann (Gil Bellows) was using the decades-long psych experiment started by his father to trigger punctuated evolution and produce a next-gen X-Mana star childpossessed with morphic resonance (i.e., telepathy, telekinesis, super-powers) capable of manipulating the vast energies located within the nuclear powered Panopticon to do even more amazing things, like actually send someone across the universe!Why take a slooooooooow-boat generation ship when you can just grow a magic sea monkey in a skyscraper-sized fishbowl? NASA, youve been doing it wrong!

Enzmann found success in the form of young Christa (Ellie OBrien), part Marvel Girl, part Firestarter, part Space Guild navigator from Dune. In the final moments, she used her abilities to channel the energies of a Glowglobe to produce a Holtzman effect and save Aaron Gault (Brandon P. Bell) from a baddies beat-down by instantaneously teleporting him to a distant, dark planet? Another Enzmann simulation? The only thing we know for sure is that Ascension is perhaps best understood not as a response to the myth of the 60, as I argued pretentiously on Monday (sorry). It is something very post-modern, a self-aware sci-fi saga born from an accumulation of sci-fi sagas over the past 50 years, and perhaps full of pining for better, more hopeful, more serious-minded sci-fi: I found something meaningful and provocative in the last image: Gault, a space hero with the Right Stuff, rising to his feet amid that trendiest, most dismal of things, a dystopian wasteland.A charitable read: Ascension was challenging a genre to dream better. More hope, less No Future cynicism. More big new ideas, fewer hyperlinks trapping us in old ones. More mind-expanding space odysseys, less self-absorbed geeking like this review.

Thats what I got out of the interesting mess that was Ascension. How about you?

Elaborations and ridiculata:Ascension was a stir of sci-fi (and Syfy) echoes. There was Stokes (Brad Carter) watching space opera on a motel telly, ogling the space princesses. There was James Toback (the name, a reference itself; the actor, P.J. Boudousque) catching flickers of Fraggle Rock on Ascension monitors. (Or thats what he was watchingon my Syfy-supplied screener. Those whove seen the aired version are saying he saw ALF. Ill update this Thursday morning after checking out the PST telecast.) We definitely got a coded nod to 2001: A Space Odyssey. That line about the star child must be born (uttered by the treacherous faux troublemaker Eve, revealed to be an Ascension fangirl running a honeypot to snare haters) came during the same scene in which Stokes was playing Moon-Watcher. Gault got The Last Starfighters arc, graduating from (unwitting) space hero gameplay to becoming the real deal. (Will Enzmann cover up his absence from the ship by replacing him with a robot doppelganger, just like the movie?)

And was Ascension winking at The Terminator franchise, arguably the defining dystopian, No Future narrative of the past 30 years, during its final act? There was Christa, the storys symbol for a better, redeemed future (a real Christ-a child), standing in the mud, stuck, in front of three doors labeled T-1, T-2, and T-3, waiting for one ruthless, cynical terminator to come through to claim her, while another terminator, morally dubious but presently on the side of angels (Enzmanns inside man, revealed to be Loreleis killer) trying to save her, pleading with her to leave, his line a version of come with me if you want to live.

Okay, maybe I am projecting but projecting might be what Ascension is all about! Ill bet you five bucks that if Ascension returns for another mini-series, well learn that some kind of magical observer effect is at work here, with Enzmann affecting reality inside the ship simply by watching it, by projecting his wants and wishes upon his space heroes. Of course, I once theorized something similar about Lost, and in fact, I dare say this revelation that Enzmann was trying to cultivate a super-powered savior inside his spaceship Skinner Box is basically my Evil Aaron theory of The Dharma Initiative. (Since all of my columns and recaps have made like Gault and mysteriously vanished from this site, you can find that theory here. Thanks, verdantheart!) I also used to insist that Lost was a self-aware pop construct built from bits and bobs of other pop culture. It can now be revealed! Doc Jensen is also a super-powered mutant, just like Christa. I wasnt watching and writing about Lost back in the day. I was just precogging Ascension.

Ascension was definitely fixated with the theme of watching and the effect that watching has on the watched, and vice versa, and more, the show wanted us to know all that, too, via clues to be decoded. Enzmanns term morphic resonance is apparently some sort of pseudoscience business made up by a dubious parapsychologist dude named Rupert Sheldrake, whose books include The Sense of Being Stared At. I am guessing that scientist-voyeur-mutant maker Enzmann is very familiar with those books. James Toback called the monitor showing Fraggle Rock/ALF a Panopticon. Which definitely sounds like a good name for a TV monitor, except the word means something else altogether: A Panopticon is a special kind of prison designed in such a way that the prison guards can see all the prisoners at the same time. A perfect analogy for Ascension. (Another Lost link: The inventor of the Panopticon was the philosopher Jeremy Bentham, and Jeremy Bentham was the pseudonym used by John Locke after he vanished from The Island when he turned the frozen donkey wheel.) (If I had the energy for it, I would argue a theory that Ascension brims with passive-aggressive seduced and abandoned anger at Lost, Seduced and Abandoned being a movie by increasingly meta-filmmaker James Toback. Another time Okay, probably never.)

There was also that moment when Dr. Juliet Bryce (Andrea Roth, who in a past Lost life played Harper, the woman married to the Other who was sleeping with Dr. Juliet Burke) used the phrase every breath we take, which is so close to every breath you take, which, clearly, makes it a wink at The Polices stalker-surveillance ballad Every Breath You Take, from the album Synchronicity, which was inspired by The Roots of Coincidence by Arthur Koestler, who also wrote a book called The Ghost in the Machine, which inspired the title of The Polices previous album Ghost in the Machine, which brings us back to Ascension because we learned in part three that Lorelei is now some kind of ghost in the machine that is the ship that both Christa and Gault can see. And I am pretty sure I used all this Police/Koestler stuff in my Lost theories, too. And a few FlashForward recaps, too! Ascension is trolling me, isnt it? ISNT IT?!?!

This job is going to break my mind one day. Welcome to my breakdown.

But hey, back to Panopticons. A Panopticon is also a pretty good analogy for the power we have over a TV show. We are the guards; the show is our prisoner; we control its fate with our watching. The TV version of the observer effect: If enough of you watched Ascension, youll get another season that resolves all of its darn cliffhangers! Chief among them: Where is Aaron Gault? TBD but only if you watched! Otherwise, consider Ascension forever lost in space. Cue this.

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Ascension finale review: Lost in space, or Lost in space?