First, amazing chemistry videos, and then check out the worst captchas.
Both via Geekpress.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Scottish Innovation
This isn’t new, but I’d never seen it before, and figured that many of my readers hadn’t either. The world’s only rotating canal lock. There’s more info at the usual source, of course. It’s a pretty clever design.
What’s The Point?
Sarah Pullman is very unhappy with Facebook’s privacy policy.
OK, I got a Facebook account last fall, at the urging of several people, who told me that I simply had to have one (though they could never actually explain why). I’ve yet to figure it out myself. I’ve gotten no discernible benefit from it (of course, I haven’t invested much time in it, either). Can anyone explain to me what the big deal is, and what I’m missing out on if I don’t have an account, or don’t use the one I have?
[Update late morning]
While we’re on the subject, here’s an article on which is better for business: Facebook or LinkedIn?
What’s The Point?
Sarah Pullman is very unhappy with Facebook’s privacy policy.
OK, I got a Facebook account last fall, at the urging of several people, who told me that I simply had to have one (though they could never actually explain why). I’ve yet to figure it out myself. I’ve gotten no discernible benefit from it (of course, I haven’t invested much time in it, either). Can anyone explain to me what the big deal is, and what I’m missing out on if I don’t have an account, or don’t use the one I have?
[Update late morning]
While we’re on the subject, here’s an article on which is better for business: Facebook or LinkedIn?
What’s The Point?
Sarah Pullman is very unhappy with Facebook’s privacy policy.
OK, I got a Facebook account last fall, at the urging of several people, who told me that I simply had to have one (though they could never actually explain why). I’ve yet to figure it out myself. I’ve gotten no discernible benefit from it (of course, I haven’t invested much time in it, either). Can anyone explain to me what the big deal is, and what I’m missing out on if I don’t have an account, or don’t use the one I have?
[Update late morning]
While we’re on the subject, here’s an article on which is better for business: Facebook or LinkedIn?
A Glimpse Of The Singularity
Charlie Stross sees it.
What I found interesting, though, is how quickly the discussion in comments transitioned to how slow the progress has been in space access, with NASA taking a beating.
There is no question that space technology, with high-powered (megawatts/gigawatts) devices is fundamentally different than things that switch bits and electrons around, and it’s not reasonable to expect it to come close to Moore’s Law. But there’s also no question that, given different policies for the past half century, things could be much further along than they are. We may not (as Monte Davis noted in comments over there) have seen 2001: A Space Odyssey
But that has never been a societal goal, even when we were pouring four percent of the federal budget (and doesn’t that make the NASA fanboys drool) into the problem during Apollo. We were just trying to beat the Russkies to the moon, and after we did that, we got preoccupied, and public-choice economics took over, as it always does when things aren’t important any more. And that’s the way it’s been ever since. But because of false myths promulgated during that era, it’s been tough to raise the money privately as well.
It won’t happen as fast as we’d like it to, nor will it happen as slowly as those who continue to cheer for government spaceflight expect, either. And most importantly, it will have trouble keeping up with the electronics singularity (though a lot of those advances will eventually accelerate space technology as well, and it will happen much sooner than most expect).
But I think that we are seeing real, measurable progress now, and I expect it to continue, and to continue to confound those who continue to cheer NASA five- and ten-year plans.
Needlessly Annoying
I just entered my account number at Chevron/Texaco’s site, in order to recover a lost user name. The form to do so simply has a text box saying “Account Number.” When I look at my account number on my bill, as printed by them, it is a sequence of numbers separated by hyphens, so I type it in as they give it to me on my bill. So of course, it kicks out an error message, telling me not to include any dashes or spaces.
I find it easier to separate the subnumbers, because it makes the number easier to read and verify. Back when I was doing web site ecommerce (over a decade ago), I found it a trivial task to write a line of perl that would strip out extraneous characters, and convert the string to a pure string of digits. Has the technology degraded since then to the point that they have to annoy their customers by making them enter a perfectly valid number twice?
A Cure For Diabetes?
It seems to work in mice:
Last year, Dr Terry Strom and his team demonstrated that they could stop the on-going destruction of insulin-producing beta cells in mice using a combination of three drugs, although they were unable to regenerate the cells.
However, when they added an extra ingredient – an enzyme called alpha 1 anti-trypsin – a significant rise in the number of beta cells was seen.
I’m not sure what the point is here:
It is exciting that these drugs could stop the immune system from attacking insulin-producing cells, but it is too early to tell whether these cells recovered in the mice or if new cells were produced.
Does it matter, from a practical standpoint? I can understand why the researchers would be curious, but a cure is a cure.
Anyway, here’s hoping that it can work in higher mammals.
A Nanotech Dustup
A week-long debate over at the LA Times (similar to the one that Homer Hickam and I had on space last fall).
The End Of The Steam Age
The Navy is shifting from steam catapults to electric launchers for its aircraft carriers.
Cool.