Rumor has it that Apple is developing what is probably the worst idea ever. Now, I quickly add that when Apple yanked 3.5 inch floppies1 from all of their computer designs, I thought that was the worst idea ever, and it turned out to be the best idea ever. But this one, I don’t know … a mouse with a keyboard on it is not a good thing.
Monthly Archives: January 2011
Stuff that can’t happen happens all the time.
… or does it???
Continue reading Stuff that can’t happen happens all the time.
Citizen Science, Anarchy Evolution Reviewed, Glen Beck Behaves Badly
I just love when Citizen Science results in a new finding. J. Goodbody reports on an Amateur Astrologer who found a new constellation! Click Here.
carr2d2 reviews Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World without God by Greg Graffin and Steve Olson, which she seems to like. Click here.
Glen Beck has figured out how to get some crazy person to put a bullet in the head of another liberal. No one’s been shot yet but the death treats are coming along nicely. Click here.
Technology Woes and Worries
Apple likes its hardware to be closed source. Very closed:
If you want to remove the outer casing on your iPhone 4 to replace the battery or a broken screen, it won’t be easy anymore. In the past, you could use a Phillip screwdriver to remove two tiny screws at the base of the phone and then simply slide off the back cover.
But Apple is replacing the outer screw with a mysterious tamper-resistant screw across its most popular product lines, …
Keep an eye in iFixit for a fix to this.
A little Linux Naval Gazing:
With the recent announcement from Apple that Steve Jobs is taking a medical leave … I began to wonder if people really think that the entire company is 100% dependent on Steve Jobs … So, does the Linux community have a similar problem when it comes to Linus Torvalds and the Linux kernel?
All I can say is that I am very disappointed that cloning has not been developed any more than jet packs. Very disappointed.
Tip: How to get desktop sharing working. It’s easy and potentially useful even if you’re just using a desktop and a laptop. Like if you share files on dropbox, and your using your laptop in one room while watching the baby, and you realized that you had opened a file on your desktop in the BlogCave and wanted to save and close it just in case, you can access your desktop’s desktop from your laptop’s desktop.
(We might need more words to express these concepts but I think you get the point.)
Olberman Leaves MSNBC
It was so abrupt that MSNBC ads and promotions still include his show. It is being said by MSNBC officials that this has nothing to do with the Comcast takeover.
“There were many occasions, particularly in the last 2 1/2 years, where all that surrounded the show — but never the show itself — was just too much for me,” Olbermann said in his exit statement. “But your support and loyalty and, if I may use the word, insistence, ultimately required that I keep going. My gratitude to you is boundless.”
Check this out:
Naomi Klein: Addicted to risk
Days before this talk, journalist Naomi Klein was on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico, looking at the catastrophic results of BP’s risky pursuit of oil. Our societies have become addicted to extreme risk in finding new energy, new financial instruments and more … and too often, we’re left to clean up a mess afterward. Klein’s question: What’s the backup plan?
It has been 25 years since being really close to Uranus
And such closeness has not been achieved before or since. Voyager 2 passed very close to the funny-named planet 25 years ago today (plus or minus) and that is the only close fly by to date.
Continue reading It has been 25 years since being really close to Uranus
Mars will pass behind sun, Rover operations affected
One of the complications of interplanetary research is that the probes you’ve placed on the other planet can’t be reached via radio while the planet they are on passes to the other side of the sun, which happens now and then. In fact, for the days before and after Mars is opposite the sun, communication is risky because it is remotely possible that something could be misunderstood if the signal is messed up by passing near the sun. So, from January 27th through February 11th there will be no talking to the Rovers on Mars (but some listening).
Conveniently, Opportunity Rover has arrived at a rock that happens to be of interest. The mass spec on Opportunity uses a radioactive source to elicit readings from rocks, but that source is rather old (half life of about a year, and it’s been a few years…) so the mass spec has to stare at a rock for a week or so to make sense of it. So, NASA will have Opportunity staring at this one rock for the entire time. Pity, because it might have been interesting to see if Opportunity could tell us what the other side of the sun looks like….
Read the rest of the story here.
Tears as a human female adaptation to limit rape
This came up a while ago and I assumed the idea would die the usual quick and painless death, but the idea seems to be either so fascinating or so irritating to people (mainly in various blog comment sections) that it still twitches and still has a heartbeat, but only as a result of the repeated flogging it is getting.
Continue reading Tears as a human female adaptation to limit rape
Oh. The NanoSail Popped Out
Surprise!
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Wednesday, Jan. 19 at 11:30 a.m. EST, engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., confirmed that the NanoSail-D nanosatellite ejected from Fast Affordable Scientific and Technology Satellite, FASTSAT. The ejection event occurred spontaneously and was identified this morning when engineers at the center analyzed onboard FASTSAT telemetry. The ejection of NanoSail-D also has been confirmed by ground-based satellite tracking assets
Now, NASA is asking HAMs to help:
Amateur ham operators are asked to listen for the signal to verify NanoSail-D is operating. This information should be sent to the NanoSail-D dashboard at: http://nanosaild.engr.scu.edu/dashboard.htm. The NanoSail-D beacon signal can be found at 437.270 MHz.
There but for the grace of dog go I
Fountain Lady, Imma let you be upset and all in a minute, but right now I’ve got to say that there is not a single one of the 37 million people who watched you fall in the water ‘cuz you were texting and not watching where you were going who has not at some time or another in their life ran into a light pole or stepped off a curb they didn’t see or something similar. The only difference between you and the rest of us is that your misstep matched a modern meme … misadventure due to texting … and it got totally YouTubed. Rather than being upset, you should do what that homeless guy did and get a job as a TV game show host or whatever.
Oh, and it could have been worse. You could have been driving a school bus down by the river or something.
New England Faculty vs Students on Acceptance of and Teaching Evolution
A new study compares “acceptance of evolution” by highly educated adult academics with college students in various categories, with all those sampled being in New England, which has the highest overall acceptance of evolution in the US (a mere 59 percent). The results are interesting.
Continue reading New England Faculty vs Students on Acceptance of and Teaching Evolution
Van Jones: The economic injustice of plastic
Van Jones lays out a case against plastic pollution from the perspective of social justice. Because plastic trash, he shows us, hits poor people and poor countries “first and worst,” with consequences we all share no matter where we live and what we earn. At TEDxGPGP, he offers a few powerful ideas to help us reclaim our throwaway planet.
Continue reading Van Jones: The economic injustice of plastic
Elizabeth Lesser: Take “the Other” to lunch
I don’t know about this …
There’s an angry divisive tension in the air that threatens to make modern politics impossible. Elizabeth Lesser explores the two sides of human nature within us (call them “the mystic” and “the warrior”) that can be harnessed to elevate the way we treat each other. She shares a simple way to begin real dialogue — by going to lunch with someone who doesn’t agree with you, and asking them three questions to find out what’s really in their hearts.
Continue reading Elizabeth Lesser: Take “the Other” to lunch
80% of Democrats Can’t Help Themselves And Would Support Palin
Just because, I mean, wouldn’t you want to know who she’d appoint to the supreme court?
Continue reading 80% of Democrats Can’t Help Themselves And Would Support Palin