YouTube – How to improve the reception of a mobile modem.
Basically – just put it in a pot!
How to improve the reception of a mobile modem
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Monthly Archives: December 2009
Gorillacam app for iPhone
This adds a whole slew of possibilities for the camera: self timer, rapid fire, grid overlay, time lapse, press anywhere to take a picture and a bubble level.
Best of all, it’s free!
Gorillacam app for iPhone – Joby.
To Inhabit the Solar System
Dr. Anthony Zuppero has managed to find a way that we could affordably make the push into outer space and get to inhabit the solar system. A physicist, he’s got the whole thing calculated out, this guy is the real deal. He’s written a very very readable book about his undertaking, which you can download for free in PDF form.
How does he do it? He uses a simple steam rocket which can haul immense loads of water (which is everywhere in the solar system – there are loads of near earth objects (comets / asteroids) and moons – even our own) with a massive crew area made out of water. It’s a serously interesting exploration through one man’s career and the troubles he ran into, as well as the triumphs of discovering that we can actually leave our planet, if we want to.
MechWarrior: Living Legends
This is a huge Crysis mod which allows you to run vehicles, infantry and of course mechs in the war between the Inner Sphere and the Clans. It’s free and now in open beta. You can configure the mechs any way you like, upgrade them, repair them and you can shoot off parts of them. It’s hugely multiplayer and has different modes of play.
Women can’t park
A female scientist was fed up of hearing comments on the parking abilities of women and found that not only do they take 20 seconds longer on average to park, they’re 5% worse at it than men.
Men really ARE better at parking… and that’s a woman professor talking | Mail Online.
Thought control: now with letters
Using ECoG (electrocorticography) and overlaying electrodes directly on the surface of the brain, scientists can record reactions when letters are flashed on a screen and then play back the letters when that thought pattern is brought up. It’s around 8 letters per minute, but it’s something.
There’s also a piece where they translate thought patterns into music. An interesting article.
By Thought Alone: Mind Over Keyboard | h+ Magazine.
AZO’s point of view (real life Mirror’s Edge)
Insurgent Attacks Follow Mathematical Pattern
It turns out that there is a universal human method for doing insurgency, when it comes down to the number of casualties and the timing of events. This pattern is distinct and is based on an approximate power law.
Slashdot Science Story | Insurgent Attacks Follow Mathematical Pattern.
US goes mind control crazy
First this story: a guy has been sentenced to probation, where the officer gets to spend the next three years deciding if and who he’s allowed to date
Wis. teen will need legal permission to date girls – wtop.com.
And then we have this story where US soldiers are threatened with jail time if they impregnate or are impregnated.
WTF?
Predator UAV feeds unencrypted
It looks like the Iranians have found out that the video feeds from Predator drones are in some cases unencrypted and can be tapped into using a $26,- program called Skygrabber.
FOXNews.com – Iranian-Backed Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones.
Now it turns out that the ROVER system, a hand held video system for infantry, also recieves unencrypted video from all kinds of airborne sources, from U2’s to Harriers, Tornado’s, F-15’s, F-16’s, etc. And can be tapped in the same way.
Now this is nothing new – some guy was tapping into unencrypted military satellite feeds during the Iraqi wars – and is due in part to bandwidth limitations: the militaries are huge bandwidth hogs and there just isn’t enough to go around for all the tasks they’d like to use, let alone if it was all encrypted.
The question is, can Skygrabber tap targetted drones or is it a haphazard affair?
GIGABYTE GM-M7800S
This mouse has gold plating, swarovski crystals, leather covering, hand stitching and works over wifi – for only $60,-!
GIGABYTE – Product – PC Peripherals – Mouse – Products – GM-M7800S.
YouTube – The Known Universe by AMNH
Oh dear – More Climategate!
Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations.
The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.
The HadCRUT database includes specific stations providing incomplete data and highlighting the global-warming process, rather than stations facilitating uninterrupted observations.
On the whole, climatologists use the incomplete findings of meteorological stations far more often than those providing complete observations.
Type n Walk
Finally! In the right direction! Someone has changed email ‘n walk to type ‘n walk, which allows you to type whilst you walk, then copy the text and then paste it into your application. Which is not quite the same as answering your SMS messages directly, but is getting there…
JVC XS-SR3 iPod speaker dock
UK – defend your home, get put in jail
If your family is kidnapped and tied up in your own home and you manage to escape, would you beat the living shit out of the guy who did it?
This guy did and he’s just been sentenced to 30 months jail time, whilst the kidnapper gets off completely free!
The UK is going to pot quickly, but these kind of rulings are ridiculous, even by their standards.
Why sex offender lists are a bad idea
Not only do they indicate that as a government you think the punitive system you have in place (prison) doesn’t work as a reformation aid, it also says the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. Worst of all, there are allways borderline cases, such as this one, where a 17 year old got put on the registry for having admitted consensual sex with his 15 year old girlfriend due to a spiteful mother. Now even the mother doesn’t agree with the amount of hassle and persecution this guy has to put up with due to the stigma of being on this list.
Young Pittsfield Township man struggles with sex offender label – AnnArbor.com.
Lotus: Omnivore engine is 10% more efficient
This is a new two stroke engine with very low emissions.
Lotus: Omnivore engine is 10% more efficient with more to come — Autoblog.
Note Taker
This app allows you to write your notes using your finger, instead of using the onscreen keyboard.
Note Taker Turns Your iPhone into an Endless Notepad – Note Taking – Lifehacker.
Airbags for helicopters
NASA has dropped a small helicopter from a 240 ft high gantry, resulting in a 54mph crash at a 33 degree angle, a fairly hefty crash. Using a honeycomb structure that stays flat and tilts outwards when needed, the landing skids were bent outwards, but the crash test dummies inside did pretty good.
NASA helicopter crash tests flying airbag | NetworkWorld.com Community.
Name a Star – Or a Galaxy!
So… you want to be immortal… you want a celestial body named after you. What next? Unfortunately, the one body that does officially name stars and galaxies – the IAU – won’t let you put your name on one (their regulations are here). Or on a comet or asteroid either.
Fortunately there are plenty of options available for you. Some are less ‘valid’ than others, but none of them is really more than a novelty.
Commercial novelties
These companies basically put you in their own privately held catalogue and send you nice certificates.
Nice ones I’ve found are:
Name a Star Live. They’re cool because they let you use the SLOOH observatory to look at your own star.
The International Star Registry is nice because it’s been featured in loads of magazines and has several notable customers, including Nicole Kidman.
Free Star Naming
These are free but will charge you extra for not having a banner on the certificate you print yourself, having a nice looking bezel for the certificate, etc etc etc.
Free name a star is like this.
Scientific organisations
The Pale Blue Dot Project is cheap (only $10), plugs into the Google Sky addon and you can select your own star from a limited number that will be scanned for planets by the Kepler satellite.
The Stardome Observatory and the Sydney Observatory both also fund the observatory and are placed in their own catalogues. Unfotunately they only give you stars visible on the southern side of the globe.
BUT WHY STOP THERE?! BUY A GALAXY!
NameAGalaxy.com allows you to name a galaxy for free and download a certificate.
The Windowpane Observatory in Arizona gives you a star map as well – as telescope time . Galaxies are visible using the naked eye!
OR… The Moon awaits!
The Lunar Embassy thought this one up. No, you can’t enforce it, but it makes a nice certificate. They’re also offering land on Mars or Venus and it starts at GBP 16.75 but you can’t pick the location.
Now naming an asteroid…
Now these are different. The discoverer can apply for a name, which is then looked at by the allmighty IAU to whittle off living politicians, offensive people, unpronouncable names, etc. and then the name is awarded. Of course after 10 years, it becomes fair game, and a concentrated email campaign will help push the IAU over the edge and name it the way you like. see the Space.com article.
As for comets
The guidelines are pretty strict here – it goes to the discoverer(s), unless it’s discovered by a huge amount of people, in which case it gets a generic name. The guidelines of the IAU are here.
Finally, a word for solar systems
Nope. Neither for NEO’s (Near Earth Objects). Space.com has a good article on the naming conventions here if you’re really interested.
Pot makes you smart
A synthetic chemical similar to the active ingredient in marijuana makes new cells grow in rat brains. What is more, in rats this cell growth appears to be linked with reducing anxiety and depression. The results suggest that marijuana, or its derivatives, could actually be good for the brain.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8155
Israel’s biometric database – haven’t they learned anything?
You’d have thought that Isreal of all countries would have learned of the problems involved in having too much useless information in a centralised database from the Dutch in WWII – which had ethnic information such as: “are you jewish?” in there, enabling the Germans to export the most jews per capita from the Netherlands. But no – they want a compulsory database of every citizen in Israel containing two fingerprints and a picture. Idiots.
Israel tests biometric database • The Register.
Live Ships Map – AIS – Vessel Traffic and Positions
This map is updated frequently and shows you a live map of many many marine objects and their headings
Live Ships Map – AIS – Vessel Traffic and Positions.
Woman arrested for piracy – 3 minutes of tape
After taping a birthday party, a woman managed to get 3 whole minutes of Twiligh New Moon footage on her tape, was arrested and is now facing up to 3 years of jail time!
Copyright cops going nuts…