Wednesday Weekly Bits and Pieces - 20 Nov 2013
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| Zarya |
Congratulations to everyone involved! Go have some cake!
NASA
has a new spacecraft, MAVEN, heading to Mars, too. It launched on November
18.
CNN has a
nice video for the MAVEN mission.
NASA also transmitted
an image of the Mona Lisa to a satellite orbiting the moon using a laser.
The transmission rate was only 300 bits per second, but I remember using that
speed when I was starting graduate classes a few decades ago. You have to start
somewhere.
President Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address a hundred and
fifty years ago. His original manuscript is still preserved, using
modern technologies to keep it from degrading.
Darling's new phone is Android. After years of using an
iPhone, it will take time to be comfortable with the new OS. There are Android
Launchers that mimic an iPhone, though. That might help for a while!
Forbes published the results of a new study by the Cato
Institute showing that welfare
pays more than a minimum-wage job in 35 states. They do state that "not all of these benefits apply to every
welfare beneficiary, and some are time-limited." I know some people on
welfare and they are barely getting by. Without help from family members, their
children would be very, very hungry. (And they also have no medical insurance,
so they are part of the forty-five million people who will be helped by the
Affordable Health Care Act, assuming the government starts working that program
like a company would and get it fixed and in place for use.) The USA seems to have
some problems with welfare, though.
I don't really want
to talk about Bitcoin, mostly because I just can't figure out how it is
real currency. As far as I know there is nothing backing the value of the Bitcoin.
Wait, what is backing the USD now? I give up on all this financial stuff.
I guess the Bitcoin is a fiat currency designed to be used outside
of governmental regulations. I'll have to think about that.
If I was Warren Buffet I might understand money better, but
maybe not. Three of his Berkshire Hathaway holdings lost
him over $1.4 billion in value from the second to third quarters:
Coca-cola, IBM and Proctor and Gamble.
I hope he at least has some Boeing stock. Boeing just got more
than $95 billion in new orders at the Dubai airshow.
I wish I had more Boeing stock in my 401K. I sold it all
just before the government shutdown. Silly me. That buy high-sell low strategy
never seems to work for me at all. Here's how John
Maxfield is investing his IRA. Maybe I should follow his lead.
I'm a big fan of 3D printing technology. Right now most of
the home versions use plastics, but metal is certainly on the horizon. Here is
a home version that uses
metal clay to print an object, which then must be put in a kiln. "So
once the kiln process is complete, the end result of the 3D printer's output is
a very durable metal object built to a specified digital file's standard."
There is already a company that uses 3D printing to print
organic tissues. Organovo
can't print complicated organs, but they can print tissues that are usable in
labs. What a crazy world we live in!
If you're not familiar with Brain Pickings, it's a weekly
digest of cool things each week (like this, right?). Maria Popova reflects on
seven years of her weekly postings in this article. Her seven
insights are so good and so well-written that I can't even summarize them.
It's worth a look.
Maria also printed some of Hemingway's
advice to aspiring authors in this article.
This guy writes about his travels for a living - and he doesn't
ever plan to return to Singapore. No offense to Singapore, but I never
planned to travel there in the first place.
In the X-Men they
had a 3D display to plan their assault on the Statue of Liberty. It's
closer to reality than ever!
Microsoft plans to offer some good deals on
Black Friday this year on their Surface tablet and maybe their new Xbox
One.
Apple doesn't seem to be offering any good deals, but they
do expect a holiday
blowout for their iPads. The article makes it sound like a bad thing; I
guess Apple doesn't have enough inventory to handle projected orders.
The head-to-head contest between gaming systems is reaching
a current crescendo. The
PS4 and Xbox One are both in stores now. The Xbox
One is much larger than the PS4. Over 1
million PS4s sold in the first 24 hours after the release. The Xbox
One is a full-fledged entertainment device, too, and it responds to voice
commands. According to ars Technica (they
have an awesome and thorough review), the Xbox One has a rough time with
local television channels right now. They also used the Xbox
One successfully to make Skype calls. I'm not sure I want people to see a
full-body view of me sitting on the couch, though.
Computer
vision is getting better all the time. Look at your computer. Is it looking
back yet? The Xbox One apparently listens all the time when on standby. Soon…
I like this guy. He has modern computers and still
uses the old IBM keyboard. I loved that keyboard!
Wired came to the same conclusion about smart watches that I did a few weeks ago. Smart watches won't be popular until
they are useful instead of a gimmick.
This guy decided to make a useful
microwave using the raspberry pi mini-computer. It is remote controlled,
the clock syncs with the internet and the microwave can follow multiple cooking
instructions at once, for instance "heat on low for a minute, wait thirty
seconds, heat on high for ten seconds."
According to experts, you should have seven things
in your schedule every week. You don't need to read the article. Create a
schedule, Finish a project, Devise a priority list, Don't try to do too much,
Dedicate time to a personal project, Don't work more than eight hours a day and
Use the waste basket or recycle bin liberally. I'm good with a couple of those, like not working too much.
Does that count?
I really like the looks of the new twelvesouth BookBook
Travel Journal for iPad. I'm not getting one - I'm just sharing.
I also really like the looks of the new
FiftyThree stylus, but don't plan to get one (yet).
King, the company that made Candy Crush (darn you, Candy
Crush!) topped
$1 billion in earnings this year, just in time for their IPO.
If you love puns, try this
site. There are only 46 of them on this page. Here's a seasonal one: "Santa's
helpers are subordinate clauses."
I'm playing Skyrim again, this time as a mage. I didn't know
about the hidden
chests in the game when I first played a few years ago. You just have to
know they are there, though you need to exploit game glitches for a few of them.
I won't use those, but the invisible ones are fair game as far as I'm
concerned.
This weekend is the second part of The Hunger Games. Darling and I are both looking forward to it, but
we read the books.
And lest I forget (and I almost did!) THREE DAYS until the Doctor...
Thanks for reading and God bless!
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