Category Archive

The web is full of fancy search engines, some of which claim to not only search, but to give answers.   For example, if you google "45 meters into yards", it will do that conversion. But there's a new experiment out there called Wolfram/Alpha which is trying to "make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone".  In short, it is … Read More

The Dog'O'Matic is an automated dog-washing machine. A wash takes a total of about 30 minutes with the Dog'O'Matic, 5 minutes for the actual washing with jets of water and an additional 25 for drying and bruching with warm air.   It supposedly is not traumatic for dogs.  The inventor… says that it is very rare that a dog is … Read More

iPhone is hot, and almost since it began, it has been the subject of endless, and often unfounded, rumors.  Last September, it was widely rumored that Apple would approach Verizon to sell its flagship cellphone.  And even though the original rumor was based on scanty evidence, it persists today. The reason?  It's quite simple.  Apple signed an exclusivity deal with … Read More

Celebrities tweet.  Politicians tweet.  News organizations tweet.  It seems that everyone (yes, me too) has something to tweet. And that's fine by me.  Say what you want to say, and praise God that you must to do it in 140 charactors or less. But I wouldn't argue that there is much social utility to Twitter.  It's just this… thing that's out there.  … Read More

Moments ago, Obama was talking about his high-speed rail plan. It's ambitious, and if approved, will provide lots of jobs.  He is proposing a two-stage competitive grant process. In the first stage “applications will focus on projects that can be completed quickly and yield measurable, near-term job creation and other public benefits” and then there will be a “next round to … Read More

But only up to four. Idiots.

Demi Moore tweets (so does Ashton) She has 380,000 followers. A San Jose woman sent a message to Moore on Twitter, saying she was going to commit suicide.  Moore, who was in the south of France, responded with "I hope you are joking". Followers of Moore's Twitter feed were able to determine the location of the woman, and notified San Jose police.  The … Read More

New York Times: “Once upon a time, voice mail was useful,” said Yen Cheong, 32, a book publicist in New York who has transitioned almost entirely to e-mail and text messaging. According to her calculation, it takes 7 to 10 steps to check a voice mail message versus zero to 3 for an e-mail. “If you left a message, I … Read More

That strange light and boom that appeared over North Carolina (including one observation in High Point), Virginia, and Maryland?  The one that I blogged about yesterday? It was the Russkies, not aliens: The mysterious boom and flash of light seen over parts of Virginia Sunday night was not a meteor, but actually exploding space junk from the second stage of … Read More

There were strange lights and "booms" from the sky last night, observed from North Carolina to Maryland: Robert in Sunbury, NC: At 9:38 PM, I watched a meteor cross over Sunbury, NC. It was traveling from the West towards the East. My wife and our friend also saw this event. Very exciting!!! Diana in Virginia Beach: At around 9:45 pm … Read More

Yes, kids, the Earth is a giant magnet, which is why compasses work.  But more than that, it's been a scientific fact that birds and bees navigate using the Earth's magnetic fields, which run from the South to the Earth's magnetic North.  It's how those flying beasties migrate, or find their hives and nests. And recently, it's been discovered that large mammals — … Read More

You want to watch the Space Shuttle go up?  Not on TV? Tonight Thursday night may be your night, if you live in the East Coast. People in the eastern United States will get a great opportunity, weather permitting, to see the Space Shuttle Discovery launched into orbit Wednesday evening. The shuttle flight (STS-119) will be the 28th to rendezvous and dock with the … Read More