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silveradeptSo I got something else today that added on to the amount of work I have to do over the weekend. That said, I did fix the problem in my Rails project (silly me - the object was not validating, so nothing happened). Which means I’m AJAX’d, basically, and thus able to go forward and make much. That said, though, I’ve got a code release due on Wednesday, and then I’ve also got a presentation on Thursday, and another one on Monday after that... and then one more on the Wednesday after that. Presenting a lot this time around, I guess. But getting through that sequence means everything’s all done but the last code release. Whee!
Starting off with what is possibly a strong example of Christian love and kindness, even after being convicted of beating their child to death, the church of Joseph and Sonya Smith is asking for donations to fund their appeals. The church contends that the death was an accident.
Arianna Huffington, of Huffington Post fame, has an op-ed in the LA Times about the candidates and presidents carefully stepping around the issue of how the war on some drugs disproportionately affects minorities, and that they should do more to bring awareness and fix the problem.
Nicholas Powers laments a different disproportionate affect for African-Americans: The New York Police Department apparently loves to frisk them, with apparent reasons or not.
Across the pond, though, a new package of proposals in the UK could have children taking tests to see if they're going to become criminals, maximizing anti-theft tech and reducing red tape in the police system.
On the very tail end of this, Liberal Eagle continues to wonder why people think of terrorists as a monolithic organization, and why liberals and liberal commentators don't mention this non-monolith status more often.
Shorter rest shifts for the soldiers is possible, to ensure that troop levels needed in Iraq can be maintained. Which probably puts them at greater risk for both physical and mental harm. A commenter in the Wall Street Journal, though, suggests that Iraq is winnable based on its similarity to previous counterinsurgencies in the past, if only the American populace is willing to hang on and ride things out to the very end, and the military men are willing to adopt techniques that do well against insurgency’s unique situations. I don’t know how accurate the arguments are, but they seem to be a bit more thought out than the usual fare. It doesn’t get rid of the problem that the United States went in on flimsy and false pretenses, but it does try to at least provide some reasoning why we should be sticking around, now that we’re there.
More military matters: the last female veteran of World War I has died, and The Tuskegee Airmen are (finally?) getting a Congressional Gold Medal for their work in World War II. This recognition is probable well overdue, unless the Airmen have been receiving regular awards from the government for their service.
After all that, if you just need some space, create some instant space with a movable, retractable, 6 ft x 12 ft wall.
Other interesting tech gadgetry are the color-changing sunglasses - quick change to a particular opacity, and holds for about thirty days without fading or needing another charge. Peril-sensitive sunglasses will be around as soon as we can pack the appropriate AI into the glasses, too. There were also some pretty interesting underwater robots on display in Tokyo, light bending liquid, instead of the other way around, a device that purports to be a guard against smudging ink or graphite, skin-thin shoes for going barefoot without going barefoot in (I’m not entirely sure what these things are for, to be honest...), Boeing developing a fuel-cell and battery powered airplane (although they’re not likely to be using it in jet travel), and Intel's 45 nanometer chips that intend on being power-efficient as well as fast,
Ten differences between brains and computers. Things to keep in mind, perhaps, when trying to create the human-like artificial intelligence. With that said, Doctor’s Gadgets has a potential blueprint for the bionic/cyborg being, using implants and prostheses already available.
More science (SCIENCE!) due up in Nature says that the big extinction at the end of the Cretaceous didn't immediately give rise to the mammals taking over. It still happened, but the new theory is that it took a lot longer than previously hypothesized, and that the thing that took out the dinosaurs didn’t necessarily have that great an influence on the way mammals did their thing.
A possible analogue for the hexagonal storm pattern on Saturn could be developed here on Terra. A whirlpool traveling at certain speeds could create a polygonal-shaped vortex in the middle of the storm. So maybe the storms on Saturn are traveling at just the right speed to produce the effect.
Potentially causing some storms of their own, the Guardian takes several stabbity-stabs on how feminism destroys men, women, relationships, children, and increases the risk of cancer in women. That’s a lot for feminism to be at fault for. If it were even half-true, you’d think we would have found out in a provable way by now.
Getting a good laugh in at someone else’s expense, mean as it is, the company hired to build a fence between the United States and Mexico has been convicted of... hiring illegal immigrants. You may rimshot at will.
With the Simpsons movie coming in a few months, eleven 7-11s have agreed to be transformed into Kwik-E-Marts, complete with rebranding of some of the products inside, as well.
Exploding Aardvark gives us the next logical step from something like Shoggoth on the Roof - Lovecraftian sitcoms.
The last for tonight, though, is a summary of numbers and their importances to certain religions.
And thus, with a late-onset headachey-thingy, I’m going to bed. Tomorrow will still have the work looking back at me, and I can probably finish bits of it then. I’m doing okay, surprisingly. Much of the fog is evaporated.
Starting off with what is possibly a strong example of Christian love and kindness, even after being convicted of beating their child to death, the church of Joseph and Sonya Smith is asking for donations to fund their appeals. The church contends that the death was an accident.
Arianna Huffington, of Huffington Post fame, has an op-ed in the LA Times about the candidates and presidents carefully stepping around the issue of how the war on some drugs disproportionately affects minorities, and that they should do more to bring awareness and fix the problem.
Nicholas Powers laments a different disproportionate affect for African-Americans: The New York Police Department apparently loves to frisk them, with apparent reasons or not.
Across the pond, though, a new package of proposals in the UK could have children taking tests to see if they're going to become criminals, maximizing anti-theft tech and reducing red tape in the police system.
On the very tail end of this, Liberal Eagle continues to wonder why people think of terrorists as a monolithic organization, and why liberals and liberal commentators don't mention this non-monolith status more often.
Shorter rest shifts for the soldiers is possible, to ensure that troop levels needed in Iraq can be maintained. Which probably puts them at greater risk for both physical and mental harm. A commenter in the Wall Street Journal, though, suggests that Iraq is winnable based on its similarity to previous counterinsurgencies in the past, if only the American populace is willing to hang on and ride things out to the very end, and the military men are willing to adopt techniques that do well against insurgency’s unique situations. I don’t know how accurate the arguments are, but they seem to be a bit more thought out than the usual fare. It doesn’t get rid of the problem that the United States went in on flimsy and false pretenses, but it does try to at least provide some reasoning why we should be sticking around, now that we’re there.
More military matters: the last female veteran of World War I has died, and The Tuskegee Airmen are (finally?) getting a Congressional Gold Medal for their work in World War II. This recognition is probable well overdue, unless the Airmen have been receiving regular awards from the government for their service.
After all that, if you just need some space, create some instant space with a movable, retractable, 6 ft x 12 ft wall.
Other interesting tech gadgetry are the color-changing sunglasses - quick change to a particular opacity, and holds for about thirty days without fading or needing another charge. Peril-sensitive sunglasses will be around as soon as we can pack the appropriate AI into the glasses, too. There were also some pretty interesting underwater robots on display in Tokyo, light bending liquid, instead of the other way around, a device that purports to be a guard against smudging ink or graphite, skin-thin shoes for going barefoot without going barefoot in (I’m not entirely sure what these things are for, to be honest...), Boeing developing a fuel-cell and battery powered airplane (although they’re not likely to be using it in jet travel), and Intel's 45 nanometer chips that intend on being power-efficient as well as fast,
Ten differences between brains and computers. Things to keep in mind, perhaps, when trying to create the human-like artificial intelligence. With that said, Doctor’s Gadgets has a potential blueprint for the bionic/cyborg being, using implants and prostheses already available.
More science (SCIENCE!) due up in Nature says that the big extinction at the end of the Cretaceous didn't immediately give rise to the mammals taking over. It still happened, but the new theory is that it took a lot longer than previously hypothesized, and that the thing that took out the dinosaurs didn’t necessarily have that great an influence on the way mammals did their thing.
A possible analogue for the hexagonal storm pattern on Saturn could be developed here on Terra. A whirlpool traveling at certain speeds could create a polygonal-shaped vortex in the middle of the storm. So maybe the storms on Saturn are traveling at just the right speed to produce the effect.
Potentially causing some storms of their own, the Guardian takes several stabbity-stabs on how feminism destroys men, women, relationships, children, and increases the risk of cancer in women. That’s a lot for feminism to be at fault for. If it were even half-true, you’d think we would have found out in a provable way by now.
Getting a good laugh in at someone else’s expense, mean as it is, the company hired to build a fence between the United States and Mexico has been convicted of... hiring illegal immigrants. You may rimshot at will.
With the Simpsons movie coming in a few months, eleven 7-11s have agreed to be transformed into Kwik-E-Marts, complete with rebranding of some of the products inside, as well.
Exploding Aardvark gives us the next logical step from something like Shoggoth on the Roof - Lovecraftian sitcoms.
The last for tonight, though, is a summary of numbers and their importances to certain religions.
And thus, with a late-onset headachey-thingy, I’m going to bed. Tomorrow will still have the work looking back at me, and I can probably finish bits of it then. I’m doing okay, surprisingly. Much of the fog is evaporated.
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no subject
Date: 2007-03-31 03:22 am (UTC)I'm confused. 5 remaining WWI veterans? But I thought there was an article a few weeks back that said the last WWI vet died? did I misread something?
The retractable wall could also be used in Dorm rooms for privacy :)
Those shoes are kind of weird. I get the concept - a thin shoe so you can stil lfeel like you're barefoot, but they really look odd, and well, I find toe socks to be uncomfortable, so I'm sure the toe section on the "shoes" would be uncomfortable, too.
I'm not touching the feminist article. You know my opinion on that, already.