Category: Miscellaneous

Trials for a robot that builds houses are soon to be underway by the “construction industry”. The robot, referred to as a “contour crafter”, takes instructions directly from an architect’s computerised drawings and then squirts successive layers of concrete on top of one other to build up vertical walls and domed roofs. The robot then fills the hollow walls with more cement.

It’s my opinion that they’ll never get this thing efficient enough for widespread use, but as Greg Lynn, a leading architect from Venice, California, said. “I believe that aesthetically there’s a great potential to make things that have never been seen before.” Maybe they will make some neat artwork.

The Bush campaign is running ads attacking Kerry for being a flip-flopper. Here’s a few Bush flip-flops from dailykos.com.

• Bush is against campaign finance reform; then he’s for it.
• Bush is against a Homeland Security Department; then he’s for it.
• Bush is against a 9/11 commission; then he’s for it.
• Bush is against an Iraq WMD investigation; then he’s for it.
• Bush is against nation building; then he’s for it.
• Bush is against deficits; then he’s for them.
• Bush is for free trade; then he’s for tariffs on steel; then he’s against them again.
• Bush is against the U.S. taking a role in the Israeli Palestinian conflict; then he pushes for a “road map” and a Palestinian State.
• Bush is for states right to decide on same sex marriage, then he is for changing the constitution.
• Bush first says he’ll provide money for first responders (fire, police, emergency), then he doesn’t.
• Bush first says that ‘help is on the way’ to the military … then he cuts benefits.
• Bush-“The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden.” Later, Bush-“I don’t know where he is. I have no idea and I really don’t care.
• Bush claims to be in favor of the environment and then secretly starts drilling on Padre Island.
• Bush talks about helping education and increases mandates while cutting funding.
• Bush first says the U.S. won’t negotiate with North Korea. Now he will.
• Bush goes to Bob Jones University. Then says he shouldn’t have.
• Bush said he would demand a U.N. Security Council vote on whether to sanction military action against Iraq. Later Bush announced he would not call for a vote
• Bush said the “mission accomplished” banner was put up by the sailors. Bush later admits it was his advance team.
• Bush was for fingerprinting and photographing Mexicans who enter the US. Bush after meeting with Pres. Fox, he’s against it.

During the 2000 elections down in the States, Ralf Nader created a parody of the Mastercard Priceless commercials critiquing the corporate interests behind the Bush and Gore campaigns. Mastercard sued Nader and his campaign claiming copyright infringement. After four years of battles, the court has finally ruled for Nader.

Threatening letters to people who satirize you: $500

Reputation as giant corporation required to intimidate publisher: $Billions

Trial court decisions protecting parody and satire from overzealous accusations of copyright and trademark infringement: Priceless

There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s Mastercard’s lawyers.

I remember one morning when I was 7, it was April 26th, 1986. I was getting ready for school and the news was going on about some power plant exploding in the USSR. I didn’t really consider what a big deal that was or what kind of impact radiation can have. Here are some details:

“In 1986 a nuclear reactor in Chernobyl began an uncontrolled, runaway nuclear reaction. The heat produced a massive steam explosion which released large amounts of radioactive material into the air.

Most of this material precipitated out of the air into the nearby farms, villages, and towns making them uninhabitable.

Luckily much of the high level radiation was produced by radio isotopes with short half-lives, and the radiation levels quickly dropped. Nevertheless, the residual background radiation stabilized at a level which has been considered high for human occupation.”

This is a photo of the abandoned city of Pripyat. Although the damaged reactor in its crumbling “sarcophagus” is still an extremely hazardous site, radiation levels in the town of Pripyat and in the surrounding countryside are considered safe enough for brief visits. At the time, the explosion released thirty to forty times the radioactivity of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Pripyat has been a ghost town since the explosion in 1986.

On October 25, 2003 in the small village of Dalaro in Eastern Sweden a strange event occurred that has yet to be explained. 32 people, unbeknownst to each other, converged on the local Volvo dealership to purchase the same model of car on the same day. Previous to that day, the dealership in question had never sold more than 32 cars in one year, let alone one day. Watch the cool (but large) flash video documentary. Or download it here: Quicktime or Windows Media.

Is it a collective unconscious? Yeah, I know, I’m buying into the merchandising wagon. But it’s an interesting documentary – especially if it’s true.

No, I’m not talking about the computer store that I used to work at. I’m talking about the annual U.S. Memory Championship, held in New York on Saturday. I wish my memory was half as good as these guys. (Wired News Link).

The three-day international event pits mnemonic experts from around the globe in competitions that include memorizing a previously unpublished and non-rhyming lengthy poem in 15 minutes, and writing it down complete with proper spelling and punctuation; memorizing a list of 400 random words and reciting them back in order; and the dreaded “binary competition,” in which competitors have a half hour to memorize a random string of thousands of 1s and 0s.

I was browsing Blogger’s 10 most recently updated blogs this afternoon and I came across some random post that made me want to comment. At first I thought well, this person doesn’t really have anyone else commenting, and I don’t even know them. Also I’d be the only one commenting and just feel like I was throwing myself into their world uninvited. I also started thinking about whether I would want to leave my name there, or just post anonymously.

As you can tell, I haven’t put too much thought into this but I considered the fact that since I put up the comments two days ago I’ve only had 1 person leave a comment and he left that anonymously. His post wasn’t exactly astute, but did I mind? No absolutely not in fact I wish more people would post comments – assuming the comments are related to the post anyway. So here it is, an open invitation for metacomments – that is to say comments about comments. (Alternatively you can comment about the new word I just made up, “metacomment”.) Enough rambling. Please comment. Really.

If you haven’t seen this commercial yet, don’t waste anymore time, it’s GReeeAAATE!

When you’re done checking that one out, you might want to flip the next button because there are a plethora of gems on this site.

Update: Turnpike films no longer offers their videos for free general public consumption.

You have to check this multiplayer Cowboy game out. I am really impressed.

It might be redundant to say this, considering everything looks different, but I’ve been working on a site redesign – which I think is coming along nicely. I’ll have comments up soon, as well I’m still going to update the flash part at the top. Please let me know what you think.

Update: Comments are up, but the archives are a mess.
Another Update: Everything seems to be working great. Please feel free to comment if you think otherwise.