Archive for June 2010
Hands up, Mother Nature!…
From The Firearm Blog:
Celebrated science fiction author Philip K. Dick published Project Plowshare as a serial between November 1965 and January 1966. The story, later expanded into the novel Zap Gun, is set in a world where seemingly deadly new weapons are “plowshared” into consumer products. It is ironic that just a few years after that novel was set, a defense giant is quite literally turning a new weapon system into an agricultural tool.
Defense giant Raytheon is well known for putting the “ray” into raygun. They developed the infamous Active Denial System that is designed to zap rioters with a non-lethal millimeter “pain ray”.
Active Denial System at Moody Air Force Base, Ga.
Raytheon realized that technology which can heat human skin at a distance can also be used to heat crops that are vulnerable to frost. One crop that is very sensitive to frost is grapes. In 2005 Ontario’s overall yield of processed grapes fell by 54% due to injuries sustained by the grapes during winter. In 2007 California experienced $800 million in crop losses due to freezing temperatures with navel oranges being the hardest hit.
Existing methods of frost prevention include heaters, wind machines, sprinklers and helicopters in emergencies. These methods all have significant downsides. They are either noisy, costly, inefficient or are only effective under certain environmental conditions.
Two moths ago Raytheon deployed a prototype of their newly developed Tempwave system to an Ontario vineyard. Tempwave sits atop a 25 feet pole and is powered by the grid. When its sensors detect weather conditions that may result in frost, its low-level microwave delivers energy directly to the crop without wasting energy on heating the intervening air. As long as the Tempwave system has enough power delivered to it, frost protection is guaranteed.
Tempwave proof of concept in a California orchard
Read the whole story– and the Raytheon press release– here.
As we read by the glow of our handguns, we might recall that it was on this date in 1972, the first “leap second day,” that one second was added to the world’s time in order to keep atomic clocks in sync with the Earth’s rotation. Since the adoption of this system in 1972, due firstly to the initial choice of the value of the second (1/86400 mean solar day of the year 1900) and secondly to the general slowing down of the Earth’s rotation (despite “the ice-skater effect”), it has been necessary to add over 20 seconds to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
The U.S. Naval Observatory Master Clock
CLOCK, n. A machine of great moral value to man, allaying his concern for the future by reminding him what a lot of time remains to him.
–Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary, 1911
Special Edition: Too weird…
From Evil Twin Comics
A science historian at The University of Manchester has cracked “The Plato Code”– the long disputed secret messages hidden in the great philosopher’s writings.
Plato was the Einstein of Greece’s Golden Age and his work founded Western culture and science. Dr Jay Kennedy’s findings are set to revolutionize the history of the origins of Western thought. Dr Kennedy, whose findings are published in the leading US journal Apeiron, reveals that Plato used a regular pattern of symbols, inherited from the ancient followers of Pythagoras, to give his books a musical structure. A century earlier, Pythagoras had declared that the planets and stars made an inaudible music, a “harmony of the spheres.” Plato imitated this hidden music in his books.
The hidden codes show that Plato anticipated the Scientific Revolution 2,000 years before Isaac Newton, discovering its most important idea – the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics. The decoded messages also open up a surprising way to unite science and religion. The awe and beauty we feel in nature, Plato says, shows that it is divine; discovering the scientific order of nature is getting closer to God. This could transform today’s culture wars between science and religion.
Peruse the full story– though filled with more troubling tropes of the sort that litter the passage above, it’s fascinating reading– in this University of Manchester release.
Beyond Rochambeau…
There are times when Rock-Paper-Scissors just doesn’t have the… well, gravity that one feels is appropriate to the question being decided. Happily, author and blogger Mark Rayner has ridden to the rescue with an altogether apt alternative: Monkey-Pirate-Robot-Ninja-Zombie…
Mark explains:
Each thing can beat two other things, and is, in turn beaten by two other things.
The players both count to five (three), though it is obviously better to repeat the name of the game (Monkey! Robot! Pirate! Ninja! Zombie!). Each time you raise your fist and swing it down. On the fifth (third) count, you form your hand into one of the five gestures. (It is recommended that in addition to the hand gesture, you also add an aural component to this — see below for suggested noises.)
So, what beats what, and what are the gestures? What?
* Monkey fools Ninja
* Monkey unplugs Robot
Suggested noise: ee-ee-eek!* Robot chokes Ninja
* Robot crushes Zombie
Suggested noise: ex-ter-min-ate!* Pirate drowns Robot
* Pirate skewers Monkey
Suggested noise: arrrrr!* Ninja karate chops Pirate
* Ninja decapitates Zombie
Suggested noise: keeee-ah!* Zombie eats Pirate
* Zombie savages Monkey
Suggested noise: braaaaaaaaaainsss!
See the hand gestures illustrated here.
As we approach big decisions with a deeper sense of propriety, we might recall with horror that it was on this date in 1613 that The Globe Theatre, which had been built in 1599 by Shakespeare’s company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, was destroyed by fire. Shakespeare had retired to Stratford in 1611.
A second Globe was built on the same site; it opened in June, 1614, and closed in 1642.
All together now!…
The good folks at All Sorts have taken on the issue of collective nouns– or as Drew Neil calls them, Venereal Terms— that is, the names we give bunches of things. All Sorts invited designers to submit illustrations of their favorites for inclusion in the All Sorts Index. A few of the winners:
A Glass Half Full of Optimists
A Hush of Librarians
A Sofa of Dogs
For more karass, not false but funny, see here. (TotH to Jason Kottke)
As we contemplate commonalities, we might wish a Buon Compleanno to Luigi Pirandello, the dramatist and novelist best remembered for Six Characters in Search of an Author. He was born on this date in 1867, turned to writing when the family sulphur mines failed, and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934.
Death AND Taxes…
See the full infographic (of which the above is just an excerpt), and larger, here.
As we reconsider Nicorette, we might wish the cheeriest of birthdays to Bob Keeshan, who was born on this date in 1927. While he is, of course, best remembered as Captain Kangaroo, his place in television history was assured by an earlier role: he was the original “Clarabell the Clown” on Howdy Doody. Keeshan retired from Captain Kangaroo after a heart attack in the early Eighties; he died in 2004.
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