Posts Tagged ‘Raytheon’
“Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road”*…
Introducing the DestapaBanana from Argentina:
In case the images didn’t give you enough information, I’ll explain the device in a bit more detail. The DestapaBanana bores a hole through the length of your banana and then you pour a sweet filling (like caramel, chocolate, or strawberry sauce) into the reservoir. Once sauced, you can eat the banana right away or you can put it in the freezer and eat it frozen later.
For starters, this device does nothing else and won’t work with bananas that have a lot of curve to them. Additionally, I think a straw would do the same thing if you really are fond of this idea. Or, you could dip the banana in a sauce and not waste part of your banana. And, finally, let’s not forget the most obvious thing here that injecting sauce into a banana transforms it from a health food into a tube of pure sugar…
More at Unclutterter.
* Voltaire
###
As we pierce the peel, we might we might recall that it was on this date in 1955 that the first consumer microwave oven was introduced to the public. n 1947, Raytheon demonstrated the world’s first microwave oven, the “Radarange,: a refrigerator-sized appliance that cost $2-3,000. It found a some applications in commercial food settings and on Navy ships, but no consumer market. Then Raytheon licensed the technology to the Tappan Stove Company, which introduced a wall-mounted version with two cooking speeds (500 and 800 watts), stainless steel exterior, glass shelf, top-browning element and a recipe card drawer. It sold for $1,295 (figure $10,500 today).
Later Litton entered the business and developed the short, wide shape of the microwave that we’re familiar with today. As Wired reports, this opened the market:
Prices began to fall rapidly. Raytheon, which had acquired a company called Amana, introduced the first popular home model in 1967, the countertop Radarange. It cost $495 (about $3,200 today).
Consumer interest in microwave ovens began to grow. About 40,000 units were sold in the United States in 1970. Five years later, that number hit a million.
The addition of electronic controls made microwaves easier to use, and they became a fixture in most kitchens. Roughly 25 percent of U.S. households owned a microwave oven by 1986. Today, almost 90 percent of American households have a microwave oven.
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
You must be logged in to post a comment.