Bird-Size Surveillance Craft See, Hear, Even Smell Enemy

Friday, February 21st, 2003

I eat this stuff up. From Bird-Size Surveillance Craft See, Hear, Even Smell Enemy:

While most of the military’s attention in recent years has been focused on larger UAVs that can fly for hundreds of miles and fire missiles, scientists and military planners are trying to build aircraft that can fit in a backpack. The idea is to give individual soldiers a better idea of what might be over the next hill or, in the case of urban combat, what’s around the next corner.

“For all of the high-tech intelligence that was available at upper levels during Desert Storm, a company commander had no more situational awareness of his immediate surroundings than a commander working for Robert E. Lee had during the Civil War,” says Col. Barry Ford, chief of staff for the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab in Quantico, Va. “We think these mini-UAVs will fill a critical capability gap.”

Naturally, I need one.

Posted in Technology, War | No Comments »

The Inspections Dodge

Friday, February 21st, 2003

How did I miss The Inspections Dodge, by Khidhir Hamza? Read the opening paragraph:

My 20 years of work in Iraq’s nuclear-weapons program and military industry were partly a training course in methods of deception and camouflage to keep the program secret. Given what I know about Saddam Hussein’s commitment to developing and using weapons of mass destruction, the following two points are abundantly clear to me: First, the U.N. weapons inspectors will not find anything Saddam does not want them to find. Second, France, Germany, and to a degree, Russia, are opposed to U.S. military action in Iraq mainly because they maintain lucrative trade deals with Baghdad, many of which are arms-related.

Posted in War | No Comments »

Smile…But Britons May Not Smile with You

Wednesday, February 19th, 2003

I’m not sure how scientific this study was, but Smile…But Britons May Not Smile with You presents some wild numbers:

Psychology students spent an hour smiling at 100 strangers in 14 British cities as part of the Comic Relief fundraising campaign, according to a report in The Guardian newspaper.

Only 4% of people in Edinburgh, 12% in Nottingham and 18% in London returned the students’ smiles.

On the other hand, the residents of Bristol smiled back 70% of the time, and 68% of Glasgow citizens were cheery enough to raise the corners of their mouths.

Just 4% in Edinburgh versus 70% in Bristol? Those are some grumpy Scots.

Posted in Science | No Comments »

American Conservatism

Wednesday, February 19th, 2003

According to a recent Opinion Journal article playfully subtitled “Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll”:

Libertarians have more fun — and make more sense.

I can believe that. I don’t agree with the notion that libertarians are necessarily libertines though — and many letters to the editor agree.

Posted in Policy | No Comments »

A Novel Way to Recover from Injury

Tuesday, February 18th, 2003

From A Novel Way to Recover from Injury:

Flamboyant French tennis player Arnaud Clement is pioneering an unusual way to keep his eye in while sidelined with a painful right wrist injury — he plays left-handed.

The 2001 Australian Open runner up — instantly recognizable by his brightly colored outfits and bandanas and his on-court sunglasses — has been out of action with lingering tendinitis since the beginning of the season.

But instead of putting his feet up while he recovers, the right-handed baseliner has been playing left-handed at an amateur tournament in the south of France.

The French Tennis Federation gave Clement permission to play in the tournament in Gap with his “wrong hand” and he went on to beat two good local players in straight sets, French sports daily l’Equipe reported.

“Why am I smiling? Because I know something you don’t know: I am not left-handed either!”

Posted in Fitness | No Comments »

Disney’s Al Hirschfeld Tribute

Monday, February 17th, 2003

Animation Blast explains the origin of Disney’s Genie:

In honor of Al Hirschfeld’s passing [in January], here’s a reprint of the full-page ad that Disney took out in Variety. The ad features a drawing of the Genie from Aladdin. Lead animator Eric Goldberg had used Hirschfeld’s flowing calligraphic line style as inspiration for the character’s design.

Posted in Media | No Comments »

Echoes of Appeasement

Monday, February 17th, 2003

Echoes of Appeasement points out a delicious irony:

Neither the protester holding this sign nor the Reuters copy editor who captioned the photo have any idea of the historical significance of its message, or what it says about the so-called “anti-war movement.”

In September 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned from the Munich Conference after throwing Czechoslovakia to the ravening Nazi wolves, and gave a speech that lives in infamy as a symbol of craven appeasement: Peace in Our Time.

“We, the German Fuehrer and Chancellor, and the British Prime Minister, have had a further meeting today and are agreed in recognizing that the question of Anglo-German relations is of the first importance for two countries and for Europe.

“We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.

“We are resolved that the method of consultation shall be the method adopted to deal with any other questions that may concern our two countries, and we are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference, and thus to contribute to assure the peace of Europe.”

Chamberlain read this statement to a cheering crowd in front of 10 Downing St. and said; “My good friends this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honor. I believe it is peace in our time.”

Having learned nothing from history — indeed, having learned no history at all — the fools above rush gleefully into the arms of dictators who promise peace.

Posted in War | No Comments »

Unthemely Behavior

Sunday, February 16th, 2003

According to Urban Legends Reference Pages: Television (Unthemely Behavior), the Star Trek theme song did have lyrics:

Beyond
The rim of the star-light
My love
Is wand’ring in star-flight
I know
He’ll find in star-clustered reaches
Love,
Strange love a star woman teaches.
I know
His journey ends never
His star trek
Will go on forever.
But tell him
While he wanders his starry sea
Remember, remember me.

Why did it have lyrics? It’s complicated, but basically because making up lyrics got Roddenberry half the rights to the theme’s royalties — and that was a lot of money.

Posted in Business, Media | No Comments »

The Evolution of Gollum

Sunday, February 16th, 2003

TheOneRing.net posted a series of images showing the subtle evolution of Smeagol into Gollum.

Evidently Andy Serkis, the actor who played Gollum, wasn’t going to be just the voice and the model for the CGI Gollum. (Thanks, Dan, for the link.)

Posted in Media | No Comments »

Decision To Ask Out Girl Made Using 10-Sided Die

Sunday, February 16th, 2003

I love The Onion. The caption to that photo:

Decision To Ask Out Girl Made Using 10-Sided Die

Posted in Games, Media | No Comments »

The 37,385th Best Movie of All Time

Saturday, February 15th, 2003

A few days ago, I commented on Mike Myers Samples Unusual Film Deal and how it ignored some works that “sampled” older films:

They didn’t mention Wooden Allen’s Zelig or Steve Martin’s Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid.

My friend John’s comment?

You also forgot the 37,385th best movie of all time: Kung Pow: Enter the Fist.

Posted in Media | No Comments »

Woman Gets Allergic Shellfish Reaction from Kiss

Saturday, February 15th, 2003

At first, I felt bad for the young lady in Woman Gets Allergic Shellfish Reaction from Kiss. Then I read the punchline at the end.

A 20-year-old woman with shellfish allergies went into severe anaphylactic shock after kissing her boyfriend, who had just eaten a few shrimp, doctors reported on Friday.
[...]
Both the woman and her boyfriend worked at a seafood restaurant, and Steensma said the patient may have sensitized herself to the shellfish by repeatedly touching it.

Posted in Science | No Comments »

Dolly, Cloning’s Poster Child, Dies at Age 6

Saturday, February 15th, 2003

Dolly, the first cloned sheep, is dead — of a lung infection — and now the debate’s over whether her poor health was cloning related, as Dolly, Cloning’s Poster Child, Dies at Age 6 explains:

Dolly, aged 6, was put to sleep by veterinarians on Friday after they failed to cure her of a severe lung infection, her creators said.
[...]
In contrast to her hardy cousins, put out to graze on steep hillsides in Scotland, Dolly lived indoors. She reared up on her hind legs to nuzzle visitors, looking for handouts.

Some scientists believe this behavior, and not her lab-dish origins, led to Dolly’s well-documented arthritis. “There is a very real chance Dolly’s illness had nothing to do with cloning,” said Dr. Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology in Massachusetts, a private firm doing cloning research.

“There is a virus … that sheep get at almost precisely Dolly’s age. This virus can cause arthritis and respiratory infections, particularly in animals raised indoors,” he said in a telephone interview.

At least the Roslin Institute team isn’t lying when they say, “It’s OK, honey; we’ll get you a new sheep just like the old one.”

More seriously, if sheep raised indoors are known to get diseases they don’t get in their natural habitat, what does that say about humans working in office buildings and living in apartments?

Posted in Science | No Comments »

Candy Bars Use Wine Lingo In Bid to Justify High Prices

Friday, February 14th, 2003

The humble chocolate bar has gone gourmet. Candy Bars Use Wine Lingo In Bid to Justify High Prices explains:

Bars sold at gourmet food shops now boast names like “Premier Cru,” and “Single Bean Origin.” Turn them over and you’ll read about things like the candy bar’s “vintage” (the year the cocoa was harvested) or the “terroir” of the beans (where they came from). Some tout their “varietals,” or type of bean, as well. High on the totem pole: One company makes a chocolate solely from rare Porcelana beans and sells it for about $75 a pound. By contrast, a pound of Hershey’s chocolate can cost roughly $4.

But here’s where it gets really crazy:

Two months ago, the Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia promoted one of its bartenders, Caesar Bradley, to the position of “Hot Chocolate Sommelier.”

Hot chocolate sommelier? Please.

I love this metaphor:

Every gourmet food producer wants its product to be “the next olive oil,” which has developed such a following that some supermarkets now carry bottles costing $30 a liter.

Posted in Business | No Comments »

Work & Family

Friday, February 14th, 2003

I keep wondering when telecommuting is finally going to take off, and Work & Family offers some suggestions for making it happen:

Those obstacles aside, the Internet can jump-start any flexible-work plan. AJ Marston, a grant writer in Southern California, says, “I started out completely clueless” about how to morph from a full-time office job to the part-time telecommuting lifestyle she wanted. She found www.workingfromanywhere.org, a site run by the International Telework Association & Council, a telecom industry research and advocacy group. By clicking on “Resources-ITAC Resources,” she found statistics and workshop presentations in support of telework — a catch-all term for working from anywhere, including home. Under “Resources-Career,” she found links to other useful sites. All were helpful as she proposed and successfully negotiated for the change she wanted. “The Internet is an invaluable tool,” Ms. Marston says.

The best all-around Web site is www.workoptions.com, by flexibility coach Pat Katepoo of Kaneohe, Hawaii. Ms. Katepoo covers the bases for employees on four options — part-time hours, a compressed workweek, job-sharing and telecommuting. The site lays out some excellent homework for wannabes, with checklists of things to do before approaching the boss. This includes boning up on workplace policies and precedents, such as finding out whether others have been granted schedule changes and how they worked out.

Posted in Business, Technology | No Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »