Category: News

R.I.P. Amateur Science

 

 

In my recent issue of Wired, I was saddened to read an article on how the amateur exploration of science and chemistry is being criminalized. It’s all in the interests of anti-terrorism or anti fireworks laws. Mostly the ‘dumbing down’ of science has been because of the lawsuit happy nature of our society. (Gee, could the greedy lawyers and the lawyer law makers be the root cause of this? I wonder…) When the United States no longer has people winning Nobel prizes, or creating new technology, or science classes in schools become electives, all will be lost. All of the people who cry "but letting kids play with chemistry sets is dangerous and irresponsible! Think of the children!" Bah! If you give a bright kid the right tools to learn with they won’t kill themselves. Some of the less bright ones might get some injuries from adding water to an acid or something like that, but it’s a lesson learned. If enough do that then you will weed out the idiots. Harsh I know but that’s life. You never get anywhere by hiding at home and living life through what you see on TV. Having hands on experience is what makes you learn how and why things work. Look at how popular magazines like MAKE or Ready Made are. That’s because over the recent years the whole ‘hands on lets see what’s inside the black box’ creativity that made this country what is it has been bashed about it’s head and neck by litigation. Heck, even buying parts of a healthily chemistry set can get you fined or even jailed. What is this world coming to?

Anyway, here are a few links that can help open the doors to scientific exploration: 

Household Chemistry from the International Order of Nitrogen

DIY – Hollow Out A Light Bulb

DIY – Alcohol Backpacking Stove

Scientific American’s "The Amateur Scientist"

Henley’s Formulas for Home & Workshop

Don’t break any laws with this knowledge and try not to hurt yourself. Remember that part of science is having ethics and a broader look of the world around you. Think of the impact your experiments will have on others. Be smart and responsible. And if you hurt yourself it’s your own fault.

Fork and Knife vs. Fork and Spoon

SilverwareI know a bit about what is going on here. My wife is from Asia and they have some odd table manners there. A big one is how you eat your food. Now I was brought up thinking that my fork was the primary weapon of choice when attacking a meal. I mean, what’s better than a fork for stabbing at steak and potatoes, right? My spoon was for whatever was too fine to impale or scoop up with the tines of the fork, stuff like Jello and soup. Well it turns out that other places have something against the fork as the number one go to utensil. The spoon has surpassed the fork in usefulness in these cultures all together. If food needs to go anywhere near your mouth, you use the Spoon. The poor fork has been relegated to the lowly task of loading food into the spoon and to stab at the occasional tidbit that is too far away to safely scoop into the bowl of the spoon. What a sad time it is for the fork in these far off lands. And then there is the knife, don’t get me started on the knife. In these parts, your knife has but for one purpose in it’s life: to cut. That’s it. Never is it to be used to push, prod, or otherwise assist the food onto or into anything else.

Did I mention that the inhabitants of these places are rather steadfast in their utensil beliefs? Oh yeah, to the point of having the knife ripped from your hand and replaced with the spoon and then being told that you eat with said spoon. It’s like some strange form of brainwashing once you get ‘in country’. I wasn’t prepared for it at all.  My wife’s family appeared to be sane enough but when it came to dinner time they all ganged up on me as if I had been eating peas with my knife at a state dinner! After trying to tell them and giving repeated demonstrations of my proficiency at feeding myself with a fork, I realized that as people say, ‘you can’t fight city hall’. True enough, once I gave up this silly notion my fork being a main force tool, things got better. After a while they stopped pointing and staring at me while I ate. Nothing like feeding time at the monkey house I suppose, but it’s not so much fun once they learn table manners.

Sometimes I miss my fork…

[via Simply Dumb] 

Food fight infuriates Filipinos at home and abroad

A Mad Dash At The Gate

 

 

 

 

 

Finally! I don’t know how many times I’ve been boarding the plane and have wondered why they a) Don’t use both doors at the same time too load the passengers on, and b) why don’t they board passengers with window seats and no carry on luggage first? Looks as if the airline people have realized that the extra time it takes for people to crawl over the legs of the other passengers that cram themselves into their seats first is costing them money. Remember, the less time a plane sits on the ground the more money it makes them.

[via Boing Boing]

Airlines Try Smarter Bording 

Genibo

Genibo

Ah, it looks like there is already a replacement in the works to fill the void left by Sony’s announcement to discontinue the robotic pet dog, Aibo. The new robot, produced by a Korean company Dasatech, will understand 100 spoken words like ‘sit’, and ‘wag your tail’. It won’t move as fast as the Aibo did but it will be quicker than the now discontinued i-Cybie. 

[via Robot Gossip] 

Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition)

New Mexico Spaceport: Open For Business

New Mexico Spaceport
Not quite ready for the Heart of Gold or Eagle One to pay a visit right at the moment, but America’s first commercial spaceport is getting ready for business. In July they will be launching their first small commercial rocket and after that, as they say, the sky is the limit (well someone had to say it).

New Mexico Spaceport: Open For Business

Doctor Who – Tooth and Claw – Review

Another week, another review of the the latest Dr. Who episode if you want your spoilers. I liked this one better than the last one, much more action but the foreshadowing button was pressed a tad too hard for my tastes at the end. Also, it seems that the Scottish are used to large blue boxes appearing out of thin air in the countryside… Anyway, read the review, its a good one.

Doctor Who – Tooth and Claw – Review