stuff 12-8-06

Animals in the womb
AWESOME photos, well worth looking, if not reading the whole article.
http://tinyurl.com/utu8n

Blurb * Lulu
Personal bookprinting
(Inexpensive alternative to Apple iPhoto books et. al.)
http://tinyurl.com/yj3vs6

5 Displays You Can’t Buy
http://tinyurl.com/vcdq6

The Cyberlux EverOn LED Portable Light – a 'must-have' for the
emergency kit from Around The Home (296 articles) December 8, 2006 We
do get excited about useful things that become more useful in an
emergency and the Cyberlux EverOn fits that bill perfectly – it is
an easy-to-use, inexpensive emergency light that offers over 500
hours of nightlight level light, or 60 hours of a medium, room-
filling light, or 30 hours of intensely bright white light – all
from one set of 4 AA batteries. It can perform this seemingly magical
feat because it is bulb free - it uses Cyberlux solid-state LED
technology which is 90 percent more energy efficient than
conventional incandescent lighting elements found in most lanterns
and flashlights. And an ideal safety light for young children.
http://tinyurl.com/tkojs

KBPublisher - open-source Knowledge Base software
Posted Dec 7th 2006 11:00AM by Jason Clarke
Filed under: Business, Developer, Internet, Utilities, Windows,
Linux, Productivity, Open Source, Unix
At one time or another, every company I've ever worked for has said
"we should really build a knowledge base on that topic", or something
to that effect. And inevitably they did, with good and not-so-good
results. It's too bad that I didn't know about KBPublisher back then,
that's for sure. Some of the home-grown "solutions" were so bad that
you'd be lucky to find any of the useful information that was surely
in them.

http://tinyurl.com/wgzvn

Firefly MMORPG Announced
Posted by CowboyNeal on Thursday December 07, @11:53PM
from the space-ships-and-capes dept.
bishiraver writes
"Multiverse has announced that they have gained rights to a Firefly
Massively Multiplayer Online Game. Multiverse is a company started by
several former Netscape employees, and they have developed an engine/
network that works for all of their games. They intend to break into
the MMO industry by being an MMO publisher of sorts. By
standardizing, they can provide a less expensive alternative to the
tens of millions of dollars and several years it takes to currently
develop an MMO. They have said they will hire out a studio to build
the game for them. Corey Bridgets, Massive's Executive Producer,
says: 'If you're doing science fiction, you have to really think it
out and create an incredibly rich environment that is compelling in
its own right, and worth exploring and going back to week after week.
That's what Joss Whedon did with Firefly.'"
http://tinyurl.com/y3dq94

Tongue not tied. Gene Simmons, eat your heart out. The nectar bat
(Anoura fistulata) boasts a tongue 50% longer than its entire body, a
record for all mammals, including 1970s rock stars. At 8.5
centimeters, the tongue is so long that it's anchored deep inside the
creature's chest cavity rather than at the base of the mouth. The
researcher who made the find, reported 7 December in Nature,
speculates that the Ecuadorian bat's tongue evolved to feed from the
8.5-cm-long funnel-like flowers of the Centropogon nigricans plant.
(Photo: Murray Cooper)

http://tinyurl.com/yzf2mu

I AM ALL FOR INNOVATIVE INEXPENSIVE USE OF EXISTING TECHNOLOGY.....
Silly String in Iraq
American troops in Iraq apparently use Silly String to reveal hidden
trip wires that trigger bombs. From the Associated Press:
Before entering a building, troops squirt the plastic goo, which can
shoot strands about 10 to 12 feet, across the room. If it falls to
the ground, no trip wires. If it hangs in the air, they know they
have a problem. The wires are otherwise nearly invisible.

In other cases of battlefield improvisation in Iraq, U.S. soldiers
have bolted scrap metal to Humvees in what has come to be known as
"Hillybilly Armor." Medics use tampons to plug bullet holes in the
wounded until they can be patched up.

Also, soldiers put condoms and rubber bands around their rifle
muzzles to keep out sand. And troops have welded old bulletproof
windshields to the tops of Humvees to give gunners extra protection.
They have dubbed it "Pope's glass" — a reference to the barriers
that protect the pontiff.
Link (Thanks, Gabe Adiv, who is growing a mustache for charity!)
posted by David Pescovitz at 06:00:43 PM permalink | Other blogs'
comments

http://tinyurl.com/yahuo6

I STILL HAVE NOT FIGURED THIS ONE OUT:

Forgotten invention: the Rolamite
Kaden says:
Ever hear about Rolamites? The only "basic mechanism" invented in the
20th century, they came out of Sandia Labs in the mid '60's.
I've prototyped a few variations, and they're *damned* fascinating...
almost like alien technology, or something that fell through that rip
in the space-time continuum that leads to the parallel universe.
A guy named Don Wilkes developed them, and they're pretty freakin'
cool. A couple of rollers tracked into a spring metal band, and Bob's
yer uncle: stored energy with (no shit) frictionless constrained
movement,
I remember reading about them in PopSci when they were first
developed, then promptly forgot about them, what with being 9 years
old and all. They popped back into my mind last night while pondering
the Zen of primary mechanisms.
They currently seem to be *somewhat* popular in force sensor
mechanisms, and there's ongoing research into using 'em in prosthetic
joints, but for all intents and purposes, they've fallen through the
cracks, Makerwise.
Link
posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:46:39 PM permalink | Other blogs'
comments

http://tinyurl.com/y9qmhd