Month: February 2009
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Reflecting on a New Generation of Mirrors
Gallery – Reflecting on a new generation of mirrors – Image 1 – New Scientist Continuing on the theme of interesting optics, Andrew Hicks, a mathematician, has created mirrors that accomplish some amazing feats. Imagine looking at text in a mirror, and the text is not backwards. Imagine 360-degree panoramas without distortion. It’s all pretty cool stuff. All…
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Navy Says Combat Robots Multiplying Fast, Need “Battlefield Ethics” Pronto
Machine Takeover: Navy Says Combat Robots Multiplying Fast, Need “Battlefield Ethics” Pronto Things like this make me nervous. I love the idea of technology and robots (building one would be a blast), but my concern is that war and combat will stop being dangerous. When that happens, it will be too easy to resort to…
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iPhone Wishlist
I’ve been an iPhone user since the first weekend the 3G came out, and so far I love it. Prior to the iPhone, I was a Blackberry user for a while. My reasons for waiting to change were: My contract with Verizon conveniently ended the same month the 3G came out. AT&T had lousy coverage…
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The Secret in Building 26
I just finished reading The Secret in Building 26: The Untold Story of How America Broke the Final U-boat Enigma Code. What a fascinating read! I’ve written before about the UK’s contribution to code breaking during WWII (Neglect of Bletchley condemned and Bletchley Park Update), but this is the first time I learned about some of…
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Jury Duty – Epic Fail
Today, I was scheduled for Jury Duty. Actually, I was an alternate with instructions to call a number after 3:00 PM the day before. The instructions said there would be a recording to let us know whether we would be needed or not. Like a good citizen, I called the number at 3:15 PM, but…
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Smallest Exoplanet Is Most Earth-like Yet
Smallest Exoplanet Is Most Earth-like Yet | Wired Science from Wired.com This is really interesting. It’s a planet that is twice the size of earth, and it orbits a star similar to our sun. The main similarity is that it is rocky instead of a gas giant like all the other planets found so far.…