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Comment Re:A curse or a blessing? (Score 1) 5

by garthsundem (#38897729) Attached to: Teach Your Toddler Perfect Pitch
Ha! Spectacularly said! I remember hearing this discussion of tuning in college but would never have pulled it from the dark ages of freshman theory, nor said it as well. In fact, when I was there, Cornell had one of the country's best gamelan orchestras. Okay, I just checked and it's still there: http://music.cornell.edu/about-us/facilities-and-instruments/cornell-gamelan/ There were some rooms the students with perfect pitch avoided and this was certainly one of them (the other, I'm afraid was the room in which our jazz ensemble practiced...). I remember thinking the gamelan was a wonderful cacophony -- that said, I also listen to Hendrix.
Robotics

Submission + - A Swarm of (nano?) Quadrotors (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: This one is just for fun.
You may have seen quadrotors doing their stuff so many times — but this is different. A swarm of small quadrotors seems so much more threatening...
Check out the smiley at the end of the video if you need reassurance that they are friendly.
Twitter

Submission + - British tourists banned from USA for single tweet (bbc.co.uk) 1

Submitted by
mutube
mutube writes: "Tourists visiting the USA have may want to watch what they say, after two British tourists were refused entry on security grounds following a single tweet:

Before his trip, Leigh Van Bryan wrote that he was going to "destroy America". He insisted he was referring to simply having a good time — but was sent home. Trade association Abta told the BBC that the case highlighted that holidaymakers should never do anything to raise "concern or suspicion in any way". The US Department for Homeland Security picked up Mr Bryan's messages ahead of his holiday in Los Angeles. The 26-year-old bar manager wrote a message to a friend on the micro-blogging service, saying: "Free this week, for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America." "The Homeland Security agents were treating me like some kind of terrorist," Mr Bryan said. "I kept saying they had got the wrong meaning from my tweet."

In case the intended meaning is lost in translation, he was talking about having a lot to drink."
Space

Submission + - NASA finds 'Alien' Matter From Beyond Our Solar Sy (space.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: For the very first time, a NASA spacecraft has detected matter from outside our solar system — material that came from elsewhere in the galaxy, researchers announced today (Jan. 31).
This so-called interstellar material was spotted by NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX), a spacecraft that is studying the edge of the solar system from its orbit about 200,000 miles (322,000 kilometers) above Earth.

"This alien interstellar material is really the stuff that stars and planets and people are made of — it's really important to be measuring it," David McComas, IBEX principal investigator and assistant vice president of the Space Science and Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said in a news briefing today from NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Submission + - Women not following through with recommended breas

Submitted by
garthsundem
garthsundem writes: "A study of 64,659 women, recently published in the journal Academic Radiology, found that while 1,246 of these women were at high enough breast cancer risk to recommend additional screening with MRI, only 173 of these women returned to the clinic within a year for the additional screening."

Submission + - GeekDad Puzzle: Stair Wars

Submitted by
garthsundem
garthsundem writes: "Puzzle: how many people will I encounter as I "run" (read: desperately ooze) the stairs at work? It's kinda diabolical this week but as always worth $50 at ThinkGeek. It's Wired's GeekDad Puzzle of the Week."

Submission + - Everything you thought you knew about learning is (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Taking notes during class? Topic-focused study? A consistent learning environment? According to Robert Bjork, director of the UCLA Learning and Forgetting Lab, distinguished professor of psychology, and massively renowned expert on packing things in your brain in a way that keeps them from leaking out, all are three are exactly opposite the best strategies for learning.

Comment Garth Sundem (Score 1) 56

by garthsundem (#33055310) Attached to: Plastic Bottle Catamaran Crosses The Pacific Ocean
Wow, did you see the picture of that thing (http://www.upi.com/story/image/fs/12801765546116)? Plastic bottles maybe, but looks like just for flotation--the mast and sails look built from stronger stuff, eh? I like the "oh sh*t" igloo for the cockpit. Bet that thing's watertight. Still, trust fund or no trust fund, it takes guts and probably a whole lotta patience to ride that sucka across the Pacific. Wonder what the support was like?

Submission + - New Math App Opens Can of Whoopass on Uncertainty (youtube.com)

Submitted by garthsundem
garthsundem writes: A YouTube clip of me explaining how to mathematically calculate your chances of success with girl X across the bar. The clips supports the new iPhone app based on my book Geek Logik: 50 Foolproof Equations for Everyday Life. Here's a write-up of the app:

Wouldn't it be great if there were clear-cut answers to all of life's questions: Do you have a snowball's chance in hell with her? How many drinks should you have at the company holiday party? Should you apologize? Whose family should you visit this holiday season? Now there are. Based on the bestselling book by Garth Sundem, Geek Logik for iPhone and iPod Touch harnesses the awesome powers of math and humor to open a massive can of whoopass on uncertainty. Simply set sliders to answer humorous questions (Days slept on couch in past month, Hours of sleep needed to remain civil with telemarketers) and Geek Logik runs the numbers and kicks out an answer.

Now, standing across the bar from a potentially significant someone, you no longer need to wonder Am I good enough? Am I sexy enough? Am I but a nematode ripe for squishing under her fearsome stilettos? Just whip out your iPhone (discreetly, please) and ask the app. Booyah—problem solved! And with the stamp of ABSOLUTE MATHEMATICAL CERTAINTY. Or at least with much more certainty than the magic eight ball or outdated decision-making strategy known as "thinking about it".

Perfect for the geek in your life (look to the left, look to the right—if neither's a geek...well, you get the point).

Get the app based on the book that John Tierney at the NY Times called "wickedly ingenious" and that Will Shortz called "a hoot!" As seen on Good Morning America, CNN, the BBC and mentioned in Wired, Men's Health, Publisher's Weekly, Seed, and Sky & Telescope.

Contact: garthsundem@yahoo.com

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