Comment Re:A daily unreality (Score 1) 412
Pff! I only read "The True Scotsman." No "True Scotsman" would ever print letters like that.
Comment Re:Yes, but (Score 3, Funny) 168
The appropriate demo of the dangers of AC data center power will be to show an elephant losing his entire database due to a power failure. Ominous voiceover: "Unlike an elephant... AC-driven data centers always forget!"
Comment Hmm... (Score 1) 221
These 240,000 metric tons of nutritional assistance... surely these will be cakes?
Submission + - New Technique for Mass-Producing Microbots Inspired by Pop-up Books and Origami (gizmag.com)
Zothecula writes: Inspired by origami and children's pop-up books, Harvard engineers have pioneered a means of mass-producing bee-sized flying microrobots. The breakthrough mechanizes the already state-of-the art process of making Harvard's Mobee robots by hand, by mass producing flat assemblies by the sheet which can be folded and assembled in a single movement. The technique, which cunningly exploits existing machinery for making printed circuit boards, can theoretically be applied to a multitude of electromechanical machines.
Submission + - Harvard engineers develop new manufacturing process for robotic insect hordes (harvard.edu)
KBehemoth writes: According to a press release from Harvard: "A new technique inspired by elegant pop-up books and origami will soon allow clones of robotic insects to be mass-produced by the sheet. Devised by engineers at Harvard, the ingenious layering and folding process enables the rapid fabrication of not just microrobots, but a broad range of electromechanical devices."
Comment All too familiar. (Score 5, Funny) 107
I think we know the number one culprit here, ahem [citation needed] ahem.
Comment Re:No pictures!~ (Score 5, Funny) 272
Couldn't find any pictures of the aliens, but I did locate schematics of the exploration vehicle: http://i.imgur.com/gER2w.jpg
Comment Huh? (Score 1) 225
FTA: Basic research funding is intended to support "fundamental" scientific research that has ostensibly no connection to developing a specific weapon system. This category is the principal source of Pentagon's largesse to universities. And whether the nation should continue to spend huge sums of money in defense R&D, especially at universities, is an issue worthy of debate.
So we should *not* spend defense R&D money at universities, where it has arguably the highest chance of benefitting the public? M'kay.
So we should *not* spend defense R&D money at universities, where it has arguably the highest chance of benefitting the public? M'kay.
Comment Doggone it! (Score 1) 145
Back in my day, we had to dissect each other while running uphill to campus in ten feet of snow and manage to sew ourselves back up before roll call. Of course, back then you could buy bread for a nickel and still have five cents left over for malt shakes, and dancing was all proper-like, none of this "flopping" or "dunking" you kids do now, and when I got back from the war I... *snore*
Comment Mission accomplished! (Score 1) 507
Google developers, you can relax now and start adding massive amounts of bloat that drove me from Firefox to Chrome!
Comment Killbot fauna (Score 2) 122
BigDog, RoboCheetah, now this ostrich thing. Imagine herds of these just roaming the earth after the nuclear armageddon / pigbirdhorse flu armageddon, scavenging for fuel and occasionally blasting each other to smithereens. What will the alien archaeologists think?
Comment Hint at fraud? (Score 0) 304
Reek of fraud would be a better choice of words. Spew forth a putrid stench of fraud, even. Bash you over the head with a hammer of fraud in a dark alley of fraud, leaving you bleeding and unconscious in a puddle of fraud as dismal raindrops of fraud fall from a fraudulent sky.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that it was very likely fraud.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that it was very likely fraud.
Submission + - Pop-up book MEMS
KBehemoth writes: "Researchers at Harvard Microrobotics Lab have developed a new fabrication process inspired by children's pop-up books and straddling the border between MEMS and large-scale machining. This How-It's-Made style video explains the process and how it is used to make a flapping-wing robotic insect from a flat structure (there is also a video of a pop-up icosahedron). The paper is on the cover of the latest issue of the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering and describes more details and structures, including a tiny scale model of the Wright flyer."
