Comment Re:Riiiiiight. (Score 3, Interesting) 200
I honestly think the interest a kid will show is proportionate to the passion he feels in the words of the teacher.
Comment Exactly what I did (Score 5, Interesting) 200
Given the opportunity to teach Informatics to Diagnostic Radiology Imaging students, almost all in their 20s, I decided to start with a first lesson about history of computing, and I started from the ancient times when the most sophistcated calculator was the abacus.
Guess what? Almost all of them listening, interested about something that's not really about their business.
Submission + - A Solar-Powered 3D Printer Prints Glass from Sand (thisiscolossal.com)
Tx-0 writes: From the article:
Industrial designer and tinkerer Markus Kayser spent the better part of a year building and experimenting with two fantastic devices that harness the sun’s power in some of the world’s harshest climates. The first he calls a Sun Cutter, a low-tech light cutter that uses a large ball lens to focus the sun’s rays onto a surface that’s moved by a cam-guided system. As the surface moves under the magnified light it cuts 2D components like a laser. The project was tested for the first time in August 2010 in the Egyptian desert and Kayser used thin plywood to create the parts for a few pairs of pretty sweet shades. But he didn’t stop there. Next, Kayser began to examine the process of 3D printing. Merging two of the deserts most abundant resources, nearly unlimited quantities of sand and sun, he created the Solar Sinter, a device that melts sand to create 3D objects out of glass.
Industrial designer and tinkerer Markus Kayser spent the better part of a year building and experimenting with two fantastic devices that harness the sun’s power in some of the world’s harshest climates. The first he calls a Sun Cutter, a low-tech light cutter that uses a large ball lens to focus the sun’s rays onto a surface that’s moved by a cam-guided system. As the surface moves under the magnified light it cuts 2D components like a laser. The project was tested for the first time in August 2010 in the Egyptian desert and Kayser used thin plywood to create the parts for a few pairs of pretty sweet shades. But he didn’t stop there. Next, Kayser began to examine the process of 3D printing. Merging two of the deserts most abundant resources, nearly unlimited quantities of sand and sun, he created the Solar Sinter, a device that melts sand to create 3D objects out of glass.
Submission + - Toyota yields to Apple over jailbroken phones (wired.com)
zakkie writes: "Toyota has caved to pressure from Apple and pulled custom themes from jailbroken iPhones. According to ModMyi.com founder Kyle Matthews, a representative of Toyota's ad agency said that Toyota gave in to Apple's request in order to "maintain their good relationship with Apple", and amounted to a direct attack by Apple on jailbroken iPhones."
Submission + - The Awesome Button (makezine.com)
An anonymous reader writes: An awesome hardware hack which demonstrates how easily human interface (eg, Keyboard, Mouse) devices can be created and hacked into ordinary objects, with all the programming done using simple Arduino software environment.
Submission + - 3x efficient petrol engine with no pistons (msn.com) 2
erfnet writes: "A cool new high-efficienty petrol engine is trying to come to market with no radiator, no pistons, no valves, no transmission, and no fluids (except for the fuel). At first glance it has a few similarities with the Wonkel engine, but is more advanced. The engine is only suited for hybrid-electric vehicles, but that's ok for the efficiency they are claiming: over 3x versus today's engines. Now in development, they want to come to market in the next two/three years."
Submission + - NZ researchers build wearable generators (itnews.com.au)
schliz writes: Bioengineers from the University of Auckland are developing soft 'artificial muscles' — dielectric elastomer generators that use the movements of a flexible, non-conductive material to build up charge in attached electrodes.
Submission + - New quantum record: 14 bits! (nanowerk.com)
Tx-0 writes: Quantum physicists from the University of Innsbruck have set another world record: They have achieved controlled entanglement of 14 quantum bits (qubits) and, thus, realized the largest quantum register that has ever been produced. With this experiment the scientists have not only come closer to the realization of a quantum computer but they also show surprising results for the quantum mechanical phenomenon of entanglement.
By now the Innsbruck experimental physicists have succeeded in confining up to 64 particles in an ion trap. "We are not able to entangle this high number of ions yet," says Thomas Monz. "However, our current findings provide us with a better understanding about the behavior of many entangled particles." And this knowledge may soon enable them to entangle even more atoms.
By now the Innsbruck experimental physicists have succeeded in confining up to 64 particles in an ion trap. "We are not able to entangle this high number of ions yet," says Thomas Monz. "However, our current findings provide us with a better understanding about the behavior of many entangled particles." And this knowledge may soon enable them to entangle even more atoms.
Comment Toyota already did it (Score 1) 4
In my Toyota Prius 2010, the onboard CD Player has the ability to rip CDs and store them in the internal HDD.
This feature is also advertised on the Toyota website.
Submission + - CD ripper "incites law breaking" (pcpro.co.uk) 4
Barence writes: "A British firm has been banned from advertising a CD ripping device because it "incites law breaking". The Brennan JB7 is “a CD player with a hard disk that stores up to 5,000 CDs”. The adverts for the Brennan highlight the convenience of ripping your entire CD collection to the device – much like we’ve all been doing for years on our PCs, iPods and other MP3 players. The Advertising Standards Authority has banned the ads after concluding "that the ad misleadingly implied it was acceptable to copy CDs, vinyl and cassettes without the permission of the copyright owner"."
Comment Re:Scanning vinyl albums? (Score 1) 89
There's also this old slashdot article dating back to 2002
Comment April's fool, but... (Score 1) 1
..I'm wondering how long will it take for somebody to actually do it.
It would be the perfect complement to this old /. article: http://news.slashdot.org/story/02/09/05/1814203/Ripping-Vinyl-Via-Your-Scanner
Submission + - MakerBot Introduces 3D Printable Vinyl Records (makerbot.com) 1
An anonymous reader writes: After months of intensive research and development, MakerBot Industries is proud to announce a newly realized capacity of the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic 3D Printer- the ability to print listenable vinyl records from the desktop. Check it out!
Comment Re:Hackers can turn your home computer into a bomb (Score 1) 133
Sometimes I'd wish it could be true: that would make people think twice before opening email attachments!
Darwinian Evolution Considered As a Phase 313
LucidBeast tips a mind-bending report at New Scientist on the latest paradigm-breaking work of Carl Woese, one of whose earlier discoveries was the third branch of life on Earth, the Archaea. Woese and physicist Nigel Goldenfeld argue that, even in its sophisticated modern form, Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection applies only to a recent phase of life on Earth. Woese and Goldenfeld believe that horizontal evolution led to the rise of the genetic code itself. "At the root of this idea is overwhelming recent evidence for horizontal gene transfer — in which organisms acquire genetic material 'horizontally' from other organisms around them, rather than vertically from their parents or ancestors. The donor organisms may not even be the same species. This mechanism is already known to play a huge role in the evolution of microbial genomes, but its consequences have hardly been explored. According to Woese and Goldenfeld, they are profound, and horizontal gene transfer alters the evolutionary process itself."
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"Though a program be but three lines long, someday it will have to be maintained." -- The Tao of Programming
