gregladen | May 7, 2011The games developer David Braben and some colleagues [developed] something called Raspberry Pi. It's a whole computer on a tiny circuit board - not much more than an ARM processor, a USB port, and an HDMI connection. They plugged a keyboard into one end, and hooked the other into a TV they had brought with them.
Yeah, yeah, help the little British school children yadayadayada. Let me know how that goes. Mean time, I WANT SOME OF THESE. I can imagine buying them six on a card off the wall at the supermarket!
One, Imma build into a belt buckle with the usb cord and video cord as the belt…
gregladen | May 6, 2011So Amanda had this TV. It had a remote. The remote sucked. It was broken. Then I moved in and with me came a universal remote. Lucky Amanda. I programmed the universal remote (a Radioshack 5 in 1) to handle the TV as well as a DVD player and a stereo. The remote handled everything. The old remotes hung around for a while occasionally being used, but then disappeared. Then we got a different DVD player and I had forgotten that the remote was a universal jobbie, so we just started using the remote for the DVD player Then we got an iPod cradle with speakers and a Roku. I purchased a…
gregladen | May 5, 2011This will be of interest to many of you:
Karen Stollznow and Elizabeth Loftus Join the Board
Amherst, NY-May 5, 2011-The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) welcomes two additions to its executive council. Karen Stollznow and Elizabeth Loftus recently accepted posts.
Karen Stollznow has spent over a decade investigating pseudoscientific and paranormal beliefs and practices, including ghosts, aura reading, psychics, medical intuitives, alternatives therapies, mediums, faith healing, conspiracy theories, cults, pareidolia (seeing faces on places other than heads), religion, haunted houses,…
gregladen | May 5, 2011May 5th, 1961. Freedom 7. The United States took its first small step on its journey to the moon...
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Do you hear the nervousness in his voice? I think the whole thing got a bit more causal, but not necessarily much safer, later on in the space program.
"I had not realized the intensity of the emotions and feelings that so many people had for me, the other astronauts, the whole damned manned space program. This was the first sense of adulation, a sense of public response, a sense of public expression of thanks for…
gregladen | May 5, 2011May 5th. The Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo falls on the fifth this year. Auspicious? No. Calendric. But the fifth of May is a day on which interesting things tend to have happened. For Mexico, this is the day on which the Mexican army defeated the French army at Puebla in 1862. Strangely, the holiday is celebrated in the United States to a greater degree than in Mexico. Go figure.
This is also the International Day of Reason, and this is also the day that John Scopes was arrested for teaching evolution in Dayton, Tennessee, in the year 1925. That led to the famous "Scopes Monkey Trial…
gregladen | May 4, 2011I have always thought, naively and probably incorrectly, that what defined Accommodationist is what they think, not how they argue. At the same time, I have always thought that what defined a "New Atheist" is how we argued, and not what we think.
When I say "always thought" I mean for the last four years max, and when I say "naively and probably incorrectly" I might be only kidding.
The "new" part of "New Atheism" to me has always been this: You are willing to get up into some dude's face to make your argument because religion, with its centuries of experience in being on the scene for…
gregladen | May 2, 2011Tea party clarifies its position on race and racism. Not current, but increasingly relevant:
I didn't know about the reparations. Did you?
But in all seriousness, I'm so glad the right wing has finally come out of the closet and defined itself honestly.
gregladen | May 2, 2011It seems like every time I take Huxley (now 18 months old) to the doctor, the following things happen: 1) Somebody says "Well, he won't need to get stuck with any needles for a long while now .... his next scheduled immunization is [insert phrase indicating 'a long time into the future']"; and 2) Huxley gets stuck with some needles.
The last time, a few days ago, was especially bad.
We hung around in the exam room for a while, and Huxley was in a very happy mood. He learned to say "Elmo" and how to point to the "Otoscope" when asked. The doctor, having recently had a baby of her own,…
gregladen | May 2, 2011Worker exposure to high levels of nuclera radiation and the distribution of radioactive materials about the landscape and in possibly unexpected places are the stories of the week at Fukushima. Also, officials are wondering, how have the potential effects of a tsunami at Fukushima (and, apparently, it is possible to have a tsunami here) changed given that the reactor is now a series of large pools of highly contaminated water?
The power being supplied to cooling pumps at Units 1,2 and 3 had been switched back to emergency generators because the connections established several days ago need…
gregladen | May 1, 2011President Obama spoke at 10:36 CT.
He gave a quick review of 9/11 and of ten years of work by military and counter-terrorism professionals, citing accomplishments as well as failure to catch Osama bin Laden.
President Obama made capture/killing of bin Laden top CIA priority. In August, they picked up a lead that then took months to run to ground, leading to a compound deep inside Pakistan. The operation to capture him was authorized last week. Today, the operation was carried out in Abbottabad, Pakistan, 150km north of Islamabad. No US casualties. There was a firefight in which bin…
gregladen | May 1, 2011Good morning. Today is "Mayday Day" in Minneapolis. Mayday is a holiday widely celebrated by the community of South Minneapolis. People from North, Northeast and Southeast are welcome, but I'm not sure they know about it. People from "soutwest" Minneapolis ARE from South Minneapolis and they need to learn that using the term "Soutwest Minneapolis" is elitist and exclusionary, which is not the way of the culture of South. No, not at all.
Typically, you won't hear about Mayday in the news because mainstream entities such as news agencies don't quite know what to do with it. Thousands of…
gregladen | April 30, 2011John Hunter puts all the problems of the world on a 4'x5' plywood board -- and lets his 4th-graders solve them. At TED2011, he explains how his World Peace Game engages schoolkids, and why the complex lessons it teaches -- spontaneous, and always surprising -- go further than classroom lectures can.
gregladen | April 29, 2011Medical ethicist Harvey Fineberg shows us three paths forward for the ever-evolving human species: to stop evolving completely, to evolve naturally -- or to control the next steps of human evolution, using genetic modification, to make ourselves smarter, faster, better. Neo-evolution is within our grasp. What will we do with it?
Bullshit or brilliant?
gregladen | April 28, 2011The feeling of security and the reality of security don't always match, says computer-security expert Bruce Schneier. At TEDxPSU, he explains why we spend billions addressing news story risks, like the "security theater" now playing at your local airport, while neglecting more probable risks -- and how we can break this pattern.
gregladen | April 28, 2011Jeff Masters' WunderBlog is a key source of information on any current weather events:
A stunning tornado outbreak of incredible violence has left at least 202 dead across the Eastern U.S.; injuries probably number over a thousand, with 600 injured in the town of Tuscaloosa alone. The tornadoes carved huge swaths of damage, completely flattening large sections of many towns, and damage from the storms is likely to be the greatest in history for any tornado outbreak. Hardest hit was Alabama, with at least 149 dead...
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gregladen | April 27, 2011ERV joined Scienceblogs on this day in 2008. Seems like only a couple of years ago. Happy Anniversary, ERV!
gregladen | April 27, 2011Huxley loves to go to bed at night. You say "Huxley, time for bed" and he runs for the bedroom giggling.
Sometimes he stops on the way to read a book, or more exactly, get a book read to him because he can't read yet. Sometimes the book is Goodnight Moon.
But some kids are not as sanguine with the idea of gong to bed at night and can give their parents a hard time. For those kids, we have this:
Go the F**k to Sleep is ...
...a bedtime book for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don't always send a toddler sailing off to dreamland.…
gregladen | April 27, 2011Yes, apparently.
PROPOSED INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS PUT SCIENCE EDUCATION, PUBLIC SCHOOLS AT RISK IN TEXAS
Vendor's creationist materials could be used in public school science classes around the state
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 25, 2011
CONTACTS:
Dan Quinn (TFN), 512.322.0545, 512.799.3379 (mobile); Robert Luhn (NCSE), 510.601.7203 x314, luhn@ncse.com
Science in Texas public schools would take a shocking leap backward if the State Board of Education approves newly proposed instructional materials that promote creationism and reject established, mainstream science on evolution, said the Texas…