jwz

JAILBREAK ZEPPELIN!

2009-07-08T22:37:43Z

Spanish police thwart jail break using remote-controlled Zeppelin

Three people have been arrested after their plan to aid the escape of an inmate from prison in Las Palmas on the Canary Islands was discovered by police. They planned to use a 13 foot long remote-controlled airship to deliver night vision goggles, climbing gear and camouflage paint to the Italian convict who would then use the equipment to escape from prison.
It is thought the inmate, identified by police as 52 year-old Giulio B, would use the gear to scale down a prison wall at night where a car would be waiting to take him into hiding.
"He would be transported to a foreign country where he would hide out while he waited for false identity documents and would continue to oversee the shipment of drugs to our country," a statement released by Spanish police said.
The three people arrested by police had sent up camp in a camouflaged tent on a hill some 600 metres away from the jail where they spent weeks observing security measures at the prison through powerful binoculars and telephoto lenses. The team of two Spaniards and a Urugauan had set up motion detection sensors around their camp to warn of anyone approaching their stake-out site.
Authorities said they learnt of the plan and intercepted the package containing the inflatable zeppelin when it arrived in the Canary Islands from Bergamo.

the time is now...

2009-07-08T19:34:33Z

...12:34:56 07-08-09.

Previously.

dnalounge update

2009-07-08T04:43:06Z

DNA Lounge update, wherein even ABC's own investigators think ABC is out of control.

The Zeiram Burqa and other Tentacular Fashions.

2009-07-08T04:16:05Z

This is just like Hubba Hubba Revue!

2009-07-07T23:15:28Z

I, for one, welcome our new seething, glistening bryozoan underlords.

2009-07-07T04:27:51Z

'Sewer Monster' discovered below Cameron Village

The sewer monster is made up of thousands of tiny organisms called bryozoans, or moss animacules, said N.C. State University biologist Thomas Kwak. Invertebrates, they bunch together in colonies and feed with tiny tentacles.
"They can get as big as the size of a watermelon," he said.
They've been known to clog pipes, but Raleigh officials aren't worried, even though bryozoans can move up to 10 centimeters a day. "I don't know if we've seen anything move on its own inside a sanitary sewer line," Public Utilities Director Dale Crisp said.

Previously, previously.

Get me off this crazy thing.

2009-07-06T18:01:19Z

An early peek at Robert Rodriguez's next
dangerous overscraping of the bottom
of the cultural barrel:

Previously, previously.

A "Dead Ringers" quote here would be traditional.

2009-07-06T17:46:27Z

Circumcision Knife (1770s)

Skull Saw (1830s-60s)

Tonsil Guillotine (1860s)

Previously.

This is why you can't have a jetpack.

2009-07-05T17:44:11Z

Headlines from The Future:
DEADLY MONORAIL CRASH.

dnalounge update

2009-07-05T07:53:30Z

DNA Lounge update, wherein the kiosks are on the chopping block.

dnalounge update

2009-07-02T00:14:15Z

DNA Lounge update, wherein the War on Fun is engaged.

mark your calendars

2009-07-01T21:38:46Z

You are hereby advised:

Thu, Jul 02:   The Coathangers @ Hemlock Tavern

Thu, Jul 02:   Emilie Simon @ Cafe du Nord

Fri, Jul 03:   Stripmall Architecture @ Hotel Utah

Thu, Jul 16:   Girl in a Coma @ Bottom of the Hill

Fri, Jul 17:   Le Tigre @ Bottom of the Hill

Wed, Jul 22:   La Roux @ Cafe du Nord

Sun, Aug 16:   Jill Tracy & Nicki Jaine @ Cafe du Nord

Thu, Aug 20:   Stripmall Architecture @ Cafe du Nord

Tue, Aug 25:   The Prids @ Bottom of the Hill

Thu, Oct 22:   Dragonette @ 330 Ritch

The Meat Card Frazetta Challenge

2009-07-01T18:08:27Z

but can I get one of my intestinal parasite?

2009-07-01T17:57:10Z

Now pregnant women could have the chance to hold a life-size model of their unborn baby.

I didn't know ultrasounds gave you volumetric data. Neat.

Congratulations Human, You've Been Accepted to Singularity University

2009-07-01T17:50:43Z

The Extinction Oscillator (not to be confused with the Oscillation Overthruster or the Flux Capacitor)

2009-07-01T17:46:25Z

The Extinction Oscillator

Using the revised timescales and Fourier analysis, Rohde and Muller looked for a periodic signal in the history of biodiversity. They were looking for evidence of a 26-million-year extinction cycle that had been hinted at in the 1980s; the strong peak in their power spectrum indicating a 62-million-year cycle was a surprise. We found evidence of the same cycle in three more data sets.
Nothing known in the motion of the Earth itself can make a 62-million-year cycle. Further, the laws of celestial mechanics rule out any object orbiting the Sun with such a long period; it would be so distant that the gravity of other stars would pull it away. But other astronomical cycles are still in play.
It takes about 200 million years for the Sun to complete one orbit around the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Moreover, the galaxy is a thin disk, and there is also a motion along a vertical direction. As our solar system slowly orbits the Milky Way's center, it oscillates through the galactic plane with a period of around 65 million years. When we move up in the disk, we are pulled back down by gravity, coasting past the midpoint, then rising back up again, akin to a weight bobbing up and down on a spring.
Was this the missing mechanism? In fact, Rohde and Muller had considered this and dismissed it, for the same reason almost anyone would: One would think that any effect would occur when we passed through the disk of the galaxy, or perhaps when we got very far away from it. But that would happen twice per cycle, every 30 million years or so, which doesn't explain the 62-million-year signal.
It turns out that the biodiversity minima of the 62-million-year cycle happens when the Sun is "bobbed up" on only one side of the galaxy, when the solar system is on the disk's upper, "north" side. The galaxy's north side lies toward the constellation Virgo, as well as the largest concentration of mass in our neighborhood, the Local Supercluster some 60 million light-years away. This supercluster is so massive that its gravity pulls our galaxy toward it at a velocity of about 200 kilometers per second.
As our galaxy falls into the Local Supercluster, it should disturb this gas and create a shock wave, like the bow shock of a jet plane. Shocks in hot gas at such high speeds generate cascades of high-energy subatomic particles and radiation called "cosmic rays." These should be showering the north side of the galaxy's disk. We are protected by the galactic magnetic field, much as the Earth's magnetic field protects our planet. When we rise to the north side, we are less protected -- and the ensuing flux of cosmic rays contains particles of such energy that they can reach the Earth's surface.

Headphone recommendations

2009-06-29T07:12:56Z

Dear Lazyweb,

With the new phone, I find myself in need of new headphones. My last three phones, two Treos and a Centro, used 2.5mm 4-band jacks. The Pre uses a far more sensible 3.5mm 4-band jack, but that means my headphones no longer fit. I don't want to use an adapter because they are bulky and, in my experience, make it more likely that you'll break the headphone jack.

My previous headphones were "Shure e2c", and I loved them. The sound quality was great, they fit well, and they blocked out outside noise better than any other headphone of the size that I've ever used. The cables tended to fray, though. I had the 2.5mm 4-band version, but they also used to make them in a 3.5mm 4-band version. However, apparently the whole e2c line has since been discontinued.

Shure's new product line baffles me. I can't tell what corresponding new product is, if there even is one. It kind of looks like they have decided to only make headphones with 3-band jacks, and if you want to use it as a headset on a cell phone, you have to use an adapter. That sounds bulky and irritating (and also would put the mic quite far away from your face, I assume.)

Before the e2c, I tried "Etymotic ER-6", but I hated them. I gave them away after two days. They had no bass response at all, and were not nearly as sound-isolating as the e2c were. And I they had the wrong sized jack, too.

So, because Shure's site confused me, I took someone's recommendation and picked up the "V-Moda Vibe Duo" headphones (3.5mm, 4-band). I've been using them for a week, and I kind of hate them. They block out basically no outside sound. They sound muddy. The midrange is weird. And about a quarter of the time when I take them out of my ears, the rubber ear-bud tips stay behind in my ear canal and I have to go digging, even using the smallest size.

My requirements are:

3.5mm 4-band, so I can talk on the phone with it too (though the primary use is music).
In-ear-canal. Not those iPhone-like buds that just sit on the surface. Not over-the-ear cans. Don't bother telling me about those, no matter how much you love them.
Extremely sound-isolating. With the e2c, wearing the headphones without anything playing sounded like wearing earplugs. I loved that.
Good sound quality. I'm no audiophile, but I can tell when it's crap. Bass is better than "perfectly flat", but bass to the exclusion of all else is bad.

So what should I get?

Update: I picked up the Ultimate Ears SuperFi 4vi. Conveniently, the Apple store stocks these. I've only used them for a few minutes so far, but they seem pretty good. Nice isolation, and sound quality is very similar to (possibly better than) the e2c. So I'm hopeful.

One nice thing about the Modas was that the cable was cloth, so they didn't tangle as easily. More manufacturers should do that.

Facebook "pages" versus "groups"

2009-06-28T08:49:30Z

Dear Lazyweb,

Do any of you know a clue-enabled individual within the Facebook hivemind who would be willing to talk to me, and allow me to browbeat them into fixing a bug / design flaw?

DNA Lounge has a so-called "page" on Facebook. We post our events there. However, there is apparently no way for us to send event invitations to everyone who has friended ("fanned") DNA Lounge.

If this DNA Lounge "page" were a "group" instead, I could send event invitations to everyone who had friended ("joined") the group. But clearly "pages" are intended for businesses: they have build-in fields like address and hours of operation. "Groups" don't.

baconmonkey has a hunch that "pages" are a legacy thing: something that Facebook thought was a good idea once and have since abandoned. I'm not sure why he thinks that, since they still seem to be pushing them as the thing that businesses should use.

Maybe we should just delete our "page" and create a "group" instead. I don't know. I can't tell.

What I would like is for someone who actually works for Facebook to tell me their understanding of how a business like mine should use their service.

I want them to either fix this bug (the bug that you can't send event invitations to "fans" of your "page") or tell me the right way to promote my events to these people who have explicitly expressed their interest.

I'm asking here because Facebook apparently has no tech support and no way to contact them that is more direct than spitting down the gaping well of a web forum that no employee ever reads.

im in ur browser, melting ur digits

2009-06-28T01:33:49Z

Dali Clock Javascript!

I factored out the Javascript from the Palm Pre port of Dali Clock, so now it works as a web page too, including all the display options.

If any of you browser-internals types have suggestions on how to get better performance out of the <canvas> tag (specifically in the Palm Pre version of Webkit) I'd love to hear them.

Palm WebOS Dali Clock

2009-06-26T09:47:21Z

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I have ported Dali Clock to the Palm Pre.

Truly, this program will last forever. If I have anything to say about it.

It's a little slow. It is, in fact, a bit slower than the PalmOS "Classic" port. And, for that matter, the original Xerox Alto version. Why, you may ask?

Because this port is written entirely in Javascript.

frsrs.

Let's take a moment to ponder this version and the Alto version, and just how many wasted instructions, layers of abstraction, frameworks, toolkits and outright cruft have gotten between the algorithm and the frame buffer in the intervening twenty-seven years. This program makes my phone hot. Hot, I tell you.

Oh. The huge manatee.

dnalounge update

2009-06-25T16:48:43Z

DNA Lounge update, wherein the War on Fun gets some more press, and a legal smackdown is delivered.

Cables!

2009-06-23T23:44:59Z

Brand-new cable car will soon hit the streets

Cable car No. 15 is no off-the-shelf vehicle.
For more than five years, nearly 30 Municipal Transportation Agency crafts workers - carpenters, a patternmaker, metal workers, transit mechanics, welders and painters - labored on and off to build the cable car from scratch, working off blueprints more than a century old.
"It's a work of art," Christopher Hill, Muni's manager of cable car maintenance, said of the new 8-ton rolling monument.
Made of bronze, steel, red oak, white oak, knot-free fir, Alaskan yellow cedar, canvas and glass, No. 15 cost $823,000 to build. Just about the only materials not specially fabricated for the cable car were the lightbulbs, hinges, rope and screws.
No. 15 is the 12th cable car produced from the bottom up by Muni in the past two decades. It will be used on the Powell Street lines that run from Market Street downtown to Fisherman's Wharf.
The new cable cars ensure that the 136-year-old system - a designated National Historic Landmark and the only one remaining in the world that operates on public streets - will carry on. The average lifespan of a cable car is about 100 years.

Previously.

dnalounge update

2009-06-23T22:18:47Z

DNA Lounge update, wherein the camera goes click and the back wall is ornamented.

today in batcock news

2009-06-23T14:59:27Z

Previously.

"We're Getting Reports of a Massive Space-craft..."

2009-06-23T14:55:55Z

dreadwhimsy writes:

Looking back, was the short enslavement of humanity by our alien overlords, Mieux-Mieux and Praxis, really such a "reign of terror," the way the cable news media's trying portray it?
Let's not re-write history. It wasn't all that bad.

Thu, Jul 02:	The Coathangers @ Hemlock Tavern
Thu, Jul 02:	Emilie Simon @ Cafe du Nord
Fri, Jul 03:	Stripmall Architecture @ Hotel Utah
Thu, Jul 16:	Girl in a Coma @ Bottom of the Hill
Fri, Jul 17:	Le Tigre @ Bottom of the Hill
Wed, Jul 22:	La Roux @ Cafe du Nord
Sun, Aug 16:	Jill Tracy & Nicki Jaine @ Cafe du Nord
Thu, Aug 20:	Stripmall Architecture @ Cafe du Nord
Tue, Aug 25:	The Prids @ Bottom of the Hill
Thu, Oct 22:	Dragonette @ 330 Ritch