Month: August 2005

The military’s next generation of airborne drones won’t be just small and silent – they’ll also dive between buildings, zoom under overpasses and land on apartment balconies.
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Their secret: seagull-inspired wings that “morph,” or change shape, dramatically during flight, transforming the planes’ stability and agility at the touch of a button on the operator’s remote control.

An example of the active participation of students in research projects at the University of Florida College of Engineering.

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering was created in July 2002 by merging two of the college’s oldest departments.

MAE studies motion and energy. It also solves problems surrounding the development, design and operation of aircraft and spacecraft.

Video

If I’m wandering around on some lost planet, and my robot starts flailing its arms while saying danger, danger, I know enough to go back to the spaceship and chill for a while. Not everyone does.

For example, Steve Irwin likes to interact with crocodiles and poisonous snakes. I like to watch him doing this. If some wild animal latches onto his leg, it doesn’t hurt me at all.

If someone does get bitten by a poisonous snake, it’s good to know some facts to help calm them:

Do not allow the victim to become alarmed, excited or agitated, as this will only increase blood flow and the chances of getting poison to the heart.

Snake heads have been documented as capable of biting and injecting poison an hour or more after decapitation.

I can watch Steve play with crocs and snakes all day, but getting out there and doing it is not for me.

It’s the same thing with sharks.

Noted shark expert, Dr. Erich Ritter, has said that he has never been bitten by a shark because he understands shark behavior. Ritter, the chief scientist for the Global Shark Attack File (part of the Shark Research Institute), has even said he can keep them away just by modifying his heart rate.

Ritter was badly bitten by a shark in the Bahamas.

Now here:
http://www.cdnn.info/news/article/a020430.html

Not to mention bears.

I remember seeing Treadwell’s “Grizzly Diaries” on TV and thinking to myself that he was eventually going to get taken by one of the bears he got so close to. And that’s exactly what happened.

It was once believed that the registry is the central database of Windows that stores and maintains the OS configuration information. Well, this is wrong. Apparently, it also maintains a bunch of other information that has absolutely nothing to do with the configuration. I won’t get into the other stuff, but for one, your typed URLs are stored in the registry.
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These “Typed URLs” come from MSIE’s autocomplete feature. It records all URLs that you’ve typed in manually in order to save you some time filling out the address field. By typing “ama” the autocomplete feature might bring up “amazon.com” for you. Although I find it annoying, some people prefer this feature. One thing is for sure, however — it’s an obvious privacy risk. You wouldn’t want a guest to type “ama” and have it autocomplete to “amateurmudwrestlers.com,” would you?

This is a script that lets you play online bingo for those long conference calls where the business folks drone on with the latest buzzwords.

David Antram was born in Brighton, England, in 1958. He studied at Eastbourne College of Art and then worked in advertising for 15 years before becoming a full-time artist.

He now illustrates children’s nonfiction books like Across America.

In particular, he’s the illustrator for a really fun series of “You wouldn’t want to be” books.

more

Ok. You’re stranded in the snow. It looks like you’re going to have to spend the night. Wouldn’t a camp fire be nice? Sure it would. All you need is something that burns, and some ice.

I gave myself a 15 minute time limit and started with a “random” chunk of ice. The picture ~ shows what I came up with. Did it work? The proof is in the smoke.

Let your imagination be your inspiration. The possibilities are infinite. If you�ve never painted before, now�s your chance. Plus, there�s no messy cleanup!

Clearly, I’m not the most artistic person in my family.

Make your own magazine cover! Be a superstar! Prove to your friends how famous you really are!

Flickr is helping us have fun on the internet.
I LOVE this kind of stuff.

Check out the one that I made here.

I also made some magazine covers over at Nor’east Saltwater.

Check ’em out here and here and here and here.

Dr. Demento is nationally renowned for his weekly two-hour radio festival of mad music and crazy comedy heard on well over 100 stations coast to coast. It’s a free-wheeling unpredictable mix of music and comedy.

Dr. Demento plays lots of fun songs like Me and Mr. Magoo.

Dr. Demento on the net

I like this video.