Al’s USB of the week is useless- UseleSsB. We chat about water on the moon, a rock DVD that lasts 1000 years, Google poetry (antisi-poems), genetically engineered non-rotting apple, a Facebook post that exonerates prisoner and more tech news.
In the second half we answer some awesome questions from listeners.
From Phil Plait’s “Bad Astronomy” blog:
“The target crater, Cabeus, has a temperature on its floor of -230 Celsius, cold enough to store ice. The Centaur slammed into it at high speed, making a new crater about 20 meters across and splashing debris over an even bigger area. A plume went up and out of the crater, and it was that tower of ejected material that had the telltale signs of water. The infrared spectrometer on LCROSS definitely detected absorption lines from water, and the ultraviolet spectrometer saw it in emission. Not only that, the emission got stronger with time, which clinches the deal! That’s exactly what you expect by a plume containing water.”
“If you really, really need to make sure those precious photos of yours last virtually forever – or at least longer than the average two- to five-year lifespan of consumer-grade DVDs, then start-up Cranberry LLC has the answer for you: a DVD that literally lasts a millennium.”
“Scientists in Australia have developed an apple that won’t rot. Or, won’t rot for a long, long time. The delicious-sounding RS103-130 apple is a rare cross-breed 20 years in the making, cooked up by researchers at Australia’s Queensland Primary Industries and Fisheries. They claim the shiny red apples will stay fresh, delicious, and crispy for four months. But, wait; aren’t things like apples supposed to rot?”
“A 19-year-old New York City man arrested on robbery charges has been exonerated thanks to his Facebook page — and a request for pancakes.”
Also from the Phil Plait’s fantastic blog:
The ESA spacecraft Rosetta swings past the Earth in a few hours, but look at what it did when it was still 630,000 km (400,000 miles) from home.
This is Ben’s music site of choice. It allows you to listen to any song, when you want. It also have track seeking ability, and can guess what kind of music you like. Give it a shot! You’ll probably love it.
The same service is available at tinysong.com , where you can give people tiny links to songs.
Its an alarm clock. In the shape of a blender. With tiny styrofoam balls.
Yeah, I don’t know why either.
! Our Public EtherPad
Listeners David I and Scott listend live and added tones of info for the show. Here is a copy of the EhterPad that they created during the show:
November 14, 2009
!!Water on the moon!!! :) LCROSS
!! [Santa Cruz Electronics | http://www.santacruzelectronics.com/]
!! Cranberry Diamond Disc – 1000 year DVD storage
!! FINALLY! Archival-quality discs!
A studio in AZ has water? HAHAHAHA!
I was just in Phoenix on Thursday – and I bought a jug of purified water. People I met with all told me about the major water filter devices they had in their houses. They said all the good water was being shipped to Los Angeles for profit.
Yeah…prolly moon water.
It’s prolly Martian water ejected by some ancient impact that landed in AZ and killed the dinosaurs.
Yep…LA sucks it all.
They are still speculating where the water on the moon came from. Could have been created by moon activity, comets, from the Earth or who knows where. So you may be right!
If the moon was formed by an impact with ancient Earth then it’s logical it would have taken water with it. Much if not most of Earth’s water is below the crust.
!! Color Correction Filters for Night Photography – APUG
My red Toyota Prius looks blue/grey at the San Jose Airport long term parking lot. Thanks to my car remote control and personalized license plate – I could find it in the lot.
Can’t see orange stars from SJA? Escaped prisoners look like maintenance workers.
!! Chinese Scientists Engineer the World’s Smartest Rat | Popular Science
- http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2009-10/scientists-create-worlds-smartest-rat
Notably, the rats stopped saying “Narf!”
!! Chinese Scientists Develop Database on the Liver
- http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2009/11/13/chinese-scientists-develop-database-on-the-liver.html
Whew! I thought it would be Microsoft SQL Liver 8 or something.
!! Scientists Develop Rot-Proof Apple that Stays Fresh for 4 Months …
Yeah, but is it rat-proof, too? Smart rats are increasing in number and size!
!! Tinysong | Type in a song and make a free music link to share
How does one spell “Grue Shark”? Oh…Grooveshark. I wonder how many folks ask “why ‘groove’?”
Dude…in stereo! I know…I’m old.
!! Pirate Radio – the movie
!! Google Logo mentions water on the moon
[wateronmoon09_hp.jpg| They change their logo a lot.]
Ew! Tinkerbell?
!! Google Poems
Chinese scientists ‘filmed UFO for 40 minutes’
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/6148974/Chinese-scientists-filmed-UFO-for-40-minutes.html
!! Facebook member – "His Facebook Status Now? ‘Charges Dropped’
“This is the first case that I’m aware of in which a Facebook update has been used as alibi evidence,” said John Browning, a lawyer and member of the Dallas Bar Association who studies social networking and the law. “We are going to see more of that because of how prevalent social networking has become.”
Hmm…how close is the nearest high-speed service? There are point-to-point WiFi solutions that, with good directional antennas and enough boost could get a good distance.
!! Mobile high-speed?
Even 2.5G is faster than dialup. I’m on a hilly island and get good cell coverage in most places. Hughesnet/satellite is somewhat cheaper nowadays, whether uplink is via dialup or sat as well.
!! Satellite Internet providers:
!! Lyle has good speeds at work
Oh…good test method, but have WiFi off: http://www.MobileSpeedTest.com
Solid-state drives and multiple NICs with true high-speed switches.
Large-caching…solid-state would be good for high-speed writes, too, so stowing data is good.
RAID-10 so you get dual concurrent reads off the two stripes.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive
Windows 7 and Optimization for Solid State Drives – Tom’s Hardware
- http://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-solid-state-drives-ssd,7717.html
RAID – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
AT&T Wireless’ network is well-known to have speed issues due to backbone capacity…of all things, backbone capacity for AT&T…sad. I have two AT&TW folks in my vanpool…I am soooo glad I work for T-Mo…AT&TW is not a fun place to work right now.
!! Verizon Droid phone
I rooted my G1 and now have tethering via BT, USB, and WiFi. Love my Cyanogenmod. Still I got tethering via BT and USB from my WinMo phone in 2007…w/o hack.
Yes yes yes!!! Always do a dry run, especially on-site. That’s why I book new rooms 30-60 minutes before the start.
Flip4Mac WMV – http://dynamic.telestream.net/downloads/download-flip4macwmv.htm
GoogleDocs rocks. I think the local app may cache docs for offline work. Checking…
- http://docs.google.com/
Where do we get one and for how much? I know many many folks on whom I’d like to inflict this to whom I’d like to give one.
! USB Blender Alarm Clock
Thanks you guys. See you next week. even if the Geeks are reading this in real time, they will get this conversation after the fact.
Maybe – I’ll be down in Argentina – in the country side
- http://www.hughesnet.com/ ? For the money-no-object crowd.
I hear they may have the Internets down thar, too?
Ciao!
