by Joseph L. Flatley posted Oct 26th 2009 at 1:07PM
We've seen plenty of strange motorized chairs in this space, including those controlled by Wii Nunchucks and even brainwaves, but rarely do they become available for sale. The handiwork of Minnesota resident Dennis Anderson, this La-Z-Boy mod features everything the manufacturer left out, including: stereo sound system, nitrous oxide booster, parachute, headlights, a steering wheel, and a sticker that reads: "Hell yeah, it's fast." The vehicle, which will reach speeds of 20 MPH, was seized by the state when the driver crashed into a parked car -- he was on the way home from the bar (of course) and 'fessed up to consuming "eight or nine" beers prior to the incident. Anderson may be roaming the streets with a two-year suspended sentence, but his chariot can be yours! Keep an eye out on eBay, where it's due to appear this week with no reserve price.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Microsoft Freeloading In Washington State Courts
Posted by kdawson on Monday October 26, @09:36AM
from the having-it-both-ways dept.
from the having-it-both-ways dept.
reifman writes"For tax purposes, Microsoft reports that it's earned its estimated $143 billion in software licensing revenue in Nevada, where there is no licensing tax, as we discussed a few weeks ago. However, for legal purposes, Microsoft relies on Washington law and its underfunded courts to defend its contracts as it did in Microsoft Licensing GP vs. TSR Silicon. Application of common legal doctrines such as nexus, the step doctrine, and alter ego theory may lead to findings that Microsoft owes the state more than $1 billion in taxes, interest, and penalties."
Save the Planet, Eat Your Dog
R3d M3rcury writes"New Zealand's Dominion Post reports on a new book just released, Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living. In this book, theycompare the environmental footprint of our housepets to other things that we own. Like that German Shepherd? It consumes more resources than two Toyota SUVs. Cats are a little less than a Volkswagen Golf. Two hamsters are about the same as a plasma TV. Their suggestions? Chickens, rabbits, and pigs. But only if you eat them."
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Light Helps Injured Mice Walk Again
Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday October 21, @09:43PM
from the blinded-me-with-science dept.
from the blinded-me-with-science dept.
Mantrid42 writes"Researchers have been able to affect the brains of lab mice using light. Working in a new field called Optogenetics ("optical stimulation plus genetic engineering"), scientists injected lab mice with genes that can stimulate or inhibit neural activity based on the color of the light they're exposed to, and can be targeted to infect only on certain cell types. Additionally, another gene has been added to make neurons glow green when firing, allowing two-way communication between a brain and a machine."
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Yet Another Premature Declaration of Email's Death
Posted by kdawson on Wednesday October 14, @08:28AM
from the to-from-subject-dammit dept.
from the to-from-subject-dammit dept.
mvip tips the latest in a long line of premature announcements of the demise of email."The Wall Street Journal article Why Email No Longer Rules is making the rounds online. Fast Company provided a fast response, highlighting the technical shortcomings of trying to replace email with Facebook and Twitter (where do the attachments go?). Email Service Guide points out that Facebook and Twitter are ineffective for one-off communications. With Google Wave on the horizon, we'll probably have to go through the whole charade yet again."
Bona fide exercise bike abuses Wiimote accessory license... badly
by Darren Murph 
posted Oct 14th 2009 at 7:40AM
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Protective Role For Copper In Alzheimer’s Disease
ScienceDaily (Oct. 13, 2009) — Two articles in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease -- by Dr Chris Exley, Reader in Bioinorganic Chemistry in the Research Institute for the Environment, Physical Sciences and Applied Mathematics at Keele University, UK, and Dr Zhao-Feng Jiang, of Beijing Union University, Beijing, China -- have confirmed a potentially protective role for copper in Alzheimer’s disease.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Penny-Sized Nuclear Batteries Developed
Posted by kdawson on Friday October 09, @09:32AM
from the is-that-a-nuke-in-your-pocket dept.
from the is-that-a-nuke-in-your-pocket dept.
pickens writes"Nuclear batteries that produce energy from the decay of radioisotopes are an attractive proposition for many applications because the isotopes that power them can provide a useful amount of current for hundreds of years at power densities a million times as high as standard batteries. Nuclear batteries have been used for military and aerospace applications for years, their large size has limited their general usage. But now a research team at the University of Missouri has developed a nuclear battery the size of a penny that could be used to power micro- and nano-electromechanical systems. The researchers' innovation is not only in the battery's size, but also that the batteries use a liquid semiconductor rather than a solid semiconductor. 'The critical part of using a radioactive battery is that when you harvest the energy, part of the radiation energy can damage the lattice structure of the solid semiconductor,' says Jae Wan Kwon. 'By using a liquid semiconductor, we believe we can minimize that problem.' The batteries are safe under normal operating conditions. 'People hear the word "nuclear" and think of something very dangerous,' says Kwon. 'However, nuclear power sources have already been safely powering a variety of devices, such as pacemakers, space satellites, and underwater systems.'"
Thursday, October 8, 2009
How Dangerous Could a Hacked Robot Possibly Be?
alphadogg writes"Researchers at the University of Washington think it's finally time to start paying some serious attention to the question of robot security. Not because they think robots are about to go all Terminator on us, but because the robots can already be used to spy on us and vandalize our homes. In a paper published Thursday the researchers took a close look at three test robots: the Erector Spykee, and WowWee's RoboSapien and Rovio. They found that security is pretty much an afterthought in the current crop of robotic devices. 'We were shocked at how easy it was to actually compromise some of these robots,' said Tadayoshi Kohno, a University of Washington assistant professor, who co-authored the paper."
Front Row Seats To NASA's Lunar Impact
itwbennett writes"Tomorrow morning at 7:30 EDT, NASA is going to crash a probe into the moon as part of its LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observing and Sensing Satellite) mission, the main purpose of which is to discover if there's any water on the moon. 'If you happen to have a 10-12" telescope (or larger) then you might be able to see the plume from your backyard,' says blogger Peter Smith. 'For the rest of us, the impact will be streamed live over the web in a few places. NASA will have a feed, beginning at 6:15 EDT. The NASA feed includes live footage from the spacecraft itself as well as expert commentary and other goodies. Astronomy service SLOOH is offering a double-shot of earth-bound feeds, with one feed from New Hampshire and the other from Arizona. The SLOOH feeds start at 6:30 am EDT.'"
Hyperdrive Propulsion Could Be Tested At the LHC
Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday October 08, @10:14AM
from the i-can't-believe-i-used-the-transportation-topic dept.
from the i-can't-believe-i-used-the-transportation-topic dept.
KentuckyFC writes"In 1924, the influential German mathematician David Hilbert calculated that a stationary mass should repel a particle moving towards or away from it at more than half the speed of light (as seen by a distant inertial observer). Now an American physicist has pointed out that the equal and opposite effect should also hold true: that a relativistic particle should repel a stationary mass. This, he says, could form the basis of a 'hypervelocity propulsion drive' for accelerating spacecraft to a good fraction of the speed of light. The idea is that the repulsion allows the relativistic particle to deliver a specific impulse that is greater than its specific momentum, an effect that is analogous to the elastic collision of a heavy mass with a much lighter, stationary mass, from which the lighter mass rebounds with about twice the speed of the heavy mass. Unlike other exotic hyperdrive proposals, this one can be tested using the world's largest particle accelerator, the LHC, which will generate beams of particles with the required energy (abstract). Placing a test mass next to the beam line and measuring the forces on it as the particles pass by should confirm the theory — or scupper it entirely."
Significant Risk' Of Oil Production Peaking In Ten Years, Report Finds
Prelude from Busted - Just to help out here on what the significance is. Peak oil means that we have used half of the oil available in the earth. On the surface this does not appear to be too important until you consider our use of oil grows every year, and by a percentage, we use twice as much oil per day as we did 36 years ago and assuming steady growth, you could extend this back to the 1930s and say that we use 8 times more oil per day today than we did back then. You can see the pattern known as doubling and most people can see that if you extend this into the future, we will not have the more than 100 years it too to get to half way but SIGNIFICANTLY less, perhaps only 30-60 years after peak. Now of course as demand increases and the supply becomes both more expensive to access and drops, gas prices will go up, probably significantly if we don't have a viable alternative. Coal, most people accept as dirty no matter how you slice it. To me, the logical conclusion is that since prices are going to go up, let us more aggressively pursue clean fuel sources to be ready for the inevitable transition to a new and cleaner fuel source and while we are thinking in this vein, why not buy our scientists as much time as possible by conserving to make what we have last as long as possible.
ScienceDaily (Oct. 8, 2009) — A new report, launched by the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC), argues that conventional oil production is likely to peak before 2030, with a significant risk of a peak before 2020. The report concludes that the UK Government is not alone in being unprepared for such an event - despite oil supplying a third of the world's energy.
Candy Linked To Violence In Study
Posted by samzenpus on Thursday October 08, @05:29AM
from the gummy-worms-and-steal dept.
from the gummy-worms-and-steal dept.
T Murphy writes"A study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry links daily consumption of candy at the age of 10 to an increased chance of being convicted of a violent crime by age 34. The researchers theorize the correlation comes from the way candy is given rather than the candy itself. Candy frequently given as a short-term reward can encourage impulsive behavior, which can more likely lead to violence. An alternative explanation offered by the American Dietetic Association is that the candy indicates poor diet, which hinders brain development. The scientists stress they don't imply candy should be removed from a child's diet, although they do recommend moderation. The study controls for teachers' reports of aggression and impulsivity at age 10, the child's gender, and parenting style. The study can be found here, but the full text is behind a paywall."
Design Starting For Matter-Antimatter Collider
Posted by samzenpus on Thursday October 08, @03:02AM
from the dump-the-warp-core dept.
from the dump-the-warp-core dept.
couch_warrior writes"The Register is carrying a story on the early design efforts for the next generation of high-energy particle accelerators. They will be linear, and will collide matter and antimatter in the form of electrons and positrons. The obvious question will be: once we have a matter-antimatter reactor, how long till we have warp drive, and will the Vulcans show up for a sneak-peak?"
Avatars To Have Business Dress Codes By 2013
Posted by samzenpus on Thursday October 08, @01:25AM
from the no-flaming-hair-at-pretend-work dept.
from the no-flaming-hair-at-pretend-work dept.
nk497 writes"With businesses increasingly using digital tech like virtual worlds and Twitter, their staff will have to be given guidelines on how they 'dress' their avatars, according to analysts. 'As the use of virtual environments for business purposes grows, enterprises need to understand how employees are using avatars in ways that might affect the enterprise or the enterprise's reputation,' said James Lundy, managing vice president at Gartner, in a statement. 'We advise establishing codes of behavior that apply in any circumstance when an employee is acting as a company representative, whether in a real or virtual environment.'"
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Video Game Dubbed “Lose/Lose” Doesn’t Really Offer a Way to Win/Win
Posted 09/30/09 at 05:57:40 PM by Jason barry
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If you thought Red Faction 2 was a destructive game, download Lose/Losefrom Zach Gage and play it for a few hours. You might not be able to boot your computer after a marathon session of alien bashing.
Zach Gage developed the game to have real life consequences, and real life consequences it has. “Each alien in the game is created based on a random file on the players computer. If the player kills the alien, the file it is based on is deleted.” Sounds dangerous, right? Well, that was the intention.
According to his “manifesto,” he hopes to invoke the question of moral obligation and blur the line between virtual and physical possessions and their priorities in a technical world.
While the best solution is never fire a single shot, it could be the least fun game ever...unless you play it on a co-workers computer.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Aging Discovery Yields Nobel Prize
An anonymous reader writesThis year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded to three scientists who have solved a major problem in biology: how the chromosomes can be copied in a complete way during cell divisions and how they are protected against degradation. The Nobel Laureates have shown that the solution is to be found in the ends of the chromosomes, called the telomeres, and in an enzyme that forms them."
Monty Python 40 Years Old Today!
Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday October 05, @10:35AM
from the nobody-expects-the-spanish-inquisition dept.
from the nobody-expects-the-spanish-inquisition dept.
cheros was one of several readers to note that today, Oct 5, in 1969 was the very first airing of Monty Python. Although not every sketch has aged particularly well, you'd be hard pressed to find a more influential and funny show. Heck, look at the Icon we use here to indicate humorous stories! Who among us can't claim to have viewed the Holy Grail at least somewhere in the double digits.
Columbia Bugathermo hiking boots are heated, rechargeable
by Thomas Ricker posted Oct 5th 2009 at 3:27AM
Minimally Invasive Procedure Effective For Treating Snoring, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (Oct. 5, 2009) — Radiofrequency ablation, a procedure that uses heat to shrink the tissue of the soft palate, is an effective and minimally invasive procedure that can be used to treat patients who snore.
Special Brain Wave Boost Slows Motion
ScienceDaily (Oct. 5, 2009) — Researchers have found that they can make people move in slow motion by boosting one type of brain wave. The findings offer some of the first proof that brain waves can have a direct influence on behavior, according to the researchers, who report their findings online on October 1 in Current Biology.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Key To Subliminal Messaging Is To Keep It Negative, Study Shows
ScienceDaily (Sep. 30, 2009) — Subliminal messaging is most effective when the message being conveyed is negative, according to new research funded by the Wellcome Trust.
Gamers Are More Aggressive To Strangers
Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday September 30, @05:20AM
from the xbox-live-proved-this-years-ago dept.
from the xbox-live-proved-this-years-ago dept.
TheClockworkSoul writes"According to NewScientist, victorious gamers enjoy a surge of testosterone — but only if their vanquished foe is a stranger. Interestingly, when male gamers beat friends in a shoot-em-up video game, their levels of the hormone plummeted. This suggests that multiplayer video games tap into the same mechanisms as warfare, where testosterone's effect on aggression is advantageous. Against a group of strangers — be it an opposing football team or an opposing army – there is little reason to hold back, so testosterone's effects on aggression offer an advantage. 'In a serious out-group competition you can kill all your rivals and you're better for it,' says David Geary, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Missouri in Columbia, who led the study. However, when competing against friends or relatives to establish social hierarchy, annihilation doesn't make sense. 'You can't alienate your in-group partners, because you need them,' he says."
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
A Pet In Your Life Keeps The Doctor Away
ScienceDaily (Sep. 29, 2009) — Lowers blood pressure, encourages exercise, improves psychological health— these may sound like the effects of a miracle drug, but they are actually among the benefits of owning a four-legged, furry pet.
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