Category: Cool Stuff

Shocking news headline of the day

Sometimes, you just need to stick to the disposable stuff.

Japan’s leading toilet maker Toto Ltd. is offering free repairs for 180,000 bidet toilets after wiring problems caused several to catch fire, the company said Monday.

The electric bidet accessory of Toto’s Z series caught fire in three separate incidents between March 2006 and March 2007, according to company spokeswoman Emi Tanaka. The bidet sent up smoke in 26 other incidents, the company said.

So be careful how you clean our backside.  On the other hand, fire is an extremely effective manner of cleaning and disinfecting.  I suppose it all depends on how much you value quality sterilization.

[tags]Bidets catching fire in Japan?[/tags]

The economic impact of same-sex marriage on the US economy

Now this is just damn ducky. A couple of years ago, the Congressional Business Office (CBO) released a report on the impact on the US economy of legalizing same-gender marriages. This wasn’t a question of morality, fair treatment of citizens, biblical imperative, or anything like that. The report is pretty much a straight-up study of how the US economy would be helped or hurt by allowing same-gender marriages (also available in PDF format if you prefer.

The federal government does not recognize “marriages” of same-sex couples either for receipt of federal benefits or for tax purposes. The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (Public Law 104-199) provides that the federal government will honor only marriages between one man and one woman. It also stipulates that no state, territory, or possession of the United States or Indian tribe can be required to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in any other jurisdiction.

The potential effects on the federal budget of recognizing same-sex marriages are numerous. Marriage can affect a person’s eligibility for federal benefits such as Social Security. Married couples may incur higher or lower federal tax liabilities than they would as single individuals. In all, the General Accounting Office has counted 1,138 statutory provisions–ranging from the obvious cases just mentioned to the obscure (landowners’ eligibility to negotiate a surface-mine lease with the Secretary of Labor)–in which marital status is a factor in determining or receiving “benefits, rights, and privileges.”(1) In some cases, recognizing same-sex marriages would increase outlays and revenues; in other cases, it would have the opposite effect. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that on net, those impacts would improve the budget’s bottom line to a small extent: by less than $1 billion in each of the next 10 years (CBO’s usual estimating period). That result assumes that same-sex marriages are legalized in all 50 states and recognized by the federal government.

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Google working on open source OCR software

I periodically read about Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software, and keep thinking how cool it would be if someone in the open source community came up with a good OCR package. While prices are far better than they were about 10 years ago when I first looked in to OCR software, it can still be expensive to get going with OCR. Now, Google has announced work on an open source OCR system. There is a technology preview available, with a 3rd quarter alpha release targetted. The code page points out that no real training of the character recognition engine has taken place yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see a sister project get going to use distributed tools for training, letting thousands of open source fans get involved on the project if they aren’t capable of contributing on the code side.

The OCRopus engine is based on two research projects: a high-performance handwriting recognizer developed in the mid-90’s and deployed by the US Census bureau, and novel high-performance layout analysis methods.

OCRopus is development is sponsored by Google and is initially intended for high-throughput, high-volume document conversion efforts. We expect that it will also be an excellent OCR system for many other applications.

I’ll watch this project. It could be another highly significant open source tool in the near future.

[tags]Google working on open source OCR software, Open source Optical Character Recognition package from Google[/tags]

Build your own X-Ray vision camera

Popular Science has starting instruction on their How 2.0 Blog for building your own X-Ray vision camera. They are quick to point out one of the potential issues with building the camera:

xray-pic_resize.jpgYou’ve seen them in the back of magazines–heck, probably Popular Science–all your life: the crazy swirling paper X-ray specs, with the campy ’50s pervert looking at the bloomers of a shocked gal. While we don’t support such nefarious uses, you can make your own working X-ray camera, just by modifying a CVS Disposable. It won’t give you Superman vision, but you should be able to see through one or two layers of paper and fabric (again, behave!) in the right light. Here’s the catch: The key is in a hard-to-find X-ray conversion material called a beryllium window. PopSci got its sample from NASA during a visit to the Goddard Space Flight Center a few years ago, as it is sometimes used in satellites to block out cosmic X rays that might distort digital communications.


So if you don’t have friends at Goddard, you might want to start looking now for another source of a beryllium window (a quick search of ebay turned up zero, so don’t think it’s that easy). Still, I think the results show this to be worth trying to get and build anyway.

[tags]Build your own X-Ray vision camera, PopSci X-ray camera instructions[/tags]

A look forward at soon-to-be-released stamps

After posting about the Star Wars stamps recently, I was exploring the US Postal Service web site when I saw the link to the 2007 commemorative stamp program preview. What I found so cool about the preview section was the link to a media kit, which includes downloadable images of the upcoming stamps from the USPS. The only real restrictions on using the images look to be unaltered full color reproduction (with the required exception to block out the stamp denomination for roughly-actual-size images) and inclusion of the USPS copyright symbol. Totally reasonable requirements. So reasonable, I’m counting myself as media and reprinting just a couple of the stamps that I think are really cool.

WASHINGTON – Marvel Comics, the art of Disney, Ella Fitzgerald, the settlement of Jamestown, Jimmy Stewart, Mendez v. Westminster, vintage mahogany speedboats, lighthouses and those stunning polar lights are just a sampling of diverse icons in the U.S. Postal Service’s 2007 commemorative stamp program lineup.

“Once again, the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee has delivered a powerful stamp program that reflects the American experience and highlights our values, heroes, history, achievements and natural wonders in an artistic collection of colorful postage stamps,” said Postmaster General John E. Potter.

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In goes bread, out comes toast – magic!

This toaster_clip.jpg is recent, but not totally new news. It does not appear these are actually in production and available anywhere, but whenever these awesome ceramic toasters go up for sale, I want to buy one. Hopefully they can be made at an affordable price point.

designer’s own words:
There has been little development of the toaster since the start of the century, whilst other appliances have developed and improved incorporating new technologies and thinking, toaster have remained relatively untouched. When the toaster was first invented eating toast was a social activity that took place on the breakfast table, these days toasters have been relegated to cheap plastic objects hidden away in the kitchen landscape. This toaster is designed to engage the user, re-invigorating the social context of toasting by questioning everything about what we toast with today. I was also keen to make playful object to be proud of having on your breakfast table. Slip moulded bone china allowed me create this intricate and sculptural form, but also provided the material longevity that I required. This is a toaster that brings life and joy to a stagnant domestic appliance, and iconic object for the home.


[tags]Ceramic toaster, Toaster magic[/tags]

A coulrophobes dream game?

Joystiq has recent coverage on a cool new game sure to bring a smile to many coulrophobes: clowns falling down stairs. Billed as the ultimate physics game, one of the brains behind the game explains why it will succeed.

Yesterday, in his talk at the Independent Games Summit, Matthew Wegner beat up clowns. To be specific, he showed a physics sim clip of a dozen full-costumed clown ragdolls tumbling helplessly down a spiral staircase. Wegner, head of the physics game site Fun-Motion, called clowns falling down stairs “the ultimate physics game.” Why? Because it’s a lot easier to identify with clowns in peril then, let’s say, a bunch of shapes. Besides, it’s just hilarious. Later on, Wegner also showed a sim of a few hundred cows falling through a mess of painful looking barriers. Also very excellent.

Physics, clowns, and stairs. Really, what else do you need?

[tags]Clowns falling down stairs, A coulrophobes dream games[/tags]

The art of deception

Last year, LiveScience.com posted an article by Massimo Polidoro from The Skeptical Inquirer on how so-called psychics deceive their audiences to give the appearance of supernatural or paranormal powers. He writes of what he learned from the Amazing Randi how many of these deceptions occur. I found the article so fascinating that I’ve read over it a couple of times, and held on to the bookmark with plans to post it. Finally, I’m putting this up here so others can learn how we are fooled, and how often we are willing fools for it.

The great fake psychics are great improvisationists. This means that a really good pseudo-psychic is able to produce phenomena under almost any circumstance. A quick mind and a good knowledge of the techniques and psychology of deception are all that is needed. Sometimes, only a quick mind is enough.

In one early test of telepathy, in 1882, pseudo-psychic G.A. Smith and his accomplice, Douglas Blackburn, were able to fool researchers of the Society for Psychical Research. In a later confession, Blackburn described how they had to think fast and frequently invent new ways of faking telepathy demonstrations.

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Browse the original issues of Scientific American

sciam-scan-brake_crop.gif

I wish more resources like this were available. You can read the original 20 years of volumes of Scientific American (except, for some reason, the very first year) online at Cornell’s Library web site. The above image is merely a cropped image from the 2nd of the 2nd volume, published October 3rd, 1846.

Explanation. — This engraving represents a section of an orginary railroad truck, with the brake and its appendages connected. — The above must not be mistaken for a sideview elevation, but a sectional view of the inside of the truck, the beam DD, being the side beam, passing outside of the wheels. The two brake-blocks, A A, are supported by two short hanging rods, E E, which are connected by picots to the side beam: the toggle levelrs, B B, are connected to the blocks by pivots, and are both together connected to the bottom of the toggle-post, C, and the head of this post is connected by a feather-spring to a horizon-tal ratchet shaft, D.

Well, it could use an editting pass or two to clean up the sentence structure, but otherwise this is a fascinating look back at leading technology from 150 years ago. Also available in every issue I have looked at is a list of patents granted in the period covering a few months before the printing of each issue. Very interesting indeed.

[tags]Early Scientific American scans available online[/tags]

Zelda DS first Zelda game to feature online play

Not much meat to this story. Here’s the full article about the coming Zelda for the DS, Phantom Hourglass:

San Francisco (CA) – Zelda will join the ranks of many other classic Nintendo franchises that have made their way online, with the release of Phantom Hourglass later this year.

In an interview with Game Informer magazine, Zelda co-creater Eiji Aonuma was asked if The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass will have online multiplayer battles. Without elaborating, he just said, “Yes.”

As with many other gamers with a long history of Nintendo gaming, I’m a sucker for the Zelda games. I hear the CD-Interactive Zelda games were horrid. But I’ve never played a bad Zelda game (and I totally skipped the CD-i generation because that whole technology looked stupid to me, even back then). I’m looking forward to Zelda on the DS. (via Joystiq)

[tags]Zelda DS to feature online play, First online Zelda game – Phantom Hourglass[/tags]