Category: Cool Stuff

Jeans designed for “conceal carry” use

(via BoingBoing)

toters.gifI know some folks who might like a few pairs of these. Of course, I have no idea if these are any good, but the company does make a write-up done well enough to have me curious. Since I don’t carry, I don’t really need these myself, but I’m sure someone who sees this story can post a comment about the jeans and let the world (in as much as people who read my ramblings constitute the world) know whether these are any good.

TOTERS ™ were conceived and created by veteran holster and knife designer Blackie Collins as an innovative alternative to the various – albeit limited – options one has to choose from when looking to purchase concealed carry clothing. The concept is simple: Create an extremely comfortable and durable item of clothing that effectively provides a means for concealed carry, but does so without any of the extreme bulkiness or expense that is often associated with other concealed carry garments.

Aside from the long run-on sentence there, that sounds like a good concept. The company also offers concealed carry vests, in case jeans aren’t an option.
[tags]Concealed carry, gun control?[/tags]

Photos of modern ruins

I subscribe to “American Heritage of Invention and Technology” magazine. I just received a new issue, and saw an article in it about some sights online with photographs of old ruins and abandoned industrial installations. Listed in the article are Modern Ruins Photographic Essays and Undercity.org. I have no idea why these are so interesting, but they seem compelling enough for me to post about them. There are so many good photos, that picking any to show as samples is tough. Note that both sites make the photos available for sale as well as being available for viewing online.

nysba_pan1.jpg

SmallpoxHospWindows.jpg

This second photo is Manhattan Seen Through the Windows of the Renwick Smallpox Hospital Ruin.

I found it a bit depressing to think about.

[tags]Abandoned places[/tags]

Sudoku

I’ve recently gotten hooked on Sudoku (like so many others, it seems). If you are into Sudoku, you should start visiting BrainBashers to get your daily dose. If the 6 available puzzles each day aren’t enough for you, then hit SuperSudoku for more (free account for 5 puzzles a day or full account for a one-time $9.70 charge for unlimited puzzles – join on their sign-up page).

If you are interested in Sudoku, but want to know more about the backstory/history of it, you should check out Wolfram’s write-up.

The Sudoku was published anonymously by Garns (1979), who created the puzzle at age 74, and then promptly relegated to obscurity. It became popular in Japan starting somewhere between 1984 and 1986 under the name “nanpure,” or Number Place. (Even today, in many Japanese publication, the puzzle is called Number Place, written in English.) The puzzle received a large amount of attention in the United States and Europe in 2005 after a regular Sudoku puzzle began appearing in the London Times. Sadly, Garns died in 1989 before getting a chance to see his creation as a worldwide phenomenon (Shortz 2005, cited in Pegg 2005).

If you still want more, you’ll have to search for it – I can’t possibly list all the good sources of games and information on the game.

I tried to include a Sudoku generator inline here, but it sadly made the rest of the site go away.  At least, it was sad for me.  So just use the above links, especially the Google search link, to find playable online versions.  And I’ll have to wish the possible extra traffic a bye-bye…   🙁

[tags]Sudoku, Suduku, Sodoko[/tags]

“Welcome to Practical Aspects of Modern Cryptography” class online

(via Schneier on Security)

The course material and lecture videos for “Welcome to Practical Aspects of Modern Cryptography”, taught at the University of Washington this past winter, are now available online for free.  If you are looking to learn a bit about Cryptography, be sure to check this out.

[tags]Crypto, Cryptography[/tags]

Stephen Hawking to write a kid’s book?

(via boingboing)

Well, that’s what it looks like. Hawking will be working with his daughter to write a kids book to explain theoretical physics in a style kids can understand.

Physicist Stephen Hawking and his daughter are to write a science book for children which will be “a bit like Harry Potter”, but without the magic.

[tags]Stephen Hawking, Kid’s book[/tags]

Industrial strength dance pad (think DDR here)

(via Hack-A-Day)

Invent Geek has posted a really high quality (and quite honestly, good looking) dance pad.  It is built for the XBox version of DDR, but with an XBox to USB adapter, it should work on a PC.  From the information available so far, build time looks to be just half an hour or so.  The big downside to this is the $250-$1000 cost (not really sure why such a large range, though).  I have a decent non-metal dance pad for my DDR gaming, but I’m seriously considering trying to build one of these.  Of course, my wife doesn’t know that yet.

With the introduction of the dancing gaming systems here in the states there has been huge growth with in the community. The problem that anyone who is truly interested in the fitness gaming revolution will face at some time is the gross difference between the home console and arcade dance pad quality. Even the super high end home use dance pads that cost 500+ are not considered a long term or heavy use choice. So I set out to create a dance deck at an affordable price range that would even trump the arcade quality units. This is just the “prototype” and we will be putting up a full article with detailed instructions and even a full part list and plans for the final version that we are in the process of writing up now.

[tags]DDR, dance pad, gaming[/tags]

How lasers are going to work for you

Another Modern Mechanix moment here on Blah, Blah, Blahg. I’ve gotten hooked on this site, and find great articles from days past that are interesting to me. This latest is a 1970 Popular Science article reproduced for your edification.

The light fantastic is no longer a scientific curiosity: It’s now being used for just about everything from moon measuring to tire checking

By C. P. GILMORE / PS Consulting Editor, Science

. . .

Modern use of lasers

Today, lasers are working for you in ways you may have never suspected. For example, they’re . . .

  • Guiding tunnel and trench diggers
  • Welding microcircuits
  • Drilling holes in rubber nipples for baby bottles
  • Spotting tire defects
  • Machining parts to ultra-fine tolerances
  • Helping predict earthquakes.

How lasers work

Naturally, this last line is followed by a write-up of how lasers actually work.  The explanation might have been fairly technical at the time, but now it seems a little primitive.  Or maybe I just know more about lasers than I realized.  Regardless, the article continues:

First lasers

The laser first appeared as a glint in the eyes of physicists Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow. In 1958 they wrote a paper saying that it should be possible to build a device in which photons, individual packages of light, could be used to stimulate excited molecules to give off yet more photons in step with the original ones. In 1960, physicist Theodore Maiman, then of Hughes, built one. Despite the high-powered physics that led up to its design, it was a deceptively simple device—a rectangular chunk of ruby surrounded by a bright photo-flash lamp. Every time the lamp flashed, its photons jiggled certain atoms in the ruby, causing them to give off photons and stimulate yet other atoms to radiate, just the way Schawlow and Townes said it would happen.

The new device was called a LASER—which stood for Light Amplification by Simulated Emission of Radiation. Since then, other investigators have made hundreds of liquids, solids, and gases lase, giving off hundreds of different wavelengths or colors of visible light, and hundreds of other wavelengths of invisible infrared and ultraviolet. Some generate power continuously, others in bursts or pulses.

Because laser light is coherent, it can be focused to an extremely small spot. The energy density of such a spot can be a billion watts per square centimeter or more—enough to vaporize any substance in existence.

Whoa.  That’s a lot of power in a single square centimeter.  I believe that’s even more concentrated death power than the Solar Death Ray!  After all this, there is a lot of information on potential practical uses for lasers – Military uses, highly accurate measurements, photo manipulation (particularly clearing up fuzzy images), and so on.  One of the most interesting to me is for large TVs.

Television. Another promising area: big-screen color TV. The current color TV tube has about reached its limit. And that three-color dot system doesn’t produce the sharpest pictures. A much better TV system could be built using three laser beams—red, blue, and green—projected on a screen. The screen could be any size—it could cover a living-room wall or the end of a theatre.

At least two such systems have been built. General Telephone and Electronics has demonstrated a four-foot-wide TV picture. And now, at Expo 70 in Japan, Hitachi has on display a system with a picture 9 by 12 feet. People who have seen it say the picture is more brilliant and lifelike than the one we see on regular color TV sets.

Ultimately, such wall-to-wall TV may be practical in our homes. But right now, there’s a problem. Most lasers are highly inefficient. The big-screen laser display in Japan uses three lasers, each putting out about 7 watts of power. But it takes 30 kilowatts to run the equipment—too much for use in the home.

They had me right up to 30 kilowatts.  I don’t think my wife would let me run  a 30 kilowatt TV in our house.  Of course, think of the reduction in heating costs for the winter when such a beast was running!  Anyway, I think this concept of large televisions in the home is worth pursuing.  Someday it might be nice to have a screen large enough to function as a home theatre…
Sadly, nowhere in the article is there any guidance on how to mount these technological wonders on the heads of frikkin’ sharks for offensive use – I really thought such an idea would have been covered under the military research section.  Although maybe that information is classified.

[tags]Modern Mechanix, Lasers, Frikkin’ Sharks[/tags]

Sometimes, you are just born too late

According to this post at Modern Mechanix, I was born just a couple of decades too late.  Being born in 1970, I missed out on my chance to get a high-paying career going in guided missile automation.  The July 1957 issue of Popular Electronics has the following details:

Outstanding Employment Opportunities Open to Central Graduates!

No matter what you’re doing now . . . whether you’ve ever had previous technical experience or not, you can begin right now to prepare for a great career in these fascinating, rewarding fields!

Capitalize on the fact that Central’s nationally recognized, proven training methods, top instructors and long record of educational achievement have put Central-trained men in high demand throughout America! . . . that Central’s graduates are periodically interviewed and employed by many of the Country’s foremost industrial giants and leading employers of electronics specialists. Hundreds of radio and TV stations look to Central as a reliable source for competent, thoroughly trained technicians . . . and the nation’s major airlines and aircraft manufacturers have hired hundreds of Central-trained technicians for important communications and electronics positions.

So instead of making my riches blowing stuff up, I have to make my money keeping computer systems running.  I like what I do for a living, but it would be way cooler to make missiles work.

[tags]Missiles, blow stuff up[/tags]

Batwoman and I share a common interest

batwoman.jpgJust got notice of this from a cow-orker. DC Comics has deciced to bring back the Batwoman character. She’ll show up in July as part of an ongoing weekly series. Upon reading the article, folks will probably notice:

The 5-foot-10 superhero comes with flowing red hair, knee-high red boots with spiked heels, and a form-fitting black outfit.

Naturally, some will think that’s the common interest she and I share. But the truth is deeper. Batwoman, reborn after the death of the original in 1979, is coming back as a lesbian. So our common interest is a great appreciation of hot chicks.

DC Comics is resurrecting the classic comic book character as a lesbian, unveiling the new Batwoman in July as part of an ongoing weekly series that began this year.

. . .

The original Batwoman was started in 1956, and killed off in 1979. The new character will share the same name as her original alter ego, Kathy Kane. And the new Batwoman arrives with ties to others in the Gotham City world.

“She’s a socialite from Gotham high society,” DiDio said. “She has some past connection with Bruce Wayne. And she’s also had a past love affair with one of our lead characters, Renee Montoya.”

Montoya, in the “52” comic book series, is a former police detective.

The folks at DC have asked that people wait until the character is seen in the series to pass judgement, though. They are saying this is part of an effort to provide more diversity to their superhero universe. I guess we’ll have to wait a few more weeks to see how the public receives the new character. Personally, as long as she is a great hero, I’m not that concerned with her bedroom preferences. That is, unless they make a pr0no with her and release it for fans’ viewing pleasure – I’m totally downloading the video if that ever happens.

[tags]DC Comics, Batwoman, Lesbian superhero[/tags]