Bike Head Light

Got my girlfriend a new bike this weekend, so started looking around for a good light for her morning commutes.

This light, NiteRider MiNewt 600 Cordless Rechargable Headlight, gets very good, even exceptional, reviews on Amazon & REI. Flashlight, and related, technology continues to impress me.

On the high setting this like will put out 600 Lumens! Only a little over $100 at the moment on Amazon.

I also found this Portland Design Works Danger Zone Tail Light

REALLY bright tail light. Uses same LED's used in Car taillights.

Improved Solar Cell Power Production: "Solar ‘towers’ beat panels by up to 20x"

It seems, based on this story by ScienceBlog, that 3D Solar structures offer more efficiency than normal flat ones, especially in higher latitudes.

That story is based on Solar Energy Generation in Three Dimensions, by Marco Bernardi, Nicola Ferralis, Jin H. Wan, Rachelle Villalon, Jeffrey C. Grossman.

Solar Energy Generation in Three Dimensions abstract here, full PDF here.

From Journal Nature: Satellites expose 8,000 years of civilization

http://www.nature.com/news/satellites-expose-8-000-years-of-civilization-1.10257

I started in the hard sciences, and I still have a lot of passion for Astronomy & Physics, though my degree is in Anthropology.

So stories like this, that combine Satellites, Technology, and Anthropology always draw my attention, I have been waiting in anticipation for advancements like this to bring new types of data to light.

This Nature article quotes Jason Ur, as saying, “Traditional archaeology goes straight to the biggest features — the palaces or cities.

I am not sure if that is really true in the first place, reality is you go were something has been found, or that you believe something can be found, and you have the funding to pursue.

Additionally, in Archaeology, you need a significant sample of data, in order to draw many conclusions, and working in a large site is more time and resource efficient.

Part of the reason I am excited by this article, it actually provides a large amount of data in itself, and it also points to additional areas to study, on the ground, with traditional techniques.

Robots Imitating Life

Amoeboid Robot based on slime mold


http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/27638/

"A Swiss satellite tackles space debris"

Full story here, from News Mediacom.

Basically they are looking at grappling with debris and deorbiting it so it burns up on reentry.

I could see this maybe working for a few larger object, don't think it will be very practical for the cast majority of space debris in Earth Orbit.

IMVHO this concept would make more sense for an anti Satellite weapon.

NEO (Near Earth Orbit) and Planetary Defense. I so want to say Deathstar.

http://www.planetarydefense.info/index.html

But this is a serious resource for people working on the detection and possible deflection of objects that might impact Earth.

See also  http://www.nss.org/resources/library/planetarydefense/WhitePaper-2009PlanetaryDefenseConference.pdf

Astronomy Software

A wonderful list of software and apps for or related to Astronomy, including for apps for iPhone and Android. 

A very dense resource of links, strongly suggest spending some time looking through their information.

Here is just one resource from the link about, a 9 page pdf, of just iPhone Apps http://astronomyonline.org/PDFs/iPhoneApps.pdf

Ediacaran fossils

The authors have essentially performed a CAT scan of these tiny fossils, except they use energies high enough to fry human tissues. This is sufficient to reveal subtle internal features, including what appears to be a nucleus inside many of the cells, as shown above. The authors argue that this isn't not just a matter of similar appearance. The object has a consistent location within the cells, takes up a consistent fraction of the cell's volume, and only appears once per cell, all of which are features of a nucleus.

Source and full story: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/12/precambrian-fossils-once-thought-to-be-embryos-reinterpreted-as-somethign-else.ars

Mass Extinctions have long been an area of interest to me, so I find this deeply interesting.  As much for the advances of Technology in Paleontology/Paleobiology, as for the actual fossils being discussed.

"Discovery of a ‘Dark State’ Could Mean a Brighter Future for Solar Energy"

Using "organic plastic semiconductor material" a group led by  Xiaoyang Zhu is looking to double Solar Cell efficiency.

The maximum theoretical efficiency of the silicon solar cell in use today is approximately 31 percent, because much of the sun's energy hitting the cell is too high to be turned into usable electricity. That energy, in the form of "hot electrons," is instead lost as heat. Capturing hot electrons could potentially increase the efficiency of solar-to-electric power conversion to as high as 66 percent.

Source and full story at http://www.utexas.edu/news/2011/12/15/dark_state/

Kilobots, am I the only one who thinks Daleks?

From http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/ssr/projects/progSA/kilobot.html :

To enable the possibility of large Kilobot collectives where the number of robots is an order of magnitude larger than the largest that exist today, each robot is made with only $14 worth of parts and takes 5 minutes to assemble. Furthermore, the robot design allows a single user to easily oversee the operation of a large Kilobot collective, such as programming, powering on, and charging all robots

US Military Throwable Robots, reminds me of Robot Wars

I really like watching Robot Wars/ BattleBots, and at least a couple of these Military designs looked like they were based on those concepts.

3M film turns windows into transparent solar panels

Supposed to be a DIY install, think about the energy saving on sky scrappers!

Full StoryLink.

NASA, Google award $1.35M prize for ultra-cool, mega-efficient electric aircraft

http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/nasa-google-award-135m-prize-ultra-cool-mega-

200+ MPG!  Beats a Prius by a lot.

Cassini Solstice Mission

This is simply cool, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/ I could spend hours playing on that site.

Note you can look through the raw images, you might even find something before anyone else does.

Looking forward to Amazon's new Tablet

Latest news I have seen at Ars

Neat EDC flashlights

I like SureFire as primary flashlights, since they use clicky switches and they start at high output setting.

But I have been looking for smaller flashlights for backup, and for when I have to dress more formally.

I like the Fenix LD15 since it uses a single AA battery, much cheaper than the CR123 batteries my Surefires use.

It has a twisty switch, but I don't mind that on my backup lights, IMO twisty lights are less likely to turn themselves on in my pocket.  This AA light has a High output in same range as my more expensive Surefires that use CR123 batteries.


I also found this cute little Fenix E05 in purple. This light uses AAA batteries, only has a low level setting but is small and light weight.

Thinking I might get my girlfriend this purple one as a gift and get myself a black Fenix E05.  I probably wouldn't carry this light often, probably only on more formal occasions were I can't carry the bigger flashlights I normally use.  But it is small enough to be carried anywhere.

These Fenix lights are all LED models, which I really prefer for EDC. I have switched my EDC Surefire's to LED heads. They get much better battery life, but more importantly they never really die. They just get dimmer and dimmer.

So you never go to use the light and have nothing. That happened to me more than once with the older, pre LED, bulbs in the Surefires. Couple of times when I really needed a light. That is why I pretty much always carry 2 flashlights now.

Lithic Technology

Natural stone by Michael Miller

 Or Flintknapping as it is commonly called is an old technology that anyone can learn.  It is a low cost hobby, you will need a few tools, but if you can't spend much money at the start you can use modern tools that you have laying around now.

Since you will literally be working stone, which if not "dirt" cheap is still inexpensive, the consumable part of the hobby will be almost free.

In addition, if your serious about it, you can sell some of your work once you have mastered the basics.  Though many do not realize it, you can work glass.  Obsidian, a traditional material for flintknapping, is a volcanic glass.

Glass does have some downsides vs some other materials specially some types of flint and chert.  But it is easy to obtain glass that makes truly beautiful points or blades.

You can use beer, wine, or soft drink bottles as an easy to find most likely free source of material that comes in colors not typically found in natural stone.

Artistic Glass point by Michael Miller

Or if your willing to spend a little money for aesthetic or artistic joy you can consider Artistic Glass, photo above is finished point made from Artistic Glass by Michael Miller.  See this thread on the Paleoplanet forum.  I find these modern materials are often truly beautiful.

Even people not familiar with forming stone tools can easily see the beauty of these objects.  I also find a lot of natural stone points pleasing to the eye as well.  Agate makes for jewelry quality points in my opinion.

So if your interested in learning how ancient people made tools.  If your looking for a rewarding hobby, or perhaps you just dream of being stranded like Robinson Crusoe, take a look at Flintknapping. 

Paleoplanet is a good place to start if you want to learn more, they also cover a lot of other primitive skills.  If you want to buy some artistic or functional work by modern masters check out Flintknappers.com ,I am waiting for my first order of a few points to arrive from that site.

I plan to do a future post on flintknapping with a lot more detail as I learn more.  As mentioned above I have ordered a few points myself, I plan to acquire at least a small collection.  I also want to test points and blades in the field to learn how they compare to the more modern tools I am used to.

Special thanks to the founder of Flintknappers.com, Michael Miller, he provided the pictures for this post.  In addition to answering all of the questions I had about flintknapping.  Michael Miller's Gallery of items for sale, link to his Lithic Analysis company.

Paleolithic technology

Check out PaleoPlanet.  They have have information on Flintknapping and other "primitive" skills.  In my opinion they are not low level skills.  I suspect most people that study so called "primitive" skills quickly learn that, buy then my BA is in Anthropology.

I think learning "primitive" skills is very rewarding, it is something anyone can learn how to do, though it takes time and effort.  It is an extremely rewarding hobby, activity, or even avocation for adults or children. 

It is an educational activity, part of "experimental anthropology" or term I'm more used to "reconstructive archaeology," were you attempt to learn more about how things were done in the past by using techniques and tools from certain people & time period.

This often leads to new information, you gain knowledge by doing that can not be learned from simply studying the artifacts past people left behind.

Cyber Attack

More details from The Atlantic Wire, but it is pretty stunning in the scale.

Also consider that the Pentagon considers Cyber Attacks an act of war.

See refs The Atlantic Wire article, Wall Street Journal article, US Dept of Defense pdf

Though there are problems with DOD's position on the general issue of cyber attacks, I also wonder if that posistion was drafted in response to this attack.  Remember the parts of the government and some others have know about this large Cyber Attack for some time.  The story just broke to the public now.

How to change Text color HTML help

Thanks to quackit again, link to HTML color help here.