So I’m working transferring nearly all of my site pages into MT3.2 and abandoning GM and the Google search form entirely. Most of this migration is being done on my test server and it’s not ready for primetime yet. This why I haven’t posted here in over a month. When it’s ready, probably before MLK [...]
I had posted something here about using diatoms in micromachines three or so years ago but, WorldChanging has pointed me to an update on using diatom shells as parts in microelectromechanical systems. Apparently empty diatom shells can be "doped" in a manner similar to semiconductors. It is now possible to chemically alter diatom shells to [...]
Okay, those of us who’ve been paying attention to search engine results lately have noticed something new: splogs. A splog is blog generated by a robot that searches other stable and long lasting blogs and sites searching for content that mentions specific keywords. It then copies that content to its own entries and stuffs them [...]
If I were wise, I would have drunk the Kool-Aid at Microsoft years ago and taken their offer of full employment. But I didn’t. At the time, it didn’t feel right and I was just leery of commitment. That was probably a mistake. It wouldn’t have been my first and certainly won’t be my last [...]
After swapping out the power supply and CPU fan with higher quality models, one of my desktops is finally quiet enough to contribute to the SETI at Home. This project is a small way I can contribute to science without actually being a formal scientist myself. Once I quiet the other machine I have, I [...]
One of the nice things about including the subject of games on this site is, when I’m at a loss in other subjects, I can always rant about gaming pilpul and hairsplitting. Anyway, one of the endless unsettled disputes among role-playing gamers is the subject of realistic rules versus easy rules. On the one end, [...]
In the light of yesterday’s post, I wondered about progress in attempts to combine microelectromechanical systems and scanning probe microscopy. I looked in this direction because I had learned that it took the team at Rice eight years to figure out ways to reliably make their little bucky-wheeled chassis with conventional chemistry. They had to [...]
A team at Rice University builds a nanoscopic car chassis out of buckyballs and nanotubes. They claim the wheels roll but, some are skeptical. Over at the Georgia Institute of Technology, they hope to domesticate microbes and coax them into building complex circuit elements and other microscopic structures for us more cheaply than photolithography. A [...]
Maybe some of you have read "Dial F for Frankenstein?" In that short story Arthur C Clarke imagines the consequences of a minor technical improvement in the global communications network. Suddenly a new lifeform emerges out of the network and it quickly learns how to protect itself and control its body. Clarke’s story is often [...]
About a week or so ago Ray Kurzweil and Bill Joy condemned the publication of the genome of the virus responsible for the flu epidemic of 1918. Kurzweil in particular called for the genome to be censored.