et al. in Astra

Curiosity

A little dated, pun intented.

In Curiosity’s case, the CPU is a PowerPC 750 (PowerPC G3 in Mac nomenclature) clocked at around 200MHz — which might seem slow, but it’s still hundreds of times faster than, say, the Apollo Guidance Computer used in the first Moon landings. Also on the motherboard are 256MB of DRAM, and 2GB of flash storage — which will be used to store video and scientific data before transmission to Earth. […]

On the software side of things, NASA again stuck to tried-and-tested solutions, opting for the 27-year-old VxWorks operating system. VxWorks, developed by Wind River Systems (which was acquired by Intel), is a real-time operating system used in a huge number of embedded systems. The previous Mars rovers (Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity), Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft all use VxWorks. VxWorks also powers BMW iDrive, the Apache Longbow helicopter, and the Apple Airport Extreme and Linksys WRT54G routers (really).

http://m.extremetech.com/extremetech/#!/entry/inside-nasas-curiosity-its-an-apple-airport-extreme-with-wheels,501fc6967af68a84dc679e9e

et al in Cogito

Olympics

For a nation of individuals, the US does okay in team sports.

et al. in grosso: Film Map

Beautiful example of creative geography.  The graphic design Dorothy from Manchester, UK have created a new map in the style of vintage LA street map, but with street and place names based on Film.

http://www.wearedorothy.com/shop/film-map-original-open-edition

There is also a similar map based on song titles.

http://www.wearedorothy.com/shop/song-map-original-open-edition

et al. in politica: Role of Government

From Column by Mark Thoma

The upcoming presidential election gives voters a choice between two very different philosophies of government. For Democrats, an activist government is necessary to keep markets functioning, and to smooth economic fluctuations. Without government oversight, markets would be captured by monopoly power, consumers would be at the mercy of unscrupulous producers, there would be distortions from adverse selection, information asymmetries, moral hazard problems, and so on. In addition, if government does not take action when a recession hits, the downturn will be much worse and much longer than necessary.

For Republicans, however, activism is exactly the wrong approach to take. They believe that the key to making markets work and smoothing economic fluctuations is for the government to get out of the way and let the private sector work its magic. In general, markets react faster, incorporate more information, and regulate commercial behavior better than humans will ever be able to do.

More at The Economist's View.

et al. in cogitari

If you can't complain....
How do you start a conversation?

et al. in grosso: Leather Suitcase

This is an incredible piece of luggage. This is what those pulp action heros of yore would have carried on their globe-trotting adventures aboard Pan Am clippers, protecting Joe Average from the menace of Nazis, Zombies, and assorted Mad Scientists.

Saddleback Leather has a whole catalog of classic-style handbags and luggage.

et al. factum: Home Insurance Building in Lego

Gordon Grguric's model of the Home Insurance Building is composed of more than 80,000 bricks.

Chicago's Home Insurance Building was built in 1884 and is considered to be the World’s first skyscraper

Brothers Brick
gordangrguric's photostream

et al. in scientia: Sandia Cooler

Sandia researchers have developed a radically new architecture for air-cooled heat exchangers. In conventional “fan-plus-finned-heat-sink” air-cooled heat exchangers, the primary physical limitation to performance (i.e. achieving low thermal resistance) is the boundary layer of motionless air that adheres to and envelops all surfaces of the heat exchanger. Within this boundary layer region of “dead air”, diffusive transport is the dominant mechanism for heat transfer. The resulting thermal bottleneck largely determines the thermal resistance of the heat exchanger.  Another longstanding problem is inevitable fouling of the heat exchanger surface over time by particulate matter and other airborne contaminants. Heat sink fouling is especially important in applications where little or no preventative maintenance is typically practiced.  The third major obstacle concerns inadequate airflow to heat exchanger resulting from restrictions on fan noise. Small and medium-sized fans have relatively poor mechanical efficiency; unproductive expenditure of mechanical work on the surrounding air results in high noise levels.

The “Sandia Cooler” architecture simultaneously eliminates all three of the drawbacks of conventional air-cooled heat exchanger technology. The “Sandia Cooler” provides a several-fold reduction in boundary layer thickness, intrinsic immunity to heat sink fouling, and drastic reductions in noise. It is also expected to be very practical from the standpoint of cost, complexity, ruggedness, etc.

https://ip.sandia.gov/technology.do/techID=66

et al. in cogitari

Why is everyone else so self-centered?

Because Everyone Else is Doing It....

Because everyone else seems to be jumping off the bridge, I am kowtowing to conformity and submitting to peer pressure, and thus creating a blog too.