Eternal Flame

 A burning mine

New Straitsville was originally founded in 1870 as a coal mining town by the New Straitsville Mining Company. The town grew quickly and by 1880 the population was over 4000 people. The coal mining activity ended in 1884, when a labor dispute at the mine ended with a group of miners sending a burning coal car into the mine, igniting the coal. At one time the heat from the fire was so great that residents could draw hot water directly from wells to brew coffee. The fire in the New Straitsville mine burns to this day.

I thought this was an isolated thing.  I was wrong

Many coalfields in the USA are subject to spontaneous ignition. The federal Office of Surface Mining (OSM) maintains a database (AMLIS), which in 1999 listed 150 fire zones. In mid-2010, according to OSM, more than 100 fires were burning beneath nine states, most of them in Colorado, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Utah and West Virginia. But geologists say many fires go unreported, so that the actual number of them is nearer to 200, across 21 states.

I've based entire roleplaying game campaigns on Centralia Pennsylvania with the underground mine being a gate to hell that the players have to enter and/or destroy.

but there are bigger ones

Twonky

so I'm looking at the ad that google placed on my site... something called a Twonky.

What the hell is a Twonky?

Wikipedia says it's a 1953 comedy movie about a tv set that does everything for you, eventually controlling all aspects of your life and making it a living hell.

The website says its a media server that can connect across a lot of different devices, sharing your stuff.

What formats does TwonkyServer Mobile support?

TwonkyServer Mobile can stream the following file formats:
Music: MP3, WMA, WAV, 3GP, M4A, MP4, LPCM, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MP2, AC3, MPA, MP1, AIF
Photo: JPEG, PNG, TIF, BMP
Video: MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG2-TS, MPEG4, AVI, WMV, VOB, DivX, 3GP, VDR, ASF, MPE, DVR-MS, Xvid, M1V, M4V

Anybody using this? For twenty bucks it seems pretty cool.

Spider goats

Mad Science Alert #2


The goal: Spider silk is incredibly strong. It can be combined with various binders to make fantastic armor

The problem: milking spiders is tedious, and if you put a thousand spiders in an enclosure, in a few days, you have one fat spider.

The solution: spider goats!

No, they don't look like this... they look like normal goats, except their milk is all silky and thick.





but seeing as how they have now genetically altered silkworms to do the same thing, with a much smaller yuck factor... we now have... DUN! DUN dunnnn..... Obsolete spider goats!


Yes, somewhere in Canada Utah is a farm with goats once worth millions of dollars apiece, now wondering where all the guys in lab coats went.


And people wonder why I stopped reading fiction.

recent update:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16554357

bwa ha ha

Mad Science alert!

releasing irradiated larger than average screwworm flies into the countryside since 1976..... and the plan seems to be working!


and that's a good thing!


(I'm going to make the mad science alert a regular thing)

chirping weasels

There's a story I've been trying to track down... I'm not sure if it's true or not. It goes like this:

Hens seem to be  biologically programmed to run toward and nurture things that peep or chirp like a baby chick.
The same hens seem to have a programmed flight response to seeing a weasel. They run the second they see one.
So, take a stuffed weasel, and put inside it a little electronic chirp making speaker.
Then set this chirping weasel inside a room full of hens.
It causes the alleged  programming to glitch, and the chicken will freeze, unable to move, unable to think, until you take the thing away.

Anybody know if this is true?  A link of some sort would flat out rock.

I've always wanted to name something "chirping weasels" because of this story.

Paper strip medical tests

Picture a future where you have at home a few dozen strips of special paper, which you bleed on, or lick, or dip in whatever body fluids are required... these fluids are then wicked up into the paper and go to a series of chambers, where chemicals of various types have been infused.
When they hit these chambers, they change colors depending what each test is designed for.

Then you take a picture of the color changes on the strip and send it to a clinic as a txt message.

A color analysis and image program measures what shades and hues the paper changes to, and comes up with a VERY accurate analysis of the results, in almost no time at all.

Testing is possible  for diabetes, or for infections, or various elevated levels of specific hormones, or cells that don't do what they should. This is a long way from pregnancy strips... but they basically do the same things.

you could  even have a smartphone app do the analysis for you.

we already can

I am on a quest

to find Wasabi ice cream in the Seattle area


Somebody once told me it exists, but I have yet to find any.

I am not the only one looking

3d printing

something I've been following for a while now is the ability to print, one layer at a time, real objects.
Also called Rapid-Prototyping, also called Fabbing.
The potential is really amazing.

This is one of many companies that makes them

This is printing a working flute

This is printing with sugar

This is printing an airplane wing

This is printing a house

This is printing human organs

This is testing the idea of sending robots to print a moonbase before the people arrive later.

This is a website that is collecting downloadable files you can make things with, if you have your own 3d printer.

This is a guy trying to make a printer that can print itself.

Jetpacks are about to be something you can buy

Now you can buy ( and happily injure yourself with) a jet-pack!

when I was a kid these things sort of existed... with a 90 second air time, and a chance at exploding or diving straight down into the ground....

but now... water based jetpack

Off loading the pump and supply to a little follow-along boat was a stroke of genius. I can just see the maker looking at his jet-ski, then at a hose, then back at his jet-ski.....

Laser mind control (for roundworms)...

harvard controls the minds of worms with lasers

Soon a super villain will appear with a roundworm theme, riding his wriggling carpet of laser controlled doom!

Girl Genius

This is currently my favorite webcomic.
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
start at the black and white beginning... it's worth it... but will take you some time.

Me too.

Shouldexist

Back in 2005 my favorite website was www.shouldexist.org

Near the end it was being overrun by spam, and I think the guy who created it (Eric) moved on and could no longer take care of it.

I posted regularly to it...adding my half baked and ill formed ideas mainly to let them "bake" a bit more... and to get some feedback on them... At the time I felt it was the only way my ideas would ever be seen.

There was a great community there. Lots of people I enjoyed talking to, and ideas jiffy popping all over the place.

I can still look up the archives on the wayback machine.... but I really miss that proto blog.

Funny

Both our blogs were created today.

My wifes adsense on her new blog were "successful step families" Huggies Diapers" Advice for Step families" "guide to dating, engagement and remarriage with children"

My Adsense ads are "How to patent your Ideas" "have an invention Idea?" and "Inventors wanted"

This is the reason why google ads are top in class.

Dwarven Chant

I wrote this years ago when I was playing a dwarven character who sang all the time.

Can't go over it (no... no) (chorus) Can't go around it (no... no) Can't go under it (no...no) (GOTTA GO THROUGH IT) What's the dwarven way boys? Whats the dwarven way? (Never give up, Never give in) (Never let the bastards win) (hit them punch them) (beat them fight them) Thats the dwarven way boys! That's the dwarven way! Can't go over it (no... no) Can't go around it (no... no) Can't go under it (no...no) (GOTTA GO THROUGH IT)

GURPS and Mage the Ascension are my drugs of choice.

Mostly testing embedding using one of my favorite videos.

shameless promotion

My wife started her blog today as well

She's planning on writing about what our three wonderful and precocious kids say, what its like to be married to a man who spends most of his time in his own head, and how we cope with life.

 Another title should be daily dealing with chaos, mayhem, and havoc.... and loving every minute of it.

http://gamersbabes.blogspot.com/

Living heroes

As I find people who do amazing things, I want a way to keep track of them, to look them up again later to see what else they are doing. I'd also love to keep adding to this list, having it grow larger and better over time.

The people on this list have to
1. still be alive
2. blow my mind.

I'm not putting actors or athletes in here... I want engineers, inventors, and scientists. People who devote their lives to making something bigger and better than they are... I'm not putting in politicians or rulers either. They get plenty of recognition for the things they didn't do.

These are my heroes. and It's a damn shame people  know more about the guy who threw a pass in the last superbowl than the guy who created an artificial living cell with DNA he encoded with the signatures of his entire team.

Dean Kamen Not just the Segway, not by a long shot.

Craig Venter  This guy is a hairless cat and a private island away from being a Bond villain. 

Pranav Mistry gesture based applications for a projector on a necklace.

Burt Rutan making spaceships

Kevin Kelly cool tools man, Cool Tools!  

yousin suh wanna live forever? watch what she's doing.

Michael Hart public domains best friend is project gutenburg

Carl Malamud fighting the good fight for public domain 

Sal Khan well done, free online lessons, this guy rocks!

Adrian Bowyer  bringing us to a post industrial age... by making a machine that can make itself

Jason Clay convincing corporations that sustainability is better than profit.

Hans Rosling what this guy can do with a spreadsheet is amazing

Ray Tomlinson the man invented email. how cool is that?

Clay Shirky internet guru.

Leon Chua inventor of the memristor.   what will most likely lead to thinking machines.

Jack Bitterly  using a flywheel as a mechanical battery

Henrietta Lacks born in 1920, died 1951 still on this list of living heroes.  

Steve Mann all hail the Ubergeek.

Kevin Warwick the man planted a chip in his and his wifes arm to see if he could become telepathic 

Lonnie Johnson super soakers and solar panels, this man has the soul of Thomas Edison.

(added 1-31-2011)
Vladimir Miranov the master of Schmeat
(added 2-2-2011)
Aubrey de Grey and the Methuselah Mouse project

(added 2-4-2011)
Dale Dougherty, Maker


(added 2-6-2011)
Tan Le and the god helmet.




(I've created a permanent home at living-heroes.blogspot.com) and will no longer update here.

First Post

I've decided to start a blog. 

I'm thinking I'll post a few links I find that aren't getting a lot of exposure... open a comments section to talk about a few things. Share a little bit, and see if  I can't make something cool.

I picture this as being mostly about neat things I discover, as a way to improve my writing, and a way to get a lot of the stuff in my head... Out.

For instance. I've already noticed this first post is all about me me me.   Not really where I intended to go with all this, but that's what seems to be coming out. As time goes on, I'm certain that will change. I'm not really that self centered... even when I recognize the irony of posting this sentence.