What Would You Do?

Me?  I'm pretty sure you couldn't depend on my normally friendly manner.  In fact, I think I'd be thinking quite intensely about my shotgun and how it could best be employed to set this situation right...

Obama Announces Reactor Financing...

Obama is now supporting power generation by nuclear power plants.  Not said in this article (though it's certainly implied by the jobs timetable): whether he's also going to direct his Department of Energy to fast-track the plant's licensing.  This is quite a turnaround in Obama's green positioning, and it's sure to piss off some of this greenie friends...

Hot Tamales! Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is in the Hoosegow!

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar captured by a joint U.S.-Pakistani operation.  Oh, more of this, please!

Synthetic Holograms...

Software computes the exposure patterns to create completely synthetic holograms from nothing more than a computer model and a piece of film.  Awesome!

Homemade CPUs...

Here's a nice post (with photos) of some made-from-scratch CPUs (including one made entirely from relays!).  I've often thought of doing something like this myself, just for fun.  I can add one to the list: back in the mid '70s, I worked with Don Tarbell, one of the microcomputer pioneers.  He's most well-known for the Tarbell cassette interface and the Tarbell floppy controller.  I wrote a Basic interpreter for him, which he distributed with the floppy controller and as a standalone product.  Don had an all-TTL homebrew CPU in his offices, something he built in the early '70s just for fun.  At the time, I couldn't imagine anything more intriguing than a project like that...I spent hours with him just poring over the details.  He greatly enjoyed having an interested person to talk about it with...

ClimateGate: Mainstream at Last...

There's a nice piece in the WSJ today.  The lead:

It has been a bad—make that dreadful—few weeks for what used to be called the "settled science" of global warming, and especially for the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that is supposed to be its gold standard.

First it turns out that the Himalayan glaciers are not going to melt anytime soon, notwithstanding dire U.N. predictions. Next came news that an IPCC claim that global warming could destroy 40% of the Amazon was based on a report by an environmental pressure group. Other IPCC sources of scholarly note have included a mountaineering magazine and a student paper.

Since the climategate email story broke in November, the standard defense is that while the scandal may have revealed some all-too-human behavior by a handful of leading climatologists, it made no difference to the underlying science. We think the science is still disputable. But there's no doubt that climategate has spurred at least some reporters to scrutinize the IPCC's headline-grabbing claims in a way they had rarely done previously.

It sure is nice to see this sort of thing in the American press.  It would be even nicer to see more of it...

Bye, Bye, Missile...

The Air Force's Airborn Laser Testbed (ALT) took out a missile in a successful test.  Think about how much technology has changed warfare between Vietnam and Afghanistan – then try to imagine what things like energy weapons, unmanned aircraft, and pervasive networking are going to do in the next few decades...

Potential Lighting Revolution...

The efficiency of CFL with the light quality of incandescant.  Sounds great!