Open-source laptop-tracking software

Bruce Schneier looks at free, open-source, Adeona software that tracks stolen laptops.

Students build autonomous underwater robot

Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

Canadian students have built a submersible robot that operates underwater autonomously or under remote control.

The new design and contributions from over 40 corporate sponsors allowed the AUVic team — led by students Matt Burdyny, Dave Shea and Will Fraser — to win two top prizes at the Canadian Engineering Competition earlier this month: one for innovative design and the other for technical excellence.

The vehicle weighs only 20 kg - so it can be launched by a single person from a small boat, instead of a charter vessel with a crane. It has onboard intelligence and doesn’t need to wait for instructions. It can manipulate objects as well as manoeuver.

Why S.F.’s network admin went rogue

Network World has a long, detailed article about the probable facts behind the recent arrest of the network administrator for the City of San Francisco. He has been accused of “holding the system hostage.” The gist of the article is that he was probably just being overprotective of a complex system. Even with him in jail, it’s continuing to run smoothly.

Hat tip to Harold Asmis at Ontario-geofish.

Let ‘em eat spam! Mailinator

The Mailinator web site enables you to create a legitimate—or at least pingable—e-mail address that you can enter into other web sites that demand one for registration. Then you can see whence comes your spam.

How do I create an account at Mailinator? It’s simple, you just send email to it. Temporary accounts are created when email arrives for them. First, you give out the mailinator email address you created, and then you check it. It’s that simple.

Do I have to sign up? No sign-up, you don’t even have to tell Mailinator you’re coming.

I’m going to have to try it.

I want one!

…preferably in front of my desk, where I can gaze at it while organizing my thoughts.

fish tank with modules

Zooilogix has a whole collection of unusual fish-tanks.

Don’t scan RFIDs in the hospital!

Warning! Hospitals have tested radio-frequency ID devices in a scanner and found that too many of them interfere with hospital equipment up to 6 metres away. The Corpus Callosum reports:

Radio Frequency IDentification tags (RFIDs) are little devices that communicate with other devices, sending an identification signal. You’ve probably seen them on various items purched in stores. They commonly are used for inventory control and theft prevention. They are increasingly used in a wide variety of applications.

Now, they have been found to interfere with medical devices. This includes critical items such as mechanical ventilators and external pacemakers.

The study was published in JAMA ($ for full access).

Read the comments as well for useful info. Or semi-useful. It seems that manufacturers of hospital devices don’t bother to shield them against interference.

Topology maps for your Garmin GPS navigator

Harold Asmis at Ontario-geofish had discovered how to download free topo maps for the Garmin:

As I prepare for my tiny canoe trip, I found a way to get 1:50000 topo sheets on my Garmin 60cx! This is great! You can find the img maps on Mapcenter2, and you just download them on the Garmin, making that stupid file name change. And voila! Ready to canoe.

I discovered that you can switch to terrain maps in Google as well as plain maps or satellite images.

Sloan Digital Sky Survey of deep space

What is the Sloan Digital Sky Survey?

It’s a telescopic survey into deep space reveals that the galaxies are distributed in thin films like soap bubbles around enormous gaps.

The Galaxy Zoo project lets you help to classify some of the millions of new galaxies that this project has revealed for the first time.

The Sky Server has school projects and teachers’ materials for Grade 3 to University levels.

The Astronomy section briefly describes the history of astronomy
and gives the state of our knowledge of stars, quasars, galaxies, clusters, superstructures, and the large structure of the universe.

Now you never have to stop working

Once you get the Emperor Workstation, you can sit in ergonomic comfort with a different task on each screen. In fact, you’ll hardly ever have to stop working.

Hat tip to Jason Rosenhouse at Evolutionblog.

This is a reduced image of the one from Core77 design.

This looks to me like Darth Vader’s personal computer. It might sting you if you make a “fatal error.”

North Korea destroys nuclear power plant

North Korea is repudiating at least one road to nuclear power by destroying its nuclear power plant at Yongbyon.

PYONGYANG, North Korea (CNN) — North Korea on Friday destroyed a water cooling tower at a facility where officials acknowledge they extracted plutonium to build nuclear weapons, CNN’s Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour reported from the scene.

The massive implosion, which came at about 5pm local time Friday at the Yongbyon facility, was intended to be a powerful public symbol of a move to end nuclear activities by the Communist nation….

The destruction of the highly visible symbol of North Korea’s long-secret nuclear program came just a day after the country released details of its program.

A signal flare gave a three-minute warning as U.S. State Department officials and observers from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) watched from a reviewing stand.

“This is a very significant disablement step,” the U.S. envoy to North Korea, Sung Kim, said.

Nuclear experts say that the plant’s destroyed central water-cooling tower would take a year or longer to rebuild if North Korea were to try using the plant again.

“This is a critical piece of equipment for the nuclear reactor,” said analyst John Wolfsthal, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who has been following North Korea since the 1980s. “Without this facility, the reactor can’t operate and can’t produce more plutonium for weapons.”

North Korea has been dismantling other parts of the facility under the watchful eyes of representatives of the five other nations, including the U.S., that have been involved in six-party talks aimed at ending Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

On Thursday, North Korean officials turned over to China a 60-page declaration, written in English, that details several rounds of plutonium production at the Yongbyon plant dating back to 1986.

In it, North Korea acknowledges producing roughly 40 kilograms of enriched plutonium — enough for about seven nuclear bombs, according to the U.S. State Department.

In response, Bush said he would lift some U.S. sanctions against North Korea and remove the country from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Cool custom rings

Not for your valves, for your fingers. Scott at Dammit Jim! tells us about Boone Rings, where you can get custom shape, size, and curvature in gold, silver, palladium, titanium…. See Cool Custom Wedding RIngs. You can order online. Scott says he got his rings four days later.

Time to install the refurbished printer

more cat pictures

Printer problems

We don’t have this problem. It’s jsut that our wireless hub keeps forgetting to find the printer.

more cat pictures

Remembering polio

Iron Lung Ward of Ranchos Los Amigos Hospital circa 1953.
The victims were usually children.

There’s a discussion on the BookCrossing Chit-chat forum about polio, stimulated by a news story: a paralyzed woman died during a power failure after spending 57 years in an iron lung that did her breathing for her. Thanks to polio vaccines, the iron lungs are now more-or-less history. I think that anti-vaccinationists have forgotten what they would be bringing back.

She had been confined to the 7ft, 750lb metal tube – which mostly remained in the living room of her parents’ home 80 miles north-east of Memphis – since 1950, when she had fallen victim at the age of three to a severe case of “bulbo-spinal” polio.

This crippling disease, which has since been eradicated in the developed world through vaccination programmes, forced doctors to encase her in a sealed cylindrical metal container, which produced alternately positive and negative pressure that allowed her lungs to expand and contract. Although experts at the time gave her just a few years to live, Ms Odell remained lying on her back, with only her head extending from the mechanical device, for nearly six decades. [Italics mine.]

Some of the BookCrossing members chimed in with their own stories: remembering polio.

Geotagging gadgets

Over at Engagdet, you can read about small geotagging devices. They coordinate your photograph date and time data with your GPS location for quick map mash-ups.

Imagine a public mapping effort that geotags clearcutting, illegal waste dumps, cracks in bridges or dams, and even bad roads.