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

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.

A fractal is self-similar but on a different scale:

more cat pictures

Schrödinger’s LOLcats

Blake Stacey of Science After Sunclipse, has collected the links reviewing Michael Behe’s book, Teh Edj of Evilushun.

Teh Edj of Evilushun

'Lonesome George' at the breeding centre Fausto Llerena on the Galapagos' Santa Cruz Island. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

A Galapagos tortoise of the Pinta subspecies may be a father after 36 years of refusing to mate with females of other subspecies. For 35 years he was the only known Pinta tortoise. In 2007, another male was found on a nearby island. Could it have been the whiff of competition? George was seen to b acting a little differently and then two weeks ago, one of the females was noticed digging. Nine eggs were found. Three have been transferred to an incubator. It will take four months for the eggs to hatch — if indeed they are fertilized at all. (Turtles sometimes lay unfertilized eggs.) George, at sixty to ninety years old, is still in his prime.

Here’s another Schrödinger’s LOLcats:

more cat pictures

Blogger Laurence Hunt sends some pictures of Northern Ontario after a month of sunshine and rain. It looks splendid: The Kenora Palette.

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.

Schrödinger’s LOLcat:

more funny cat pictures

This image macro comes with a comment quoting a poem by Cecil Adams, presumably of The Straight Dope fame.

There were other explanations:

• the bonsai kitty
• the cat of the month

Note: Schrödinger can also be rendered Schroedinger.