Technology historian George Dyson (not to be confused with Freeman Dyson, his dad) paid a visit to the Google campus on the 60th anniversary of the von Neumann architecture and had something to say about it. I’m reading it right now.

Oh man, this is a sad commentary about what happens when Oregon slashes funding for the Oregon Health Plan. People go off their meds and I find stuff like this in Mercury’s newspaper box downtown in Pioneer Square. And I quote:

About 5 Years ago I was sitting at my house and felt simething on my heart, I took A[sic] ceramic timeand pit it in front of my heart and could hear the micro-wave ticking off of it. Me and A[sic] friend went to the spy-outlet store locate in Portland, ore.,[sic] and picked up A[sic] frequency locater[sic] and got A[sic] frequency that is in the ELECTRO-MAGNETIC[sic] frequency range. The frequency that was picked up 6.58-6.72[sic] gigahertz I,ve[sic] done some research over the last 5 years being under the influence of the united states government[sic], injecting voices, called INFRA-SOUND[sic]. There is A[sic] popper or dome mounted on the federal communications towers that is manufactured by scientific Atlanta corp. That dome emits electrical impulses, lambda-ALPHA-BETA-DELTA-THETA[sic]. . [sic]That dome has no television and no radio communications purpose. The united states government [sic] has and is trying to kill me with those domes manufactured by SCIENTIFIC ATLANTA[sic][emphasis added]. There has never been A[sic] heart attack in my family, cousins, brothers, sisters, parents nobody[sic]. In september of 2005 my brother had A[sic] heart attack. There is A[sic] facility that is located at 9951 S.E. ANKENY, in Portland ore.[sic], 97220. That facility is occupied 24 hrs a day 365 days a year. Wen I confronted an employee at that address, he told me to go home and cook A[sic] hamburger. That facility is either A[sic] fcc[sic] facility or a CIA killing facility[emphasis added]. Attorney genral[sic] JANET RENO attended a conference at john Hopkins[sic] university , in march of 1992- or march of 1993, to discuss ELECTRO-MAGNETIC pulse weapons to be used on humans throughout the united states of America[sic]. That meeting was attended 400 physicists, and scientists[sic] .One of the topics discussed was A[sic] MASER, it resembles a LASER, but it is transmitted in the electro-magnetic frequency range, the same range ,me and JAY HARRIS witnessed on that frequency locater[sic]. The government had hit my heart with a A MASER[sic]. I have been to the hospital 5 times and have had an MRI, and an EKG .That weapon is A[sic] violation of the fourth amendment of the united states constitution[sic]. The reason for the cover up, is that the united states government has vreated this technology to induce sickness and health problems on innocent Americans to disguise their campaign contributions, and to possibly have stock, in the pill manufacturing industry.I also believe that the PRESIDENT, VICE PRESIDENT, CONGRESSMAN[sic] and SENATORS HAVE THE BIGGEST STOCK IN THOSE PILL COMPANYS[sic]. Induce sickness to manipulate the sale of the remedy. These are the people that I have contacted in the united states government[sic], and have not gotten one reply , PORTLAND POLICE CHIEF, -MAYOR TOM POTTER-DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE-CONGRESSMAN EARL BLUMENAUER-SENATOR GORDON SMITH-WHITE HOUSE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY-STATE DEPARTMENT-DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE-F.B.I.-C.I.A.-SENATOR PATRICK LAHEY[sic]-SENATOR TED KENNEDY,-SENATOR JOHN MCAIN, AND MANY PHONE CALLS TO THE FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS BUREAU. The federal communications informed me that I need to go to the hospital. I,ve[sic] also contacted the DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE and Have[sic] and employee that has acknowledged A[sic] maser. [MICROWAVE-LASER] That weapon has only one purpose and that is to kill human beings in the united states[sic] over federeral communications antennas. Once again the united states government is trying to kill men and I believe they killed my brother, with weapons described at that conference, that took place at john Hopkins university[sic], back in march of 1993, OR 1994,

Who in congress is overseeing the construction and use of microwave towers and antennaw arrays in this country?

SCIENTIFIC ATLANTA ,5030 SUGARLOAF PKWY LAWERANCEVILLE GA 30044-2869 PHONE#770-236-4617

Why is the Department of Defense pusing for an increase in in the numbers of Ground Wave Emergency Network (GWEN) towers in this country?

I feel you, man. I’ve thought mysterious people wanted to kill me, too. However, this feeling went away when I stopped drinking too much coffee. This diatribe really begs the question, was the author in need of psychiatric care, or less crystal methamphetamine?

This really brought to mind the play my roomate’s in, Bug. It delves heavily into paranoia, the gubmint, and is peppered with lots of freebase cocaine use. It’s highly relevant to this topic.

I felt a lot like this guy for a long time, but no more. Jet packs, high voltage toys, and another jet pack(awesome).

I found a great example of binaural beats being used in electronic music recently. Go fourth and listen to The Chemical Brothers “The Golden Path” from Singles 93-03. A great song in its own right, with vocals from Steven Drozd and Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips. But the really interesting part is the chorus, which features tremolo-heavy, overlapping ‘aaaaaaah’ sound. When listening with headphones, it’s a beautiful example of binaural beats and a stirring experience.

I stumbled onto binaural beats back in college. The idea is relatively simple to grasp: suppose you have two sets of tones with different frequencies, i.e. 100 hz and 110 Hz. When played together, those tones produce a beat with a frequency of 10 Hz, the difference of the two tones. This happens because the peaks and troughs of the waves overlap to produce a higher and lower amplitude at a regular interval. The interval is specified by the difference between the two beats.

Now suppose you have a pair of headphones, and the tones are isolated to each ear. The binaural beat is audible, but exists only in the brain as the result of perceiving the separate tones simultaneously. There’s a bit of controversy over whether or not this has a therapeutic effect, and an unfortunately little research has been done. It’s freaky though. I’ve experienced similarly odd brain states resulting from flashing lights, particularly when getting in late with my bike’s LED light flashing in an otherwise completely dark basement. More than once I’ve been compelled to consider how epileptic fits have been triggered by flashing lights at just the right frequency. Brains are fascinating things.

My colleague Roberto has entered his battered, mutated laptop in a contest at Gizmodo. Many entered, but Roberto’s box is now among the four finalists. Go vote for him to help him win a brand new Sharp laptop to replace this piece.

Roberto explains the story behind the spectacle:

“Here are some pics of my Toshiba 3480ct laptop. I have had this laptop since summer 2001; it was given to me as part of a college scholarship. The next winter is when everything went wrong. After a long night of studying with friends at a dorm across campus, I decide to head home. As soon as I make it to my room I put my laptop bag on the floor and jump in bed. Maybe five minutes later I decide to go use bathroom and when I come back I grab up my laptop to surf the net. I open it I see all these weird looking blobs on the screen that look like a pen exploded. I turn on my laptop only to see a huge crack down the middle. I immediately put the laptop back on the floor (great place for it, huh?) and went to sleep hoping that it was just a nightmare. When I woke up the next morning my worst fears were realized. The first thing I did was call up a few repair shops to get some estimates over the phone. I finally found one place that said they had used LCDs and could get me a good price on the repair. At the time the LCD new would have cost me 1100. I finally got an estimate of like $800 so I decided not to get it fixed and just look for a screen and do it myself. After a few months with no luck I eventually gave up decided to create a 3lb ultra portable desktop, and name thee The Ladtop (better than the commodore I had when I was 4 ).”

“As you can see from my extensive collection of peripherals this baby is a workhorse. We have the 100gb external hard drive (where else can I store my movies, music, CD images of every windows), the original battery (which gives this baby a hearty 15-30 minutes of battery life), battery pack (adds up 16x the battery life!), external PCMCIA powered CD drive, and the USB Wifi adapter. Other Optional accessories are this recently purchased 5-inch Xbox LCD, which can be connected, with a VGA to s-video/RCA adapter to provide fully portable experience.”

Specs:
600 mhz p3
192 mb sdram(expandable to 192 mb)
12 gb hard drive
1 usb port
Windows XP Pro

Update: Roberto wins! His victory speech:

I appreciate this more than I can verbally express…I just really wanna thank you guys at gizmodo and sharp for giving me the oppurtunity to tell my story and participate in this great contest. You guys rule!

P.S. I guess those 3 hours a day I spend at work reading you articles finally paid off.

It’s over! I polished off The System of the World, the final book in The Baroque Cycle last night. It was amazing. I feel empty now; how to you follow something like that? I’ve gotten earfuls of advice, and ideas of my own. Philip K. Dick is probably going to be on the list, along with William Gibson (full disclosure: I haven’t read Neuromancer yet. sigh) and Kurt Vonnegut. Neal Gaiman has some interesting writing that I’m interested in. Alas.

I’m not about to critique the story right now, but I’d like to comment on the outcome in relation to Neal Stephenson’s other works. The ending was the best ending I’ve seen from Stephenson so far. It feels, well, complete in a way that The Diamond Age wasn’t. (Not that the Diamond Age was bad, just a little disappointing in its resolution). In the end, I laughed and cried. It was a cathartic finish for the nearly three thousand pages of epicness.

This series isn’t for everyone. Indeed, it isn’t for anyone who doesn’t have a great deal of time to invest. I also recommend keeping Wikipedia and Metaweb handy for researching the story while you read. It’s a risky practice, since it can give away a lot of spoilers, but ultimately it’s more satisfying to be able to read more about the connections between the characters, and the backstory.

Anyone care to join me in wild speculation about what Stephenson will do next? I’m guessing he’s hard at work on Cryptonomicon II: Enoch Root’s Revenge.

More: further reading indicatates that there is actually a genre that The Barque Cycle fits into (or around) called Steampunk. The Difference Engine (by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling) goes further down this path into a full-blown alternate history wherein the information age begins shortly after the industrial age, and all manner of misadventures result. Sounds like a good read. See also the answer to the “Gibson v. Stephenson: who would win?” question posed at /.

It’s incredible to think of soldiers trekking around the United States on mountain bikes. It’s even more amazing to think of it happening in 1897. Check out the American History Magazine article on the subject:

Each rider carried a 10-pound blanket roll that included a shelter tent and poles, a set of underwear, two pairs of socks, a handkerchief, and toothbrush and powder. Properly packed, the roll fitted into a luggage carrier in front of the bicycle’s handlebars. Each man also carried rations of bacon, bread, canned beef, baked beans, coffee, and sugar in hard leather cases attached to the bicycle frame. Every other man carried a towel and a bar of soap, and each squad chief carried a comb and brush and a box of matches. Fully loaded, the soldiers’ bicycles weighed about 59 pounds each. Every man also carried a 10-pound Krag-Jorgensen rifle and a 50-round cartridge belt.

Any time I start to get the idea that I’m somehow a hardcore cyclist, I’ll just ponder these guys and continue pedaling.

(via MeFi, see the original post for more)

NASA, while disappointing with their progress on flying cars (or, come on, I’d be happy with just a good jet pack) has delivered the goods with a wrapup of this year’s hurricane season. Download the video and watch in awe as hurricanes Arlene throug W lash the coastal regions. The video starts at June 1, and leaves with a cliff-hanger on October 17 as record-breaking Wilma explodes into the Gulf.

I always had a fascination with explosions when I was a kid. This hardly makes me unique, but I had better opportunities than many to satisfy my appetite for things that went ‘BOOM!’.

It started when I was a kid in American Samoa. One day on my way home I was accosted my some local neighborhood punks, and the anger I felt I managed to channel into something (sort of) productive. I happened to have a neighbor who was a computer science teacher and also had access to the high school’s chemistry department. I presented my case for devising an explosive to turn the local thugs into a smoking crater, but my homicidal impulses were redirected into something less dangerous to lives and property. This resulted in a lesson in making relatively tame science experiments featuring baking soda and vinegar. Being only seven or eight years old, my attention span was short enought that by the time the exeriments had been carried out I had completely forgotten my dreams of revenge.

Down the road, in seventh grade I was fortunate enough to have a teacher who would allow his class to perform all manner of experiments in the name of Science. This resulted in my hands becoming blackened for two weeks when I made silver crystals on a copper wire using silver nitrate solution. We also had fun adding fuming sulphuric acid to a beaker full of sugar. However, the experiment which always sticks out in my mind was the calcium carbide experiment. It was beautiful in its simplicity: Take a small amount of calcium carbide, add a few drops of water. Cover with a paint can and wait a few seconds. By the way, there is a small hole in the side of the paint can. Insert a long match into the side of the hole. Watch the paint can soar into the sky, accompanied by an explosion as the acetylene gas ignites. This did not go over well at the Battle Creek Academy, and our days of unsupervised scientific explanation ended with this event. I suffered bouts of melancholy after this, for I had been excitedly looking forward to painting with white phosphorus and experimenting with metallic sodium.

I’ve been waxing sentimental for these days, and was shocked to see that I could buy calcium carbide by the pound. It’s also fairly easy to purchase nitric acid, which can be used to produce nitrocellulose.

Stay tuned for future posts where I repurpose my blog to document my experiences getting fitted for a new prosthetic arm!

I’m keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for atrociously bad weather in Portland this winter. I say this because I’ve just picked up a season pass to Timberline, and I want none of the sunny days we had last winter. I want snow, and lots of it. Snowboarding is always more fun with ample amounts of snow.