Dataman55

A compendium of great sites, a bit of humor, and some intriguing information. Dataman is surfing the web, so you don't have to. I don't ask you to agree with what you read here. These are just my opinions. I could be wrong. This site is only meant to provoke thought and conversation. Feel free to send me your favorite articles and sites to share. (Tell your friends. Let's spread some knowledge)

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

More Defense Tech


All-Seeing Blimp on the Rise

The problem with the American military today is that it doesn't have a giant, robotic airship, two-and-a-half times the size of the Goodyear blimp, that can watch over an entire city at once. Thankfully, the Pentagon's way-out research arm, DARPA, is trying to fix that.
The program is called ISIS, short for "Integrated Sensor Is Structure." And the idea is to park an unmanned airship over a hot zone for a year, at nearly 65,000 feet in the sky. Up there, ISIS can spot enemy soldiers up to 180 miles away, target tanks and trucks, and watch out for incoming cruise missiles 350 miles in the distance -- a "detailed, real-time picture of all movement on or above the battlefield," one DARPA program manager says. During down times, ISIS might even serve as a cell tower in the sky, relaying communications to U.S.
troops.


http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002541.html

Meet Akiane


This is really cool. Akiane is "an internationally recognized 11-year-old prodigy, considered the only known child binary genius, in both realist painting and poetry. She was selected as one of twenty most accomplished visual artists in the world. She is a Kids' Hall of Fame inductee. She is the author of two books. She is a featured television and radio guest, including Oprah. Quite a life for an 11-year-old!

http://www.artakiane.com/home.htm

More on Gore

Today looks like a big day for GW news. Here is a site that reports information relating to climate and the debate on global warming. It is run by several scientists who do not receive funding from "big oil companies who are trying to downplay global warming so that they can maximize their own profits".

http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?ide=4

Meet the Car of the Future



The GM Hy-Wire is an all-electric, hydrogen cell, batteryless wonder. There is only one right now, but this could very well be what the future might look like. As the man says in the video, "remember where you were when you first saw the future". You were with Dataman!

http://jameshudnall.com/blog.php?/weblog/future_car1/

Blogs to watch

Here are some blogs I am watching. They spend a lot more time on it than I do.

http://badhairblog.blogspot.com/

http://farkleberries.blogspot.com/

http://www.philomathean.blogs.com/

http://gutrumbles.com/ (unfortunately Acidman died earlier this week. His archives are pretty interesting though. I wish I had heard of him sooner).

Earth surrounded by giant fizzy bubbles


(SPACE.com) -- The space above you is fizzing with activity as bubbles of superhot gas constantly grow and pop around Earth, scientists announced Tuesday.
Astronomers found the activity up where Earth's magnetic field meets a constant stream of particles flowing out from the sun.
While space is commonly called a vacuum, in fact there is gas everywhere, albeit not as dense as the air you breathe.


The newfound bubbles are technically called density holes. In them, gas density is 10 times lower. The gas in the bubbles is 18,000,000 Fahrenheit (10,000,000 Celsius) instead of the 180,000 degrees Fahrenheit of the surrounding hot gas, which is known as plasma.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/06/20/space.bubbles/index.html

More on Gore

I was recently criticized for only showing the negative side of the global warming debate. I admit that I do not believe in anthropogenic (man made) global warming. I admit that I side consistently with the sceptics. In the interest of maintaining some civility on this site, I hereby present two sides.

The first is a recent article from the Associated Press that claims that scientists are praising the science behind Al Gore's new movie.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060628/ap_on_sc/gore_s_science_3

The second is a quickly released rebuttal from the United States Senate. In a majority press release, the members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works takes the AP to task for claiming that "AP chose to ignore the scores of scientists who have harshly criticized the science presented in former Vice President Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth.” ".

http://www.epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=257909


Where do you stand on the issue? Have your thoughts been shaped mainly by one side or the other? Or do you look at both sides of the issue to get a more clear opinion?

Here is a thought that catches my thinking most clearly:

"Freeze or fry, the problem is always industrial capitalism, and the solution is always international socialism."
~~ Dr. Malcolm Ross

Simply Scripts

Another site full of scripts from Movies. TV shows, Pilots, etc.

http://www.simplyscripts.com/

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

US Army Awards for Top 10 Inventions of 2005


Technical innovation is present in all militaries, but America's combination of do-it-yourself types, large defense budgets, and a gadget-happy national character makes it particularly fertile ground. Now add a global war and its challenges, plus a defense sector with a strong small business component made up of ex-military types. The overall innovation transmission belt may not be as tight or as effective as Israel's or Singapore's, but the scale of the US defense establishment more than compensates in terms of the sheer number produced.

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/2006/06/us-army-awards-for-top-10-inventions-of-2005/index.php

The awards range from a combat tourniquet to a mechanical explosives sniffer called "Fido". I'm glad these guys are protecting us.

You can read further details about the inventions here:

http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/read.php?story_id_key=9181

Ladder Golf



I have been asked many times to provide plans for building a ladder golf game. It is also called Goofy Golf, Hillbilly golf, of Dutch Golf (I'm not sure why this would be true?!).

You can buy it at Dick's for about $65 (http://www.dickssportinggoods.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2217335&cp=&f=Brand%2F14306%2F&kw=Dennco&parentPage=search&searchId=10620233304) , or you can build it yourself for about $10. You decide. I suppose you could make your own Croquet set too, but some people would prefer to own a more refined setup.

I built mine myself. I keep it in a bag from one of those folding canvas lawn chairs.

Here is a set of plans online.

http://www.daltonlp.com/scouts/PVC%20golf%20game%20plans.pdf

Here is a brief description of the game (including some rules) from Wikipedia. If you aren't familiar with Wikipedia, you should be. It is a public, open source, encyclopedia. Anyone can write or update the articles. Some of the information may be incorrect, especially the political articles, but overall it is a very good source of general information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladder_Golf

More on Gore

Gore’s Global Warming Snow Job
June 27th, 2006

Phineas Taylor Barnum, the greatest 19th Century showman and huckster, taught the world that by craftily combining equal parts entertainment, science and sensationalism, our natural sense of wonder and curiosity can be exploited to convince the gullible masses of almost anything. Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., the 21st Century showman and huckster, employs a similar recipe to achieve equally misleading results.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5618

Monday, June 26, 2006

The Instructables

Build your own intercom or walkie talkie out of two old cordless phones. OK, this project might be a bit of electronics, but the idea is cool. So is the rest of the site. It contains cool little projects you can do with simple ingredients and their instructions. Interesting stuff. I especially like the knife sharpening instructions.



http://www.instructables.com/ex/i/E25A8E7C52B91029AC23001143E7E506/?ALLSTEPS

Multiculturalism and the Death of the American Dream

These are dark days for American education. In schools across the country, an alliance of politically correct educators and radical separatists is waging a divisive battle against the very idea of assimilation.

Browsers of the [Seattle Public School] website were informed that “having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology [and] defining one form of English as standard” were all forms of racism. How eliminating such key ingredients of America's melting-pot society would help immigrant children went unexplained. Evidently, Seattle’s educators view students who speak standard English, plan for the future and favor capitalism over collectivism as victims.

This is scary stuff indeed. If immigrants do not want to assimilate, and in fact are being told that those who ask them to assimilate and believe in the American Dream are racists, I hold little hope for our future. The whole point of the melting pot image is to bring what is best about your culture to the American Experience. It is absolutely not the idea that you can come here and change American Culture to fit your own ideals. Those people have been fought and dealt with harshly since the beginning of our country.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23085

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Saddam Ends Hunger Strike After Missing One Meal




Apparently he missed lunch! That's my kind of hunger strike.

What a tool!

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2006-06-23T115442Z_01_IBO253436_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-SADDAM.xml

Hollywood Patriotism



Memo to Hollywood, Patriotism sells and it is a hot commodity.


Thanks to : http://www.debbieschlussel.com/

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

It's fishing season


Just when you think that you caught a big one, someone comes along and proves you wrong. This is a real lunker. A 25 pound bass! WOW! Man, that sucker is huge!

http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/outdoors/20060320-1251-bn20bass.html

Document Details WMD Recovered

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) announced Wednesday the finding of over 500 munitions or weapons of mass destruction, specifically "sarin- and mustard-filled projectiles," in Iraq.

Reading from unclassified portions of a document developed by the U.S. intelligence community, Santorum said, "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."

I'm sure you won't be hearing about this on the evening news. I am also sure that some people will claim that this isn't enough to qualify as a rebuttal to the often spoken lie that "No WMD's were ever found" because that might just justify the war in their minds. They will also claim that this is a right wing news site, as though that makes the news somehow less worthy. Read and decide for yourself.

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200606/NAT20060621e.html

Random Quirkiness

This "telephone" has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.
- Western Union internal memo (1876)

Thanks to a quirky little site called Random Quirkiness:

http://dailyquirk.blogspot.com/

Summer Solstice at Stonehenge


Stonehenge is an ancient astronomical site, as everyone knows. Here is what it looks like when the sun rises over Stonehenge on the solstice.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Terragen


Terragen software is capable of photorealistic results for professional landscape visualisation, special effects, art and recreation. Terragen is a work-in-progress scenery generator for Windows and the Mac OS. At this stage of its development, Terragen is free for personal non-commercial use.

This is very cool software. It generates absolutely beautiful pictures. It appears to be very easy to use. The results are startling.

http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/

Al Gore and the Internet

Here is a story from the left side of the fence. I don't usually read many liberal blogs. But every once in a while I see something that makes sense. This is such a story. Every knows that Al Gore took credit during the 2000 presidential campaign for creating the internet.

Or did he?

Here is an article that explains how words can be twisted into a lie by the opposition. I admit that I knew the truth about this in 2000. I have been a technologist for years. I have been online permanently since 1995. I watched the internet blossom and grow from the ARPANET into the worldwide force that it is. I know that that occurred for two reasons: early funding of the ARPANET project, and a decision made in 1995 to allow commercial traffic onto the internet. You may recall, as I do, that up until August 1995, commercial traffic was not allowed. Allowing commerce on the net is what spurred the entire boom. I really hate to admit this, but that is the one truly positive legacy of the clinton years.

You can read more here:

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh120302.shtml

Monday, June 19, 2006

AT&T Text to Speech


Here is a cool site. It is AT&T's research labs. It runs a text to speech demo. This is the same technology that is used in the new AT&T commercial. Try it. Type in a paragraph and have the computer read it back to you. Try different voices and languages.

http://www.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php#top

The Internet Archive



The internet archive is a project to store the internet as it looked in the past. A remarkable feat. It contains a Wayback machine (Bullwinkle) that allows you to view sites as they were. Very cool stuff. There is also an archive of music, cartoons, and other items that is pretty extensive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayback_Machine

Here is a link to the downloadable movies available for free on the archive. I have a feeling I'm going to be wasting a lot of time here.

http://www.archive.org/details/movies

JibJab



Run by two brothers, this site became very popular during the 2004 election. They became famous for the election cartoon "This Land is Your Land". Check up on them and see what they have been up to lately.

http://www.jibjab.com/

List of websites by number of visitors

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Based on the Alexa rankings the top ten most visited websites as of May 24, 2006 are:
Yahoo! - US
Google - US
MSN - US
Baidu
MySpace - US
Yahoo! Japan
SINA.com
QQ.com
eBay - US
Sohu

I think the most interesting thing about this is that 4 of the top ten are from China.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_by_number_of_visitors

Cool Weather


Just a cool picture.

Hybrid Animals


Here is a list of 10 hybrid animals, starting with a Liger. Complete with pictures. Call Napoleon Dynamite.

http://www.hemmy.net/2006/06/19/top-10-hybrid-animals/

371 Useless facts

Just what the name says. I just love this stuff.

http://www2.gvsu.edu/~feenstrk/useless.html

Energy lab to run petascale computer

For the geek in me

Cray Inc. of Seattle will supply the system, named Baker. It will run approximately 24,000 2.6 Ghz quad-core Opteron processors made by Advanced Micro Devices Inc. The nodes will be housed in 187 liquid-cooled cabinets. The system, which is still in early stages of design, will have either 187 or 400 terabytes of working memory (depending on the cost of memory modules) and from one to 11 petabytes of storage. Such a computer, if operational today, would be considered the world's fastest; it may even be the first to break the 1 petaflop limit. A PFLOP is 1 quadrllion floating-point operations per second.

http://wwwgcn.com/online/vol1_no1/40250-1.html

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Borat


Have you heard of Borat? He is a very strange comedian from Kazakstan. He doesn't understand much about the U, S, and A, but he is trying to learn. Watch him as he travels around America. I especially like his trip to a dating service. This is funny stuff (but a bit adult, and the anti-semitism is a bit rough).

http://www.borat.tv/

Move America Forward

Speaking of George Soros, he is well known as the deep pockets behind the very liberal website MoveOn.Org. As a comparison, here are both e thMoveOn site and its conservtive counterpart, MoveAmericaForward.org. Look them both over. Let me know what you think.

http://www.moveamericaforward.org/

vs. MoveOn.org

www.moveon.org

Strong and Soros

Here is a team you should know something about. These are two billionaires who are working hard to destroy America, legally. Their latest scheme is to import cheap knock-off cars from Communist China in an effort to destroy the American Auto industry. Mind you, they do not simply want to launch a competing product, they want to decimate one of our key industries. These are not nice people. George Soros is the money man behind MoveOn.org. This is the "grass roots" organization that backs democratic candidates as long as they are anti-Bush. There is nothing grass roots about this group.

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/cover061506.htm

More on Climate

Last one for the day, I promise. Here is a site from New Zealand that is full of articles and reports related to true climate science. I have been accused of only playing to one side of each argument. Here is a site that is dedicated to finding the truth, not just with pushing an agenda. Put this site in your bookmarks. When someone asks you why you think you know so much about Global Warming, you can refer them here.

Coalition's mission:To represent accurately, and without prejudice, facts regarding climate change; to provide considered opinion on matters related to both natural and human-caused climate effects; and to comment on the economic and socio-political consequences of climate change.

http://www.climatescience.org.nz/

"Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get" - Mark Twain

More on Gore:

The gods are laughing

Scientists who work in the fields liberal arts graduate Al Gore wanders through contradict his theories about man-induced climate change

Albert Einstein once said, "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."

While the gods must consider An Inconvenient Truth the ultimate comedy, real climate scientists are crying over Al Gore's new film. This is not just because the ex-vice-president commits numerous basic science mistakes. They are also concerned that many in the media and public will fail to realize that this film amounts to little more than science fiction.

At least the Canadian Media seem to get it.

More "Inconvenient Truths"

Here is a must read article detailing some very inconvenient truths related to Al Gore's new comedy. One of his main points is that the science of global warming is settled and that there is "consensus" among scientists regarding anthropogenic climate effects.

Nothing could be further from this "truth".

"Scientists have an independent obligation to respect and present the truth as they see it," Al Gore sensibly asserts in his film "An Inconvenient Truth", showing at Cumberland 4 Cinemas in Toronto since Jun 2. With that outlook in mind, what do world climate experts actually think about the science of his movie?
Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: "Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."

Pathetic indeed. You won't hear about this on Katie Couric's nightly news.

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm

Monday, June 12, 2006

Diet Coke and Mentos











Have you heard about this? Apparently if you put Mentos into a 2-liter bottle of Diet Pepsi, it will immediately explode into a messy gusher. So a couple of guys put on lab coats and created a mess set to music that imitates the Bellagio fountains. Impressive stuff, but I would hate to clean up after them.

http://www.break.com/index/pepsimentos.html

Or you can try the original site:

http://www.eepybird.com/

Cool Galaxy, Courtesy of Hubble


http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

What about Output Inequality?

We've all heard about income inequality, the spreading gap between rich and poor. Here is an article that puts the responsibility on the producers of output, rather than on the "luck" of the "rich".

The Folk Marxist notion of "income inequality" is an invented problem. To be sure, poverty is a problem for those enduring it. But in terms of "inequality", why focus on the distribution of income? Why not the distribution of output, which is simply the other side of the income coin? Neither income nor equality are necessarily "wealth", but wealth is created by 'output'.

The issue — and this is something we'll have to deal with indefinitely — is that, in a wealthy free society, market income distribution will naturally grow more attenuated. After all, productivity is infinitely expandable and there is no ceiling to the value of output; there is, however, a floor. ($0) If individuals do not choose to acquire the skills/education required to be minimally productive, they'll necessarily be left behind.

http://www.chequer-board.net/story/2006/5/8/104222/9177

New House on the Market


Someone passed this on to me, so I thought I would share it. It is a nice little fixer-upper.

Here is the description from the site:

The Portabello Estate, an art form complementing its natural environment. 8 bedrooms, 10 baths and 5 half baths. Beyond five star resort luxury, private, triple oceanfront lot in Corona del Mar and amenities beyond your wildest dreams. Locations of this uniqueness not available anywhere.

Oh, the price is a cool $75 Million! Go to the site and click on the picture for a view of excessive consumption.

http://socallistings.marketlinx.com/SearchDetail/Scripts/PrtBuyFul/PrtBuyFulNoAddress.asp?prp=mls&AgentId=SHOWSROB&EmailKey=74052131

Did global warming stop in 1998?

The official thermometers at the U.S. National Climate Data Center show a slight global cooling trend over the last seven years, from 1998 to 2005.
Actually, global warming is likely to continue—but the interruption of the recent strong warming trend sharply undercuts the argument that our global warming is an urgent, man-made emergency. The seven-year decline makes our warming look much more like the moderate, erratic warming to be expected when the planet naturally shifts from a Little Ice Age (1300-1850 AD) to a centuries-long warm phase like the Medieval Warming (950-1300 AD) or the Roman Warming (200 BC- 600 AD).


http://www.cgfi.org/materials/articles/2006/may_23_06.htm

Some Inconvenient Truths about Global Warming

Al Gore says the world’s glaciers are melting because humanity has emitted too much CO2.
However, a new peer-reviewed study shows that in South America‘s Andes Mountains the glaciers’ advances and retreats have not been governed by CO2, but by small variations in the sun’s intensity
.

http://www.webcommentary.com/asp/ShowArticle.asp?id=averyd&date=060609

I find it strange that the only truths that Al Gore finds inconvenient to tell his gullible public about are those that contradict his program. He wants desperately, not to save the planet, but to institute big tax, big government programs that penalize our economy for no positive effect on the environment.

The story of the most misused number of all time. . .

With all the recent news about stolen SSN's and other identity information, I thought it would be interesting to read about the most misused Social Security Number in history.

The most misused SSN of all time was (078-05-1120). In 1938, wallet manufacturer the E. H. Ferree company in Lockport, New York decided to promote its product by showing how a Social Security card would fit into its wallets. A sample card, used for display purposes, was inserted in each wallet. Company Vice President and Treasurer Douglas Patterson thought it would be a clever idea to use the actual SSN of his secretary, Mrs. Hilda Schrader Whitcher.

http://www.ssa.gov/history/ssn/misused.html

Monday, June 05, 2006

Day of the Devil??

Just a note that tomorrow is 6/6/6. This occurs once a century. Today is the release of the new satanic thriller remake of the Omen. Fundamentalists around the world are upset. News at 11:00.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060605-121953-9265r.htm

Tongue Tied

Here is a site dedicated to exposing the ridiculous actions on the part of the Politically Correct. They have a great motto: "Carping about the excesses of clueless crybabies since the turn of the century. ".

http://www.tonguetied.us/

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Find Meaning in Your Music

Slang City,

Actually, this is a pretty silly site that translates slang in pop songs into standard English. I suppose it is for foreigners.

http://www.slangcity.com/songs/index.htm

Then there is Song Facts:

Facts and trivia about popular songs.

http://www.songfacts.com/

And finally there is Song Meanings:

Finding meaning in Pop Music is a bit like reading the back of a cereal box, but this site breaks down some favorite songs, nicely.

http://www.songmeanings.net/

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