Thursday, February 17, 2011

Evil Scientists Enraged Over New Anti-Laser




Scientists build world's first anti-laser

"You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' ANTI-laser beams attached to their heads!" -Dr. Good

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Phone Home


When I was, maybe 10, a guy who worked for NASA came to talk to our school about the new "Space Shuttle." We asked what they were going to use it for, since they couldn't land it on the moon. He said they would use it to put "satellites" in space that would let us talk on phones without wires that were "about the size of my wallet." We all laughed at him. We asked when a base on the moon would be built.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010


I must admit I've never read Brave New World. I did read 1984, in 1984, when I was in Junior High and everyone was reading it for the novelty of it. I thought it was boring at the time. I later learned about Brave New World by discussing it with friends who read it. I lumped them both, along with A Clockwork Orange, into a category of sci-fi that was ugly, pessimistic, and a little paranoid. I've never liked any of the post apocalyptic science fiction. I regarded it as anti-science, merely modern rehashes of Frankenstein. The films of the genera were reliably shoddy and nihilistic. I once complained to a friend that just because someone has access to a scrap yard, doesn't mean they should make a science fiction film.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009


Project Tuva is launching with Richard Feynman's Messenger Series lectures, a cornerstone set of seven talks at Cornell University in 1964. These videos are enhanced with a number of different layers of contextual information: full transcripts and captions, fully searchable transcripts, time-synchronized contextual "extras" that link to web resources to learn more about a spoken topic, the ability to take notes while watching, integration with Microsoft Research's own amazing World Wide Telescope project, and more.

Bill Gates, a longtime admirer of Feynman's ability to make science approachable and fun, secured the rights to footage of Feynman's Messenger lectures. Microsoft Research made this lecture series even more relevant and evocative by adding interactive visualizations, bibliographic references, web links, commentaries by subject matter experts, and even the ability to take notes while watching.

Project Tuva (for Microsoft Research) from Stimulant on Vimeo.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study

This just in from the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department, MIT.

Abstract

Among a fringe community of paranoids, aluminum helmets serve as the protective measure of choice against invasive radio signals. We investigate the efficacy of three aluminum helmet designs on a sample group of four individuals. Using a $250,000 network analyser, we find that although on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either directions (either emanating from an outside source, or emanating from the cranium of the subject), certain frequencies are in fact greatly amplified. These amplified frequencies coincide with radio bands reserved for government use according to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact enhance the government's invasive abilities. We speculate that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason.

Introduction

It has long been suspected that the government has been using satellites to read and control the minds of certain citizens. The use of aluminum helmets has been a common guerrilla tactic against the government's invasive tactics [1]. Surprisingly, these helmets can in fact help the government spy on citizens by amplifying certain key frequency ranges reserved for government use. In addition, none of the three helmets we analyzed provided significant attenuation to most frequency bands.

We describe our experimental setup, report our results, and conclude with a few design guidelines for constructing more effective helmets.

The three helmet types tested

The Classical

The Fez


The Centurion
The rest can be read here (with a tinfoil hat). http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/