1 – I’ve decided to upgrade the memory. What chip does the EeePC clamshell take?

2- Microsoft is pimping Windows 7 for netbooks. Anyone try this?

A review of Verizon’s Droid, a gizmo to compete with the iPhone. If it weren’t for AT&T, I’d have an iPhone. Now, I may not even get one.

Coolest thing you’ll see today.

NRA selling jump drives shaped like your favorite round.

Build your own fireball shooter. Because who hasn’t wanted to shoot fireballs?

And while you’re at it, make an atlatl. You know, for when you’re out of fireballs.

What you get when you cross a surveillance drone and a cruise missile.

A robot blob

OnStar stops car chase

I ordered me an EeePC and it should be here tomorrow. Ten plus hours of battery life, real portable. Should be a handy blogging tool.

And I want to gamble with Dennis Overbye

A couple of physicists have theorized (and I am not making this up) that the universe really doesn’t want us smashing up protons in a collider. Seems that they think the universe finds this act abhorrent to nature and so God or time-travelers are trying to stop us from doing that. Because it could kill us all. Such an action could create the Higgs boson, which using my own highly technical physics terms may be either a big ass thing (which it might not be since it’s apparently going to be small) or one of those mathematical concepts that can kill us all. And we know how much I hate those. Anyway, either God or time travelers may be thwarting our attempts at this and I think it’s amusing when physicists talk about God and time travelers.

And the author of the article, Dennis Overbye, writes:

Dr. Nielsen and Dr. Ninomiya have proposed a kind of test: that CERN engage in a game of chance, a “card-drawing” exercise using perhaps a random-number generator, in order to discern bad luck from the future. If the outcome was sufficiently unlikely, say drawing the one spade in a deck with 100 million hearts, the machine would either not run at all, or only at low energies unlikely to find the Higgs.

Sure, it’s crazy, and CERN should not and is not about to mortgage its investment to a coin toss.

He calls odds of 99,999,999:1 a coin flip? I want to gamble with this guy.

2 liter bottle launcher

Really

This looks like a taser claymore.

Long story that I won’t get into but I’m firing Dishnetwork. They suck and I hate them. I’ve had four DVRs in six months and they’ve all gone Tango Uniform. And every time, we lose all our programming. And every time, we have to set it all back up. Be kinda nice if they had a back up function.

That said, I’m looking at TeeVee options. Charter has decent cable and on demand things. We used to have Directv but dumped them once they dumped TiVo. I’ve even been pondering getting one of those Windows Media Center PCs. Anyone have any experience with the Media Center set up? And experience with Charter? And does Directv do TiVo again?

I’d appreciate any input.

update: Looks like TiVo and Directv kissed and made up.

Don’t steal things that come equipped with a GPS.

My wife’s new laptop has an HDMI out. So, last night as an experiment, we watched a movie from Netflix streamed to our TeeVee. Quality was good and I was quite impressed. I’ve noticed that our Bluray player has an ethernet port on the back and I can hook it directly to Al Gore’s Internets and get Netflix directly, without having to hook the PC up to the TeeVee. Now, my internet modem and wifi gizmos are located elsewhere in the house. So, I’d like to figure out a way to hook the disc player (this Samsung) up to the internet. But my modem is on the other side of the house. Suggestions?

I guess I could move the modem to the TeeVee and get wireless for my desktop computer. But that would probably cause me networked printers to not work.

What’s a good light weight anti-virus program? Use Norton at the office and it sucks. Like all Norton products, it’s bloatware. It bogs down the system all the time. At home, I have AVG Free. It has, apparently, turned into spamware itself, always installing its tool bar in my web browser.

What do you use?

Good question: Why would disappointment in one’s country inspire increased loyalty?

A first person shooter (half life) played with a real firearm.

I’ve often wondered why no one has come up with an IPSC or IDPA game for the Wii.

Pandora free internet radio. Never thought much about internet radio because I don’t usually listen to music while at a computer. But Pandora has an application for my Blackberry. And I have one of those wireless transmitters for the car stereo. So, I can listen to personalized, commercial free radio in my car. I’m still trying to figure out how they make money, though.

Apparently, guns cause aggression. As measured in ounces of hot sauce. Or something.

Heh

Electronic tattoo display runs on blood

A while back I said to someone I know that works at Microsoft (not saying who, to protect the innocent) that they should release a version of Internet Exploder that has built in adware/spyware/spam protection that, by default, blocks Google ads. Then, they launch their own web ad program. Well, you see where this is going. Anyway, they may someday wish they had taken that advice since Google is getting in on the operating system game.

Also, Google Voice looks to be pretty cool.

So, you find out that we’re going to send an unmanned vehicle to the moon. And you think that it’s pretty cool. And the reason we’d do that is probably because we can. Turns out, it’s so we can launch the first volley in our war on known extraterrestrial civilizations on the moon

In response to a police officer shooting another plain-clothes police officer in NY (of course, in NY if you have a gun you’re a criminal or cop),Robb notes a solution in search of a problem:

One idea involves the use of radio frequency tags that would allow officers to pinpoint where other cops are in the city, Browne said. Another involves tags that would work gun-to-gun and use an infrared sensor: When a weapon is pulled from an officer’s holster it would trigger a signal that would be sent to the gun of a nearby officer. The signal may be seen or heard.

Using technology to solve problems that are better solved through other means tends to create more problems. There is no magic switch or button for every thing.

Interesting:

Boys who carry a particular variation of the gene Monoamine oxidase A (MAOA), sometimes called the “warrior gene,” are more likely not only to join gangs but also to be among the most violent members and to use weapons, according to a new study from The Florida State University that is the first to confirm an MAOA link specifically to gangs and guns.

Findings apply only to males. Girls with the same variant of the MAOA gene seem resistant to its potentially violent effects on gang membership and weapon use.

I find the tie in to guns odd as opposed to weapons in general. I imagine that using a weapon is part of being in a gang as a tool of being a gangster as opposed to a gene dictating gun ownership over, say, a stick.

The AP: Tourette’s most common in white kids, boys, cocksuckers.

Scientists say they found the missing link. Obviously, it was put there 6,000 years ago by God.

EMP grenades that disable electronics.

The LA Fertility Institute is offering designer babies:

A US clinic has sparked controversy by offering would-be parents the chance to select traits like the eye and hair colour of their offspring.

Via Chuck, who says Gay people, Your days are numbered.

What say you?

Why understanding math is important.

I know I’ve linked to video Boston Dynamics’ quadrupedal BigDog robot before but it keeps showing up. And that thing still gives me the willies.

Local Police Want Right to Jam Wireless Signals.

The question is: What Happened To Techno-Libertarianism?

The answer is: It got paid.

You had me at M = e^{7.06×10-17t – 10.8}

Rocket surgeon Sarah explains why and she has math.

Note: The French theme today was not planned but sometimes it happens.

Well, kinda. I guess:

No one is galaxy-hopping, or even beaming people around, but for the first time, information has been teleported between two separate atoms across a distance of a meter — about a yard.

Joe: The implications of the existence of this computer program are disturbing.

The Mrs. family has some old slides. We’d like to convert them to digital photos. They have this gizmo to do that at Amazon. Anyone every try it?

Six discoveries science cannot explain.

Stupid science.

Oh, and I seem to recall a TeeVee show that said the Baghdad batteries were probably used to gold plate things.

Tacticool: A Springfield 45-70 Government with an Aimpoint Micro.