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Category Archives: Science and Technology
MotorOOGLE!
I have to thank Kai Gray for giving me some inspiration to actually sit down and write about this.
Twitter was abuzz the other day about the recent acquisition of Motorola by Google, evoking various reactions from Sector 930 faithful, but I think the best response/reaction was summed up by Edwin: “Google just bought Motorola?”
To me, this was a line-item. I saw it on Twitter and said to myself, “well, that’s interesting,” but didn’t really think too much of it because I have an iPhone. As it turns out, Apple (and Microsoft) have more to do with Google’s deal than meets the eye.
A Big Ole F You From Space
I’ve slowly been working through the archives of the Astronomy Picture of the Day and recently found a rather humorous image of a breakaway section of the Keyhole Nebula (a subsection of the Carina Nebula). This image was taken by the Hubble Telescope in 1999 and spans nearly 2 lightyears (about 11 trillion miles). The gas cloud shown is aptly nicknamed “God’s Birdie” because it is slowly being destroyed by the sheer intensity of light from nearby stars. In a few million years it will cease to exist; a fate similar to being munched on by a Sarlaac.
Posted in 930posts, NaNoWriMo, Science and Technology
Tagged nasa, photography, space
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Open Source Drivers for the Xbox Kinect
I’m pretty sure everyone’s heard of Microsoft’s recently released Xbox Kinect. What most people may not know is that on November 4th, Adafruit Industries offered a bounty for the first person to prove their ability to create open source drivers for the Kinect. Surprisingly enough it only took 6 days before Adafruit announced they had a winner, Hector, who released drivers for Linux utilizing OpenGL. If you’d like an incredibly in depth view at how the drivers were created or just want to learn how to reverse engineer a usb, take a gander at Lady Ada’s DIY Kinect Hacking Article. Then head over to the Open Kinect wiki for even more information to keep you going. Now I’m sure some of you were wondering what Microsoft was thinking during all of this.
Posted in 930posts, NaNoWriMo, Projects, Science and Technology
Tagged kinect, Microsoft, open source, reverse engineer, usb, xbox 360
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Ever wonder what happens in a microwave?
When the microwave oven was released in the 1950s, it revolutionized the cooking world. Microwaves work by sending microwave radiation through the food. Various elements in the food (mainly water and fat) absorb this radiation causing their molecules to constantly move around to realign themselves. This process is known as dieletric heating. The only issue with this is that different types of molecules move at different rates causing foods to heat at varying rates.
Posted in 930posts, NaNoWriMo, Science and Technology
Tagged cooking, how things work, microwave, visualization
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EPOXI just buzzed the Hartley 2!
Three days ago, the EPOXI unmanned space mission (led by a team from the University of Maryland) passed within roughly 700 km of the Hartley 2 comet. The Hartley 2 is a small comet first discovered in 1986 by Malcolm Hartley. As far as comets go, it has a relatively small orbit with a period of almost 6.5 years and is the second comet visited by the Deep Impact vehicle used in the EPOXI mission. This flyby yielded some incredibly detailed pictures of the comet’s nucleus and I’ve included some of the clearest below. The EPOXI team also created an animation from 40 images taken during the flyby.
Posted in 930posts, NaNoWriMo, Science and Technology
Tagged comet, EPOXI, Hartley 2, space
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