Got Ninja Skills

"WIND POWER WITHOUT THE BLADES"

2011-10-08T00:14:00.000-06:00

"By Alyssa Danigelis

Noise from wind turbine blades, inadvertent bat and bird kills and even the way wind turbines look have made installing them anything but a breeze. New York design firm Atelier DNA has an alternative concept that ditches blades in favor of stalks. Resembling thin cattails, the Windstalks generate electricity when the wind sets them waving. The designers came up with the idea for the planned city Masdar, a 2.3-square-mile, automobile-free area being built outside of Abu Dhabi. Atelier DNA’s “Windstalk” project came in second in the Land Art Generator competition a contest sponsored by Madsar to identify the best work of art that generates renewable energy from a pool of international submissions."

http://news.discovery.com/tech/wind-power-without-the-blades.html

Low-Cost Tablet Runs on Three Watts of Power - Technology Review

2011-10-07T23:48:00.000-06:00

Low-Cost Tablet Runs on Three Watts of Power - Technology Review

EU approves Microsoft's Skype takeover

2011-10-07T23:36:00.001-06:00

EU approves Microsoft's Skype takeover
European anti-trust officials approved on Friday US technology giant Microsoft's $8.5-billion takeover of Internet voice and video leader Skype.

3M shows photovoltaic film for windows

2011-10-07T23:31:00.001-06:00

3M shows photovoltaic film for windows
(PhysOrg.com) -- 3M drew press and viewer interest earlier this week at CEATEC with its show of special film that the company has developed to coat ordinary, existing windows and convert them into solar panels. The product was shown on curved and regular glass surfaces. This “windows-transformative” film is to debut next year. Not only does the panel generate energy in sunlight, but it also serves as a heat-blocking layer.

The Sarcos Robot

2011-10-07T23:05:00.000-06:00

Here is an amazing example of the latest advancements in humanoid robot technology.

"[Benjamin Stephens] PhD research focuses on the control of humanoid robot balance and push recovery for force-controlled robots. He is interested in the use of real-time optimal control for robust control of very complex systems. Using his knowledge and experience, he hopes to make legged/humanoid robots more capable of operating in rough and uncertain environments. He also believes this work will lead to the creation of new intelligent assistive devices such as prosthetics and exoskeletons."

DIY UAV On The Cheap

2011-09-25T19:59:00.001-06:00

Who cares about the Bears or Packers and who cares that Herman Cain is the hottest search today on Google Trends? (excuse the experimentation with keywords) Lets talk about UAV's (unmanned aerial vehicles) since I know everyone is more interested in this topic than what's on Google Trends anyway, or not.

I'm in the middle of a DIY UAV journey myself at the moment. I have everything I need, except the ability to fly a 4 channel RC airplane. :) I completely totaled one about 10 years ago. It ended up a pile of dust on the runway. So I took a step back and decided it would be better (and cheaper) to start out with a $30 Air Hogs Aero Ace from Walmart. Well the Aero Ace is really fun to fly and I would recommend one to anyone who sucks as bad as me at flying RC aircraft, but they are a little too easy to fly and I think that's left me with a false sense of accomplishment. I mean the thing only has two channels (one for speed and one for steering) and it's aggressively stable to the point of being uncrashable and even if you do manage to crash it (which I have), it's made from bullet proof (exaggeration) foam and is indestructible (unless you let a 3 year old get a hold of it and they rip it in half). With this in mind I purchased a USB controller (on ebay) to use with the free FMS flight simulator to get a better feel for what it's like to fly a faster 4 channel plane and get used to the whole flying toward oneself dilemma. I think I feel pretty comfortable with that now. My plane is all ready to go now and I even installed the FMS copilot to make learning a little easier. Now I just have to make the leap and risk the possibility of totaling another plane.

The nice thing about it these days, is that RC airplanes have become incredibly cheap and the risk of totaling a plane isn't that big of a deal anymore. Foam planes don't break so easy and are easy to fix, not to mention a lot cheaper. And electric is just so much nicer than fuel with a lot less hassle. My point in writing this, is to share the information I have gained from searching for the absolute cheapest way to learn to fly RC airplanes while having an end goal of building your own UAV. Some people that wish to build a UAV may already know how to fly, so in their case, they might have an option of a cooler plane like the SkyFun from hobbyking.com. The rest of us should probably stick with somewhat uncool yet still kinda cool trainer aircraft. Anything that flies is at least a little cool!

I went with the Ardupilot UAV platform since it is the cheapest and simplest to use with lots of updates and support. There are many configurations to go with, but I'm just looking for the cheapest so I will only briefly address the upgrade possibilities. The sky is the limit here (pun intended). I went with the Hawk Sky from nitroplanes.com, but I would probably go with the Hobbyking Bixler now if I didn't already have the Hawk Sky. I think the Bixler is new out this summer, or at least new to the HobbyKing USA Warehouse. Here's a comparison of all the EasyStar clones. The Hawk Sky comes with a useless radio system, whereas with the Bixler, you can get the ARF so you can select your own radio system and don't have to pay for useless gear. I replaced my Hawk Sky's Dynam 4 channel radio system with a Fly-Sky 2.4G 6 channel system. I recommend the Fly-Sky over the Hobby King version just because the Fly-Sky version comes with the USB cable whereas the Hobby King version from the USA Warehouse does not include the cable. For some reason Hobby King doesn't even sell the cable separately through the USA Warehouse.

To build your own UAV, here is the bare minimum you will need for a complete system.

An RC aircraft completely ready to fly with a 6 channel radio. The Bixler will also require an ESC and a 3 cell Lipo battery.
ArduPilot UAV Controller board with pinheaders and cables to connect everything together.
GPS module. I choose the MediaTek from the diydrones store because it's so much cheaper than the others. It comes with a 5 cm cable which isn't very long so you may need to get a longer one which the diydrones store also carries.
Flight Stabilization. There are a couple of options. Either the FMS Copilot or the ArduIMU. I went with the FMS Copilot because I found it on Ebay for $45 shipped and it's just a whole lot more straight forward and easy to use, especially as a trainer for a new pilot. If you have to pay regular price for the FMS Copilot (about $70 after shipping), then the ArduIMU might be worth paying a little extra for since it's a lot more powerful asset on a UAV. If you order it at the same time as the GPS, then shipping probably wouldn't be any more than you would already pay.
FTDI cable for programming the ardupilot board and possibly the GPS module. You can get one from the diydrones store or Sparkfun.You might be able to get by with a cheap USB to TTL converter from Ebay for a few dollars, but I'm not sure since they generally don't have the CTS pin and I'm not sure if that's required. They do have an RTS pin though.

Here is the Ardupilot online manual. It's not necessary, but a keychain camera from Ebay is a fun addition and they only cost around $7. Here is a picture I found of a similar UAV setup with all the same elements as mine. It was found on this site.This setup is just the bare minimum to get someone going. There are a few upgrades that this system can use. An ArduIMU would be good if you didn't start out with that or you could add a Z axis sensor with the FMS Copilot. The FMS Copilot sensors can also be directly connected to the Ardupilot board with the right firmware addition installed. Another possible upgrade would be the ArduPilot Shield (or this) which can measure airspeed. Beyond this, you would need the Ardupilot Mega board to have enough input and output pins to do much else. When you're at that point it might be time to start thinking about that second UAV. :)

Robotic Music

2011-09-24T15:36:00.000-06:00

If anyone out there is interested in the science behind getting music to play on pretty much any robot or machine (using the motors or any other device that emits an audible sound from vibration), I have posted my notes here on CNCZone.com for the process I came up with to play music using the stepper motors on my 4 axis CNC milling machine.

Here is a video of the results in action.

Make your own EVC to VGA adapter

2011-09-24T14:08:00.003-06:00

Here is a tutorial I created several years ago just for the heck of it. I happened to need the info myself and figured I would share what I found. I had it on a different site, but then shut down that site, so now I'll just post this info here in case one or two people actually happen to need this info. I know it's not going to be useful to very many people. I spent a lot of time on it so I may as well make it available.

I don't know if I mention it in this tutorial since I haven't reread it, but the HP workstation I had was configured for a higher than mainstream frequency monitor. So not your typical 60 Hz or whatever. There is a way to set it for a regular monitor, but it's pretty hard to do without a monitor that works with it in the first place (which I didn't have). I got my monitor to work once but then had to restart and lost the settings and never got it working again. Maybe someone else will know more about how to do this. So I didn't get much use out of my cable. I just got fed up with it and gave the workstation and my home built adapter to my brother.

Oct. 2007

Make your own EVC to VGA adapter.

click image for full size

I recently purchased an HP Visualize C180 Workstation at a second hand store for $10. At first glance the video out looked like DVI. But come to find out after trying to plug in a standard DVI/VGA adapter, the DVI plug is much smaller. After some searching I found out that it is in fact an EVC (enhanced video connector) plug. (dvi/evc comparison)
EVC is a pretty cool concept that never took off. EVC combines Video, Audio, Parallel, USB, and Firewire all into one socket. It was meant to reduce the clutter of cables. You could have a monitor with a single cable connected to the computer and all the IO ports you need right on the monitor. (evc concept)
I didn't have to search much to find out that EVC to VGA adapters aren't cheap, at least $40. Well I didn't want to spend $40 more on a $10 computer. I found an EVC to dual VGA splitter on ebay for around $9 after shipping.

click image for full size

This cable is not compatible with the standard EVC pinouts, but that can be changed. (evc pinouts) (vga pinouts) I was unable to find out exactly what this splitter is actually for, maybe for a special video card with dual VGA out, but that information is irrelevant to my needs. The part number is 05E911 made by Molex and they can be readily found on ebay. HINT: most people selling them on ebay think they are DVI to VGA adapters and they are advertised as such. The best way to tell is that EVC has 3 rows of 10 pins and not 3 rows of 8 like DVI. (dvi)

click image for full size

Here is a table that shows which pins are wired together. Each plug has it's own column and the rows show which pins are connected. The "correct VGA" column shows the correct way to connect a VGA plug to the EVC plug. (evc/vga adapter)

EVC	VGA 1 (blue)	VGA 2 (black)	Correct VGA (wire color)
1		1
2		14
3		6
4			10 (brown)
5			13 (white)
6			14 (red)
7
8
9	5	5
10	9	9
11
12
13
14		2
15
16
17
18
19		15
20
21		13
22		3
23		8
24	14
25		7	5 (orange)
26			12 (green)
27		10	15 (black)
28		12	9 (yellow)
29	15
30	12
C1	1		1 (red shielded wire, center wire)
C2	2		2 (green shielded wire, center wire)
C3	3
C4	13		3 (blue shielded wire, center wire)
C5	6,7,8,10		6,7,8 (shielding to shielded wires)

Required items to get started:

- Molex part# 05E911 EVC to dual VGA adapter.

- Knife

- Pliers

- Soldering Iron

- Solder

All the work will be done on the back of the EVC plug, so we need to open it up. Begin by working a thin object (knife) in between the plastic and the metal on the front of the EVC plug as show in the picture.

click image for full size

Remember what you learned in Boy Scouts, don't go cutting toward yourself or your neighbor for that matter. Safety First!

The plastic housing is glued on each side to a metal housing which is soldered to the back of the EVC plug. You need to work the knife in between and side to side to break the bond. I found that it makes it easier if you twist the blade and pry the plastic away from the metal rather than cutting it.

click image for full size

After all the glued surfaces are separated, hold onto the plastic housing with one hand and use the other hand and push the cord into the housing and the EVC plug and metal housing should pop out as shown below.

click image for full size

Take a pair of pliers and squeeze the crimped end of the metal housing as shown below. We are trying to loosen the crimp on the wires so they can be slid through.

click image for full size

The metal housing is soldered with two small beads of solder, one on each side. I found that it would be easier to cut the solder rather than melt it. Solder wick might work as well but I didn't have any at the time.

click image for full size

Use a pair of pliers and grab onto the flange on each side and twist gently to break the remaining solder. Use this same method to work the EVC plug out of the metal housing. Make sure to feed the cord through the crimped end of the metal housing as you work the EVC plug out the other end.

click image for full size

Below are images of both sides of the EVC plug just after the metal housing is removed. As shown in the table above, this wiring scheme is completely useless to us. Desolder all the wires from the back of the EVC plug. Technically you could leave the 2 good solder points connected, but I didn't because I like how the "VGA 2" wires have shrink tubing on the shielding whereas the "VGA 1" wires were a mess. The finished product will only have one VGA out so you will have to choose which one to use and put the leftover in your parts bin for future use, or give it to a geek friend for Christmas. :-)

click image for full size

After you have removed all the wires and decided which VGA you are going to use, turn right back around and solder the VGA of choice back onto the EVC plug the correct way and there you have it. Below are some pictures of the way it should look when you are finished. Make sure you check and double check your work.

click image for full size

Now just reassemble in reverse order. Make sure to resolder the metal housing to the EVC plug and use a little glue between the metal housing and the plastic housing. That way it wont pull apart when you are unplugging it from your computer. Also recrimp the back of the metal housing around the cord to provide strain relief. I guess before you solder, glue, and crimp it back together, you might want to test it out and see if it works. Otherwise it could be fun taking it back apart to fix it if it doesn't work.

click image for full size

The picture above is of the finished product. Now if when you follow these instructions on this page and anything gets damaged, remember I'm not responsible. If your $50,000 Workstation sits before you in flames, take heart. Get out your video camera and record the fun, then post it on youtube for us all to enjoy!

USU's Super Fast Internet Speed

2011-09-24T01:43:00.004-06:00

Here is proof of how smoking fast the internet is here on the Utah State University campus. It's over twice as fast as a T3 connection. 93 Mb/s is pretty darn good considering my cheap Ethernet cable is only designed for maximum 100Mb/s. This could mean that the connection could be even faster with better cables, although I doubt the cabling in the walls is much better than mine.

Evolution

2011-09-23T22:22:00.001-06:00

I was told I should post this string of comments in my blog. This is my attempt to explain evolution to my fellow facebookers. Fair warning , there is some profanity in this post.

Jeremy
for you evolutionist out there would an accurate analogy for evolution be? Evolution is like an embryo to adult hood. changing from every stage?

July 11 at 8:05pm vacy:

- Anthony No. That is called Development. Evolution is the mechanism of change within a species do to environmental pressures through the use of death. Where the mutations that are not helpful do not prevent death and helpful mutations do. That is of course a narrow example. It is the simplist way to explain it.
  
  July 11 at 8:19pm
- Anthony Another example is evolution through the use of sex and desire. Where a few in a species group mutate to have desirable aspects IE HUGE DICKS. The ladies decide they like or dislike the larger dicks. If a majority go either way the offspring will reflect the decision. So if they choose bigger dicks offspring can get bigger dicks and propagate the mutation.
  
  July 11 at 8:21pm
- Anthony If they choose that big dicks is not desirable the offspring will not get the mutation and the mutation will go extinct or at the very least become rare. Zebras for example have extraordinarily long dicks and they can use this to abort the offspring of a competing male if they take over a herd of lady zebras. =)
  
  July 11 at 8:24pm
- Jeremy now that is really interesting. That makes more since and so the people I have talked to who believe it it don't really understand what they believe in that is too funny.
  
  July 11 at 8:28pm
- Anthony Evolution is not just environmental pressure either of course. As in Nature. You can also use other forms of pressure to force evolution. Selective breeding is a form of forced evolution. And most Evolution in modern humans is more to do with social pressures than environmental because we tend to control our environments to some extent and it removes some types of pressure.
  
  July 11 at 8:32pm
- Anthony We are all mutants =).
  
  July 11 at 8:32pm
- Anthony Adaptation I believe is more to do with behavioral change than genetic change. Like when they teach animals to recognise symbals through conditioning. I believe that is Adaptation. But I think Adaptation is a Description of a broad number of change mechanisms. Without looking it up.
  
  July 11 at 8:38pm
- Jeremy So I thought about your analogy for a bit and so what keeps it from happening again and would all the middle men die off with the mutations? Or should there be a middle men or evolution in progress If it happened once why cant it happen again from the begining?
  
  July 11 at 8:38pm
- Anthony Are you asking if humans could evolve again?
  
  July 11 at 8:39pm
- Jeremy no more like we were suppose to evolved from goo. Why isn't that goo evolving again? why isn't there mid stages of this evolution present. to me the theory is missing something that I just cant put my finger on yet.
  
  July 11 at 8:43pm
- Jeremy Its just nagging at me. and its irritating lol.
  
  July 11 at 8:43pm
- Anthony Hypothetically humans could evolve again. I don't think they would be exactly like us. And I think we would all have to die off for it to happen. We put to much pressure and control over the environment. Humans are really the culmination of several evolutionary paths. Cave men were not a single line of evolution. There were several evolutions at the beginning that competed and mixed.
  
  July 11 at 8:44pm
- Anthony Cave men killed off and stole ladies from other types of cave men.
  
  July 11 at 8:45pm
- Anthony Cave men were kind of xenophobic to so they would really kind of wipe out the other different groups that were in direct competition.
  
  July 11 at 8:47pm
- Anthony Watch this. I think this kind of covers what I think your asking about. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o92x6AvxCFg
  Intermediates die off due to the pressures that make them evolve.
  
  July 11 at 8:53pm
- Anthony This is an explanation of why chimpanzees are still around.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh0F4FBLJRE&feature=relmfu
  
  July 11 at 8:54pm
- Anthony Here is something about the difference between Adaptation and Evolution. I just skimmed it. It pretty much says behavioral change.
  http://www.differencebetween.net/science/nature/difference-between-adaptation-and-evolution/
  
  July 11 at 9:00pm
- Anthony Another good bit about Adaptation.
  http://asktheatheist.rationalresponders.com/question/adaptation_vs_evolution
  
  July 11 at 9:03pm
- Anthony OH and here is how I have started to answer the question "What comes first the Chicken or the Egg?". The Egg came first, Because the first chicken's parents were not chickens. Evolution twist on it. =)
  
  July 11 at 9:05pm
- Matt No
  
  July 11 at 10:13pm
- Sam accurate analogy for evolution would be the stairway to hell you are taking for not accepting jesus tapdancing christ as your lord and savior and creator of the multiverse.
  
  July 12 at 4:54am
- Anthony Evolution and the belief therein has nothing to do with acceptance or rejection of magical beings who supposedly spawned the universe and all that dwell within. =P
  
  July 12 at 5:14am
- Ryan
  
  The Bible doesn't say how God created man, yet men tend to fill in the blanks and try to pass off their opinion as religious doctrine. The truth is religion has evolved behind science, but following science because science disproves these claims made by men time and time again. According to religion the earth was the center of the universe, science proved that the earth orbits the sun, religion eventually accepted this and then claimed that the sun was the center of the universe. Science also proved this wrong and religion eventually accepted that. And so it went on and on, science keeps proving these claims wrong and fastforward to today and science has proven evolution is real and most religions have accepted it but there are still a few ignorant holdouts. The Bible doesn't make any of these claims, religious extremists do and they spread there false rumors as fact. If God created man, man can not say how God accomplished this and if he also created animals, why then can he not use animals to create man. I think people don't want to accept it because they are insulted by the fact that they themselves are indeed animals.
  
  July 18 at 3:36pm
- Ryan
  
  Evolution is extremely high resolution with tiny changes passed from parent to offspring. Over the course of millions of years these tiny changes passed on from generation to generation add up to big changes over the eons. You would not beable to distinguish any significant change in 20 generations, but you might be able to in several hundred and you would definitely see changes in thousands of generations. Since bacteria multiply so rapidly, evolution can actually be observed. New forms of bacteria have evolved recently that are highly resistant to antibiotics and this is due to improper use and overuse of antibiotics when it's not necessary. If you don't take antibiotics long enough to completely kill off the harmful bacteria, these bacteria multiply again and in some cases will mutate to have more resistance to the antibiotic and if this process keeps happening, the weak bacteria are killed off and the strong bacteria are left with a chance of mutating again to become even more resistant.
  
  July 18 at 3:53pm
- Matt Thank you Ryan! You took the time to answer some questions most of us didn't feel worth our time!
  
  July 18 at 4:32pm
- Ryan
  
  A species is defined as a group of individuals that breed and produce viable offspring. Horses and Donkeys are different species because Mules are sterile and so are not viable. A species doesn't necessarily die off as it evolves. Gene flow keeps a species viable and so the community always remains the same species unless there are groups that get isolated and begin following there own evolutionary path. Since change is multigenerational, there isn't really a die off of the previous species since no animal lives long enough to see a change in species, rather the die off is only due to the natural process of death and the fact that no animal can live forever. If an animal could live forever and remain fertile and breed forever, evolution would not take place as we know it, since genes would continue to flow from the original generation. The longer a species remains fertile and the slower they multiply, the slower the evolution.
  If a community of a single species is split up and isolated, then they will change independent of each other and if enough generations go by and enough changes happen, then they may not be able to produce viable offspring with eachother and at this point, they will become two different species. If they are isolated and then the isolation is removed before they become two different species, then they will interbreed and any changes will be spread across the entire population until they are generally the same although this process can also create diversity which is what makes animals of the same species look different like humans all have different facial features, etc.
  An example of isolation is the Great Wall of China. There are observable differences between the plants on opposite sides, since Gene Flow between the two sides has been stopped. If the wall was removed, gene flow would take place again if the species hasn't split in two. A natural example of this is the formation of new mountains or rivers, or a lava flow that goes on for a very long time.
  
  July 18 at 4:33pm
- Matt Or your efficient at cut and paste!
  
  July 18 at 4:37pm
- Jeremy ‎@Matt your just an angry dick lol who has to be in the right wing of things no matter if its right or wrong. the rest of us is not quit that prejuticed
  
  July 18 at 5:32pm
- Ryan
  
  In answer to your question about life evolving from goo and it evolving again from goo. The fact that all living things on earth are made up of cells with DNA shows that that this is the form of life that won out in the long run and we don't know if there is an alternate way for life to exist. It is possible that life evolved from goo many times and not just once, but if it did and it's still around, it must have evolved in a pretty similar way given that all life is pretty similar on the cellular level. Goo is just a simple way of saying a big messy vat of chemicals reacting with each other. It helps a lot to have a basic understanding of cellular biology since all life as we know it is made of cells and cells are made of proteins which the cells constructs using DNA as the blue print. A cell is pretty much a chemical machine and different types of cells very greatly in complexity. It is possible that the first life was made by chemical processes. If the right chemicals are present and reactions are happening many times per second over millions of years, every chemical compound that can be made with the available chemicals will eventually be made. If it can happen, it will happen if given sufficient opportunity. Since all life is made from cells that are filled with salt water, it is good evidence that life evolved in the ocean then later moved to land. The fossil record also proves that life was in the ocean first. Another thought is that the chemistry of the ocean and atmosphere is very different than it was when life first evolved. Life itself has changed the chemistry and geological processes also change the chemistry. So the same conditions that existed when life first evolved may no longer exist. If you had a time machine and went back in time to the first life, you would have to bring a space suite and an oxygen supply because the atmosphere contained little oxygen and would be toxic. Life is what introduced oxygen into the atmosphere. And oxygen is toxic to ancient life and there are still organisms that can't live in an oxygenated environment so they only live where there is no oxygen such as very deep stagnent water.
  
  It is also possible that the lifetime of a star is not long enough for life to independently evolve. And this is where the Panspermia theory comes in. When asteroids hit planets, they often knock off pieces into space. If the planet has life on the surface, it is possible for single celled organisms to be on this piece. It has been proven that some single cell organisms can survive the vacuum of space. Now comets often travel into the inner solar system and out to the outer solar system. When they cross into the inner solar system, it is possible for them to pick up this rock with life on it and carry it to the outer solar system. When stars pass closely by each other, it is common for them to exchange comets. So if this comet with a piece of a planet that has life on it is exchanged into another solar system and this solar system has a planet that can support life and this comet hits the planet and if the organisms survive, then we know that single cell organisms can multiply very quickly and so this planet would be seeded with life. Now it is also possible that this same process could transfer organic molecules that took very long to come about and that these organic molecules could undergo further development on a different planet and so on until life is developed over the course of multiple star lifetimes. It is also possible that a solar system could contain multiple planets capable of supporting life and these chemicals are exchanged between planets. There is a theory that Mars once had oceans and life could have evolved there and been transferred here. Scientists are actively looking for evidence of this theory.
  
  July 18 at 5:33pm
- Ryan
  
  I understand the confusion since the common knowledge is that all science related to evolution falls under the all encompassing title, "The Theory of Evolution". But this view is outdated and the science of evolution is far beyond that now. The science of evolution is made up of facts and theories just as any well developed scientific field. In the scientific community, it is accepted as scientific fact that evolution took place and evolution is a fundamental part of biology. On the other hand, the many processes by which it may take place are still not completely understood and so these parts remain theory. So it is a scientific fact that evolution happens, but there are many theories of how it happens and once it is fully understood, it is likely there will be a large number of factors that are found to influence evolution.
  
  July 18 at 9:23pm
- Ryan
  
  Are your questions rhetorical or do you really want to know? If you really want to know then proof is something you have to work for and you're not going to find it on facebook. Getting proof is not listening to a scientist say they have proof and telling you what it is, to get proof you have to go look for yourself and learn for yourself and decide for yourself if there is sufficient proof. If you don't want to put that much work into it, then you have to rely on credibility and statistics or the probability of whether someone is telling the truth or not. Look at science as a whole, does it produce results? The scientific method works because even though mistakes are made, these mistakes are eventually found and removed. For many people, the current evidence is sufficient, but the fact is that for some people, there may never be enough evidence because believing is an individual choice and at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter what you believe in as long as you have what you need.
  The reason why carbon dating never comes up with the same answer is because it's based on statistics and statistics is not exact, but it's close enough to get a usable approximation. This approximation can be made more accurate by making multiple measurements and averaging them together. It only works up to about 50,000 years, but if you get a result of 20,000 years and you're off by +-50 years, that's still within an individuals lifetime and we know that several generations are not important when looking at evolution over these time scales.
  The "missing link" is another one of those things you have to decide for yourself, because at what resolution do you decide the missing link has been found. Fossils are rare, so to expect to find every single change from one species to the next is not reasonable. Normally the evidence would be sufficient when considering the fossil record of other animals, but people have a problem with the evolution of man because they believe the Bible is literal in it's mentions of time scale. The fact that there are primitive men at all would likely be sufficient if it weren't for this contradiction. For the people that look at the Bible as a translated text with symbolic meaning rather than literal, and with flaws in translation, it's not much of a problem. You really have to decide for yourself on that.
  
  July 19 at 12:19am
- Matt the right wing of things? maybe the left. but im as much as an angry shit stirring dick as you, but im not a nazi republican teabagger.....
  
  July 19 at 8:41am
- Jeremy ‎@Ryan you must really like this subject those are the longest post I have ever had. really nice. It was very informative +1
  
  July 19 at 1:15pm
- Matt LOL why do you think you can add or take a way points? What have you evolved into?
  
  July 19 at 1:16pm
- Jeremy it stimulates the mind like Obama stimulates the economy
  
  July 19 at 1:24pm
- Matt Like Bill oreilly stimulates your ass?
  
  July 19 at 2:21pm

Rayovac Sportsman Extreme LED Lantern

2010-08-13T00:36:00.001-06:00

I've been wanting a LED lantern for quite a while. Several weekends ago I was up in the mountains with my family having a pick-nick in the evening and when it got dark I propped my flashlight up so it was shining into a plastic shopping bag to diffuse the light as I had done several times before. It really doesn't work that well. That's when I decided "I really need to get a lantern!!!". So I spent quite a while reading reviews and looking at all kinds of lanterns and nothing came even close to comparing with the Rayovac SE3DLN Sportsman Extreme 300-Lumen 3D-Battery LED Lantern. It uses three D batteries and it is surprisingly pretty small at just over 7 inches tall and 3.5 inches wide. I use 6 AA NiMH batteries in 3 AA to D adapters. This lantern puts out a lot of light and has a well designed diffuser for even lighting. It almost puts out as much light as a 40 watt bulb. It will light up a room at night with a pretty comfortable level, similar to having a lamp on. At only $25 this was a real bargain. The reviews on Amazon give it five full stars. I doubt you could find a better LED lantern than this for any price. Rayovac also has a smaller lantern that uses three AA batteries, but it is only 70 lumens instead of 300 lumens.

LED MagLite - the Best Flashlights for the Money

2010-08-12T20:33:00.006-06:00

I have two 2D MagLite LED flashlights and they are the best flashlights I have ever owned so far and I have owned quite a few. These things should last forever so that makes them even cheaper in the long run. The LED bulbs are far brighter than incandescent bulbs and put out white light, not yellowy orange like incandescent. Also, unlike incandescent, the bulb will never need replaced. Another advantage is that the batteries last a very long time. I use rechargeable NiMH(nickel metal hydride) D batteries in mine and I hardly ever have to charge the batteries. You could also get AA to D battery adapters and use much cheaper and more common AA NiMH rechargeable batteries. There are also D size adapters that will hold two AA batteries in each giving twice the capacity. At walmart it costs about $10 for two D NiMH batteries and the same price or less for four AA NiMH batteries. Now the problem here is that all those D cells really are is a AA battery in a plastic enclosure to make them the same size as a D battery. Their capacity is the same as the AA batteries at around 2500mah(milliamp-hours). Real D NiMH batteries are four times the capacity at around 10,000mah. NiMH D's are relatively expensive at $7 - $9 each for generic brands. They can be found for just over $4 each on ebay. The problem with D size batteries is it's hard to find a good charger for charging them and they are pretty heavy (all the better to use your flashlight as a club) and to get real ones you most likely would have to order them online since all the ones I've seen locally are AAs in disguise.

Maybe I will have to write a section on batteries, but the reason I cover this is because I see the cost of batteries as part of the total price of a device and I will always recommend rechargeables because you are just throwing away money otherwise since alkaline batteries are so darn expensive these days. That said, if you are using a device for emergencies then you should always keep a set of disposable alkaline batteries on hand since they have a shelf life of around 10 years, whereas NiMH batteries will self discharge in a matter of weeks.

Another reason I cover batteries here is because all a flashlight basically is, is a light bulb, some batteries, and a container. Maglite makes very good containers. The D size flashlights can be pretty heavy and bulky, but D batteries provide very long operating time and the bulbs in D size flashlights are usually brighter. The LEDs that maglite includes with it's D cell flashlights seam to be just the right brightness. They are bright enough that I'm never thinking "Gee, I wish I had a brighter flashlight, this one isn't bright enough" and it's not so bright that I'm thinking "Gee, I wish my battery would last a little longer", it's a happy medium so it works good for me. I have thought about trying out smaller Maglite LED flashlights, but haven't so far. I do have a Minimag that I converted to LED with a Nite Ize conversion kit, but they are low power LEDs so it works but it's not that bright. If I ever find a MAGLITE XL100 for a good price, I would like to try it out.

Sony ICF-C318 - The Best Alarm Clock Ever!!!

2010-08-12T17:27:00.001-06:00

I purchased the Sony ICF-C318 Radio Alarm Clock a couple years ago and I have to say, it's just one of those items that is so good, you don't even notice it. It just becomes a part of your life, like the microwave, and it does its job very well. A really cool feature is that if the power goes out and comes back on again, the clock will reset itself so as long as the power is on when your alarm is supposed to go off, it will work. Also, it is extremely easy to set the alarm times with the knobs on the sides. Some people don't like that the tone alarm isn't hugely loud, but I like that it can't be set really loud because if you are sharing it with someone, and you wake up at different times it will prevent each of you from getting on each others nerves. I'm a light sleeper though so I usually am awake and have it switched off before it beeps twice. If you set it to the radio alarm, the volume can be turned up pretty high. It has the antenna built into the power cord and gets really good reception. Another nice feature is that the LED display can be dimmed. I leave it on the dimmest setting at all times and it goes unnoticed but can still be read during the day. This is a very functional alarm clock and shows that someone was paying attention to consumer needs unlike with so many other alarm clocks out there.

Got Ninja Skills

"WIND POWER WITHOUT THE BLADES"

Low-Cost Tablet Runs on Three Watts of Power - Technology Review

EU approves Microsoft's Skype takeover

3M shows photovoltaic film for windows

The Sarcos Robot

DIY UAV On The Cheap

Robotic Music

Make your own EVC to VGA adapter

USU's Super Fast Internet Speed

Evolution

Jeremy for you evolutionist out there would an accurate analogy for evolution be? Evolution is like an embryo to adult hood. changing from every stage?

Rayovac Sportsman Extreme LED Lantern

LED MagLite - the Best Flashlights for the Money

Sony ICF-C318 - The Best Alarm Clock Ever!!!

Jeremy
for you evolutionist out there would an accurate analogy for evolution be? Evolution is like an embryo to adult hood. changing from every stage?