Stream of Stuff

Beyond · Post by **Beyond** » Sun Feb 23, 2014 1:16 am

What do we really need the Moon for?
(58 minute video - very short article)
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2014021 ... d-the-moon

Beyond · Post by **Beyond** » Sun Feb 23, 2014 1:25 am

Dogs' brain scans reveal vocal responses.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26276660

geckzilla · Post by **geckzilla** » Mon Feb 24, 2014 8:07 pm

High pressure cylinders gone wrong. Some of them become rockets.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Beyond · Post by **Beyond** » Mon Feb 24, 2014 9:11 pm

Amazing!

Beyond · Post by **Beyond** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 1:44 am

I kinda like this door.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Nitpicker · Post by **Nitpicker** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 2:54 am

Reminds me of the many unnecessary alterations that Microsoft does to Windows every few years.

At least MS Windows won't chop off your fingers though. That door looks positively dangerous!

geckzilla · Post by **geckzilla** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 3:06 am

Yes, I was just thinking of how much easier it would be to end up with a crushing avulsion injury than it would be for a standard door. It does look out of the way but I think I could still find a way to accidentally impale myself on a corner during the few seconds it takes to transition. Speaking of doors, the hallway door was squeaking so I oiled it and now it swings open into the hall if it isn't perfectly in the latch. I almost nagged Pat to stop leaving the door open when I realized it must have been the oil. It was my fault all along...

orin stepanek · Post by **orin stepanek** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 12:17 pm

So what else is new? http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=8251582

geckzilla · Post by **geckzilla** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 3:38 am

Well, this is nothing short of amazing. Warning for insectophobes: There are photos of a 50cm stick insect contained in this article.
http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/ ... sect-found

neufer · Post by **neufer** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 5:25 pm

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

geckzilla wrote:
Well, this is nothing short of amazing: photos of a 50cm stick insect contained in this article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Stick_ideology wrote:
<<Big Stick policy refers to U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy: "speak softly, and carry a big stick." Roosevelt first used the phrase in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair on September 2, 1901, four days before the assassination of President William McKinley who died eight days later, which subsequently thrust Roosevelt into the presidency. Roosevelt described his style of foreign policy as "the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis".>>

geckzilla · Post by **geckzilla** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 9:22 pm

Binary fun. (Don't even click this link if you have something else you need to do.)
http://gabrielecirulli.github.io/2048/

Beyond · Post by **Beyond** » Thu Mar 13, 2014 10:14 pm

I just clicked on Google's Youtube suggestions and got something I'd never gotten before.

-->500 Internal Server Error

Sorry, something went wrong.

A team of highly trained monkeys has been dispatched to deal with this situation.
If you see them, show them this information:
AB38WEMN6kN-oqZLOReAjeO5JQR3P0Fizeq95caBgidfL4LIRX4LWukHHy_y
EwvuB8_6MX5RmXJ92SX8dzgie512-cZxm6acj_dxLafwH6OVV5mWntYr12US
_pt_v-FakZsRezgoBCGgZDpmsmJoZWaIIBAQc6O7hDjThj_omq-onkjGKCDv
L0bYm7YIKR4NqlAIP-LfKovWgHBZSVGgy0RZLqPgcoTWEaBPCkUk6HWeMf-u
ZIdOw4QHTrqNaxS-aXC72WusJG7dbpBkiYflboIaumAkN8UPBW0e82chmWZU
ThsYFAIvbdJGQY1m4iRba1Z0wPR8lJgWjWOdQftuU0cNydCh8FXSVgZOMJJe<-- I cut out about 90% of this 'jibberous' stuff. Anyone else ever get a 500 ERROR from Google??

MargaritaMc · Post by **MargaritaMc** » Thu Mar 13, 2014 10:37 pm

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/557551- ... or-outage/

It looks like you're not the only one, Beyond - and the message about trained monkeys seems to be a standard one!

The popular website just showed a 502 error when users tried to access it. Some also got a 500 internal server error, with the typical message of “a team of highly trained monkeys has been dispatched to deal with this situation.”

Beyond · Post by **Beyond** » Thu Mar 13, 2014 11:21 pm

Youtube went out at 12:30pm?? I had come and gone many times after that and didn't get the error message until right around 5:00pm. Wow, it sure was a s-l-o-w spreading error.

geckzilla · Post by **geckzilla** » Wed Mar 19, 2014 7:08 am

Doing some volunteer work for In Saturn's Rings and I had to remove all of the little stars from around the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex... thought it looked kind of weird and cool.
http://www.geckzilla.com/astro/rho_ophi ... _stars.jpg

MargaritaMc · Post by **MargaritaMc** » Fri Mar 21, 2014 9:09 am

geckzilla wrote:Doing some volunteer work for In Saturn's Rings and I had to remove all of the little stars from around the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex... thought it looked kind of weird and cool.
http://www.geckzilla.com/astro/rho_ophi ... _stars.jpg

It's beautiful - and eerie... I love the colours.
The image below shows how many stars you had to remove. That's a lot of work.
http://astropixels.com/diffusenebulae/RhoOph-02.html

I hadn't heard about the In Saturn's Rings project before

- so thanks for letting me know about it.

M

geckzilla · Post by **geckzilla** » Fri Mar 21, 2014 4:12 pm

Oh, the original image is here. I should have linked to that before. My bad.
https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1248e/

Yeah, there are a lot of stars to remove. Luckily I have tricks for it and don't have to dot over each and every one of them manually.

geckzilla · Post by **geckzilla** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 1:50 am

Recalling this discussion about my iPad and feeling weird electric currents when holding it, I may be fooling myself after all. Pat finally brought his multimeter back from work and we tried every test we could think of but everything was infinite resistance. Even putting the two probes against the back of the case resulted in nothing, just as if they were in air.

Chris Peterson · Post by **Chris Peterson** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 2:09 am

geckzilla wrote:Recalling this discussion about my iPad and feeling weird electric currents when holding it, I may be fooling myself after all. Pat finally brought his multimeter back from work and we tried every test we could think of but everything was infinite resistance. Even putting the two probes against the back of the case resulted in nothing, just as if they were in air.

The impedances involved are typically too high for typical multimeters. What you want to look for is an AC voltage between the case and either of the mains circuits (worth checking against ground, too, in case of faulty house wiring).

geckzilla · Post by **geckzilla** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 3:23 am

Ok, this house has no ground wiring anywhere. To say the wiring is bad is an understatement* but that aside, the only place I was able to get a voltage reading was on this sliver of exposed metal where current probably shouldn't be. There was a 30 volt reading from testing the red outlined strip against one of the prongs from an adapter slightly pulled away from the outlet. The case itself didn't seem to have any reading at all, or if there was one it was smaller than 1 volt. I tried switching the range to tenths of volts but even at that range it fluctuated too greatly for me to say with any confidence I was reading anything at all.

*Short story time. Did I tell this before? One day I plopped down on the bed in the other room and happened to put my hand on some bedding near the wall and it was warm as if a cat had been laying in that spot for an hour but we don't have any cats. I pulled away the bed and removed the nearby electrical outlet wall plate to discover a wire glowing orange in contact with some other piece of metal. How it managed to do this without tripping the breaker I haven't a clue but I do think I may have saved our house from eventually burning down.

rstevenson · Post by **rstevenson** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 11:58 am

I've never seen a power connector on the older iPads (I have one as well) sticking out that much. There's something wrong there. As well, that bit of silver metal isn't the power carrying part, it's the physical support part for the connector, so finding power leakage on it is another indicator that something is wrong.

On the other paw, on the Apple support forum, there are multiple discussions about electrical leakage being felt on iPads and MacBooks, with some people saying it's a problem and take your device back for repair, while others say it's normal and nothing to be worried about. Probably it could be either, so to be safe you might want to take the iPad to an Apple store the next time you're in the area and ask them to check it out.

Rob

geckzilla · Post by **geckzilla** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 4:21 pm

Because of the beveled edge the connector only sits flush against the top side. It looks bigger in the photo than it really is. When I remove it, my thumb spans the gap quite easily and never touches the metal. I want to set foot in an Apple store like I want to jump in a cold river. Those places are always packed full of people contemplating just how many paychecks they want to spend today. You actually need an appointment to talk to one of their tech support persons.

Chris Peterson · Post by **Chris Peterson** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 5:40 pm

geckzilla wrote:Because of the beveled edge the connector only sits flush against the top side. It looks bigger in the photo than it really is. When I remove it, my thumb spans the gap quite easily and never touches the metal. I want to set foot in an Apple store like I want to jump in a cold river. Those places are always packed full of people contemplating just how many paychecks they want to spend today. You actually need an appointment to talk to one of their tech support persons.

The feeling of electrical leakage is a warning sign of potential problems. You should not see 30V between the connector ground and either side of the mains. That strongly suggests that the power supply has an internal failure. I'm surprised that the case isn't tied to ground- that's usually done with devices having metal cases, both for safety and also because it minimizes RF interference issues. (Maybe the case is connected, but an anodized coating is insulating the exterior.) Since the two aren't connected, you are probably detecting leakage current that is capacitively coupled. While that's not likely to be dangerous, a failure inside that allowed the power supply ground to connect to the case could be serious. I'd consider getting a new power supply.

Actually, maybe you could find a sucker looking for an iPad, and get yourself an Android tablet. I've used both, and there's really no comparison.

geckzilla · Post by **geckzilla** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 5:44 pm

Yeah, maybe. I probably need one of everything. For testing purposes.

Chris Peterson · Post by **Chris Peterson** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 5:55 pm

geckzilla wrote:Yeah, maybe. I probably need one of everything. For testing purposes.

That's what I have. Virtual machines running XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, Ubuntu, OS X, and separate Windows VMs running all IE versions since 7. Plus both iOS and Android tablets. All for development. For my own general use, I run Windows 7 on my primary desktop, and have a Google Nexus 10 tablet. My wife has a Nexus 7 tablet, which is also quite nice.

Starship Asterisk*

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