Engineering Technology: The 3D printer revolution

Jay Leno (of Jay's Garage) hosts this video telling of THE solution to keeping ancient cars and steam engines running FOREVER. All those one-of parts that folks needed when something breaks can now be made (in the U.S.A. with U.S.A. machines...no having to send the gear or other complex part off to India to be copied!).

I'm impressed. Comments? (add yours below)

World gives adversity & lemons: make mermaids

One surely doesn't expect a story of asking and finding to be so positive in these days of financial ruin and the muck and mire of finances. But this story from New Zealand and the MAKE Magazine blog makes one's heart expand with hope and a smile grow and grow. Steve Unwin's amazing photo of the protagonist, Ms. Nadya Vessey, seems like something out of a fantasy story. And that is probably how she sees it. From a chance reply to a young child, the idea grew until an opportunity arose to make it a reality. She posed for the photo above, which appeared in the Dominion Post newspaper in the article by Matt Calman.

Childhood reading fun revisited

We were out and about on Valentine's Day, shopping and enjoying things from the past in area antique/junk/collectible stores. I seldom even glance at books in such stores, but, for some reason, my eyes were sliding along a shelf of fiction, when I settled on "The Moon Colony" by William Dixon Bell. My heart leapt as I recalled having read it in the winter of my third grade elementary school year. The copy I had then was left over from my mother's Depression-era library from her teen years. I also had one other science fiction book from that era, one on adventure with rural railroading, and one on becoming a tennis ace (all had teen protagonists). After I read the two science fiction books, I found H. G. Wells' "The Invisible Man" in one of those paperback Pocketbook mystery novels that had an eyeball peering through a keyhole. On the back of the book was a posited map of the locale where the adventure takes place, replete with marked points with importance in the story. My start with science fiction had happened.

Here is a brief synopsis of the story line of the first book mentioned above. You can see why I jumped into reading it with a story line as exciting as this one!

Julian Epworth the head of secret service for Atlantic Pacific Airlines and his co-pilot Billy pursue a huge sky pirate zeppelin about to steal 1 million dollars in gold. A fast paced ultra modern sci-fi adventure: planes being shot out of the sky, air pirates in liquid fueled planes, a mad scientists Herman Toplinsky scheming to colonize the moon is the leader of the sky jackers. Toplinsky has captured Julian, Billy and stowaway Joan, Julian's sister, they are all off to the Moon, only to be greeted by an army of mammoth cricket-shaped creatures in military formation, large as a man, with six legs and two sharp antennas, holding steel pointed lances. Riding on top of the cricket creatures are men-shaped humps, small bodies with legs and arms, and an enormous knotty projection for their heads, seeing through large wide eyes, and this is only the beginning. William Dixon Bell ( 1865-1951), juvenile fiction adventure author.

Lost your digital camera?

This seemed a good thing to pass along:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Photojojo/~3/-GWpMu6X7TA/

If you did lose your camera, there may be someone out there trying to get your final photos on it back to you.

Hundredth post: On Time

I'll guess this is a fitting topic for the hundredth post for this blog, started on 20080831.

Any measure of time is erroneous, I believe. Even if the scientific definition of time is satisfied, what of the OTHER viewpoints? A fellow blogger, Katry, says this. She has the viewpoint that time is flexible and depends on the viewer's age, as to how fast it passes.

I have to wonder if time passes at all. Yes, subjective time passes. We experience an aging that starts at birth and ends with death. But the moments before an impact, while the vehicle is sliding down the wet pavement, headed for an assignation with another vehicle, can stretch for what seem whole lifetimes. Adrenaline flows, shifting our minds and bodies into high gear. But all those words that we use don't seem to be talking about the same thing, do they?

Is time:
dragging or flying or exploding or ratcheting or smoothly flowing or flashing or stopped or fleeting or not?

The next time you think of it as concrete and discrete, think of this post and ask yourself whether or not you just might be mistaken or viewing it from the OTHER perspective in just that moment.

Comments?

In the eyes of a five-year-old

I got to see again today just what it is in the eyes of a five-year-old girl that attracts adults normally prone to being serious to buy extremely silly cards and wonderfully silly gifts for the birthday girl. That look of joy when she sees something emerge from the wrap and box is just downright cute!

May we all grin like crazy at some point in the next 24 hours. Dance like no one's watching, etc.

Mini-mini-micro-micro-pico-pico, er, little

For integrated circuits, things are getting down below MY level of comprehension as nano becomes more a daily conversation piece. This article for instance is discussing 13 nanometer circuit spacing and below.