Swords

Someone's email this week reminded me I have a Neal Stephenson link in my To-Blog queue, so here it is:
CLANG!
No, I didn't just drop something, this is a new project of his, on the Kickstarter "Crowd Funding" website.
Although he is best known for writing sci-fi, a few of these novels reveal he has a strong interest in the low-tech pursuit of sword fighting. He has also noticed that modern computer games do not do it justice (pressing a button to swing a sword is not much fun). So he is co-founding a company to make a swing-able game sword. The main video is worth watching as it is quite amusing; I haven't watched the update videos near the bottom yet. They have only 9 days to go to reach their target... perhaps they will make it, who knows?

Phonecall

*riiiiing*
"Hello, is that NASA? Hi. I'd just like a quick word about your space telescope. Yeah, the Hubble one. I heard it was getting old and you haven't been able to get enough money together to buy a new one. It just so happens we have two spare to give away. Do you want them? No, I didn't give my name, and I can't tell you who I work for. They are good ones - you just need to strap on a few cameras and put 'em on a rocket. No, I'm serious, really. Shall I tell the boys in the warehouse to ship 'em over? Hello?

Tubes

I initially thought this article, Return of the Vacuum Tube, was about how tubes are still being used in high-end amplifiers, but no, it is about a new version of the old ones. The researchers have found a way to embed very tiny tubes is silicon, and anything in silicon is easier to mass-produce. Although not technically a vacuum or a tube, these hybrids of old and new turn out to be faster and less prone to the cosmic rays of space. The work was done at NASA. Perhaps they'll collaborate with the nanodiamond guys and make Space Transistors.

Robot

The title of this page from Project Hexapod is "Stompy Is Coming". It is a spiderbot the size of a car that carries two people.
I think this is a Good Thing.

Voting

Apparently, when electronic voting is mentioned I tend to go on a bit. So I'll keep this short.
Internet-based voting systems are a bad idea because they are easy to manipulate undetectably. If a paper ballot is suspect, there can be a re-count - not so when it is all computerized. There is a lot of malware out there on home computers and phones which could so easily be re-purposed from stealing your credit card number to changing your vote, and no-one will know it happened. And then someone evil will be elected; for instance, Bender.

Engineering

Highlights from the life of Ralph H. Baer:

1. Escape from the Nazis to the US
2. Teach yourself to service radios in New York
3. Work for Military Intelligence in WWII and become handgun expert
4. Help train Allies in Europe to use foreign weapons
5. Return with eighteen tons of foreign small arms for use in exhibits
6. Receive the first Television Engineering degree
7. Become chief engineer at a defense contractor
8. While there, secretly invent and build the first television video game
9. Invent the light gun, the first video game peripheral
10. Invent the electronic Simon game
11. Donate all prototypes to the Smithsonian
12. Receive medal 

Engineering doesn't seem like a boring profession now, eh?

Weather report

"Six more weeks of Winter"
 -  Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, 126th Groundhog Day