Jul 10, 2015
Jul 3, 2015
Happy July 4th
Tomorrow is July 4, and is Independence Day
in the US. It is commonly known as the Fourth of July or July Fourth
and is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the
adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776,
declaring independence from Great Britain (but we are still
friends).
Excavator Hot Dog
Just in time for a hot dog holiday, a
Finnish excavator operator puts together a hot dog with fixings for
a friend in this commercial for Statoil, a European gas station
chain. Very delicate operation with a monster machine. Fun to watch
and only a minute long. LINK
Help With ToDo List
Need some help getting things done
around the house so you have more time to play on July 4th?
Crowdsourcing is great for getting things done through the power of
crowds. TaskRabbit is an interesting site I recently found. It helps
people to get others to do their chores. The most interesting thing
about TaskRabbit is that you can pay someone to do chores you do not
like or have time to do and you can also sign up to do tasks that
you do like and have someone pay you. Think of it as like an Angie's
List for smaller tasks. There are Taskrabbits in 19 cities so far
and more are coming.
Typical tasks listed on the site include; clean your house, run your errands, clean your oven, build your IKEA furniture, hang your shelves, do your shopping, help with a party, and more. LINK
Typical tasks listed on the site include; clean your house, run your errands, clean your oven, build your IKEA furniture, hang your shelves, do your shopping, help with a party, and more. LINK
Robots and Games
Rock-paper-scissors is a game that tends
to get very frustrating when you lose. Now think about losing to a
machine and every time. The rock-paper-scissors robot is called
Janken robot and was developed by the Ishikawa Watanabe Laboratory
in Japan.
As for how the robot is able to beat its human opponent every time, the Janken robot cheats. The main purpose is not that of beating people at rock-paper-scissors. The robot uses visual feedback to respond to the actions of a human hand in a matter of milliseconds. This technology opens the door to potential applications that involve precise cooperation between a human and a robot. The robot can be used remotely as the sensors responsible for recording the signals of a human do not need to be in the immediate vicinity of the machine.
The Janken robot is able to respond so fast to human movements that it can potentially be used to help out in a wide variety of fields. Ishikawa Watanabe Laboratory says that the robot can also be programmed to have a delayed response to human actions if needed, which might make it even more useful depending on the situation. Incidentally, they used to play rock, paper, scissors, bacon. They took out bacon because it always won.
As for how the robot is able to beat its human opponent every time, the Janken robot cheats. The main purpose is not that of beating people at rock-paper-scissors. The robot uses visual feedback to respond to the actions of a human hand in a matter of milliseconds. This technology opens the door to potential applications that involve precise cooperation between a human and a robot. The robot can be used remotely as the sensors responsible for recording the signals of a human do not need to be in the immediate vicinity of the machine.
The Janken robot is able to respond so fast to human movements that it can potentially be used to help out in a wide variety of fields. Ishikawa Watanabe Laboratory says that the robot can also be programmed to have a delayed response to human actions if needed, which might make it even more useful depending on the situation. Incidentally, they used to play rock, paper, scissors, bacon. They took out bacon because it always won.
Five Internet Firsts
Symbolics Inc. registered the first
domain name, Symbolics.com, on March 15, 1985, before the real
internet was born. Symbolics Inc. grew out of MIT’s Artificial
Intelligence lab, and was the first company to make workstation
computers.
CERN launched very first website on August 6, 1991. It was a simple page, similar to a Word document with black lettering on a white background with blue hyperlinks. It briefly described project W3, better known now as the World Wide Web.
The first picture ever uploaded to the World Wide Web on July 18, 1992 was a picture of the all-girl comedy group Les Horrible Cernettes. The group was made up of administrative assistants and partners of researchers at The European Organization for Nuclear Research.
A little-known band called Severe Tire Damage, played live on the Internet for the first time on June 24, 1993.
YouTube was registered as a domain on February 14, 2005. On April 23, 2005, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim posted the first video called 'Me at the zoo'. The 19-second video features Karim standing in front of elephants at the San Diego Zoo, talking about his interest in “really, really, really long trunks.”
Incidentally, the Internet is what you connect to and the Web is how you view it.
CERN launched very first website on August 6, 1991. It was a simple page, similar to a Word document with black lettering on a white background with blue hyperlinks. It briefly described project W3, better known now as the World Wide Web.
The first picture ever uploaded to the World Wide Web on July 18, 1992 was a picture of the all-girl comedy group Les Horrible Cernettes. The group was made up of administrative assistants and partners of researchers at The European Organization for Nuclear Research.
A little-known band called Severe Tire Damage, played live on the Internet for the first time on June 24, 1993.
YouTube was registered as a domain on February 14, 2005. On April 23, 2005, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim posted the first video called 'Me at the zoo'. The 19-second video features Karim standing in front of elephants at the San Diego Zoo, talking about his interest in “really, really, really long trunks.”
Incidentally, the Internet is what you connect to and the Web is how you view it.
Control Your E-mail
107.8 billion emails were sent and
received per day in 2014 for business-related purposes worldwide.
That number is expected to grow to 139.4 billion emails per day by
2018.
Researchers at the University of California, Irvine found that when you are interrupted during the work day, either from a phone call, email, or other item, it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the task you were originally completing.
Here are a few tips to take control. Do not open email until at least 10am. Control the first part of your day and set goals. Set auto respond to tell everyone that you are offline until 10 am.
Turn off alerts for email so you are not distracted, (except on Friday when you can start your day with some interesting thoughts to exercise your brain).
Researchers at the University of California, Irvine found that when you are interrupted during the work day, either from a phone call, email, or other item, it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the task you were originally completing.
Here are a few tips to take control. Do not open email until at least 10am. Control the first part of your day and set goals. Set auto respond to tell everyone that you are offline until 10 am.
Turn off alerts for email so you are not distracted, (except on Friday when you can start your day with some interesting thoughts to exercise your brain).
Five More Frozen Food Facts
Carl Paul Gottfried Linde, an engineer, scientist, and professor at the Technical University of Munich helped pioneer industrial cooling, through what is commonly known as the Hampson-Linde cycle, and used his findings to plan an ice and refrigeration machine back in the nineteenth century. Linde’s desire to build such machines was furthered in 1892, when the Guinness Brewery requested that Linde create a carbon dioxide liquefaction plant for them.
The first “complete” frozen meal was not the 'TV dinner', it was airplane food. In 1945, Maxson Food Systems, Inc. starting making its 'Strato-Plates', meals that were created specifically for consumption on airplanes. Each frozen meal included a meat, vegetable, and potato, and was meant to be reheated for in-air eating.
Swanson’s, which is widely hailed as the true creator of TV dinners, coined the name and was the most well-known maker of compartmentalized meals in the 1950s.
Conagra Foods introduced its Healthy Choice line of frozen food in 1989, after the corporation was inspired to pursue healthy frozen picks after its chairman, Charles Harper, suffered a heart attack due to his bad eating habits.
There has long been a debate over which company first introduced the frozen pizza to the grocery store market, with both Totino’s and Tombstone vying for the title. However, the Celentano brothers, who owned their own Italian specialty store in New Jersey, are believed to have marketed the first frozen pizza in 1957.
The first “complete” frozen meal was not the 'TV dinner', it was airplane food. In 1945, Maxson Food Systems, Inc. starting making its 'Strato-Plates', meals that were created specifically for consumption on airplanes. Each frozen meal included a meat, vegetable, and potato, and was meant to be reheated for in-air eating.
Swanson’s, which is widely hailed as the true creator of TV dinners, coined the name and was the most well-known maker of compartmentalized meals in the 1950s.
Conagra Foods introduced its Healthy Choice line of frozen food in 1989, after the corporation was inspired to pursue healthy frozen picks after its chairman, Charles Harper, suffered a heart attack due to his bad eating habits.
There has long been a debate over which company first introduced the frozen pizza to the grocery store market, with both Totino’s and Tombstone vying for the title. However, the Celentano brothers, who owned their own Italian specialty store in New Jersey, are believed to have marketed the first frozen pizza in 1957.
All Season Protection
A receptionist in a church in a high risk area was concerned about someone coming into the office on Monday to rob them when they were counting the collection. She asked the local police department about using pepper spray and they recommended to her that she get a can of wasp spray instead. The wasp spray, they told her, can shoot up to twenty feet away and is a lot more accurate, while with the pepper spray, they have to get too close to you and could overpower you. The wasp spray temporarily blinds attackers until they get to the hospital for an antidote. She keeps a can on her desk in the office and it doesn't attract attention from people like a can of pepper spray would. She also keeps one nearby at home for home protection.
Val Glinka teaches self-defense to students at Sylvania Southview High School. For decades, he has suggested putting a can of wasp and hornet spray near your door or bed. Glinka considers it inexpensive, easy to find, and more effective than mace or pepper spray. The cans typically shoot 20 feet; so if someone tries to break into your home, Glinka says "spray the culprit in the eyes."
Did you also know that wasp spray will kill a snake and a mouse? It can. It will also kill a wasp.
Val Glinka teaches self-defense to students at Sylvania Southview High School. For decades, he has suggested putting a can of wasp and hornet spray near your door or bed. Glinka considers it inexpensive, easy to find, and more effective than mace or pepper spray. The cans typically shoot 20 feet; so if someone tries to break into your home, Glinka says "spray the culprit in the eyes."
Did you also know that wasp spray will kill a snake and a mouse? It can. It will also kill a wasp.
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