Robot Goes to School

 Freshman Lyndon Baty attends classes at his high school in Knox City, Texas every day by using a robot. Vgo is a four foot tall bot on wheels with a small screen, camera, speakers and microphone at the top.

Baty logs into the robot remotely from his home, using his PC and a webcam to teleconference into his classes. He moves Vgo around school, switching between classes just like regular students. He has polycystic kidney disease and recent treatments have left his immune system so damaged that he can’t risk being surrounded by people

What's the Internet

Came across this funny clip LINK from the Today Show in 1994. The hosts are trying to find out that "funny little a with the ring around it" is. Bryant Gumbel actually asks the staff what the Internet is. It shows how far we have come in such a short time. Here is another interesting one with children looking at old technology.    LINK 

Ten Uses For Vicks Vaporub

It's always fun to find new uses for old stuff, especially when there does not seem to be any way to ever finish it before it hits the expiration date. Here are ten interesting uses for Vicks.

The most common use of Vicks is to uncongest your chest and throat area. When applied to the upper chest, it provides excellent relief of cough and congestion symptoms.

Vicks relieves sore, overworked muscles. It increases circulation and provides almost instant aid. Use a generous portion and apply it all over the aching area. (Be sure to warn your bed-mate.)

Rub VapoRub on your toenails if you suspect you have a fungus. Within days, the nail will turn dark—this means the Vicks is killing the fungus. As your toenail grows out, the dark part will grow off and you will have fungus-free feet. Keep applying the ointment over a period of two weeks to fully cleanse nail beds of any remaining bacteria.

Cats are notorious for scratching every hard surface they get their claws on. To prevent Miss Kitty from ruining your doors, walls, and windows, apply a small amount of VapoRub to these areas. Cats detest the smell and will steer clear. Vicks can also be applied to your arms and legs if your kitty is prone to scratching you.

If your dog or cat is not yet potty trained, put an open bottle of Vicks on the area he or she likes to mark as their territory. The smell will discourage them from lifting their legs and wetting your rug.

Rub a small amount of Vicks VapoRub on your temples and forehead to help relieve headaches. The mentholated scent will release pressure in your head and instantly relieve pain.

Vicks VapoRub can be used in special types of humidifiers and vaporizers. Ensure your humidifier has an aromatherapy compartment before using. The humidifier will circulate Vicks throughout the air and keep you breathing easy all night long.

To prevent infection and speed up healing time, dab a small amount of Vicks on any small cut or splinter.

If you get bitten by a tick, apply Vicks immediately. The strong odor might help get the critter to release itself and stop bugging you.

Vicks wards off mosquitoes. Apply small dabs of Vicks VapoRub to your skin and clothes and mosquitoes will steer clear. If you do get bitten, apply Vicks to the area and cover it with a Band-Aid to relieve itching.

Find Your iPhone

Here is a free app that you download to your iPhone, iPod, or iPad. Just download it and you are ready. Great if the device is misplaced, or stolen. It can find it, lock it, erase data, or whatever else you want to do. LINK

See With Your Tongue

 An experimental device that uses the tongue instead of the eyes to "see" is here. Researchers say their BrainPort device does not replace the sense of sight, but lets the blind perceive images, making it easier for them to navigate their surroundings.

The device is comprised of an inch-long video camera mounted on a pair of sunglasses. The camera sends signals down a cable to a handheld control unit about the size of a cell phone, which converts the image into a low resolution black, white and gray picture. That picture is then recreated as a square grid of 400 electrodes, approximately the size of a postage stamp, on the lollipop-shaped stick. Each electrode sends pulses based upon the amount of light detected, with strongest pulses for white, and no signal for black.
Those who could see before they went blind describe the sensations as similar to vision -- although the resolution is not the same, they say.

The idea started with Paul Bach-y Rita, a neuroscientist at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Bach-y-Rita was convinced that the brain, not the eye, is what enables humans to see and can rewire nerve impulses from anywhere, not just the eye, to generate vision.

After 10 hours wearing the device, people have been able to find and walk down a hallway and avoid obstacles, said Aimee Arnoldussen, a neuroscientist who is leading the research. With the device, people also have distinguished a men's room sign from a women's room sign and found doorways, she said.
You don't put the device on and magically see and it isn't a substitute for a cane or a guide dog.

Related technologies: The U.S. Navy is developing a system that will allow divers to find their way through murky waters by interpreting infrared through their tongues.

NASA is creating sensors to enable astronauts to feel objects on the outside of their space suits.

The Institute for Human and Machine Cognition is working toward making vests that will alert pilots to other planes or incoming missiles by sending pulses.

Did You Know

Australia has no official national animal, but the red kangaroo is the unofficial acknowledged, along with the Emu. Both are on the national coat of arms. They represent moving forward, because neither can walk backward easily. 95% of the world's opals are mined in Australia.

Largest Picture in the World

It is almost the size of a football field. of course it was done by a German and it a panorama of Dresden, Germany. The site allows you to click on individual shots, like a statue, and the camera zooms in to show the detail.  LINK

Fascinating statistics: It was taken with a 400 mm lens camera and is a composite of 1,665 photos each about 21 megapixels in size. A robotic stand was used to capture the city in a rotation that took 172 minutes to complete. A  computer with 4 terabytes of hard disk space took 94 hours combine the individual photos together. Not sure why anyone would want to do such a thing, except for posterity or just so I might have something to share with you.

What's in a Name

Have you ever driven a Chevy? There are many stories and articles that mention Chevvie, Chevie, and Chevy and even Shevvie. The spelling of Chevy was not standardized until Chevrolet introduced the Chevy II in the early 1960s and officially approved that spelling.

Happy Friday

The art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.

I plan to let go of yesterday and hold on to a Happy Friday!

What's in a Name

Adobe founders John Warnock and Chuck Geschke were working for Xerox during the late 70s and early 80s, and living in Los Altos, CA, and Adobe Creek just happens to run through the town. The creek was named for the nearby house of a 19th Century governor.

Vaseline

Chemist Robert Chesebrough at the 22, in 1859, left his father’s dry goods business to try the oil industry. He found men working on oil rigs were plagued by what they called “rod wax,” a kind of gooey jelly that would get into machinery and cause it to seize up. Chesebrough noticed that the workers often smeared the substance on burns and rough skin and that it appeared to help in the healing process, so he brought some of the stuff home.

He spent the next 10 years experimenting on it and refined the rod wax down to the clear, smeary petroleum jelly we now know today. He applied the goo to self-inflicted wounds to track their healing process.

He began marketing Vaseline (supposedly a mash-up of the German word for water, vasser, and the Greek word for olive oil, ‘e’laion) in 1870. He patented the product in the US in 1872 and formed the Chesebrough Manufacturing Company, based out of Brooklyn, in 1875. According to stories, he was at first unable to find any pharmacists willing to take a chance on the weird, greasy stuff, so he traveled the countryside, snake oil salesman style, preaching the magic of Vaseline.

It worked, probably because Vaseline was kind of magic: People used it for everything from rescuing chapped skin and protecting baby bottoms from diaper rash to preserving eggs. Long-distance swimmers rubbed it on themselves to save body heat; American Commander Robert Peary brought Vaseline with him on his arctic adventures because it was one of the few things that wouldn’t freeze.

By the late 1880s, Vaseline was selling nationwide at a rate of a jar a minute.

According to posthumous reports, he swallowed three spoonfuls of it every day. Once, when he contracted pleurisy in his 50s, he had his nurse rub him down with Vaseline every day. He, obviously recovered and died at the age of 96.

The Chesebrough Manufacturing Company merged in 1955 with Pond’s, the makers of popular cold creams, to become Chesebrough-Pond’s; 32 years later, in 1987, the company sold out to massive personal care company Unilever.

Little Book, Little Price

Amazon has created a sweet spot for many would-be authors. It now offers Amazon Singles, which allows writers, thinkers, scientists, and others to submit original material of 5,000 - 30,000 words for publication. These relatively short works, beginning at about 30 pages, allow those folks who do not have enough information to fill a book, but more than might fit in a magazine, to get published. Pricing is intended to fall between $.99 and $4.99. This niche fits nicely with the current short attention span of the internet generation, who want to finish a book on the commute to work. or become an an almost expert on the latest technology or scientific process. Many 'How To' books fit nicely into this length. Taken to the extreme, I can visualize describing the history of the world on one page as we progress back to petroglyphs.

Think

Milking It

For years I have been buying milk in half gallons. That way, I use it up before it goes bad. Last year I noticed the the gallon size was a few cents cheaper than a half gallon. The spread continued to increase. Last week, the gallon size was less than half the cost of the half gallon. This means I can buy a gallon and throw half of it away and still come out ahead (not that I plan to do it.) Not sure what has prompted this change, but is something to watch for the next time you are shopping. The store is my local Walmart. A trick my mother taught me is to put the remaining milk in the freezer if you are planning to be away for a while. Freezing does not harm the milk or make it taste any different. However, it may take 24 hours or more to completely thaw.