Tridge

If a bridge is two, then a tridge must be three. These are usually called tri-bridges, There are twelve in the world.

This Tridge is the formal name of a three-way wood footbridge above the confluence of the Chippewa and Tittabawassee Rivers near downtown Midland, Michigan. It opened in 1981 and consists of one 31-foot tall central pillar supporting three spokes. Each spoke is 180 feet long by 8 feet wide.

BTW tridge also refers to three player Bridge (cards).

TV Types

LG just announced a new TV that has a 55 inch screen, is a bit less than one quarter inch thick (less than the width of a pencil) and weighs about 16 pounds. OLED means Organic Light Emitting Diode. It is the newest technology for TVs. It produces a picture far brighter than anything on the market. OLED emits light as opposed to LCD TVs which reflect light. This means that they are not good for outdoor viewing, but the picture is truly eye-popping good. Watch for much bigger screens with OLED displays in malls and other places.

At the Consumer electronics show (CES), beginning this week, Samsung introduced an LED TV, which is .3 inch thick. LED is newer than many of the current flat screen TVs and is brighter. Think of it as better than LCD, but not as good as OLED.

Am sure there will be many more goodies at the show and I will let you know if there is any wizbang technology ready to hit the street. In the meantime, do not buy a new tablet, like the iPad until the new models come out, because it always drives the price of the old ones down. That is not always true for TVs, because dealers are already marking down last year's models to make room for the new ones. TVs are not susceptible to new features every few months like other technology and we usually keep them longer than a few years.

Last year I got rid of a 30-year-old TV and it cost me ten dollars to have it recycled. None of the new TVs will last a third of that time, but each new one will be more exciting to watch. Already in the labs is the next generation AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode) which claims to be viewable in direct sunlight.

3D TV is still a technology in search of an audience. It will not be ready for prime time until the producers make 3D content, we do not need to wear dorky glasses, and the quality gets better. Watch for sports to be among the first to adopt the technology. I am still waiting for glasses to replace the screen. They are almost ready for prime time and I hope to be first on my block to own a pair.

Color of the Year

OK, here it is, Pantone's color of the year for 2012, Tangerine Tango.

Look for all sorts of things in this color, from napkins to women's clothes, to whole rooms. Looks like Pantone has been visiting too many fast food joints.

PC TV

Had to add this last one about the PC TV from this weeks Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Google's Android operating system version 4.0, better known by as "Ice Cream Sandwich" (an alternative to Microsoft Windows), is used in a smart television, a 55-inch 3-D (240Hz refresh rate) LED.

The TV lets you switch among video on demand, Internet apps, and regular TV. You can share music, videos, pictures, etc., from tablets and phones and computers. It has a dual core processor, 1 gig of RAM, a hard drive and 2GB SD card. There is also a built-in 5 megapixel camera for video chats. The remote control features a touchpad, 5-way keys and a motion sensor. It can also respond to voice commands.

Happy Friday

The secret of man's being is not only to live, but to have something to live for.

I am alive and live for having a Happy Friday!

Twelve Days of Christmas

Today is officially the end of Christmastime and is the Epiphany, also Theophany, and the day that the three kings, Caspar (sometimes Gaspar), Melchior, and Balthazar showed up in Bethlehem after following the star. I find it interesting while searching my family genealogy, all three names are found, although not recently. OK, now get back to work.

Leap Year This Year

Hurray! We get an extra day to play this year. For those born on February 29, you finally get another birthday after having a few years with no presents.

Of course, if we ever adopt the new calendar proposed you will have a birthday every year. The Hanke-Henry Permanent Calendar has at least 30 days in every month and an extra week at the end of every five or six years. An interesting concept that has the same date on the same day every year. Seems too practical to ever be adopted, but it is a nice concept. You will probably be reading more about it soon. LINK

Samoa skipped Friday December 30 in 2011 and went from Thursday to Saturday so it could be moved to the other side of the international date line. It decided it was losing two business days a week with its favorite trading partners in Australia and New Zealand. American Samoa, an hour away by plane, will remain on the other side of the international dateline. That will be some time travel. You can go there and celebrate two birthdays every year. 

Video Glasses

Finally this technology is getting closer. I have been waiting for this since they first were developed a number of years ago. It was the same old story, high prices and low quality. Now, we are so close. The only thing missing is that they do not yet support wireless technology. Wouldn't it be nice to eliminate that monitor or TV screen and just wear cool glasses?

Vuzix has updated its line of video eye-wear and is compatible with both 2D and 3D content, the glasses can display an equivalent of up to 75-inch screen as seen from a distance of 10 feet and feature separate focus adjustment for each eye as well as adjustable eye distance and viewing angles. The lenses also come in different colors for the fashion conscious.
 
Weighing approximately 3oz with twin 1280 x 720 LCD, 16 million color displays with 35 degree diagonal field of view and 16:9 / 4:3 aspect ratio. Brightness, contrast, hue and color saturation are adjustable via on-screen controls and eye separation is also adjustable. It even has an adjustable nose bridge for folks that have a nose like mine.

Connectivity options include composite AV cable, component video cable and AV cable for most videophones, portable DVDs, and camcorders, but there's no HDMI input or wireless connectivity. These can also connect to PCs and laptops for game playing with VR head tracking. Using them with a camera is cool for those high, low, or behind shots where you do not have to keep your eye in the viewfinder.

Two rechargeable AA batteries provide up to three hours of video playback and reportedly can be replaced with lithium ion batteries offering up to seven hours. The video-glasses are available now from $169 - $499. I love technology.
http://www.vuzix.com/home/

Moverio is an alternative $770 pair of glasses that sports a 80 inch 3D experience and has a slot for a picture card and plays music. Not quite HD quality, but close. LINK   2012 may be the year for a breakthrough.

What's in a Name, Belsnickel

German for "fur-Nicholas," is a fur-clad Christmas gift-bringer figure in the folklore of southwestern Germany, where my family is originally from. The figure is also preserved in Pennsylvania Dutch communities.

Belsnickel's fur covers his entire body, and he sometimes wears a mask with a long tongue. He is a companion of Saint Nickolas, a bit scary, and visits children at Christmas time to deliver socks or shoes full of candy, cakes, nuts, and fruit, but if the children are not good, they will find coal and/or switches (stick) in their stockings instead. Other traditions had him strewing those goodies on the floor and if an adult bent down to pick up something they were hit on the back from Belsnickel with a switch.

In many places, Belsnickel was a precursor to Santa Claus or St. Nickolas and the popularity in the US faded in the early 1900s. Many of the old traditional Santa equivalents always had coal and a switch for bad kids along with the goodies. Alas, many good life lessons have been replaced with the current - everyone gets everything attitude.

More Robots in our Future

Hon Hai, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer and owner of Foxconn, recently announced that it intends to build a robot-making factory and replace 500,000 workers with robots over the next few years.

It already has 10,000 robots busy at work in its factories, and the plan is to increase the number of robots to one million by 2013.

Hon Hai now has about 800,000 employees and a yearly revenue of about $60 billion. The company signed a letter of intent to invest $3.3 billion in robots for its Taiwan factories. He said the robots will increase the production value of Foxconn by about $4 billion over the next three to five years and create about 2,000 new jobs. It plans to build most of the robots itself, due to lack of production speed from some suppliers. Seems like some of the science fiction stories of robots making robots are coming true. The name Singularity leaps to mind.

Russian Dancers

These women may look like robots, but they have just perfected a smooth step. When they join the Berezka Dance Troupe, they are forbidden to tell anyone, including family how the 'floating step' is performed. This video shows off the beauty. Starting at about 1:30 it is really evident. LINK

Cheapskate Michelangelo Buonarroti

Michelangelo actively deprived himself of any comfort he saw no need for. He told his workshop assistants and friends that he didn’t care what food tasted like. He knew of no food that was not palatable, and only ate what was cheapest in providing him a balanced diet. He preferred to drink water, but understood the health benefits of wine and drank only the cheapest he could find.

His house was modest and squalid and infested with rats. In the coldest weather, he would simply put on another coat, or go for a jog. He once stated that because he had never been bitten by a flea, the rats did not seem a nuisance to him. He wore the same old dirty clothes, day after day, washing them and himself about twice a month in the nearest river or lake. He wore a pair of shoes until the soles nearly came off. Good thing he treated his art better than himself or we would all be deprived of the beauty.

A Look Back to 1912

How have things changed in the past one hundred years?
New Mexico and Arizona joined the US as 47th and 48th states.

Here is a political quote from that year, "Former U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt wins all the Republican primaries, but party bosses beholden to Wall Street block his nomination by the convention."

Here are a few prices from 1912:
Federal spending 690 million dollars
World Series tickets box seat $5 (Bleacher seats 50 cents)
Chevy six cylinder $2,150
gas 7 cents gallon
Loaf of bread 8 cents
Pound of coffee 15 cents
Dozen eggs 22 cents
Pound of butter 35 cents
Milk 12 cents quart
Ham 15 cents pound
Bacon 16 cents pound
Oreo cookies came to market in 1912

Noel

Did you know that "Noel" entered English in the late 14th century and is from the Old French noël or naël, which itself is from the Latin nātālis (diēs), and means "day of birth".