Last gasp of steam

Last gasp of steam_0420
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

The old espresso machine died. This is its last head of steam, captured for posterity...

It's a Sunbeam. After repair seemed all too difficult and having researched far more expensive options we stuck by this model, but updated with more water capacity and greater height (allowing for mugs, not just cups). No bells and whistles, but it works.

Tama-town for adults?

Watching my kids online I'm thinking it's here already - a universally-IP-connected world where we need to buy toys, tokens, CDs or DVDs to unlock web content or access services. Will a 'Tamagotchi-town' for adults be a Trojan-horse for DRM?

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Ubiquity and privacy

Here's an interesting piece on where we may be headed with ubiquitous RFID and WiFi - basically Big Bro territory: http://weblog.infoworld.com/…_wifi.html

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Armstrong looking ominous

Like a dark cloud on the horizon, Lance Armstrong looks strong, and he has barely started: 'Fawley dropped back into third while Henry kept the gap to Armstrong under a minute, and Comardo dropped back almost six minutes, still solidly in fourth. Henry marveled at the Tour champion's performance. "It's hard to compete with such a big motor," he said.'

http://www.cyclingnews.com/mtb.php

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Lance and his gang vs everyone else

Up to his old 'Patron of Le Tour' tricks already, I guess....

Armstrong, who will join former Team Manager Johan Bruyneel and Klöden at Team Astana, responded to Gerdemann's rumoured remarks. He threatened to chase Gerdemann if he tried to join an escape group. Klöden reminded Gerdemann that he would need "friends in the peloton," and that Armstrong would not be one of them; "Lance was angry." (SW)

He took a dislike to Simeoni and pulled the same sort of 'close down the break' stunt. He means it.

A treasury of nutcase ideas

What a nutty idea: ALL babies should be DNA-tested at birth to ensure men are not wrongly named as a child's father, a men's rights group says.

Forget trust, cancer, inheritable disease, disabilities or the overall health of the child, it's paternity that matters. If that newspaper can be believed, that men's group is a sick and sorry lot, eh?

Another nutty idea: "You know, I have - faith is a very big part of my life. And putting my life in my creator's hands - this is what I always do," Ms Palin said.

Forget about self-will, choice, motivation, desire or even capability, just wait for a higher order being of some sort to open some doors. I like the idea of faith, sure, it's a beautiful thing - but sometimes we have to exercise our free will to think, and to act.

Another one: The Mars Phoenix Lander today announced the end of its five-month mission with a cryptic message on Twitter, sparking a wave of heartfelt replies written in computer language.

Sure, it was fun tweeting to a human on Earth about a robot on Mars, but folks, really - it's not reading your tweets, indeed it never was. And now it's shut down, frozen, out of juice! Let's not get too emotional about these mechanical contraptions of ours, eh?

Biotech nano-materials - the next big thing?

It's not a new idea, but it's a fairly important one. Adapting pre-existing biological processes to make the things that we want, be they nano-scale batteries, solar cells or neural nets, may herald the next wave of miniaturization and open up new possibilities for large-scale manufacturing of the seemingly miraculous.

Belcher and two MIT colleagues, chemical engineering professor Paula Hammond and ceramics professor Yet-Ming Chiang, are coaxing viruses to assemble micro-batteries which are the size of a human cell. They could one day be used to power tiny devices like sensors or medical diagnostic tools.