Lifelong goal reached

So, I finally met a lifelong goal.

I can now walk to the printer without taking my headphones off in the office.

I bought a 12ft extension for headphones and it works great.

Data fusion

I was reading yesterday and two facts came together in my head.

First, from "A Day Without Seapower and Projection Forces":
almost 90% of the world's population lives within 500 miles of the ocean

and

from an aviation week article about future technologies:
with hypersonic vehicles we can hit targets 500 nm away in less than 8 minutes

I am going to assume the Navy guy was talking about 500nm, so that means, almost 90% of the world's population would be at risk of attack in under 8 minutes if we have hypersonic vehicles.

How not to make grilled cheese

I'd just like to let the world know that you *can* make a grilled cheese sandwich in the toaster, although I don't recommend it.

I took a piece of cheese and put it between two slices of bread. I then smashed the whole thing to one slice of bread thickness. Went around the edges smashing a bit more. Then two cycles on "not crazy dark" in the toaster.

Its ... meh. Spend the time to do it right, who cares if you make a pan dirty. (I had just finished a weekend full of dishes, so I was looking for something quick.)

I was lucky that the cheese did not drip out, I think they sell sleeves for the sandwich to make cheese sandwiches in the toaster.

Thesis baby (inlaws: no, not a real baby... )

me: "Man, I have gotten fat"
*me grabs belly and pats it
her: "Well... we will just call it... your thesis baby"

1 attoparsec per microfortnight

I feel like my dissertation work is moving at one attoparsec per microfortnight.

gah.

In other news, I maimed a butterfly by accident yesterday. I was driving back from the store and saw this butterfly in my path. I braked and swerved and braced for impact. Sometimes, small insects can just be pushed around without actually hitting the car, but it was not meant to be for this butterfly. I couldn't see the impact, so I thought he was safe. He was not. When I stopped at a light, a dazed butterfly tried to fly away from the front of my car, but fell to the ground and kept trying to fly. I was hoping I missed him, but nope.

my monitor is dying

I bought a crt monitor in 2002, and its been moved at least 7 times (5 of those include a cross country shipping.

Lately, its been acting up, it loses one color so that the screen has a red tint to it.

I'm sort of resolved to see this one to its end, and if I wait, it always goes back to working. While its missing a color, I tend to keep doing what I was doing as I mostly need to read text and type.

I was reading some news this morning though, and they had an article about the North Koreans and getting back into talks. There was a picture of Hilary Clinton, and she was looking much more youthful than normal. I figured it was due to the color change on my monitor, so I googled "bill clinton color blind".

Turns out he is color blind.

Tech transfers from military R&D

I used to have a friend that would always tell me that NASA and the DoD were useless. Part of the argument involved the R&D that each group did. I would counter that sometimes we got really cool things from them (microwaves anyone?).

Anyway, I didn't normally have too many 'recent' advances that were useful, but while reading some magazines a few months ago I ran into some cool things.

First one was a neat non-stick coating for pans that came from aircraft coatings. (it can also be used for prosthetics). Quasicrystalline Aircraft Coating Shows Promise for Cookware, Prosthetics
The tech actually came from the missile defense program. They actually don't have the time/money to develop it further, but I would love to see that on pans, teflon sucks (we have a pan that is only about 3 years old? and the teflon is useless (well, and i *might* have used the wrong sponge on it and removed the coating. or cooked with acids, or something)).

Second one is some radar technology being used to help cure breast cancer. Algorithms designed for radars are being applied to microwaves used for cancer destruction. Radar Technology Finds New Target. The algorithms null out the heating outside of the tumor so that good tissue is not destroyed. They are moving forward with this tech, and doing clinical trials.