Government Surplus

Found a site with government surplus items. Cool!

無線給電

I found this term on Yahoo Dictionary, which piqued my interest. Of course Tesla really proved that wireless power was realizable. Well, I thought up an idea on how to monetize it, but we'll see if the Japanese have any better ideas.

無線給電

電気コンセントに給電装置を差し込み、この装置から電波で家庭にある家電に電気を送り込むシステム。これまでは家電を操作するためには乾電池を利用するか、電気の差し込み口にコンセントを差し込まなければならずその場合は電気コードがどうしても必要となり、長いコードが室内中に張り巡らされる場合もある。そこでテレビやパソコン、ビデオ機器などの各種のデジタル家電を電気や通信用のコードなしに利用できるようにする技術の研究が始まった。東芝を中心として約15社が集まり、官民共同で研究開発を行い、2015年の実用化を目指している。家電のネットワーク化が進めば配線は今以上に増えかねないのでコード不要の新技術に対する消費者の期待は大きくなっている。これまで電話の子機など小型機器向けに実用化されているものもあるが、給電できる距離は1センチメートル以下にとどまっている。これを1～2メートルに延ばしてテレビなど大型機器にも無線で電気が送れるようにする研究を進めている。

HDD v. SSD: If v. When

Another link in my Firefox tab stack that I need to clear.... It's been present through about four browser restarts, so it's about time. This article on C|net talks about the reliability issues of SSD, and how they're actually less reliable than HDDs.

The Sagulator

The Sagulator is an interesting calculator that will compute the deflection of shelves depending on the load, material, and dimensions.

What you need for earthquake preparedness

ケーティの友達はフェースブックにこのリンクを貼った。「備えあれば憂いなし」と。

Op-Ed on Obama's First 200 Days

Comment on an opinion piece by Michael Steele.

Mr. Steele hit the nail on the head.

To "bob", there are times when doing "something" is worse than doing "nothing": if the plan is completely wrong. It is very worthwhile to provide feedback to let our representatives know that their constituents aren't happy with the way things are going.

Amnesiac Youth

How quickly the youth forget.

AGE IN YRS....... INCOME............. POL PHIL.........
18-34 35-54 55+ <50 50-100 >100K Lib Mod Con



Right thing 50% 60% 73% 57% 67% 69% 47% 63% 69%
Wrong thing 32 23 13 25 22 20 37 24 13
DK/NA 18 17 14 19 11 11 16 13 18

The pictures are disturbing, but that's war.

Anti-Privacy Article

What a dumb article. My retort:

Ah, how naive. When your plans are widely known, bad people can take advantage of those plans. Going to London? How about a bunch of guys clean out your house for you while you're out? Could be an employee of one of the corporations with access to your data, or maybe they got hacked. Either way, you're screwed. But you'd only have yourself to blame. Ignore the warnings about intrusive surveillance to your peril.

Smarter folks are buying more things with cash to avoid tracking, and even bypassing increasingly worthless Federal Reserve notes with other intermediates, or bartering. The government hates that because then they can't track what you're doing. Suck it, Big Brother!

DIY Home Surveillance

Something I've been thinking about lately, via c|net.