FlashLadyBug.com

So, this is a preview of a piece of software which I find to be absolutely ridiculous.
I had not thought that anyone had actually been able to program an algorithm to do this as well as this.
Here, we have a program which allows you to do very rough sketches of an image, say a beach with some birds, sailboats, and a newly wed couple kissing. Very rough sketch.
Well, this program takes your rough sketch and keywords for each object and runs them through image searches online and *builds a composite image of it.* In other words, it outputs a “photoshopped” image composite of what you had sketched.
All fine and good, it sounds relatively meh on paper. However take a look at these images and you will be astounded at how real the final picture seems, especially when compared to what it was extracted from.

Check out their university research page which has more ridiculous images made by Sketch2Photo, as well as the source code of the program itself!

A bit of science for us all. TEAM 0.5 has debuted. What is TEAM? Its the worlds most powerful transmission electron microscope. It gives images with .5 angstrom resolutions, which just so happens to be half the diameter of a single hydrogen atom. It’s located at NCEM at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. THey hope to setup a control room that shows the sample on a screen that looks like an HD flatscreen. 🙂 As of now, their opening date for outside users, is October 08. It corrects for a aberration that has long plagued such high res microscopes that make points of light look like disks. Fixing this has upped the resolution greatly. As of now, they can perform spectroscopy on one atom at a time, which allows scientists to precisely locate impurities of 1 atom per sample.
Here…is a mindblowing example:
Shown here is a gold crystal bridge. Those dots…..those are gold atoms

Thanks Eurekalert, and congrats to the folks at NCEM

Seeing how i feel pretty sick today…im home from work, and well…what else is there to do but figure out and find more ways to make dangerous things? 😛
Ya…..
so, here is how you can take a maglite and a dvd burner, combine the two with a bit of tweaking and get yourself a laser on par with a Spyder laser. Check it out on instructables. Keep in mind never to point this thing at ANYone, or even point it where there could possibly be a person. also….don’t point it at an aircraft unless you want the FAA and possibly the FBI after you ;P

Yes, so I’m on lunch break >.<
Who knows what a US copper penny is made of? Well….it used to be copper. Now, its a copper shell with a zinc interior. You can get the copper shell very easily, provided you want to play with some acid. Get a penny and make sure its dated post-1982.
File around the edge to the point where you can see a bit of white (zinc)
Get muriatic acide from your nice, friendly, local hardware store. Its also known as HCL, its used for cleaning concrete.
Drop the penny in a glass bowl of the acide, make sure it doesnt splash, and wear gloves….please. After the bubbles stop forming, pour the acide into a sink, and make sure it doesnt splatter. NEVER add water TO a chemical directly, it can boil. always add chemical TO water.
Rinse the penny shells afterwards, and voila!

Thank you popsci.com 😀

Dilbert Movie
First off…..theres going to be…a DILBERT MOVIE!
Warner Bros via Chris Columbus has gotten movie rights to the Dilbert Comic. Woot!

OpenCola
Who wants Coca Cola when you can get OPEN SOURCE Coca Cola?!
Presenting…OpenCola. Amazingly, people say it actually tastes like Coke and Pepsi combined. The can even says “check out the source at opencola.com.” If you go, its actually a recipe FOR OpenCola. The recipe is..of course, licensed under the GNU General Public License. Crazy people…Sadly, the website that made it at first died after selling a some cans, but hey…its open source. Go go GO! Open Source Coca Cola

UN Radiation Warning Signs

the UN has decided that they need universal radiation signs. and i quote “the new symbol will not be visible under normal use, but only if someone attempts to disassemble a device that is a source of dangerous radiation”….uhhhh…ok…
crazy…check it out at the UN site

Finally, NukeProof USB Drive

now, plenty of these usb drives have been taken to the test. The bullet proof usb key was recently tested and it surprisingly withstood quite a few blasts, cept a shotgun. Now…this one, i dont think anyone is eager to test. Nuke proof? WHO NEEDS ONE? Anyways…check it out at Slashgear

Yes, their demonstration worked on tuesday. It played sudoku, matched molecules and did some simple calculations. At such a low qubit number, its not very powerful. Still, its working and that counds for ALOT. When you stack a few thousand qubits youve got yourself some seriously power. Check out their news on the D-Wave blog
And for some video on the actual test which was oddly enough, done remotely, check it out on google videos.
The remote access does show some concern about whether or not its authentic, but…if you watch the video, the computers pretty slow. A company and technology worth looking into 🙂

I seem to be on a roll here with quantum mechanics and news…weird.

This company has claimed that it will demonstrate a 16-qubit quantum computer! WHats different about this computer? Well, other quantum computers are shy…if they exist in “this” world they don’t work. Thermal noise, outside interactions, would essentially fry the machine. After reading that, i decided that we computer builders don’t have that much to complain about…sure, we have to be aware of static charge…but, these guys have to worry about stray PHOTONS!

However, D-Wave Systems has created one that is immune to such effects, also know as being adiabatic.
Now, lets get into the system.
Its 16 qubits, which means it has 16 quantum bits which is simultaneously 1 and 0. Even though its only 16, it is supposedly able to perform 64,000 calculations simultaneously via parallel “universes”
Hope this thing works 😀
The pictures sure look shiny enough to warrant credit 😛
Check it out at the D Wave blog

Yes, another combined post…we have a plan…you will see at the end of the year. There is a reason to my combined posts. Kind of.

First off…

Paper Storage System:

And no…it is NOT a book. There is a “rumor” going about that this is false, that it is impossible. I really don’t know. It kind of makes sense, and kind of doesn’t. We shall see. Sainul Abideen says he has created something called “Rainbow Versatile Disc”(RVD) which uses paper, at the moment, and geometric shapes and colors to signify data. Apparently, on a single piece of paper 4×4 in, he had 432 pages of content stored. Video too!
Its biodegradable, costs 1/10th a CD and apparently, offers 131 times the storage capacity. Apparently, a sim sized piece of paper COULD hold 5 gigs of data. That really scares me. In the happy warm fuzzy way. Hopefully, this is real, because then its happy. 😛 There are still hurdles, like reading data, accurateness, etc. But…weeee! Read it here

Turn Excrement Blue:

Yes, the liquid and the solid parts too.
This is really kinda wierd…but apparently, methylene blue is ingestable, and it is not processed, and becomes output. I have a sneaky suspicion that this aint the most healthy for your body….but uh. it looks cool…kind of. Ok…I will stop writing now. Link
*FLB Takes No Responsibility in Bodily Injury Resulting from this Website.

The NanoKnife:

oh yes…there are these sci-fi books, where there are knives or blades that cut extremely finely. Most of them are really obscure and half of you have prob never read them before. Anyways, scientists have this idea of, hmm. Lets take carbon nanotube, string it with high tension over something like a cheese slicer, and voila, nanoknife! Really sharp…Of course, really delicate. They want to see if it can cut wax. 😛
Well…ya gotta go one step at a time. Atleast this is a REALLY SHARP *ting! blade. Read the article here

Speed Talking:

ok…this is a weird kind of video, but its kinda cool. I wonder how he learned how to do this. Anyways, in this, the guy recites a ton of stuff in really fast manner, but its actually understandable. Kind of. Weird…watch it here (google video)

Programmer Jokes:

not much to explain here. Its a pretty long one. The title is: Top 20 Replies to Programmers to Testers when their programs don’t work. Right. its not really a joke…but its kinda funny. Read it here

And finally….The TriForce…on top of the MIT Dome of course

this is really kind of late…but mit students erected a large Zelda Triforce ontop of the main dome of MIT. Interesting picture…See it here

Now, you know those blenders sitting in your kitchen? Do you think yours can blend marbles?…apparently, this guy did. And he ended up with glass dust which kinda just flowed out of the blender when he opened it. I think its 1)really cool and 2) REALLY dangerous. Like…very dangerous. Ever heard of asbestos? well, I’m wondering what glass dust might do to your lungs………..
…
Well, the video is pretty cool, watch it here
(and yes, I’m unloading about a months worth of saved up posts on you, though its going to be spread out)
*Edit: Forgot the link 😛

I have returned! after a rather length hiatus. sorry bout that. 😛

here is the next installment of Edmunds Kit reviews.

Dehydration of Sucrose! Its a fun experiment. Check out the pics

We
liked the idea. We liked the chemicals. We kinda liked the results. There was a
problem with the actual experiment. If you look at the picture, the carbon is
rising out of the beaker. We tried everything provided in the kit. It came with
16 M H2SO4, chemical grade sucrose :-P, an acid neutralizer, and an info sheet.
We liked the chemical grade sucrose…hehe. We definitely liked the H2SO4. I
think the only step higher than that in our YAY scale would be vapor H2SO4 or
HCL. Mmm pure undiluted acid. Fun stuff. Anyways…

We unpacked, started up the lab. We decided that…16 M
acid is something to be cautious about. Rightly so. We used the fume hood. Mark
decided that we should use a large beaker, which we believe increased surface
area and decreased the visual effect. Added and mixing the chemicals, we added
it and waited for the rising black foam. It happened, just not as
spectacularly

.

Second try, we used a smaller beaker, I added more
sugar, the rest of the H2SO4 and only a bit of the acid neutralizer. Sadly, we
kinda ran out of the acid, so this isn’t really a multi-trial experiment.

The experiment ended well, cleanup was easy, and I sported
two baggies of carbon laced with H2SO4 and base neutralizer residue. I’m still
figuring out what to do with it…but, we shall see. All in all, the lab was a
success, we DID dehydrate sucrose, it was fun, and relatively informative. Other
than the relative scarcity of some of the materials, we were pleased with the
lab. Its FUN! Lol

Before: After:

Homepage here.
Want to try this out yourself? get it here. its not too expensive 😉
We have a few others left. this one and this one. Oh, and this one

We should have those up in the next week. And, get ready for more posts tomorrow 😀