While going through my backlog of unfinished posts, I found this one.

New World’s Hotel/Casino Breaks Ground

Las Vegas, NV Ground was broken today at what some people consider the most ambitious construction project ever undertaken in the 20th century. MGM Mirage (NYSE: MGM) owners of The Mandalay Bay, Circus Circus, Luxor and other theme-based hotel casinos has begun construction on what will be both the largest hotel in the world and the largest inhabited structure ever built. Stretching for a total of 31 miles, the Great Wall of Nevada hotel will recreate a scaled-down version of the Great Wall of China.

My first thought was, “Wow, why didn’t I post this one? This is too good. What will they have for theme entertainment dinners at the buffet? A re-enactment of Mao’s Great Leap Forward?”

I thought it odd that I hadn’t included in my notes the original source for this article, so I went looking. It doesn’t exist. It’s a complete hoax that I wrote and completely forgot to finish. Pity, I think it would have been a good one.

Technorati Tags: Blog

Apart from being able to laugh at the country western singer, this clip from Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? gives me the perfect opportunity to expound on what scares me about our civilization: celebrities.

I don’t recognize this person in the video, but it would appear she’s some form of celebrity, or she wouldn’t be playing for charity. (Comments on YouTube indicate her name is Kellie Pickler. Never heard of her.)

The problem is, this appearance on TV notwithstanding, there are probably kids who look up to her, perhaps even idolize her. Worse: Want to grow up like her. She puts on a performance here that clearly indicates she’s a candidate for the hypnotic sharks.

Why do people automatically attribute positive attributes to celebrities? Why do people listen to them when they give their opinion on politics or the environment or any number of topics? It’s not like you need any qualifications whatsoever to be a celebrity.

Technorati Tags: Rant

BBC News => Shark ‘kills swimming kangaroo’

A kangaroo met an unlikely death after it bounded into the surf in southern Australia and was mauled by a shark, according to eyewitnesses.

I’ve been watching a fair amount of Australian TV lately, and I’m amazed at how often the subject of sharks snatching animals and people comes up. There was one story about a man swallowed head first, down to his chest, by a great white earlier in the year. Luckily he got out.

Doesn’t sound like Skippy was quite as lucky. Perhaps the shark hypnotized him and lured him out to sea. If so, maybe we’re in luck. If sharks have evolved the ability to hypnotize and lure their prey off land, perhaps we’ll get rid of all the Creationists and most of the Republican candidates for President? They haven’t got nearly the mental power of kangaroos.

Technorati Tags: Australia

I’m of quite mixed emotions about the One Laptop Per Child project. Even in charity there is injustice, so I suppose this might be a good thing, but I can’t help thinking there are better ways to help children.

This article sums up my initial thoughts beautifully.

The Daily Mash => The Daily Mash – AFRICANS DISAPPOINTED TO DISCOVER $100 LAPTOPS ARE NOT FULL OF FOOD

COMMUNITIES across Africa have revealed their disappointment that the new $100 laptops contain no nutritional value.

A bit chewy
The scheme, organised by western technology companies, is designed to give young Africans the chance to play Tetris before their village is burned to the ground.

Meanwhile, as broadband is rolled out across the continent, millions of Africans have been surprised to discover it is a sophisticated communications network rather than a big pipe full of rice.

Fourteen year-old Lizzie Matumba, from Ivory Coast, welcomed the laptop initiative but said the early models did not look very tasty.

Technorati Tags: Commentary, Technology

Speaking of Satan, how’s this for a terrible abuse of technology? I mean, sure, it’s quite a technological achievement, and I can’t think of a better book to make unreadable, but couldn’t they just make it 0.5sq-mm smaller?

BBC News => Bible put on a pinhead-size chip

Researchers in Israel say they have succeeded in putting a version of the Bible on a chip smaller than a pinhead.
Its 300,000 words in Hebrew were inscribed on a silicon surface at the Haifa Institute of Technology.

Scientists say the aim of the project is to increase young people’s interest in nanoscience and nanotechnology.

The record for the smallest copy is held by a Bible measuring 2.8×3.4x1cm (1.1×1.3×0.4in), weighing 11.75g (0.4 ounces) and containing 1,514 pages.

The 0.5sq-mm (0.01sq-in) nano-Bible was written on a silicon surface covered with a thin layer of gold (20nanometres thick – 0.0002mm).

Am I the only one amused by the use of the words “bible” and “pinhead” in the same headline?

Technorati Tags: Loonies, Technology

Seems like we’ve been getting an increasing number of “soft tissue” dinosaur fossils lately. Is it luck? Some improvement in the way fossils are found? Or is it Satan just trying harder trick people into believing in evolution?

BBC News => Flesh wound reveals dino secrets

A fossil unearthed in China has given scientists a rare glimpse of what dinosaurs were like in the flesh.

The plant-eating Psittacosaurus had a thick layer of shark-like skin hidden under scales or feathers.

Palaeontologists believe this tough outer coating supported the dinosaur’s organs and protected it from predators.

Tooth marks suggest the dinosaur was torn open by a scavenger, giving a unique insight into their biology, 100 million years after this one’s death.

Technorati Tags: Dinosaur, Dinosaurs, Paleontology, Science

Back in ’07, I started a “year in review” blog post, and promptly failed to finish it.

While working on it, I discovered a whole bunch of other posts I never finished. Guess it’s time to clean house.

Technorati Tags: Blog

A brief bit of background… I’ve been using a GPS since 1995, when I purchased a (now) vintage old Garmin GPS 40 for my father.

I had been convinced for some time that I really wanted one and, equally, was convinced that I had no practical use for it. I rarely got the opportunity to go hiking and car navigation GPSes were still the thing of science fiction. On the other hand, I was positive that my father, who, at that time, went camping and hiking some 25 weeks out of the year, was a perfect candidate for one.

The problem: He wasn’t at all convinced they had any use.

After several attempts, over several months, to talk about the technology and get my dad interest had completely failed, I decided to buy him one, anyway. I figured if he decided he didn’t like it, I’d keep it. After he took the GPS out for his first trip, there was no chance I was going to get to keep it.

My dad can be stubborn, but he’ll usually admit when he’s wrong (except about global warming), and he came back from the first trip raving about how much fun it was to have a GPS. He wouldn’t dream of going out to the woods without it anymore.

I could hardly have chosen and more appreciated or successful birthday gift for me father. Picking gifts for my father is historically almost impossible to get right. I’ve only ever gotten him three gifts that I genuinely feel he’s enthused after (Two GPSes and one Apple Mac) so I was pleased with his reaction, but I still didn’t have my own GPS.

In 2000, I purchased a Garmin eTrex for my father to replace the aging GPS 40. The eTrex was still a basic unit, but expanded to a 12-channel receiver (up from the GPS 40′s 8 channel receiver.) The improvement in signal acquisition and accuracy was as dramatic as night and day.

In 2001, I took this newer unit with us to Japan and Taiwan and I loved it. It’s really a comfort in a place like Japan where we had no knowledge of the area, no locals to help up and only my incompetent Japanese skills and my wife’s ability to read Chinese characters. Even if it is miles and miles away, there’s something reassuring about having a “fix” on your hotel, or the subway station you arrived at.

I’ve logged quite a few hours using both my dad’s GPSes over the years, but they were both “basic” units without any of the cooler bells & whistles available on higher end models. If I was ever going to get a GPS of my own, I had different requirements than my dad…

[Stay tuned for part two.]

Technorati Tags: GPS, Technology