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The good Dr. Robert J. Van de Graaff has your prostatic workstation needs covered.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that he is now a major factor in semiconductor production: during the later stages of their diffusion, when the punk-ass new microprocessors think they know everything, the wise old 8086s tell them: "Now kids, if you exhibit any of the undocumented errata for your model number during your rated lifespan, Dr. Van de Graaff will come for you, and with him comes the Vcore transient from which their is no waking..."

• Ask your local science museum if they have an AI Mind exhibit. If they do not, volunteer to install MindForth as an AI exhibit.See which museum is the home of the oldest living artificial intelligence.Albuquerque NM -- New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science
• Baltimore MD -- Maryland Science Center Berkeley CA -- Lawrence Hall of Science Bloomingtown IN -- Wonderlab Museum of Science, Health, & Technology
  Boston MA -- Museum of Science
• Brantford, Ontario, Canada -- Personal Computer Museum
• Charlotte NC -- Discovery Place
• Chicago IL -- Museum of Science and Industry
• Columbus OH -- Center of Science and Industry (COSI)
• Detroit MI -- Detroit Science Center Jersey City NJ -- Liberty Science Center Kansas City MO -- Science City at Union Station
• Los Angeles CA -- the California Science Center
• Louisville KY -- the Louisville Science Center
• Manchester UK -- Museum of Science and Industry (MoSI)
• Mobile AL -- the Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center
• Mountain View CA -- Computer History Museum
• New York City NY -- the New York Hall of Science
• Norwich VT -- Montshire Museum of Science
• Philadelphia PA -- the Franklin Institute Science Museum
• Pittsburgh PA -- Carnegie Science Center
  • with RoboWorld exhibit showing how robots
    • sense;

Now this is a real planetarium!
I know, because I have worked in many of the world's best known planetariums.

Actually, yes they do.
Just like people die of smoking - the smoking doesn't kill them, but the effects of smoking do.

We could look at the dangerous effects of jet lag here...
And we can look at a bit of an unconfirmed urban legend here(but also not disproven, I just can't find an original article)...

And we can see the long term effects of jetlag (Thanks to mice... Surprisingly... NOT) here...

Facts about the Oceans:

Area: about 140 million square miles (362 million sq km), ore nearly 71% of the Earth's surface.

Average Depth: 12,200 feet (3,720 m).

http://www.mos.org/oceans/planet/features.html

I heard an interview about this back in October, if anyone would like to hear it...

And possibly because of the same causes for observed warming of other multiple planets in the solar system which have nothing to do with terrestrial atmospheric pollutants.

http://www.mos.org/cst-archive/article/80/9.html

A study of the ice caps on Mars may show that the red planet is experiencing a warming trend....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming#The_so lar_variation_theory
The present level of solar activity is historically high. Solanki et al. (2004) suggest that solar activity for the last 60 to 70 years may be at its highest level in 8,000 years; Muscheler et al. disagree, suggesting ...

Global Warming: Fact.
Global Warming Caused by Human Pollution: Hypothesis.

There are lots of real science museums. These are just the ones I've been to, but they're probably all around.

Ontario Science Centre
Chicago science museum
Boston science museum
Ann Arbor Hands on museum

Personally I never watch South Park OR Al Gore. or other politicans... all are equally relavant and entertaining; not one whit
As to global warming I am sure it is warming Al's pocketbook but I foind hun causes to be somewhat...doubtful as do many who really view this with an open mind. To quote another on this; It seejms mankind's intervention must be causing warming even beyond this globe:

On Pluto: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/pluto_warmin g_021009.html

On Triton: http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19980526052143dat a_trunc_sys.shtml

On Saturn: http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=2006 1109-022035-4126r

On Jupiter: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060504_red_j r.html

On Mars: http://www.mos.org/cst-archive/article/80/9.html

Remember; Piltdown Man was accepted as totally valid by the scientists of that day...
Any time lends itself to "present knowledge chauvanism"

Mars is getting hot! http://www.mos.org/cst-archive/article/80/9.html Jupiter is getting hot! http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060504_red_j r.html Pluto is getting hot! http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/pluto_warmin g_021009.html I blame George Bush.

Assuming there wasn't also a kilometer of water over the surfaces, an average depth of 2km of water would be underneath the ice given that the average depth of our oceans is approximately 3km today (source: Oceans Alive)

Make Congress ratify Kyoto just like the other 142 countries did?

Increase the car efficiency standards at least to the Chinese level in the USA?

Stop trying to deny the manmade global warming, which the scientific consensus supports and engage in a worldwide debate about what steps need to be taken in order to minimize CO2 output? Just off the top of my head...

Are your cars Hybrids or some alternative fuel thing like BioDiesel?

Do you bike to work?

Have move moved close enough to work/school to make Biking practical?

Have you replaced at least half of the lights in your house with LED or compact florescent bulbs? If you haven't done all or most of those things then I really wish you'd get off of "Bush", "The Democrats", "The Republicans", and Fox news and go save a baby seal or something. If you have done all or most of those things, then great job. Keep it up and encourage your friends to do the same. Either way, stop waiting for "someone to do something" and do something yourself.

By the way, I do all of those things, am not a supporter of Kyoto and not at all a fan of computer climate models (Software sucks).

I'm working on covering this for the Museum of Science, Boston on our podcast. I tracked down a PDF of the actual paper, if anyone is interested.

"working under the banner of a giant ... with a contract that says "You must produce x amount of work over y period of time.""

In those days it was called "patronage" http://www.mos.org/leonardo/bio.html and *LOTS* of people widely considered to be great "artists" took that route.

Did it mean that not every single work they produced was a "great work of art"? Sure, but nobody hits it out of the part every time they swing unless they're a dilletante who only takes one or two swings.

Not quite as good, but I just interviewed someone about new research into interfacing neurons with electronics that could lead to Luke Skywalker-like replacement limbs. Harvard researchers have figured out a way to directly read and write to a neuron with digital electronics.

At the recent Podcast Academy at Boston University, one of the big messages that I heard over and over was this: You won't be able to quit your day job and podcast full time. What you may be able to do though, is quit your day job and tell others how to podcast.

For better or worse, there are many individuals, organizations, companies, and even governments getting involved in podcasting. Many of them feel that they need consultants to guide them along the way. If you can put a moderately popular show together, the money may come from helping others to do the same.

Take a lot at the Museum of Science's exhibit about Star Wars. They have plenty of props and there is also some exhibits that are related to the movie.
http://www.mos.org/doc/1857

http://www.mos.org/cst/article/80/9.html

You search for more (though I know you won't since it doesn't paint GWBush as the source of all evil).

Something tells me that increased solar activity has more to do with global warming. But hey, let's destroy the world economy and probbaly the adversity that would spurn us to find fossil fuel replacements in the first place.

As most people know, movie props are often made of common items and then painted, dressed-up, etc, but you don't often notice them as such. Now here's how this is related to the subject at hand (don't mod me off-topic just yet).

I'm not sure how many non-geeks (or even semi-geeks for that matter) know what the inside of a hard drive looks like or what the parts look like. But there, inside Darth Vader's helmet... the one used as a prop in ROTS... are two stacks of hard drive head arms. They just look like some high-tech gizmo to give it a cool futuristic cyber look.

I wonder how many people actually saw them and recognized them for what they are. I have no idea if they can actually be seen in the movie or not. I just though it was kind of cool that there are hard drive parts inside Darth Vader's helmet.

-S

... and not a frozen ball of rock like Mars.

Uh, actually there seems to be global warming on Mars too.

They already do.

The best part is that the controls can scale large movements down to very fine ones allowing procedures that aren't possible by hand, as well as filtering out normal muscle tremors. Though I'm with you, I'd like to see it used more often.

Then they say "there is no proof that global warming is caused by the activities of man."

So the "activities of man" are responsible for global warming on Mars too?

Obviously, despite the fact that this is carried by Reuters, you should take some of the 'facts' presented here with some NaCl.

He lit up his office with a 40k static field. What the hell is salt going to do with that? Let's find out. Talk about putting salt in his wounds.

The article says this level of current is just shy of spontaneous combustion. Maybe spontaneous human combustion is a misnomer? How many people actually have scientifically studied people who have combusted, spontaneously, before? I'm thinking that since it appears to be caused by a prolonged rubbing effect, from wool sweaters rubbing against nylon jackets, and charged by static from carpets, there is nothing spontaneous about it at all, and perhaps SHC is therefore no longer a mystery?

Did we find bigfoot?

Wikipedia has a cool page about spontaneous human combustion.

the Boston Museum of Science has a IMAX theatre that projects on huge semi-spherical screen that pretty much covers your entire field of view. (ie, you have to turn your head to see the entire screen)

http://www.mos.org/doc/1001

When they do that car drive through scene, Everyone instincitvly braces themself since it looks like your about to hit another car @ 75 mph!

I've seen the exhibit... it's actually kind of cool for basically a huge tank of algae. I don't think it really demonstrates the process completely, but is meant as more of a demonstration.

For those looking for more info, check here: http://www.mos.org/doc/1334

"Who put the bop in the bop shoo bop shoo bop?"

You know what I'm talkin' about!

Here is a picture of which countries were supposed to supply what though many pieces on this picture will probably never make it in to space. Most of the important Russians parts did.

I assure you the Russians built the heart of the station that is there now, the Zarya Control Module and the Zvezda crew quarters. Zarya is called a U.S. component only because the U.S. paid for it through Boeing but it was built in Russia.

The U.S. was supposed to build the Crew Return Vehicle which would have allowed it to be fully manned but that was long ago cancelled. When it was the U.S. killed any prospect of the seven man crew which pretty much killed the ISS as ever being useful. The current crew can barely maintain it and don't do much research, not like its any good for any zero G research anyway.

The U.S. is building a lot of solar panels many of which are probably never going to fly and aren't the most challenging part of the station.

Russia had a full functional space station for like a decade called Mir. Most of their expertise is at the heart of the current ISS core. Not sure NASA could have successfully flown anything without them. If you recall during the years Russia was in Mir, NASA and Boeing was churning out one failed ISS design after another, none of which flew and all of which just filled Boeing's pork filled belly.

I imagine Russia is regretting they deorbited Mir as a condition of joining ISS. It was past its prime and on its last legs but at least it was all theirs. ISS is all shiny and new and flush with squandered U.S. tax dollars but its probably going to end being pathetic and doing anything useful. Russia was getting a whole lot more done with a whole lot less with Mir. I think the modules now forming the core of ISS would have gone in to Mir2 if they could have scraped together the cash for it. I imagine they have been a lot happier and got more done if they weren't bogged down in the political morasse that is ISS.

Maybe the shuttle will fly again and the ISS will get kind of on track again but I really doubt it. Its probably never going to get much beyond where it is today, and Russia will most probably have to keep it alive while NASA's manned space program finishes cratering. Maybe thing will improve at NASA with O'Keefe gone but I doubt it. Its pretty obvious his head was completely bent by the Columbia disaster and he was totally paralyzed at the prospect of ... gasp ... risking anyone's left on space exploration. He clearly should have been booted years ago. Fact is space exploration is dangerous, do your best to make it less so but don't give up just because you can't make it 100% safe. Astronauts aren't astronauts if they can't accept the risk they might get killed.

Okay, so we agree. For the planet, we don't have to care. For the human race, we should pay attention. Just like the dinosaurs. They were the dominant life forms at one point. Then the environment shifted and, before they can blink, they are fossils in museums. There is a difference, however. We can adapt. Let's say that the oceans do actually rise, as predicted by the global warming theory. Do you expect a sudden "Day after Tomorrow" type shift, or a gradual (weeks-months-years) change? Given the rate of change we are seeing, I would guess the latter (months-years). Unless something drastic were to happen (say, a meteor strike), in which case, we are screwed anyway. Now, given the tenacity of animal and plant life, as long as a proper level of oxygen and drinking water can be found(which would be the case if the changes are gradual ie months-years), I think humanity will survive. As long as the population is not packed into a small area on the planet and instead is spread out around the globe, someone will survive. So fear for the human race (from my perspective) in general is not so great. If you are worried about large segments of our population, well... large segments are already pretty screwed anyway. I always smirk whenever I hear people around me (in the US) talk about being poor. I think back to my trip to India to visit my family there. A peson has no idea of poor until they see it in a "developing" country. These are large segments of the population that have almost no chance of improving their lives. I am digressing now, and I apologize. Getting back to the subject, I think the only individuals that are concerned about the "assumed" level of approaching chaos are the ones that are already comfortable. Like, say, people that can spend hours typing away on silly machines discussing the fate of humanity;) I think the real fear people have is for their "way of life". For instance, people in the US would be upset if, say, California were sunk in the ocean. Okay, not all of us, but quite a few. And people would be upset if they have to move north to avoid high temperatures. But, unless I am missing something, all the changes that are forcast are manageable in the sense that people can move to higher elevations and north (or south) to avoid increased temps. The ones that are in power right now won't like it since their precious land will become useless in many cases, but so what? One last thought to ponder. From what I've read, the sun does have some contribution to the climate on this planet. It varies depending on your source, but it seems that, if it were not for humans, there would still be some warming. Look at Mars, for example. http://www.mos.org/cst/article/80/9.html My question is: What should the steady state temperature of the Earth be, if no humans were around? Given the state of the sun and the solar system, could it be possible that the Earth is really correcting for being a little too cold? I'm thinking of a kettle on a stove. Right when the heat is applied, the water in the kettle has not changed in temp too much. But gradually, it does increase. Okay, if you made sense of that last bit, you are quite intelligent. Because I am plain tired:) I have to use this quote on the subject of fear. My English teacher would never forgive me if I missed this opportunity. I apologize if you get this all the time from the nickname: "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when ... it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." And with that, I look forward to more debate...

I Can't believe I submitted several days ago that the Boston museum of sceince http://www.mos.org/is having a LOTR Exhibit next week and it doesn't get posted! LOTR FOTR TTT & ROTK fans won't want to miss this!

also being covered at some sites.

I want a Draper SpinyBot, just 'cause they look cool.

Liquid waste is collected and jettisoned now and then, while solid waste is freeze-dried and brought back to earth.

As a side note, I worked for a time at the company that makes the space toilet. The lead engineer is now legendary (and known as "Dr. Flush"). There are some great stories that people tell about when it was being developed. In order to test it properly for things like odor containment, they had to have real samples... so they had a trailer out back for employees to go, uh, contribute to science.

There's also a story about a toilet malfunction and an astronaut eating M&Ms (on a live feed back to earth), but I won't get into that...

Now, to figure out why I'm spending this much time posting about space toilets...

The Computer Museum in Boston closed several years ago, but apparently their hardware went to the Computer History Museum.

Whish I had seen this thread earlier. Oh well if you make it to Boston be sure to check out the following:

MIT Computer Flea Market while you are there you will surely meet somone who will be willing you to help you explore the MIT Steam tunnels but before you go be sure to walk down the street to were Alexandar Graham Bell invented the telephone.

Then of course is the Boston Museum of Science.

- SR

The Museum of Science and Industry is a must see if you are already in Chicago. The Field Museum is also excellent and well worth the time. However, before you decide on the best science museum, you have to see the Museum of Science in Boston.

United States Military Academy at West Point

How can you miss a place that has been producing engineers for two centuries? Plus you get great scenery, lots of history, interesting architecture, and if you time it right, you might be able to catch a show at Ike Hall.

Some other places to consider would be the Johnson Space Center, the Boston Museum of Science, the Las Vegas strip, and, to see what our lives will be like in the future (minus a few decades...), Epcot Center. Those are just a few places I can think of that I've been to that would be of interest (other than what has already been mentioned several times).

1. In Boston, The Museum of Science home page is pretty good way to spend a day or half day. I mention it only 'cause I live there.

2. Also, if you're into that kinda thing, the Monster Garage vehicles are on semi-tour, you can check when and where they're being displayed here

3. The Computer History Museum here . Never been, but they used to have a part of it here in Boston.
...and if you do a blog with pictures, let us know where.

There's not much left of the Computer Museum anymore - some of it moved over to the Museum of Science, but most of the good stuff was packed up and sent out to a new Computing History museum out in California. What's left of the Computer Museum at this point is pretty sad, as of the last time I was there a couple of years ago.

The facility itself closed in 1999, and the adjacent Children's Museum expanded into at least some of the space. It's pretty cool, too, however. And the Museum of Science is terrific.

Up here on the North Shore where I live, there's a pretty neat exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum up in Salem. A Chinese house from the provinces was dismantled and re-assembled inside the museum as an tourable exhibit. There's all kinds of stuff about construction techniques used, the design and the simple utility of the building that's documented as part of the whole exhibit. Not technology-related (except vaguely by 16th century standards), but tremendously geeky.

Documented here it is described in the official exhibit guide as being scaled 6,215 miles per inch (helpfully translated by the 1st site as a 1-to-400 million scale model (1 inch equals 10,000 km)). The planets are all conveniently located in public places reasonably easily reached by public transportation or for the more hardy by bicycle.

Created by Harold Cohen, AARON was the first robot programmed to follow certain artistic heuristics in creating unique drawings.

It was a permanent exhibit in the Robots Gallery at The Computer Museum in Boston before most of the Permanent Collection for the TCM went to California and the rest was acquired by the Museum of Science in 1999.

From the begining they said that at least two pieces of debris hit the wing during launch. It seemed pretty obvious to me that this caused the problem. I guess they didn't want to admit that they had been wrong when they gave the go ahead to re-enter.

Not to be a luddite, but I rather enjoy being encased in a steel cage when lightning hits my car.

OK, it doesn't happen every week, but still...

...is going on at the Boston Museum of Science. If you don't live in Boston (gosh, why not? It's the hub of the universe), the same movie will probably be traveling to similar humongous-screen theaters elsewhere.

1. Fifty-Year-Old Computer Being Restored

On Monday November 22, @10:50PM with 116 comments

James Green directs us to "a Sunday Age (Melborne) article which describes the discovery of a 52 year old computer found in a dusty warehouse weighing in at...

I guess Geek.Com is behind ;-)

2. The first Transistor computer, TX-0, was restored to demonstratable condition in the 1980's by The Computer Museum. Yes it worked again, No question; as an original member and early volunteer of TCM (before the first tmove), I was there, and saw it run.

TCM was once of Boston, then of Marlboro, now of SilliValley. See the TCM Project Description and the Alumni page. It was built in 1957, so would be only 45 years old. I'm not sure what happened to it when DEC sold the building, or John McKenzie, who got it to work again. Shag Graetz's classic Creative Computing article on PDP-1 SpaceWar includes it's TX-0 predecessor. (and French translation) The TMRC pages include TX-0 history as well. See also Levy/Hackers

-- bill / n1vux

Like any rational human, Leonardo abhorred war -- he called it "beastly madness" -- but since Renaissance Italy was constantly at war he couldn't avoid it. He designed numerous weapons, including missiles, multi-barreled machine guns, grenades, mortars, and even a modern-style tank. He drew the line, however, with his plans for an underwater breathing device, which he refused to reveal, saying that men would likely use it for "evil in war."

So perhaps one could say he's a realist.

"I still would like to see a to-scale model of the solar system."

You mean like this one? (scroll down to "A Community Solar System")

One (of several throughout the US) is centered on Boston/Cambridge, MA. The Museum of Science has organized it, and it requires some travel to see all the planets.

Here are details.

There is no such thing. IMAX is an extremly large flat screen that uses a different millimeter film than a normal movie theatre. When you turn it into a dome screen like the article said, it is called OMNI. IMAX is much more widely available. OMNI theatres can be found at such places like the Boston Museum of Science (Mugar Omni Theatre, or Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama (they have IMAX at their other campuses).

Imagine no more cell phones going off in movie theatres.

If a theatre wanted to prevent cell phones from going off or working inside of their theatre, all they would have to do is get a faraday cage around the room. Bam. No radio or other electromagnetic signals get in or out.

Faraday cages are always more effective than any jamming technology, and legal. It's just that in order for them to work, you have to be in an enclosed area. And they allow radio signals to move around inside the cage.

Boston Museum of Science

What this guy does, is he takes a good quality telescope (size isn't all as long as it gives good pictures), he VIDEOTAPES (or records to computer, something in the range 30 fps) the viewing session. Then he goes through the video frame by frame and takes the best frames (the atmospheric disturbance is such that occasionally you get crisp images and occasionally not). Then, he combines the good pictures with Photoshop or something similar to increase the S/N ratio and give a better overall image. That's it!