Lalo's starred items

“Our goal is to design items of wonder that are as they would have been in The Time That Never Happened.” That is the motto of Steam Gear Lab, a small company that produces props and makeup effects and provides production design for film, stage and television. All their productions are hand-crafted by two infamous gentlemen, The Notorious Dr. Grymm and Professor Gauthier, Sociologist of the Strange.

We present here a modest selection of their fine work. Be sure to visit their Website for more!

U.S. Presidential candidate Barack Obama continued to court the "geek vote" at a charity function in New York City last night, saying he was born on Krypton and sent by his father, Jor-El, to "save the planet Earth."

Salim sez, "William Poole, an 18-year-old Kentucky high-school student wrote a story about a high-school over-ran by a plague of zombies. Not exactly the most original scenario, but just the sort of thing for a young writer to cut his teeth on. Unfortunately the kid's grandparents found the manuscript and assumed the very worst. The high-schooler was arrested on Tuesday morning and is currently being held at the Clark County Detention Center. The local police seem to be treating this work of fiction as if it were some kind of terrorist threat."

"My story is based on fiction," said Poole, who faces a second-degree felony terrorist threatening charge. "It's a fake story. I made it up. I've been working on one of my short stories, (and) the short story they found was about zombies. Yes, it did say a high school. It was about a high school over ran by zombies."

Even so, police say the nature of the story makes it a felony. "Anytime you make any threat or possess matter involving a school or function it's a felony in the state of Kentucky," said Winchester Police detective Steven Caudill.

Student Arrested For Terroristic Threatening Says Incident A Misunderstanding (Thanks, Salim!)

Update: Turns out this is a couple years old!

The practice of placing RFID chips inside your physical ID credentials is becoming routine for everything from your gym to the federal government. Here's a way to protect yourself and your deets using only duct tape and some other cheap materials.

In a thought-provoking rant, the Effect Measure science blog challenges the idea that science students should (or can!) know what a "fact," a "theory" and a "model" are. These are not simple, settled concepts, but rather areas of hotly contested debate.

Most scientists also can't properly say what distinguishes science from pseudoscience, say what a fact is, give a satisfying rendition of what a theory is, etc. The problem is that Mr. Williams can't do it either, because there is no agreement on these knotty matters. He seems to think these are simple and settled questions. But finding adequate criteria that separate science from pseudoscience, the so-called Demarcation Problem, remains an unsettled question in the philosophy of science. It is so difficult, and possibly so fruitless, that many philosophers have ceased to be concerned with it. Similarly, what is a "fact"?...

A wag once commented (and I have quoted here often) that to expect a scientist to understand the philosophy of science is like expecting a fish to understand hydrodynamics. I guess the same thing goes for science educators, although it is less excusable. Mr. Williams seems to be under the impression that these extremely difficult foundational issues are settled and should be common knowledge for all scientists.

A rant about science educators

Filed under: Robots

When the earth warms and the forests turn to dust, at least the robots will remain to re-oxygenate the Earth. The Chonnam National University developed robotic plant (pictured above holding a human child puppet) from Korea stands over four-feet tall; consists of a pot, stem, and five meat-eating buds; and emits oxygen, moisture, and even an aroma of human effluence, we presume. As people approach the "flower," the robot bends towards the person and begins to bloom and slightly shake in response to the startled victim's voice rising from a mute whimper to an alarmist howl. The robot also responds to music and light by dancing and opening and closing its petals in some kind of victory celebration. Project leader Park John-oh suggests building a robot garden from his creation -- sure, we'll get right on that just as soon as we get our Doomsday Machine back on-line.

[Via Hallyu Technology]

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Filed under: Handhelds

Remember the outrage at Apple's inclusion of a sneaky application kill switch in the iPhone 3G? Yeah, well, Google's got one too. This time, however, it wasn't discovered by some meddling developer, Google owns up to it from right inside the Android Market terms of service:

"Google may discover a product that violates the developer distribution agreement ... in such an instance, Google retains the right to remotely remove those applications from your device at its sole discretion"

Google then claims that it will make "reasonable efforts to recover the purchase price of the product ... from the original developer on your behalf." This on top of the Android Market's policy which allows you to "return" (er, how, it's electronic?) any application within 24 hours for a full refund. Aw shucks Google, come over here and give us a hug.

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Researcher are developing technology to translate thought into messages that can be wirelessly delivered. Funded by the US military ('natch), the aim is "synthetic telepathy," using EEG signals monitored non-invasively to communicate by brainpower alone. Apparently, this research goes back to the 1960s when a scientist used EEG to communicate in Morse code. Now though, the scientist are using brain scans to better understand how to detect and identify the brain signals. From MSNBC:

The Army grant to researchers at University of California, Irvine, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Maryland has two objectives. The first is to compose a message using, as (UC Irvine professor Mike) D'Zmura puts it, "that little voice in your head."

The second part is to send that message to a particular individual or object (like a radio), also just with the power of thought. Once the message reaches the recipient, it could be read as text or as a voice mail...

Mapping the brain's response to most of the English language is a large task, and D'Zmura says that it will be 15-20 years before thought-based communication is reality.

Synthetic telepathy