Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Say yes to beautiful without paying the price.
While writhing in pain, nausea, and dizziness from a stomach bug last Monday, I discovered a few things in my bathroom. For example, the slogan on Suave shampoo is "say yes to beautiful without paying the price" - I'm still trying to figure out the ontological ramifications of that one. I also discovered that kleenex is an adequate yet ultimately unsatisfactory substitute for toilet paper, and that it's nice to have a clean towel to lay on in the bathroom floor. I also had a rather unpleasant review of my recent meals, conveniently thrown up for inspection:
• Episode #1 - that morning's coffee
• Episode #2 - more coffee, some pepperoni from the pizza the night before
• Episode #3 - a strange phlegmy viscous substance
• Episode #4 - a rather peculiar gray substance (gray? why was it gray?!)
The next half-dozen or so episodes were mostly just ginger ale consumed immediately before, which I drank just so that it would hurt less by actually having something to throw up. I also disliked the way that I'd wake up every 30 minutes from 3pm to 7am, and every time I'd think "Oh! Maybe it's morning and this is all over", then I'd throw up again. Fortunately, the vomiting stopped around 7pm. The weird thing was how my attitude changed with each episode, especially with an increasingly ambivalent regard to my personal cleanliness, and the way I wouldn't really be awake while throwing up and I'd start to drift off to dreamland with my head over the toilet, and suddenly I'd wake up and realize that it was me, and not someone else who was throwing up, and that I was the only person there. In retrospect, I think I'm going to design a headrest/kneepad combo for toilet seats. I think it'll sell - "Say yes to vomiting without the hard linoleum".
Labels: life
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Welcome to the Future, Again.
Some of the latest technology currently in development:
The PHaSR. The Personnel Halting and Stimulating Response weapson was developed for providing a non-lethal method in crowd control and immobilizing attackers by shooting low-powered laser beams that induces a temporary blinding effect on targets. Sadly, it has neither 'disintegrate' nor 'frag' settings. (link)
The BLEEX. The Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton is basically a device designed to help soldiers carry all their stuff for miles and up hills and not get tired. It's still not quite Starship Troopers yet (the book, not the movie), but it's getting there. (link) But, it would cool to be used in conjunction with...
The Gryphon. The ESG Personal Flying Wing is a device to allow airborne paratroopers to be deployed in safer airspace and glide in to their designated target. (link)
The Bionic Arm. Claudia Mitchell lost her arm in a motorcycle accident, and has received a bionic arm that actually responds to her thoughts. If she thinks, "close my hand", it does. They did this by essentially rewiring the nerve endings that used to go the arm into a small patch on her upper chest where contacts on the bionic arm can pick up electrical impulses and translate them into actual movements of the arm. She is the fourth person to receive one of these prototype arms. (link)
The Teleporter. Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark has successfully teleported a small quantity of matter a distance of half a meter. While this doesn't sound all that impressive compared to the transporters of Star Trek, this is first time a macroscopic object composed of trillions of atoms has been successfully teleported - prior to that, the best they could do was one atom at a time. (link)
Labels: science/tech
