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Posts Tagged ‘Technology’

When I was a kid, they performed the first human heart transplant.  People were amazed, and it was a story and topic for discussion for days. Now, of course, heart transplants happen with boring regularity, and we cease to be astonished by the advances in the medical sciences.  Whether it is non-invasive surgeries that allow [...]

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After a few weeks of trying to make do with just Richard’s old laptop, I broke down today and bought a new iMac.  I was just afraid that Richard’s laptop, which already has no battery power and is somewhat battered, was going to break down.  Given that computers have become my main informational resource, I [...]

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I’ve heard about Twitter for months, but I’ve never been tempted to join in — until now. Perhaps it’s because I just don’t get it.  With all of the social media, networking, and connectedness that already exists, why is another form of computer/smartphone-based interaction needed?  Haven’t we covered the waterfront already? Plus, Twitter seems so [...]

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Robot Art

We’ve gotten used to constant advances in robotics.  Robots have beaten humans at chess and Jeopardy.  Robots do lots of driving and flying for us.  Robots have taken manufacturing jobs formerly held by humans.  Could the next frontier be robot art? Not yet — but now a robot has been programmed to draw human portraits.  [...]

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Facebook often seems like a double-edged sword, and a sharp one at that. There are some people you wish you hadn’t lost touch with, but — due to laziness or disorganization or the demands of your current life — you did.  Friday night Kish and I got together with an old friend we hadn’t seen [...]

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I’m sure that sociologists and psychologists are studying the impact of Facebook and will do so for years to come.  There are big effects — like the stories about so-called “Facebook divorces” — but I think the website also has altered our interactions with family, friends, and acquaintances in less noticeable, but perhaps more profound, [...]

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Yesterday, I got the bad news that I feared — the resolute iMac, faithful blogging friend and desktop companion, has permanently given up the ghost. Earlier this week the iMac screen went opaque.  I turned it off, hoping it was just a rebooting issue, but I couldn’t turn it back on.  Yesterday I took it [...]

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There is a UFO at the bottom of the Baltic Sea — maybe. Sonar has located a curious disk-shaped object on the floor of the Baltic Sea, between Sweden and Finland.  Enthusiastic treasure hunters and UFO buffs say it looks like the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars.  (I think it looks more like Pac Man.)  [...]

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Earlier this week the Supreme Court decided an interesting case that begins what will be a long process of determining how the criminal justice protections of the Constitution apply to knotty issues raised by our increasingly linked-in, networked, mobile device-oriented age. The case raised the question of whether prosecutors could attach a GPS device to [...]

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The American Civil War was a time of great advances in warfare and technology — sometimes both at the same time.  Most people know that the first “ironclads,” the Union’s Monitor and the Confederacy’s Merrimac, appeared during the Civil War, fought to a draw, and foretold the end of the era of wooden warships.  Fewer [...]

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Someday soon, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft will reach a milestone.  Somewhere out beyond the orbits of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, 11 billion miles from the Sun, Voyager 1 is getting ready to pass the outer boundaries of our solar system and enter into a region of interstellar space that scientists have dubbed “cosmic purgatory.” Consider [...]

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A horrible Midtown elevator accident has caused New York City workers to think twice about using the elevator and to take the stairs instead. According to news reports, an advertising executive stepped onto an elevator in her building when the elevator unexpectedly shot upward, crushing her between the elevator and the surrounding wall.  Elevator inspectors [...]

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The other day Kish went to the store and, among other things, bought me some deodorant.  She came home with Arm & Hammer “Essentials Natural Deodorant.”  The container says the product provides “Natural Protection,” is “Aluminum Free” and “Paraben Free,” and contains “natural plant extracts to absorb and fight odor.”  It’s unscented, of course. I [...]

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Don’t look now, but aliens are circling Mercury in an enormous, cloaked spaceship.  At least, that’s what some people believe.   They point to an image recorded by NASA’s STEREO spacecraft, which shows a coronal mass ejection from the Sun flowing over Mercury and, apparently, another object of comparable size. UFO enthusiasts contend that the image [...]

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When I went to the grocery store last weekend to buy baking supplies, I made an impulse purchase — a Proctor Silex Durable Food Chopper. I needed something to chop nuts, and I was tired of using our big blender to do so.  This gadget promised to chop up to 1 1/2 cups of nuts [...]

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