Linkee-poo is watched by empty silhouettes, who close their eyes but still can see

Just a little wave to everyone who has shown up in the past few days, especially the hundred or so from Russia. Hi, everybody. Things are again, a bit hectic, so a somewhat off balance linkee-poo.

I don't often talk about the day thing here, and for good reason(s). However when we get included in news I can take the opportunity to talk about some of the cool stuff I get to work with. Like last night's 60 Minutes piece on robotic limbs being directed by neural interfaces. While we aren't doing the medical research ourselves, the arm and hand being used was developed by us and we licensed it out to PU Hospitals. While we aren't pursuing this side of the business (we're focusing more on what Scott Pelley looks at in his overtime piece where you can see our logo on the arms), this arm was developed with neural interfacing designed into the arm with the intent to use it as a prosthetic. Right now robotics is a very small part of our business, however we have high hopes for this tech.

Why I love the SF/F fan community, because it does things like showing a rough cut of "Star Trek Into Darkness" to someone who has less than 2 months to live. And there are hundreds of stories like that every year. (Grokked from Tor.com)

Chang is keeping up with the cool quotes re: creativity.

Ever wanted to remember/know just how fucked up we were during the Cold War? How about Project Sanguine and it's goal of using the entire Earth as a transmitter to "transmit tactical orders one-way to U.S. nuclear submarines" (read: "send the launch orders as the rest of civilization died"). Also a little on the Soviet "Dead Man" system (read: "we're all dead, so fuck the world"). (Grokked from Matt Staggs)

Slightly related to the post on how yo use trees as radio antenna and transmitters. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

Apparently some Fox News viewers have realized they've been had. Some of their "talking head" shows have lost significant viewership post-election. While it's not point at them and laughing in the street, a drop n the target market audience will translate into lower ad revenues. You might remember that was the disease that Glenn Beck suffered. It hasn't turned all that bad for him, and all those "talking heads" still have their radio shows. (Grokked from Mat Staggs)

You might Remember my squib about artificial sweeteners, and I think I did mention that high-fructose corn syrup (aka "corn sugar") wasn't all that much better. Here's a Scientific American article on how HFCS trick the brain into thinking you're less satisfied/full which then causes you to eat/drink more. While they talk about how the body processes Fructose in the brain, they don't mention how your liver works (processes fructose before glucose which it has to store as fat until the liver can get to it, the fructose is also processed into fat before it will be used by the body). Also they mention how Glucose and Fructose are "molecularly" the same, which is only true as far as chemical composition. They're actually quite different morphologically. (Grokked from Matt Staggs)

Alligator Quotient: Well, it's good to see they missed me over the holidays. Bite, bite, bite.