Thy Glorious Car Spiro Agnew Drew

Saturday May 17, 2014  Frost warning last night.  Today I wore sandals.

I saw one college-age man who was shirtless.   (But no shirtless women

***Comments of Comment:

Keith Lynch 5/17/14:  "Charles ?@NONPROGRAMMABLE  10 Technologies You Will be Witnessing In The Near Future
http://zite.to/1nwB9ig"

10. Artificial Gills
Fish can only get by because they need much less oxygen than mammals.

Also, some water has very little oxygen.  Especially water that's comfortably warm.  Will this thing give some kind of low-oxygen warning?  Does it have an air tank as a backup?

Speaking of air, breathing pure oxygen is dangerous, especially underwater where the pressure is higher.  Does this thing also extract appropriate amounts of nitrogen from the water?

8. Sunscreen Pills
The idea of sunscreen is to stop the UV before it hits and damages your skin.  How can anything inside you possibly do that?

7. Paper-Thin, Flexible Computers and Phones
Pads, sure, but how would you hold a paper-thin phone?  If it's flexible, wouldn't it crumple up?  And if it isn't flexible, wouldn't it cut you?

6. Tooth Regeneration
Better than implants only if it's cheaper than implants.

4. Real-Time Google Earth
including real-time Google Street View? :-)

What's the resolution of the thing?  Unless it's impossibly high, how would you zoom in?  Wouldn't you need a separate camera for each simultaneous user?

If it's to be mounted on ISS, as is suggested, what happens when ISS is deorbited?  Last I heard, plans were to do so in about a decade. Possibly much sooner if the Russians take their marbles and go home, as they're threatening to.

3. Wireless Electricity
Tesla had that.  Too bad it has such low efficiency, and that it jams the whole radio spectrum and screws with pacemakers, etc.

2. Ultra-High Speed Tube Trains
Maglev, at 4000 miles per hour?  Pikers.  Make it 18,000 miles per hour and they won't need maglev.  You'd be in orbit at ground level.

If weightlessness tends to bother passengers, bring back the maglev and speed it up to 25,000 miles per hour.  They'd experience 1G again. And could watch the scenery going by upside down.

Just don't let terrorists anywhere near the thing.  If someone breaks the vacuum, the train will burn up like a meteor.

1. Sustainable Fusion Reactor
Thirty years away, just as it always has been.

"ProPublica   A haunting #longreads about a heroine addict struggling to get clean:"

I'm not addicted to heroines.  Nor to heroes.  I can give those novels up anytime I want.

"Top 10 Baby Names for 2013 Source: Social Security Administration Boys Noah ..."

That's disturbing.  Maybe I'd better get one of those artificial gills just in case.

Jette Goldie 5/17/14:  I dunno what you guys have against those poor wee birdies.  What did a Snipe ever do to you that you have to hunt it?  ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipe

***From Twitter:

Dan Goodman ‏@dsgood:  Hello. My name is Harry Potter. You killed my parents. Prepare to die. #MASHUP

Dan Goodman ‏@dsgood: Harry, I am your parents.

Science fiction ‏@Scienfiction:  These Were The First Female Astronauts In Science Fiction - io9 http://dlvr.it/5hsmlY

Monday March 10, 2014 Warm; up to 49F (9.44...C).  I went outside wearing a sweater.  Took it off after a while; put it back on in the evening.

Some people wore winter coats.  One man wore a short-sleeved shirt.

***Comments of Comment:

thnidu 3/8/14:  Subject: the Oscar Mayer smellophone
 How does it give off SCENT?

[There's an attachment -- not exactly free -- which does it with the help of scent cartridges.  I suspect it would be simpler and cheaper to rig up something to light scented candles.  Twenty years from now, it might be a standard function of smartphones.]

***From sciencedaily.com:

First animals oxygenated Earth's oceans, study suggests
Date: March 9, 2014
Source: University of Exeter
Summary:
The evolution of the first animals may have oxygenated Earth's oceans -- contrary to the traditional view that a rise in oxygen triggered their development. New research contests the long held belief that oxygenation of the atmosphere and oceans was a pre-requisite for the evolution of complex life forms. The study builds on the recent work of scientists in Denmark who found that sponges -- the first animals to evolve -- require only small amounts of oxygen.
<www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140309150540.htm>.

***From Twitter:

Bruce Lansky ‏@BabyNameNews The Most Popular Names in Canadian Provinces and Territories http://ow.ly/urHuN  #CanadianNames