Wicked awesome.

Killer hornet drones.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel is using nanotechnology to try to create a robot no bigger than a hornet that would be able to chase, photograph and kill its targets, an Israeli newspaper reported on Friday.

The flying robot, nicknamed the "bionic hornet", would be able to navigate its way down narrow alleyways to target otherwise unreachable enemies such as rocket launchers, the daily Yedioth Ahronoth said.

To sum up: Nanotech flying robots? Within the realm of possibility.
Flying cars? Go fish.

It would be sweet if some variant of this idea made its way into civvy life somehow. A city police force would undoubtedly find it useful.

I'm a little worried about Hezbollah's crack scientific research team stumbling upon theultimate counterweapon, though.

Posted by: LauraW. at 07:53 AM | Comments (65)
Post contains 131 words, total size 1 kb.

Funny stuff for video game dorks over at the Pointless Waste of Time forums. Reader Camerhil lectures the untutored on how to name your new video game:(NSFW)

Deliberately misspell the name in order to make it edgy. Say you've made a game about a resurrected female zombie cop with a cybernetic vagina, which your art team has lovingly bump-mapped using one hand. You think Phoenix is a pretty cool title, but it lacks sass. However, change the name to Feenix, and it suddenly sounds like the name of a sexy zombie detective inspector whose twin powers are face-eating and love...If your game is a FPS, consider making the name an unnecessary acronym. F.E.E.N.I.X. is not just one rotting woman with cyborg genitals; it's now a crack underground government task force of rotting women known, somewhat incongruously, both for their iron discipline and total disregard for the chain of command.

You bet your ass I'd buy that.

Forum denizen Haimoimoi then offers up a prospective title:

Blackface Heroes 5: The Hatefurnace of My Endless Sorrowblade

He notes that it's "basically Super Mario Brothers".

Personally, I'd like to see some games that reflect our present societal situation a bit better. Screw The Sims; I want Absent Father: The Welfare Scam Chronicles. You play as Todd, a middle-aged man who reunites with his bastard son in an attempt to claim him as a dependent so he can get Section 8 housing. Earn points for terrorizing the mother's new boyfriend and showing up unannounced and drunk at your kid's first Little League game! Open up a brave new world of antisocial behavior with the Spousal Abuse Expansion Pack!

Or how about Star Wars Battlefront 3: The Democrats Take Congress. You lead a crack Jedi assault team against Cloud City, where left-wing dictator Handout Calrissian runs a socialist utopia with the help of his equality-enforcement droid, NAAC-3PO.

It's Friday, so while you're at PWOT make sure to click on the Spam Subject Line Museum, which is always NSFW and always worth it.

Posted by: AndrewR at 03:49 AM | Comments (48)
Post contains 345 words, total size 2 kb.

In 1978, there was a live-action prime-time version of "The Super-Friends," with Adam West and Burt Ward as Batman and Robin, and the Green Lantern and the Flash too...

Sort of.

What it was was a freakin' mess. For reasons unfathomable, it was a really lame comedy with a laugh-track.

I saw this as a kid. I was not sure until I read this site if I had dreamt this abomination or if I had really experienced it.

In the second episode, which was even more low-budget than the first, the Supervillains' secret plan is to defeat the heroes via a... celebrity roast of them, hosted by Ed MacMahon.

No, I'm not kidding. That's what they do.

More on this bizarre abortion here.

Posted by: Ace at 11:02 PM | Comments (81)
Post contains 129 words, total size 1 kb.

Hi all.

I saw in the comments on... one of the posts the other day that someone was having trouble reaching this blog at certain times of the day.

Found the problem.

I recently reduced the maximum number of Apache processes on this server, because it was running some god-awful number of the little buggers and using up all the memory, which meant there was no memory left for the database server, so everything ran realllly slowwwwly.*

Unfortunately, I reduced the number a leetle bit too far, which meant that at busy times some people were left waiting in line to get in.

I've now adjusted things again, so we'll see if I've got the balance right this time.

* Because we're running CPanel, we're stuck with Apache 1.x, which is a real pig when it comes to memory. Apache 2 has only been out for, like, four years, so I'm sure they'll fix CPanel soon. Haha.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:47 PM | Comments (35)
Post contains 163 words, total size 1 kb.

Kinda. The shirt has sensors in it that create sound, when linked to speakers.

So, instead of a looking like a total idiot, you look like a total idiot who makes loud noises.

Australian scientists have invented a T-shirt that allows air guitarists to play actual music as they strum the air.

The T-shirt, created by scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), is called a "wearable instrument shirt."

The shirt has sensors in each elbow and sleeves to detect and interpret the air guitarist's arm movements -- one arm chooses chords and the other strums imaginary strings.

The gestures are then connected wirelessly to guitar audio samples to generate the music.

"It's an easy to use, virtual instrument that allows real time music making, even by players without significant musical or computing skills," said CSIRO engineer Richard Helmer.

"It allows you to jump around and the sound generated is just like an original mp3," Helmer said in a statement on Monday.

Scientists say that within five years it's conceivable that men will be playing a genuine "skin flute" thanks to advances in wearable-electronics condom technology.

Thanks to Blacksheep.

Posted by: Ace at 02:32 PM | Comments (15)
Post contains 202 words, total size 2 kb.

If he is, and this represents a last-gasp take-out-the-bastards campaign, perhaps it's ultimately for the best.

My Pet Jawa fears this will result in "outrage," but maybe it's time to really outrage the Religion of Perpetual Outrage.

Hell, if we're leaving in a few months anyway, might as well send Al-Sadr to Hell as a good-bye present, huh?

On Tuesday, President Jalal Talabani called al-Dhari a hard-liner with "nothing to do but incite sectarian and ethnic sedition."

Omar from Iraq the Model seems pretty happy about this. He believes Muqtada al Sadr is next on the hit list:

Actually the minister's words were an indirect threat to Muqtada al-Sadr, or more like a direct one because he said, and I'm paraphrasing, "there are two neighboring countries that are causing trouble in Iraq and anyone who cooperates with these countries will not be safe from prosecution."

Posted by: Ace at 02:15 PM | Comments (16)
Post contains 167 words, total size 1 kb.

Via Via Tananto, the Kosmonaut Kommandant is in tough, strong outraged mode, as usual:

own in Florida, an epic battle is brewing over the electronic Diebold voting machines that ate 18,000 votes for Democrat Christine Jennings in FL-13 and cost her the election.

Not only is an expensive recount in the cards, but campaign and DCCC lawyers are flocking down, demanding the state freeze the machines for inspection.

These are the opening salvos in what will be the battle to end Diebold.

...

To put it bluntly, to anyone who has ever complained about Diebold, this is your chance to put your money where your mouth is. No more talk needed. No more advocacy needed. This is a real-world, legal frontal assault on those electronic voting machines.

If we win this battle, you'll be able to kiss Diebold goodbye.

Emphasis added, but implicit in the ravings, no?

I've got it: Diebold is eeeeevil because its CEO once donated to Bush (even though that CEO has been gone a while now). So down with Diebold, right?

Well.... it doesn't necessarily have to be Diebold.

Kos' second update to the story:

Update II: Machines in FL-13 were made by ES&S. Same difference.

Heh. "Same difference."

Damn that Diebold for stealing our--

Huh?

Okay, damn ES&S. Same difference. Damn somebody.

Look, I don't care if the machines were fucking made on planet Vulcan and are accurate to the nth order thanks to quantum computing-- we still won, and Diebold is still trying to screw with us!!!

This is where Emily Litella would say "Nevermind." But not Kos. He's too strong, tough angry to admit error.

What a genius the Democrats have elected as King Freshmaker.

Thanks to Larwyn.

Posted by: Ace at 01:44 PM | Comments (33)
Post contains 321 words, total size 2 kb.

Hmmm... let's see.

Kill Jews? Check.

Want to exterminate Jews? Check.

Sell property stolen from Jews? Check.

The Nazis are alive and well, and Reuters is all too happy to hire them. The New Naziism is good and progressive, you see.

Police arrested a Reuters photographer from Qalqilya on suspicion that he possessed stolen goods.

According to suspicions, the man, 34, sells stolen electronic goods in his Qalqilya store, where 50 laptops, 8 digital cameras, 40 video camera and 15 palm pilots were seized. The goods were stolen from Israeli households in the Sharon area.

Reporters Without Borders immediately condemned Israel as oppressing the press' time-honored freedom to loot and fence stolen property as they see fit.

Thanks to Larwyn.

Posted by: Ace at 01:30 PM | Comments (7)
Post contains 140 words, total size 1 kb.

The CEO of, um, "brick and mortar" gambling organization MGM Mirage is against the ban.

I never figured the provision was actually corrupt, intended to benefit physical gambling joints; I always figured the more gambling, the easier it was to gamble, the better for them -- hey, more gamblers equal more potential customers.

But it always smelled like a corrupt deal to many. So it was lose-lose-lose all the way home.

MGM Mirage Inc. chief executive Terry Lanni said Wednesday that the measure is "ridiculous" because it was signed into law Oct. 13 as part of a larger port security bill — and because it exempted horse races and lotteries, and online bets placed while on American Indian land.

"It makes no sense whatsoever," Lanni told gambling industry officials attending the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas. "Prohibition didn't work, this isn't going to work."

Later, Lanni said he hoped Congress would commission a study into the effect of online gambling.

"We're looking even in the lame-duck session to reintroduce this bill with some of our compatriots in the House and Senate to study (Internet) gaming," said Lanni, who directs the world's second-largest casino company.

"We think it can be taxed, we think it can be regulated, we think it can be licensed," Lanni said. "With the new leadership, with the Democrats winning the House and the Senate, we think we're going to have a much better opportunity to do that."

Posted by: Ace at 01:25 PM | Comments (12)
Post contains 257 words, total size 2 kb.

I've noticed this myself lately. While Allah's heart-throb Kirsten Powers is contantly praising the newly-elected Democrats for their "moderate" positions -- anti-gay-marriage, pro-gun, pro-life -- I can't help but wonder I've stumbled into the Twillight Zone.

I thought such positions were marks of "extremism," not "moderation." Right?

Or does the Democratic Party label suddenly convert what is "extreme" to "moderate"?

More likely, what she means is that these people are rhetorically for these positions, but will nonetheless vote lockstep against any tangible legislation to advance them. "Moderation," in other words, is evidenced what you say you believe, not by what you actually do.

Can Republicans benefit from the same effect? That is, take a completely rhetorical position on social issues, then vote with the social conservative orthodoxy, and thereby become "moderates" on these issues as well?

She and the media really need to explain themselves here. I need to know what, precisely, makes a pro-life Republican "extremist" and a pro-life Democrat "moderate."

Or is Kirsten Powers simply telling us the Republican Party is the party of social-issues "moderation"?

Via Taranto.

Posted by: Ace at 01:00 PM | Comments (30)
Post contains 206 words, total size 1 kb.