April 2, 2011
The Google Driverless Car project is currently being led by engineer Sebastian Thrun, director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and co-inventor of Google Street View, whose team at Stanford created the robotic vehicle Stanley which won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge (the second driverless car competition by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and its $2 million prize from the United States Department of Defense.
The system combines information gathered for Google Street View with input from video cameras inside the car, a LIDAR sensor on top of the vehicle, radar sensors on the front of the vehicle, and a position sensor attached to one of the rear wheels that helps locate the car’s position on the map.
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April 2, 2011
DFA Records is an independent record label and production team, launched in September 2001 by Mo’ Wax co-founder Tim Goldsworthy, musician James Murphy, and manager Jonathan Galkin. The label has an exclusive distribution deal with major record label EMI.
James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy met while working in New York on the David Holmes album ‘Let’s Get Killed.’ DFA Records began on a series of 12″ single vinyl releases starting with The Rapture’s ‘House of Jealous Lovers’ and The Juan Maclean’s ‘By The Time I Get To Venus.’ Notable releases include James Murphy’s band LCD Soundsystem Black Dice, Shit Robot, Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom, J.O.Y., Pixeltan, Black Leotard Front, and Hot Chip.
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April 2, 2011
James Murphy (b. 1970) is an American musician, producer, DJ, and co-founder of record label DFA Records. His most well-known musical project is LCD Soundsystem. Murphy was a member of Falling Man from 1988 to 1989, Pony from 1992 to 1994, and Speedking from 1995 to 1997. He was also the sound engineer for Sub Pop band Six Finger Satellite. Former Six Finger Satellite member John Maclean is now on DFA records as The Juan Maclean. In 1999 he formed DFA with Tim Goldsworthy (formerly of UNKLE).
Starting in 1993, Murphy used the name ‘Death from Above’ when DJing, a nickname that was given to his signature PA setup while he was the sound setup for Six Finger Satellite. A two-man Canadian band originally called themselves ‘Death from Above’ before there was a dispute over the name. In response to the threat, the Canadian group changed the minimum number of characters legally required of them and became ‘Death from Above 1979.’
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April 1, 2011
Homies are a series of 2-inch figurines loosely based upon Chicano (Mexican American) characters in the life of artist David Gonzalez. First created in 1998, these plastic figurines were initially sold via vending machines typically positioned in supermarkets. Homies have become a highly collectible item among fans of the line, and many imitation toys have sprung up. The figures caused controversy after their initial release as members of the Los Angeles Police Department, argued that the figures glorified gang life. Many stores stopped selling the toys after the complaint.
Gonzales then created a story for each of the Homies’ characters, each of which had a positive view of the characters. Some became former jail mates who went on to educate children about how to avoid prison. Mainstream stores, such as Walmart, quickly returned the Homies to their stacks, and the toy branched out to include a line of diecast cars, among other things. By 2005, the Homies character line had women, as well as Filipino, Japanese and Puerto Rican, and even Evil Clown characters. The Puerto Ricans set, which includes twelve of the Homies, are nicknamed Los Boricuas.
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April 1, 2011
Gashapon [gosh-uh-pone] is a Bandai brand trademark widely used throughout the world for their capsule toys.
‘Gashapon’ is a Japanese onomatopoeia, made up of two sounds: ‘gasha’ for the turning of a crank on a toy vending machine, and ‘pon’ for the sound of the toy capsule dropping into the receptacle. It is used to describe both the machines themselves, and any toy obtained from them.
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April 1, 2011
Disney Vinylmation is a brand of vinyl toys sold at Disney theme parks and other locations. The toys all have a common shape (that of Mickey Mouse) but have different themed markings, colors and patterns.
The first figures were introduced in November 2008. The figures are sold in sealed packaging. The purchaser does not know which figure they are buying until they have opened it.
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April 1, 2011
Digital single-lens reflex cameras (DSLR) are cameras that use a mechanical mirror system and pentaprism to direct light from the lens to an optical viewfinder on the back of the camera. The basic operation of a DSLR is as follows: for viewing purposes, the mirror reflects the light coming through the attached lens upwards at a 90 degree angle. It is then reflected three times by the roof pentaprism, rectifying it for the photographer’s eye.
During exposure, the mirror assembly swings upward, the aperture narrows (if stopped down, or set smaller than wide open), and a shutter opens, allowing the lens to project light onto the image sensor. A second shutter then covers the sensor, ending the exposure, and the mirror lowers while the shutter resets. All of this happens automatically over a period of milliseconds, with cameras designed to do this 3–10 times per second.
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April 1, 2011
A Single-Lens Translucent (SLT) camera is similar to a Digital Single-Lens Relex (DSLR) but uses a beam splitter instead of a solid mirror. Unlike DSLRs SLT cameras do not have an optical viewfinder, instead they rely on an electronic viewfinder, using the image collected by the sensor. A DSLR mirror allows the user to directly view the image that is passing through the lens; in a SLT the mirror is only used for focusing.
A semi-translucent mirror allows the majority of the light to pass through to the sensor while reflecting a portion of the light onto a phase-detection autofocus sensor in the top of the camera, allowing the camera to take photos without any mirror movement (and associated vibrations), as well as full time auto focus. Since the autofocus array is constantly receiving light, SLT cameras are able to use phase-detection autofocus during video recording, while DSLR’s and other interchangeable lens cameras have to use slower contrast detect autofocus for video and live view.
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April 1, 2011
A mirrorless interchangeable lens camera is an emerging class of digital system cameras, intermediate between compact digital cameras and digital single-lens reflex cameras (DSLRs).
They are characterized by large sensors (the same size as entry-level DSLRs), no mirror, and interchangeable lenses, as the name suggests, and provide DSLR-quality pictures in a significantly smaller camera.
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April 1, 2011
A molten salt reactor (MSR) is a type of nuclear fission reactor in which the primary coolant is a molten salt mixture, which can run at high temperatures (for higher thermodynamic efficiency) while staying at low vapor pressure for reduced mechanical stress and increased safety, and is less reactive than molten sodium coolant.
The nuclear fuel may be solid fuel rods, or dissolved in the coolant itself, which eliminates fuel fabrication, simplifies reactor structure, equalizes burnup, and allows online reprocessing. One kind of proposed MSR is a liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR). Thorium is a naturally occurring radioactive chemical element estimated to be about three to four times more abundant than uranium in the Earth’s crust.
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March 31, 2011
Sound from ultrasound refers to ultrasound (sound pressure with a frequency greater than the upper limit of human hearing, approx. 20 kilohertz) that has been modulated and demodulated. Ultrasound has wavelengths much smaller than audible sound and thus can be aimed in a much tighter narrow beam than any traditional audible loudspeaker system. A narrow beam of modulated ultrasound changes the speed of sound in the air that it passes through. The air within the beam extracts the signal from the ultrasound, resulting in sound that can be heard only along the path of the beam, or that appears to radiate from any surface that the beam strikes.
The practical effect of this technology is that a beam of sound can be projected over a long distance to be heard only in a small well-defined area. A listener outside the beam hears nothing. Anyone or anything that disrupts the path of the beam will interrupt the progression of the beam, like interrupting the illumination of a spotlight. For this reason, most systems are mounted overhead, like lighting. This technology was originally developed by the US Navy and Soviet Navy for underwater sonar in the mid-1960s, and was briefly investigated by Japanese researchers in the early 1980s, but these efforts were abandoned due to extremely poor sound quality (high distortion) and substantial system cost.
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March 30, 2011
In Italy, pizza al taglio (‘by the cut’) is a variety of pizza baked in large rectangular trays, and generally sold in rectangular slices by weight, with prices marked per kilogram. The simplest varieties include Pizza Margherita (tomato sauce and cheese), Pizza bianca (olive oil & salt), and Pizza rossa (tomato sauce only). Other typical toppings include artichokes, asparagus, eggplant, ground meat and onions, potatoes, prosciutto, salami, sausage, ground truffles, zucchini, olive oil sundried tomatoes, rocket, gorgonzola, anchovies, and black olives.
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