New spin on rotation?
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If tired-armed righthander Orlando Hernandez continues to feel better, he may well get the call for Game 4 Saturday ahead of Javier Vazquez . Hernandez, who has not pitched this postseason, threw 40 pitches in the bullpen yesterday and came through it well, according to Yankees manager Joe Torre .
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Is the traditional puzzle cube any better with lights and games built in? Plus: Romantic geeks can now exchange binary wedding bands. In Gadget Lab.
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(InfoWorld) - It's an interesting contrast: consumers are fast ditching videotape for DVDs and hard disks, but the people who make TV shows are sticking to tape for some cutting edge applications. When it comes to recording broadcast-quality HDTV, today's optical disc systems just can't spin fast enough to keep up with the video -- but that may be about to change. Current optical disc systems are speed-capped at about 10,000 rpm (revolutions per minute.) Spin them any faster and there's a danger the discs will physically disintegrate in the drive leaving nothing but a pile of sharp plastic splinters and data that is gone forever. And even if they don't break apart the disc can begin to wobble making reliable recording a problem. Engineers at the Science and Technical Research Laboratories (STRL) of Japan's public broadcaster, NHK (Nippon Hoso Kyokai), are working on an optical disc recording system based on consumer Blu-ray Disc technology that can spin as fast as 15,000 rpm without these problems and demonstrated it last week. It's needed because broadcast quality HDTV signals of the type NHK records stream at 250MbpsÂ making a fast-spinning optical disc a necessity. A 1X Blu-ray Disc records at 36Mbps so the new system is equivalent to 7X speed. NHK has gotten around the stress problem by making a flexible disc that is just 0.1 millimeters thick. The disc, which was co-developed with Ricoh, is essentially the recording layer from a Blu-ray Disc without the 1.1 millimeter plastic substrate that is used to give the disc rigidity. It won't break apart at higher speeds but is not rigid enough to be useful in a drive at any speed. To solve this second problem a thick stabilizing plate has been added into the drive. When spun, the disc is kept steady by the stabilizer and can be used up to 15,000 rpm, said Daiichi Koide, an engineer at NHK STRL. The set-up is similar to Hitachi Maxell's Stacked Volumetric Optical Disc (SVOD) that wasÂ introduced in prototype formÂ at last year's Ceatec exhibition in Japan and shown again at Cebit in Germany this year. SVOD packs several 0.1 millimeter thick optical discs into a cartridge and holds them against a stabilizer in the drive to keep them steady while in use. However there is a key difference between the two, said Koide. In the NHK drive the stabilizer doesn't rotate. If it did it would be susceptible to the same stresses that as the discs. The result is that NHK can spin the disc up to 15,000 rpm without any mechanical problems. The system is still under development and there's no word on when it will literally be ready for prime time. NHK envisages cartridges stuffed with a number of the thin discs that can replace videotapes. Â
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By Elaine Guregian, The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio  Sep. 24--Better rev up.
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Are we looking at the middle of a turnaround story?
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I started noticing some changes in the layout of  Adsense units running in my other blog as early as last week, but it&#8217;s only now that the Inside Adsense blog issued an official announcement. Adsense publishers now have the option to further customize the look of their Adsense units by specifying the shapes as [...]
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What if you could burn fat while shaking a martini? Actually, it's your body that shakes like a martini on a new type of fitness machine that's generating lots of buzz and celebrity use. Even NASA has tested the concept.
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New Premiere Elements, updated Photoshop Elements coming soon.
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Sharp unveils a new fat-busting microwave. Also: ARM Holdings zeroes in on Artisan Components & hellip;. Gateway will sell PCs at Micro Center stores in its latest push to return to profitability & hellip;. and more.
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The Red Sox pitching rotation is suddenly a shell game. It started out as Curt, Pedro, Bronson, and Wake, with Derek as the odd man out. But then Curt's ankle made headlines, and that's why Derek will pitch for Curt in Game 5. No, wait. Now it's raining, and everyone gets an extra day off, so Pedro might pitch for ...
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What do you think of the new design?  For those of you reading via RSS just click on the permalink.   Fixed layout.  Blue background.  Nice clean sidebar.  No more obsolete links. Updated content.  All to give the appearance that I'm a professional!  This is part of my new effort to blog more now that I have Rojo  launched.  Anyway.  If anything looks strange please let me know!  I'll also be making some additional layout tweaks in the next couple of days.  In the meantime this will do...
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Einstein was right -- again.  Satellites that have been pulled slightly off their orbits show  that the Earth is indeed twisting the fabric of space-time as  it rotates, scientists said on Thursday.
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In 1918, Albert Einstein proposed that large objects bend the space around themselves while turning on their axis. In 2004, NASA scientists confirmed that the Earth bends the time and space around it while
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Tycho:   One of the questions during a a panel at PAX had to do with the italicised line at the end of each day's post.  They're almost always song lyrics, and back before we were paying for bandwidth (and before RIAA rape gangs were prowling the web) these lines used to link directly to the MP3.  I maintained the practice afterward because it's sort of like a song of the day, and I like the idea that someone might be struck by a strange turn of phrase and seek out a piece of music.  It also serves as a gauge of my mental state at the moment.  Today's song, for example, is Stan Rodgers' incredible live version of the sea shanty "Rolling Down To Old Maui," which Pandora kicked out after about a week of tuning the station.  I've listened to it about thirty times today.    The person who asked the question at the con complimented my musical tastes, and I accepted the compliment, but I'm almost always late to the scene.  I just bought Interpol's "Turn On The Bright Lights," for chrissakes.  I'm mostly lucky to know people who do have unique library.  I told him I would mention a few of my favorite bands on the site, but then I forgot.  Essentially, it's music that cool people were listening to a decade ago (where applicable).  I am a musical carrion bird.    He wanted me to list off a few bands, and I said I would last week, but then I forgot.  These are the first ten albums I could think of.    "Starless" by Shiner
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Thu 25th Nov, 11:25 AM. Orienteers love a puzzle and a fascinating new theory has highlighted a centuries old enigma on the doorstep of next yearâs JK.
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By John Weiss, Post-Bulletin, Rochester, Minn.  Jun.
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Men who work a rotating shift pattern may be at increased risk of prostate cancer, research suggests.