Earlier this week, Boston Dynamics demonstrated the capabilities of the Legged Squad Support System (LS3), a semi-autonomous four legged robot designed to serve as a pack mule for US troops (video). The robot can navigate difficult terrain, follow a human leader, and right itself if it falls over. It will eventually have a range of 20 miles, a top speed of 7 MPH, and a cargo capicity of 400 pounds. The robot has another two years of testing and refinement ahead of it before it is deployed in an operational exercise with US Marines. The LS3 project is funded by DARPA and the US Marine Corps.
The other day, a reader asked why I call climate change "climate change", instead of "global warming". The short answer is that, from my perspective, climate change does a much better job of giving people an accurate mental picture of what is going on. Global warming sounds like the world is just going to get hotter, and while that's technically true on a global-average-temperature-basis, it doesn't really reflect what's happening locally
When NASA's Sunita Williams and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide couldn't seem to get a bolt attached to the outside of the space station, ground crews came up with a clever solution: Fix the problem with a toothbrush. At Space.com, Denise Chow explains the details:
On Aug. 30, Williams and Hoshide completed a marathon spacewalk that lasted more than 8 hours, but the astronauts were thwarted by a stubborn bolt and were unable to finish connecting the so-called main bus switching unit (MBSU). The stuck bolt forced NASA to add [yesterday's] extra spacewalk.
But, following last week's unsuccessful attempt, flight controllers, engineers and veteran spacewalkers worked around the clock at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston to devise a solution to the problem. Using only the supplies available on the space station, the teams came up with creative new tools for Williams and Hoshide to use to install the MBSU.
One was a modified toothbrush that was used to lubricate the inside of the bolt's housing after debris and metal shavings from inside had been removed. Another improvised instrument included a cleaning tool that had been made from wires that were bent back to form a brush, explained Kieth Johnson, lead spacewalk director at the Johnson Space Center
Artist Kevin Champeny creates astounding large format artworks that are part mosaic and part sculpture. The finished works look like sculptures or mosaics, but a closer look reveals they are made of hundreds or thousands of tiny objects, often individually cast by the artist. “Flag,” for instance, is an American flag made up of 44,450 urethane army men cast in red, white, and blue. “What Remains” is a five foot wide skull mosaic made up of more than 35,000 tiny flowers. According to Champeny, each work takes several months to complete.
Be sure to play Edgy Comic Bingo, by Cathy Leamy, who creates comics herself and knows a thing or two about getting linked to. Click through for the full NSFW card
The Rise and Fall of The Clash is an upcoming documentary about the influential and short-lived British punk rock band, The Clash (trailer). The film includes previously unseen footage as well as interviews with band members and associates. It is directed by Danny Garcia.
“Scopophilia” (“love of looking”) by artist Fiona Roberts is a red velvet chair that is embedded with hundreds of realistic plastic eyeballs. The chair sculpture was part of Robert’s graduate show at the Helpmann Academy Graduate Exhibition 2012 in Adelaide, Australia
Associated PressHundreds of coal miners and their families wait in line to attend a rally Aug. 14 at the Century Mine near Beallsville, Ohio.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- When GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney visited an Ohio coal mine this month to promote jobs in the coal industry, workers who appeared with him at the rally lost pay because their mine was shut down.
The Pepper Pike company that owns the Century Mine told workers that attending the Aug. 14 Romney event would be both mandatory and unpaid, a top company official said Monday morning in a West Virginia radio interview.
A group of employees who feared they'd be fired if they didn't attend the campaign rally in Beallsville, Ohio, complained about it to WWVA radio station talk show host David Blomquist. Blomquist discussed their beefs on the air Monday with Murray Energy Chief Financial Officer Rob Moore.
Moore told Blomquist that managers "communicated to our workforce that the attendance at the Romney event was mandatory, but no one was forced to attend." He said the company did not penalize no-shows.
Because the company's mine had to be shut down for "safety and security" reasons during Romney's visit, Moore confirmed workers were not paid that day. He said miners also lose pay when weather or power outages shut down the mine, and noted that federal election law doesn't let companies pay workers to attend political events.
Moore said he didn't see anything negative in attending Romney's campaign appearance with U.S. Sen. Rob Portman and Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel.
"We are talking about an event that was in the best interest of anyone that's related to the coal industry in this area or the entire country," Moore said in the radio interview.
When contacted about the interview on Monday afternoon, Murray Energy spokesman Gary Broadbent emailed this statement: "Rob Moore made it abundantly clear that no employees were forced to attend the Romney event. All participation was, and always has been, completely voluntary."
Blomquist said that he got multiple emails and phone calls from Murray Energy workers who felt that they were intimidated into attending Romney's appearance. He said employees were told they'd have to forfeit the day's pay unless they could make up their missed hours on overtime or weekends.
"My whole point is that nobody should be pressured into attending anyone's political event," Blomquist told The Plain Dealer. "If they shut the mine down, why should they lose a day's pay? There are some guys that just want to go to work, feed their family and go home."
Romney used his appearance at the coal mine to blast what he called a "war on coal" by the Obama administration that he said was costing jobs in the coal industry.
"We have 250 years of coal," Romney said. "Why in the heck wouldn't we use it? And so, I want to take advantage of those energy resources."
A Romney campaign spokesman did not respond to a request for comment from The Plain Dealer Monday afternoon.
Was Ray Bradbury a communist sympathizer? A threat to the American way of life? Clark Merrefield digs into the newly obtained FBI files on the celebrated science-fiction writer.
Ray Bradbury, the science-fiction writer who died at age 91 in early June, was the target of FBI investigations over a period spanning more than a decade, according to 40 pages of government documents obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request by The Daily Beast.
Bradbury was born August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Ill., and enjoyed a literary career spanning eight decades. He is best known for his short stories and the novel Fahrenheit 451, which chronicles Guy Montag, a conflicted protagonist tasked with setting books on fire, and the detached society punctuated by a paranoid government in which Montag lives.
The government in Montag’s world, it turns out, was not so different from the government in Bradbury’s.
The FBI’s investigation of Bradbury in the late 1950s centers on alleged communist activity, and it reveals more about the author’s talent for holding up a dystopian mirror to reflect society’s flaws than actual communist tendencies. These government documents were first obtained by Bradbury biographer Sam Weller and described in his 2005 book The Bradbury Chronicles.
“I remember distinctly his response when I visited him and presented him with the files,” Weller told The Daily Beast. “He beamed ear to ear and dismissed it with a wave of his hand and laughed and he said, ‘I’ll be damned, I’ve had nothing to hide over the years—what are they going to investigate? What a bore.’”
Still, Bradbury was amused. He held the pages to his chest and asked Weller for a copy.
Ray Bradbury. (AP Photo)
Bradbury did not dissuade the government when, in 1952, he took out an advertisement in the trade publication Daily Variety and wrote, according to the documents:
“I have seen too much fear in a country that has no right to be afraid. I have seen too many campaigns in California, as well as in other states won on the issue of fear itself, and not on the facts. I do not want to hear any more of this claptrap and nonsense from you. I will not welcome it from McCARTHY or McCARRAN, from Mr. NIXON, DONALD JACKSON, or a man named SPARKMAN. I do not want any more lies, any more prejudice, any more smears. I do not want intimations, hearsay or rumor. I do not want unsigned letters or nameless telephone calls from either side, or from anyone.”
Bradbury got exactly what he didn’t want. The FBI investigation of Bradbury spans April 2 through June 3, 1959, and included surveillance from special agents.
“There’s some case notes to indicate they were parked outside the street of his house, watching his house. There were definitely agents stationed, watching his family and the goings on at the Bradbury home,” Weller says.
According to Martin A. Berkeley, a former member of the Communist Party and one of few named sources in the files, Bradbury, “was probably sympathetic with certain pro-Communist elements in the WGAw [Writers Guild of America, West].” He told the FBI that during a meeting of the Writers Guild, formerly the Screen Writers Guild, the union was considering whether to keep Communist Party members from joining, and Bradbury rose up and shouted, “Cowards and McCarthyites.”
At times the files venture into a sort of detached literary criticism, likely aimed at elucidating Bradbury’s worldview. Of Bradbury’s short-story collection The Martian Chronicles, which according to the documents sold over 200,000 copies in its second edition, special agent John S. Temple writes, “The stories were connected by the repeated theme that earthmen are despoilers and not developers.”
Bradbury may have been an inconvenient public figure to some, but the FBI ultimately concluded, “No evidences have been developed which indicate he was ever a member of the CP.”
Roughly 10 years after its initial investigation, the FBI again trained its sights on Bradbury regarding a suspected trip to Cuba to attend the Cultural Congress of Havana, a conference meant to “obtain unity of action in the anti-imperialist fight and in defense of the cultural nucleus of each country.”
Bradbury’s suspected interest in the Cultural Congress appears to stem from a confusion over a tip about a “Roy Bradbury.” Bradbury’s passport file was ultimately investigated. The FBI connected with two unnamed informants during the third and fourth weeks of July 1968, and another informant during the second week of August 1968, to attempt to nail down a link between Bradbury and Cuba.
One informant editorialized that “Bradbury would be a type person [sic] who might be invited to attend the Cultural Congress of Havana because of his liberal view,” but none of the sources could provide the FBI with any usable information.
“The files were so sloppy they called him Raymond at points in there—that’s not even his legal name,” Weller says.
The FBI decided it would be imprudent to continue their investigation and speak with him directly: “Due to Bradbury’s background as a known liberal writer, vocal in anti-United States war policies, an interview with Bradbury would be deemed unadvisable.”
Bradbury ultimately found resigned humor in the time and resources wasted on investigating his normal American life.
“The files were so sloppy they called him Raymond at points in there—that’s not even his legal name,” Weller says
