Showing posts with label Aliens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aliens. Show all posts
August 29, 2024
May 16, 2024
June 14, 2023
August 20, 2021
Invasion USA
February 21, 2021
Better Covid Mask
March 1, 2018
Alien Orange Vacuum Cleaner
These big orange overhangs from the lamp poles look almost like big vacuum hoses that are ready and going to suck people literally off the streets.
Can't you just see the people in mid-air suction, arms and legs flailing all around, yelling "Hey, what's going on around here!"?
Hopefully, they don't end up on an alien spaceship somewhere with some weird creatures wanting to explore about us or even use us for food!
Okay, this is what I call Purim spiel--fun for the holiday celebration today.
Seriously though, those orange things are great. ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
November 18, 2017
Invasion of Dinosaurs
First one is standing next to the checkout line in Whole Foods in Maryland.
Second one is actually on someone's terrace overlooking the beach in Fort Lauderdale.
Third one is the real McCoy from the Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
Certainly, dinosaurs aren't cute and cuddly--even the plush ones from Whole Foods--they'd eat you and I for dinner if they could!
So why do we gravitate to relics from the Ice Age past?
Perhaps, just like looking forward to Aliens from outer space, the dinosaurs represent an important historical link for us, and thus anchor us in a much larger perspective of time and space.
In a way, it all points to the dichotomy between us as humans with great--almost endless--potential, and yet at the same time, how small we are relative to the enormous dinosaurs that roamed the earth of yesteryear as well as the distinct possibility of mighty extraterrestrials that we may someday (soon) encounter from outer space.
From this context, I guess what's really amazing is that we, as a people, are still here!
Despite our bad habits and unsustainable living, we continue to innovate our way out of own messes of greed, conflict, contagion, pollution, and resource depletion, and create a future far beyond what destroyed our predecessors or even what may come from current or potential future foes.
Like the economy, we think we can grow ourselves out of all our troubles--and who knows, maybe we can if we can continue to stay at least one or two steps ahead of all the challenges and threats--but, at the back (or front) of our minds is what if we can't or don't? ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
November 10, 2013
Green Data Center Cooling
One barge is by San Francisco and the other by Maine.
The 4-story barges belong to Google.
There is speculation about these being, maybe, floating data centers.
I think that is more likely than showrooms for Google Glass.
These barges would potentially avail themselves of the ocean water for cooling the IT equipment.
I would imagine that there could be some backup and recovery strategy here as well associated with their terrestrial data centers.
But how you protect these floating data behemoths is another story.
A white paper by Emerson has data center energy consumption in the 25% range for cooling systems and another 12% for air movement, totaling 37%.
Other interesting new ideas for reducing energy consumption for data center cooling include submersion cooling.
For example, Green Revolution (GR) Cooling is one of the pioneers in this area.
They turn the server rack on its back and the servers are inserted vertically into a dielectric (an electrical insulator--yes, I had to look that up) cooling mineral oil.
In this video, the founder of GR identifies the potential cost-savings including eliminating chillers and raised floors as well as a overall 45% reduction in energy consumption, (although I am not clear how that jives with the 37% energy consumption of cooling to begin with).
Intuitively, one of the trickiest aspect to this would be the maintenance of the equipment, but there is a GR video that shows how to do this as well--and the instructions even states in good jest that the "gloves are optional."
One of my favorite aspects of submersion cooling aside from the environmental aspects and cost-savings is the very cool green tint in the server racks that looks so alien and futuristic.
Turn down the lights and imagine you are on a ship traveling the universe, or maybe just on the Google ship not that far away. ;-)
(Source Photo: Green Revolution)
July 10, 2013
Emergency Alert Or R U Kidding?
The EAS is a program of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and was set up "to allow the president to talk to the entire country within 10 minutes of a disaster." It also provides the public with alerts on local weather emergencies, such as tornados and flash floods.
EAS replaced the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) in 1997 and with it came security weaknesses.
Earlier this year, those vulnerabilities were tested and exploited when the Montana Television Network was hacked with an alert of a zombie attack.
And it provided advice on how to survive--"Do not approach or apprehend these bodies as they are considered extremely dangerous."
This is reminiscent of the hoax in 1938 when over the radio came a warning that a meteorite had smashed into New Jersey and aliens were attacking New York--an adaptation of H.G. Wells "War of the Worlds."
Well yesterday it was aliens, today it's zombies, and tomorrow it could be an phony announcement of an invasion by country XYZ or perhaps a imminent detonation of a thermonuclear warhead somewhere over the continental U.S.
Imagine the panic, confusion, and potential loss of life and property from the ensuing chaos.
It goes without saying that this is not a way to inspire confidence by the citizens in case of a true national emergency.
If we cannot count on the systems meant to survive an emergency then how can we be expected to survive the emergency itself?
The EAS may interrupt your regularly scheduled programming with those loud and annoying tests, but what can really ruin you day is a cyber attack on the system that broadcasts something much nastier and more ominous--and you don't really know whether it's the real thing or just another hack. ;-)
(Source Photo: here with attribution to UWW ResNet)
March 10, 2013
January 3, 2013
Taking On The Predator
Quite a frightening looking creature--that in Hollywood only Arnold Schwarzenegger could take on and defeat.
When Predator, an extraterrestrial, comes to Earth with all sorts of high-tech weaponry to challenge humankind, Schwarzenegger, who leads an elite special forces team, manages to defeat the alien by using his wits to improvise weapons, traps, and tactics.
In the real world, this mask is a great reminder that while technology is a tool that provides amazing capabilities, in the end, it is really our people's ability to adapt and innovate that makes the ultimate difference as to who succeeds and fails.
The Predator mask is not only a great conversation piece, but Predator's looks and technology is not so scary when we realize that good, talented people can wield control over it. ;-)
(Source Photo: here with attribution to Robert Williams)
October 29, 2012
Zombie Homeland Security Training 101
Unbelievable. The Halo Counter-terrorism Summit (Oct 29-Nov. 2, 2012) is hosting a mock Zombie Invasion as part of its emergency response training for about a 1,000 special ops, military, police, medical, firefighter, and other homeland security professionals.
The Zombie Apocalypse training exercise is occurring mid-summit on October 31, Halloween--so it is quite timely for other ghoulish activities that day.
There are two sessions--#1 at 4:30 PM and #2 at 7:00 PM.
Both the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have posted the CDC's Zombie Preparedness guidance--saying that "if you are generally well equipped to deal with a zombie apocalypse you will be prepared for a hurricane, pandemic, earthquake, or terrorist attack."
I guess this is very good news with Hurricane Sandy or "Frakenstorm" bearing down on the East Coast this evening. Zombies, you ain't got nothing on Frakenstorm!
In Yahoo News, Brad Barker, the President of Halo Corp., explained why Zombies are good for training, especially in asymmetric warfare: "No one knows what zombies will do in our scenario, but quite frankly no one knows what a terrorist will do."
Barker also jested that "No doubt when a zombie apocalypse occurs, it's going to be a federal incident, so we're making it happen."
Frankly, I love to see this type of creativity brought to national and homeland security and believe that this makes it less likely that we'll be perpetually fighting yesterday's war, instead of tomorrow's.
The key is that we think out of the box in terms of what will the adversary do next--from cyberwar to weapons of mass destruction, we can't afford to be blindsighted.
So do I think that aliens or zombies are coming for us some day--let's just say, never say never. ;-)
October 2, 2012
Existential Threats--Real or Imagined?
Should we worry about something that hasn't happened to us yet?
Wired Magazine (Sept. 2012) has an interesting article called Apocalypse Not.
Its thesis is that "people freak out over end-of-the world scenarios" and they should know better because despite all the fear and predictions of catastrophe, nothing ever really happens.
It categorizes the doomsday cataclysms into 4 types:
1) Chemicals--these come form things like pesticides (like DDT), smoking, and CFCs, and result in air pollution, acid rain, ozone depletion, and climate change.
2) Disease--recent fears of pandemics were associated with bird flu, swine flu, SARS, AIDS, ebola, and mad cow disease.
3) People--we can cause our own hell through population explosion and famine and although it didn't mention this, I would assume the brutality and wars that can wipe entire races out.
4) Resources--Peak oil theory, metals and minerals, and other resource constraints have been causes of consternation leading us to look for alternative energy sources and even recently consider mining minerals on asteroids.
The article goes so far as to poke fun at those who are concerned about these things even stating that "The one thing we'll never run out of is imbeciles."
Wired does acknowledge that while "over the past half-century, none of our threatened eco-pocalypses have played out as predicted. Some came partly true; some were averted by action; [and still] some were wholly chimerical."
What the author, Matt Ridley, has missed here in his logic are a few main things:
- Smaller things add to big things--While each individual issue may not have reached the catastrophic tipping point been yet, these issues can certainly progress and even more so, in the aggregate, pose dangerous situations that we may be unable to contain. So you can choose to live with blinders on for today, but the consequences of our choices are inescapable and may only be around the next bend.
-Recognizing the future--just because things like death and final judgement haven't happened to us yet, doesn't mean that they aren't in store for us in the future. This sort of reminds me of this Jewish joke that no one leaves this world alive.
- Destructive powers are multiplying--many destructive forces were traditionally local events, but are now becoming existential threats to whole civilizations. For example, how many people globally can we kill with weaponized pathogens and how many times over now are we able to destroy the world with our thermonuclear stockpile.
- Learn from the past--Apocalypses and terrible events have already befallen humankind, whether the bubonic plague in the middle ages, the destruction of the ice age, the flood in biblical times, and even more recently the Holocaust and the World Wars in the 20th century.
Unfortunately, there is no shortage of bad things that can happen to people--individuals or many people--and if we are not conscious of the things we are doing, their potential impacts, and generally act smart and ethical, then bad things can and will most-definitely happen.
Wired ends by saying that things like policy, technology, and innovation can solve the day. However, while these can surely help and we must always try our best to have a positive impact, some things are also out of our control--they are in G-d hands.
Finally, while not every event is an existential threat, some surely can be--and whether it's the impact of an asteroid, the death toll from the next horrible plague, natural disaster, cyberwar, or weapon of mass destruction, or even possibly when aliens finally come knocking at your door, it would be awfully stupid to think that bad things can't happen.
(Source Photo: here with attribution to tanakawho)
September 15, 2012
EI Differentiates Us From ET
You wouldn't expect an ET--despite maybe their great technology that gets them here--to understand us Earthlings and treat us properly.
They may try and capture us and even harvest our vital resources (and organs), but no, they probably wouldn't be overly concerned with with how they act or treat us.
Hence, Emotional Intelligence (EI) is what differentiates us from ETs.
With EI we manage both our ourselves and our relationships--like (proper) human beings.
EI is made up of personal competencies and social competencies.
In terms of personal competencies--we need to be self-aware and manage ourselves with authenticity and self control--and not act like a bunch of unseemly aliens.
From a social competency perspective--we must extend ourselves to become socially aware and manage our relationships tactfully--so we don't go chasing and laser-beaming others.
There are a number of important social skills for us Earthlings to master if we want to live nicely with others:
- Listening--that's why G-d gave people 2 ears and 1 month (of course, aliens have the opposite--2 mouths and 1 ear).
- Feeling--showing empathy for our fellow human beings--understanding their interests, concerns, and perspectives (like no alien can).
- Giving--being selfless, giving, and nurturing to others personally and having a service-orientation to our customers.
- Teaming--developing and maintaining a breadth of interpersonal relationships and sharing and collaborating with them (this will help you fight off the invading ETs when they arrive).
- Managing conflict--deescalating issues and negotiating with others to reach agreements and resolutions (if only we could negotiate with the aliens not to eat us).
- Visioning--coming up with and championing a forward-thinking and compelling strategy.
- Managing change--influencing and leading others to adopt new ideas and change the status quo (we need to change, learn, grow, and improve--because it's a big intergalactic world out there).
These are a lot of critical and challenging skills to master and no one is perfect at all of them.
But as imperfect as we are, it is our trust and test in life to be more than warring Earthlings fighting each other over continuously scarce resources, but instead to become social creatures as well--where we lean to gracefully manage ourselves and our relationships.
Unlike ETs, we human beings are in so many ways--with EI--better than that! ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
July 1, 2012
When Aliens Come Calling
MSNBC ran an interview with Seth Shostak, the chairman of the International Academy of Astronautics' SETI Permanent Study Group (27 June 2012).
SETI is the well-known orgnaization that conducts the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence--they employ 150 scientists, educators and support staff, and their projects have been sponsored by NASA, Department of Energy, U.S. Geological Survey, and many technology companies like HP, Sun, and more.
At SETI, they monitor radio transmissions and telescope observations for signals that "cannot be ascribed to noise."
According to Shostak, he believes that we will detect alien signals by between 2025 and 2030, although he acknowledges that searching for alien life in the cosmos in like looking for a needle in a haystack, and it "never occurs when you expect them."
However with advances in technology (specifically computer processing), we will get closer to be able to monitor "all-sky, all the time, all frequencies," rather than searching a specific star system, for a specific time, at specific frequencies.
The really interesting question posed though is what happens if we actually detect an alien signal?
Apparently, most of the planning, according to Shostak is for the initial protocols for alerting everyone and even then "it takes something on the order of five days" to assess whether it is real or not.
The big concern is that "nobody is in charge" for handling such a global...no, intergalactic event.
And, he says "I don't think there's any large-scale effort to prepare humanity."
Maybe, it's that we don't believe or want to believe that this eventuality will ever really occur.
Perhaps, it's too frightening to think of ourselves as the native Americans being invaded by colonials with superior technology and firepower.
Yet according to a National Geographic survey, more than a third (36%) of people surveyed think aliens exist. And how many more people are afraid to admit it?
Aliens could be a good thing--coming here benevolently to share with us or they could act alien and try to take from us. From our own Earthly experiences, it seems the latter is far more likely.
We have a lot of fingers and weapons pointed at each other all time, I wonder whether we need to spend more time and effort thinking, planning, and preparing for something much more scary and threatening than each other.
(Source Photo: here with attribution to Chris at Oblong Pictures)
August 28, 2011
Best High-Tech Looking Couch
It's called the Retro-Alien Couch by 27 year old, artist Igor Chak.
The couch is made of leather and designed and manufactured in Los Angeles, CA.
The website says that you can customize it--and I'd like mine with first-person shooter lasers and remote control that electronically rise out of of the armrests. (Zoom, Zoom!)
This couch so reminds me of the video game, Space Invaders, which I played on Atari as a kid my friends in Riverdale, NY.
In terms of it's high-tech look and it's retro video game feel--this couch is completely awesome!
Another favorite Atari game was Missile Command, how about some coffee tables to match? ;-)
July 21, 2010
This Idea Has Real Legs
Check out this video of Rex, The Robotic Exoskeleton.
An incredible advance for the disabled in providing better mobility.
Light years ahead of a wheelchair, Rex enables people to stand, walk, climb stairs, and generally lead more normal and healthy lives.
Rex is not meant to supplant the wheelchair (where you can sit), but to augment meant it (with the ability to stand).
"If you are a wheelchair user, can self transfer and use a joystick with your hand, Rex amy offer you a way to stand, move sideways, turn around, go up steps as well as walk on flat hard surfaces including ramps and slopes." (www.rexbionics.com)
The idea for REX came from the movie Aliens, where Ripley (Sigourney Weaver, the main character) fights the big mother Alien in a "Power Loader" suit. The exoskeleton designed for transporting and stacking large supply crates is used to do some serious damage to the Alien.
Exoskeletons have been explored as battle suits in movies, video games (Halo), and even in the real military as future combat wear.
Nice to see an application of the technology that can kill/maim to also heal/help people. Of course this isn't the first time military technology has been applied to the consumer market; for example, the Internet itself on which I am writing this blog, was developed by DARPA.
The point is that technology itself is not good or bad, but rather how we use it, is what determines it's ultimate effect.
According to CNN, Rex invested $10 million and seven years in developing this bionic dream machine made from 4700 parts. FDA approval is being sought, so Rex can be marketed it in the U.S.
It's not hard to imagine exoskeleton technology being used not only for helping the disabled and fighting future wars, but also for augmenting the everyday workforce as body bionics to work the fields, build our infrastructure, transport goods, and even for us intellectual types, to run between (or out of those) meetings that much faster.
October 13, 2007
NASA and Enterprise Architecture
First all of all let me say that NASA and its people are totally awesome.
“On July 20, 1969, the human race accomplished its single greatest technological achievement of all time when a human first set foot on another celestial body.” (NASA)
The trip to from the earth to the moon is approximately 240,000 miles!! (adapted from Wikipedia)
“Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin spent a total of 21 hours on the Moon, two-and-a-half of them outside the landing module. A further 10 astronauts traveled to the Moon in another six missions with the final manned lunar landing, Apollo 17, completed in December 1972.” (adapted from http://news.bbc.co.uk/)
On 20 September, 2005, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin announced a New Spaceship Designed for Travel to Moon and Mars. Griffin defended the $104 billion dollar lunar program, saying it is intended to make President Bush's Vision for Space Exploration a reality. The price of the new lunar program will be spread out over 13 years and adjusted for inflation represents about 55 percent of what the Apollo space program cost in the 1970s. (adapted from globalsecurity.org)
Question:
Why haven’t we been able to send man back to the moon (or to other planets in the last 35 years)? And why do we need to invest another $104 billion to do something that we should already know how to do? Finally, if we were able to go to the moon before the unbelievable technological advances of the last 35 years, why can’t we do it today?
Honest answer:
I don’t really know.
Hypothetical answers:
“On July 20, 1969, the human race accomplished its single greatest technological achievement of all time when a human first set foot on another celestial body.” (NASA)
The trip to from the earth to the moon is approximately 240,000 miles!! (adapted from Wikipedia)
“Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin spent a total of 21 hours on the Moon, two-and-a-half of them outside the landing module. A further 10 astronauts traveled to the Moon in another six missions with the final manned lunar landing, Apollo 17, completed in December 1972.” (adapted from http://news.bbc.co.uk/)
On 20 September, 2005, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin announced a New Spaceship Designed for Travel to Moon and Mars. Griffin defended the $104 billion dollar lunar program, saying it is intended to make President Bush's Vision for Space Exploration a reality. The price of the new lunar program will be spread out over 13 years and adjusted for inflation represents about 55 percent of what the Apollo space program cost in the 1970s. (adapted from globalsecurity.org)
Question:
Why haven’t we been able to send man back to the moon (or to other planets in the last 35 years)? And why do we need to invest another $104 billion to do something that we should already know how to do? Finally, if we were able to go to the moon before the unbelievable technological advances of the last 35 years, why can’t we do it today?
Honest answer:
I don’t really know.
Hypothetical answers:
- The alien technology that we acquired to make the trips to the moon has either been depleted or destroyed by the Russians. (Ha ha ha)
- User-centric EA wasn’t around 35 years ago, and therefore, the business and technical processes, information, and means of governance weren’t well documented and have been lost to mankind, and now we need to recreate the whole darn thing (hopefully not).
Barring another Roswell alien landing, we will have to thank the Clinger-Cohen Act for helping us ensure that this critical (and expensive) information is better documented going forward.
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