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MIT is rightfully proud of alumna Limor Fried, the superhero hardware hacker behind AdaFruit Industries, creators of fantastic DIY, open source electronics components and kits. We're proud of Limor too! From MIT News:

Apart from selling kits, original devices and providing hundreds of guides online, Adafruit works around the world with schools, teachers, libraries and hackerspaces — community technology labs — to promote STEM education, designing curricula in circuitry and electronics, among other initiatives.

The company has released an online children’s show called “A is for Ampere.” On a weekly Saturday night program, “Ask an Engineer,” anyone can ask Fried questions online or show off their original devices.

One of Fried’s favorite stories, from a young viewer of “Ask an Engineer,” illuminates what she sees as the growing diversity of engineering. “A parent emailed us after watching the show with his daughter,” she says. “I had another engineer on the show with me — my friend Amanda — and this parent’s daughter asked, ‘Dad, are there boy engineers too?’”

"Meet the maker"

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Polícia venezuelana apreende 2.500 rolos de papel higiênico

Tem gente que acha que fala inglês, mas quando vai para a Inglaterra se desespera, não só por ser incapaz de entender o sotaque cockney do East End de Londres, mas também por não conseguir entender o significado daquilo que os ingleses falam. Um exemplo?
What the British say: "That's not bad"
What the British mean: "That's good or very good"
What is understood: "That's poor or mediocre"
Há outros nesta interessante matéria na The Economist.

That was one of the questions I was asked at my Jane St. Capital talk on Wednesday night.

My answer was Edmund Husserl, at least if we restrict the question to philosophers of renown.  I believe his work is a waste of time and I write that as someone who does not believe Heidegger is a (total) waste of time, especially in the essays.  As for Husserl, we can pull this bit off Wikipedia:

Therein, Husserl in 1931 refers to “Transcendental Subjectivity” being “a new field of experience” opened as a result of practicing phenomenological reduction, and giving rise to an a priori science not empirically based but somewhat similar to mathematics. By such practice the individual becomes the “transcendental Ego”, although Husserl acknowledges the problem of solipsism. Later he emphasizes “the necessary stressing of the difference between transcendental and psychological subjectivity, the repeated declaration that transcendental phenomenology is not in any sense psychology… ” but rather (in contrast to naturalistic psychology) by the phenomenological reduction “the life of the soul is made intelligible in its most intimate and originally intuitional essence” and whereby “objects of the most varied grades right up to the level of the objective world are there for the Ego… .” Ibid. at 5-7, 11-12, 18.

The Stanford Encyclopedia gives you more detail on his philosophy.  Here is Husserl presented on YouTube, in his own words as they say.

I suggested both Aristotle and Nietzsche as overrated philosophers, although clearly both are still great philosophers, worthy of major reputations.  But neither should be considered a real candidate for “greatest philosopher ever,” which is what you sometimes hear.  I’ll reserve that for Plato and Hume.

This seems speculative, but of interest nonetheless:

Basically, banishment rooms are departments where companies transfer surplus employees and give them menial or useless tasks or even nothing to do until they become depressed or disheartened enough to quit on their own, thus not getting full benefits, unlike if they were actually let go. Imagine having to stare at a TV monitor for 10 hours at a time each day, in order to look for “program footage irregularities.” Of course companies would not admit to doing this, and instead will make up generic (or even creative) titles and department names like “Business & Human Resource Development Center” or “career development team”. And it’s not small companies that are doing this, but big ones like Hitachi Ltd., Sony Corp., Toshiba Corp., Seiko Instruments Inc., a NEC Corp. subsidiary, and two subsidiaries of Panasonic Corp.

A public relations from the main office of Panasonic said that the BHC section is “training employees to acquire new skills so they can work at different sections,”. 468 employees were added to this department in April, mostly coming from sections that were doing poorly. In short, 1 in 10 workers at the company are at the BHC. So far, only 35 employees have left the company while 29 got transferred to other departments.

Via Mark Thorson, the story is here.  Here is another article about banishment rooms, with more documentation and more legal detail about the difficulties of firing employees.

Elsewhere from Japan, a new and possibly very effective malaria vaccine has been invented.  Here is electronic Samurai sword quick draw and cut trainers.  Here is an argument that competitive vending machines make Japanese inflation more difficult to achieve.

orgy-of-nerdiness:

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TOP 15: Os carros mais caros com apenas airbag duplo e sem ESP é um post do blog Notícias Automotivas - Carros

Eles poderiam oferecer mais, mas infelizmente não oferecem airbags laterais ou de cortina, bem como controle de estabilidade. Assim, o colaborador Eduardo Pruvinelli da Silva fez uma lista TOP 15 com os carros mais caros com apenas airbag duplo e sem ESP.

A lista abaixo é encabeçada por veículos utilitários esportivos e comerciais, sendo que somente o sétimo mais caro é um automóvel de passeio. Do mais caro ao mais em conta, a diferença ultrapassa os R$ 100.000 e os dois extremos são ocupados por modelos da mesma marca. Aliás, ela também é a que mais aparece nesse TOP 15 com quatro modelos.

Pelos preços apresentados, mesmo os “mais em conta” já deveriam apresentar estes dois importantes itens, praticamente obrigatórios nos EUA e Europa. Eles também representam melhores pontuações em institutos de segurança, tais como NHTSA, IIHS, Euro/Latin/C NCAP, ADAC, entre outros.

Veja abaixo a lista com os 15 carros mais caros com apenas airbag duplo e sem ESP:

1. Toyota SW4 SR Diesel R$167.720
2. Toyota Hilux SRV R$138.050
3. Nissan Frontier SV Attack 4×4 2014 R$107.490
4. Honda CR-V LX R$98.900
5. Toyota RAV4 4×2 2.0 CVT 2014 R$96.900
6. Suzuki Grand Vitara Limited Edition 2013 R$95.890
7. Hyundai i30 1.6 Flex R$75.000
8. Honda Civic LXR R$74.490
9. Suzuki SX4 AWD A/T Mormaii R$73.380
10. Mitsubishi Lancer CVT R$72.890
11. Ford Focus 2.0 Sedã R$71.300
12. Ford Ranger XLS manual 4×2 2.5L Flex R$71.000
13. Ford Focus Hatch 2.0 R$69.800
14. Citroen C3 Aircross R$66.370
15. Toyota Corolla GLI 1.8 Flex R$66.530

Observações:

1) SW4 possui uma versõe flex com câmbio mecânico e automático de R$110.960 e R$115.600, respectivamente, também com dois airbags e sem ESP.
2) Hilux 4×4 Cabine Simples, Hilux 4×4 Cabine Simples Standart, 4×4 Cabine Dupla: SRV A/T, SRV, SR A/T, SR M/T não possuem também mais de 2 airbags e ESP. A única versão que possui ESP é a SRV TOP, mas ainda com dois airbags.
3) Frontier só possui ESP na versão TOP, mas não conta com 6 airbags.
4) Só possui 6 airbags e ESP na versão top.
5) Toyota RAV4 incrivelmente não possui ESP em NENHUMA das versões que custam até R$119.900. 6 airbags somente na intermediária e na top.
6) Suzuki Grand Vitara não possui nem ESP nem mais de dois airbags em qualquer das versões.
7) Hyundai i30 possui, ainda, cinto de dois pontos para o 5° passageiro.
8) Civic possui somente VSA na versão top, e somente 4 airbags. O irmão maior, accord, era vendido com somente airbag duplo e abs por R$99.000 na versão de entrada 2.0L.
9) Versão top de linha, SX4 não possui nem ESP nem mais de dois airbags em qualquer das versões.
10) Mitsubishi Lancer possui, ainda, cinto de dois pontos para o 5° passageiro.
11) Esse é o preço do configurador do site. Nas lojas, o preço está com descontos.
12) A partir desta versão, todas vem com 6 airbags e ESP de série.
13) Esse é o preço do configurador do site. Nas lojas, o preço está com descontos.
14) Possui airbags laterais cobrados à parte.
15) Toyota Corolla possui no máximo 4 airbags nas versões Xei, Altis e XRS mas não possui ESP em nenhuma delas.

Galeria de fotos dos 15 carros mais caros com apenas airbag duplo e sem ESP:

ver galeria de fotos

Por Eduardo Pruvinelli da Silva.

Dedicated to Karen – happy birthday, Karen!!

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Dedicated to Eric! Hope you have a great birthday tomorrow!

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For years, nearly all of the world's iPhones and iPads rolled off the assembly lines of a single company: Foxconn. But no longer.

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First time accepted submitter angelofdarkness writes "Jack Vance died Sunday evening. He was 96. Thank you for the stories and adventures and for influencing the game i still play after all these years. From the article: 'A science fiction Grand Master, Vance is probably best remembered for his four Dying Earth novels, which take place in a far-future Earth where the sun has dimmed and magic has been reestablished as a dominant force. They feature a brilliant picaresque adventure tone, including the unforgettable thief Cugel the Clever, and they were also celebrated in a recent anthology Songs of the Dying Earth, edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. These books contain Vance's characteristic ironic, lightly humorous style, which has influenced generations of science fiction writers." Reader paai points to the official Jack Vance website, and this 2009 profile in the New York Times.

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stoolpigeon writes "How would humanity fare in a universe filled with other sentient races and the technology for all of them to interact? If human history is any indication there would be conflict. That conflict would be between many groups that saw themselves as people and the rest as monsters. What that universe and those interactions would look like is a key theme in John Scalzi's Old Man's War series. The latest offering, The Human Division continues to dig deeply into a wide range of questions about what makes someone a person and how people treat one another at their best and worst." Keep reading for the rest of stoolpigeon's review.

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MARACANAX - Temendo um período de estiagem após a entrega dos estádios para a Copa do Mundo, o conselho diretor da Odebrecht aprovou o planejamento da empresa para 2014. Entre as novidades está a reconstrução do topete de Dilma Rousseff para as próximas eleições. "Seremos também responsáveis pelo recapeamento das bolsas dos olhos de Aécio Neves e estamos no consórcio pela obra de contenção da calvície de Eduardo Campos", assegurou Norberto Odebrecht.

Public Opinion On The Record Number Of Female Breadwinners WKNO FM A new Pew study finds that in a record 40 percent of all households with kids under 18, mothers are either the sole or primary source of income. In 1960, that share was just over 10 percent. These breadwinner moms number in the millions, but about ... More mothers are breadwinnersKFVS all 194 news articles »

MTorrice writes "The Southern Ocean around Antarctica is a significant carbon dioxide sink. Phytoplankton in the ocean pull down a large amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Oceanographers have wondered where these photosynthetic microbes get enough iron to fuel this process. A new study (abstract) suggests that iron leached into the sea from rock weathering and bacterial activity on Antarctica may be part of the answer. Climate change could actually accelerate this iron release, leading to larger blooms of phytoplankton and more carbon dioxide uptake by the ocean, the researchers say."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

schirra writes "The MIT Game Lab has just released the graphics/physics engine from its popular game A Slower Speed of Light as an open-source project, allowing anyone to play around with the effects of special relativity using Unity3D. While the hope is that game developers and educators will use OpenRelativity to develop new kinds of relativistic games and simulations, that shouldn't stop those with a casual interest from playing around with these wicked cool effects. For the physics inclined, these effects include Lorentz contraction, time dilation, Doppler shift, and the searchlight effect--though a PhD in theoretical physics isn't required to enjoy or use the project."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Several readers sent word of a group of University of Alberta researchers, who were exploring the edge of the Teardrop Glacier in northern Canada when they noticed a 'greenish tint' coming out from underneath the glacier. It turned out to be a collection of bryophytes, which likely flourished there the last time the land in that area was exposed to sunlight before the Little Ice Age. They collected samples of plants estimated to be 400 years old, and the researchers were able to get them to sprout new growths in the lab (abstract). "The glaciers in the region have been receding at rates that have sharply accelerated since 2004, at about 3-4m per year. ... Bryophytes are different from the land plants that we know best, in that they do not have vascular tissue that helps pump fluids around different parts of the organism. They can survive being completely desiccated in long Arctic winters, returning to growth in warmer times, but Dr La Farge was surprised by an emergence of bryophytes that had been buried under ice for so long. 'When we looked at them in detail and brought them to the lab, I could see some of the stems actually had new growth of green lateral branches, and that said to me that these guys are regenerating in the field, and that blew my mind.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sameer Parekh era um contador em Wall Street que resolveu largar o emprego e fundar a Falkor Systems, uma empresa centrada em desenvolvimento de novas tecnologias de drones autônomos. Seu desejo é simples: eliminar a necessidade de um controlador, permitindo que os drones mapeiem e sigam seu rumo seguindo apenas seus algoritmos de inteligência artificial.

O protótipo apresentado no vídeo abaixo é um Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 modificado, programado para seguir a imagem estampada na camisa que o rapaz está usando. Seus algoritmos fazem com que ele mantenha uma distância segura elegantemente, mas seguindo a pessoa fielmente – quase como um cachorrinho.

A ideia de Parekh é refinar a IA dos drones de modo que eles reconheçam seus donos sem a necessidade de acessórios, o que poderia ser um produto interessante para atletas extremos, como base-jumpers. Eu consigo imaginar esses drones acompanhando um maratonista por exemplo, ou até mesmo um repórter numa zona de conflito. Claro, algumas alterações seriam necessárias nesses casos, mas se os drones conseguirem no futuro escanear e reconhecer um rosto, mover o foco para outro ponto é fichinha.

Fonte: PopSci.

Dedicated to Timmy Tofu fan, Stephanie! Happy birthday, Stephanie!

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