Blar Tacos

Good Science

2008-02-05T18:21:00.001-08:00

I came across this article today regarding a new (and really, truly amazing) application of science, technology, and design. Dean Kamen's company, DEKA research was awarded a defense contract from DARPA in their efforts to create prosthetic limbs for returning soldiers. What they came up with, and what they inspirationally call the "Luke" arm, is a highly advanced, modular, prosthetic limb. It is such an amazing application of not only technology, but also great design principals. They prioritized what was important to the users of such a device, and ensured the actual product as fit within those defined specifications. It seems extremely promising. The next step, and what I now wonder about is how far along is research in the area of being able to send and receive information directly to and from the brain. :) It would be great to be able to control this device without having the added set of physical controls.

Fun Weekend

2008-01-28T23:26:00.001-08:00

This weekend was a fun one! Myself, and about 20 other people went up to Whistler for a weekend of skiing and debauchery. I partook in both, of course, but my debauchery was quite mild. I swear! I was debating on wether to ski or snowboard as I vowed to learn how to snowboard this season. I was talking with a few on the trip and decided that it would not be a good idea for me to attempt learning how to snowboard in a day. Because of this, and my desire to have a rump which doesn't ache for days, I decided to stick with skiing. Now, it's not really like I am good at skiing, but I think it is fair to say I can ski better than I can snowboard, as I have actually skied before (even though it was only once before). The skiing went well, only face-planted 4 or 5 times.

The mountain itself was gorgeous. It ended up snowing on Saturday so there was fresh snow on the mountain for the day Sunday, which was wonderful and saved a shoulder or two from being destroyed. The place was full of Aussie's too! I guess Australians get board and/or very warm in the summer months and descend on Whistler around Australia Day. It was crazy, there were Aussie flags everywhere and everyone had a accent that wasn't Canadian. Oh yeah, we also apparently saw David Duchovny, and by we, I mean everyone except me even though I had to pardon myself to get by the chair his wife was sitting in because the tables in the place we were eating at were insanely close together.

Obligatory Hello

2008-01-23T22:59:00.001-08:00

Hello to the world! Well, I decided that I needed to have myself a space on the intertubes. I've tried this before, many times in fact, and every single one of them ended up going away after a few weeks because my life, is in fact, quite boring. We'll see how this one goes.

I do, however, have many thoughts on vast subjects, so I think that is what I am going to be concentrating on here. I've been going through an interesting time in life, growing a lot, learning a lot, and making a lot of those lifelong decisions that shape a person, in a manner of speaking.

One thing I actually did want to test with this post was how well images can be integrated into the blog space here. So, I rummaged around to find something amusing and I came across a picture I took around Mother's Day a while back when walking through Pike Place Market. This was at that (apparently world famous) fish tossing place that I am relatively sure is somewhat popular, even outside of Seattle. Anyway, it gave me a chuckle, hope it does you too...