Timewaster's Guide Archive

i signed up for the newsletter yesterday for news about the beta

http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62431

The FCC recentley gave the OK for a certain band of the wireless spectrum (2155-MHz to 2180-MHz) to be set aside to be for use for free services. Such services would cover things like wireless internet or cell phone service. If this goes through, as early as next year in june, we could see them auctioning off these frequencies to use by companies/organizations that plan to offer free services using these bands. (i'll bet google will jump on this bandwagon, somehow) This is part of the FCC's approach to having broadband available nationwide. However, they are currently meeting resistance from cell phone companies such as T-Mobile, claiming that it will interfere with their services.

*snip*
....The absolutely only danger is that the radiation would decrease the nutritional value of the food being radiated.....
*snip*

This, along with the impact to flavor, is my main concern.Lettuce (iceberg, specifically, one of the most common types) in particular, all ready has poor nutritional value on its own, and loses its naturally small amount of flavor easily when it comes to cooking. (I make a pretty big hobby out of cooking, so these sort of issues concern me)

The reports on it state that it will have "no signifigant impact" to either of these areas, but to me that statement silently says that there WILL be impact. The degree of this impact is what I would be concerned with.

It's been a while since my college physics classes (i certainly don't claim to be a physicist, any and all knowledge of physics, including from schools, is from a personal intrest, and not proffessional), but I know there is a certain degree of ionized background radiation that is natural, and I know that some small amounts can result in improved growth in seedlings, but living creatures can repair damages incured from small amounts of ionized radiation, and obviously something dead cannot. I just don't want to be like "Man, salads arent as good as i remembered" like 10 years from now.

Nope. Never even had the slightest inkling of wanting to switch. Qwerty man here, through and through (and i'm too lazy to switch)



....Qwerty man....sounds like an awesome super hero to me!

First thing this is from the highly liberal Huffington post. D'oh. Gotta love those comments.

Second. Third arm? Dude. I suppose if you've been eating hamburgers then you would already have one. If it hurt you. Which it doesn't.

The only thing that I would care about is if it makes food cost more. Spinach already costs more than I think it should.

And to expect farmers to document where they get their fertilizer and how they irrigate? GRRRRR. That's really excessive. They are already regulated on how their farms are set up. Documenting water and fertilizer that would be time consuming (and sometimes difficult, especially if they're trying to grow organically) and what would it solve? It makes food cost most because farmers would have yet another step (a useless one) to take their time.

Well, I'm not intricately familiar with the huffington post, it was just the first (decentley written, and least biased seeming) article i ran across, and if that article isn't believable to you, then there's a CNN article as well (among others like ABC, etc), detailing it as well.

Also: the third arm thing was meant to be a joke. I know they all ready irradiate meats (see previous post), however, irradiated meats are required to be marked because of the (relatively to other foods, like wheats, flours, etc) use such a high amount of radiation to do so.

I didn't bring it up to call it bad, or to strike it down. And I didn't say I was for or against it, I was just bringing it up because I wanted to see what opinions were floating around about it. Health-wise, I have no problem with it, as my food isn't radioactive and hasn't been. Flavor/nutrient wise, I'm unsure, as I know irradiating food supposedly has some impact on it (and one of the main reasons organic food makes great cooking ingredients, but that's another issue all together), but I am unsure of what great degree, I was merely trying to spur discussion on the issue.

FDA Recentley approves irradiation of spinach and lettuce


Thoughts, comments, third arms?

Pandora taking preorders until this sunday.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a2/Pandora-latest-080508.jpg

for those who dont know, the Pandora is an "open source" portable gaming/media device. It has emulators for most systems up to the Playstation all ready developed for it, can play videos and music, and has wifi and bluetooth connections, and allows for web browsing. Note that being open source, and having emulators of each of these systems opens the doors for amateur game developers to create their own games that utilize these emulators to create and distribute games

Specs:

Texas Instruments OMAP3530 processor at 600MHz (Manufacturer reports that it can be overclocked to 900MHz[5])

128MB DDR-333 SDRAM

256MB NAND FLASH memory

IVA2+ audio and video processor (based on the TMS320C64x+ DSP Core at 430MHz) using TI's DaVinci technology

ARM Cortex-A8 superscalar microprocessor core

PowerVR SGX 530 (110 MHz) OpenGL ES 2.0 compliant 3D hardware

Integrated Wi-Fi 802.11b/g

Integrated Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR (3Mbit/s) (Class 2, +4dBm)[6]

800x480 resolution touchscreen LCD, 4.3" widescreen, 16.7 million colors (300 cd/m2 brightness, 450:1 contrast ratio)

Dual analog nubs; 15mm diameter, concave, 2mm travel from centre

Full gamepad controls plus shoulder buttons

Dual SDHC card slots (currently up to 64GB of storage)

Headphone output up to 150mW/channel into 16 ohms, 99dB SNR

TV output (composite and S-Video)

Internal microphone plus ability to connect external microphone through headset

43 button QWERTY and numeric keypad

USB 2.0 OTG port (480Mb/s) with capability to charge the Pandora

USB 2.0 HOST port (480Mb/s) capable of providing standard 500mA current to attached devices

Externally accessible UART for hardware hacking and debugging

Brick prevention with integrated bootloader for safe code experimentation

Runs the Linux kernel (2.6.x)

4000mAH rechargeable lithium ion battery

Approximately 10 hours of runtime for video / general applications and 100 hours for music playback

Dimensions: 140x83x27mm[6]

Quote from: Eerongal on September 19, 2008, 01:48:34 PM

Quote from: Silenced Parrot on September 19, 2008, 05:00:13 AM

I'm not entirely sure if this has been linked, but if it has it's worth a re-watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apEZpYnN_1g

Dr. Horrible. My favorite musical.

Easily his best role since Doogie Howser.

I completely agree. Nathan Fillion does a great job as Captain Hammer too.

heh, captain hammer was awesome. "It would seem the only signature he needed was my fist.....except...ya know...with a pen..and signing..."