Scotto's Wall Scrawls

8/1 - Lughnasadh, the holy day of Lludd, Samhain, next! My next birthday is 6 months from now - and the last is six months in the past, give or take a few hours.

Dagwood night with the in-laws and BHK! Tooth was bugging me a bit, so I didn't consume too much.

Watched more of Black Magic with Raymond burr and Orson Welles. Not a terribly excellent film. A lot of scenery chewing, and a good excues to cuddle on the couch.

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Quote of the moment - "Everything you think affects your spirit, your mood, and your ability to contribute to others."

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I think of a home ready to be robbed when it's August and I see a Christmas Wreath on the door... or one that's open to squatters.

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Water on Mars: confirmed.

Laboratory tests aboard NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander's robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples.

The lander itself added, on Twitter, "FTW!" (I imagine and hope that's "for the win", not the other one... "f*** the world".)

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I want a robostool. (No, not robot poop, dear journal.) See also:“Take a seat” is a robotic chair that follows you around

Yeah, so I want a pet chair.

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Sam Raimi plans to do a superhero series with Disney called The Transplants.

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PSA of the moment -

ANGIE GOFF IS RUNNING THE:

VISIT HER RACE PAGE BY CLICKING HERE

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1 year ago - Pepper pic form the garden, upcoming events, Emily reminds me of Wendy and monkey shenanigans, picture taken from subway ride to work, games, turning heat into electricity using sound, all optical magnetic recording, Kat tells BHK and me to get a room (in comments)

2 years ago - sharks don't have knees, boiled eggs, yoga, map issues, Dave nose-operation, 4-sec frenzy, Theoi project, FOLEDs, grammar rock, man tosses a car, hungry ghost month, TS Chris

3 years ago - peaceful Sunday, Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla, PB-J time, Grizzly Golf Attack is true, "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave."

4 years ago - Rob Shea Quote, appropriate for E-journals everywhere, I played with mercury, JL meme, music, Dave, Rain, Social entity, first hints at Mike-drama, search shortcuts, albinos of the 19th century, echolocation alarms

5 years ago - crazy dreams, Kate Bush, starmark poops but new gig, writing systems, non-castaways on gilligan's isle

6 years ago - istockphoto, dead links, Shitou Xiqian, smiled at, fortune cookie, walkerbot, Liver Eatin' Johnson

7 years ago - hungrybaby, New Apes movie lame, wiseacre, Champions stats for the Shadow, Dwayne Dibley?, Poul Anderson passes away, LJ moves in space

8 years ago - Everway character- wanders the storm path

It's the Weekend!!!

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NASA is bracing for “seven minutes of terror,” when an unmanned craft landing on Mars may wake a dormant robot army that could rise up to invade and crush our civilization… oh, wait. They’re saying the space ship might tip over. That’s all.

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Spent most of the day shopping for a new couch and a new bed - found the bed we wanted at a decent price - we pick it up tomorrow, and our old bed goes to the blue house for storage. We have a new Queen Size pillow top marshmallow (but firm) - feels good at the store - can't wait to try it at home.

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Gaming in my brain -

Next game I want to pick up is Hive. (with the mosquito ) I like the insect theme and bakelite tiles a lot - I'll have to see if Aardvark can order it for us.

Unlike the US government, Hasbro lets you print out your own Monopoly money. There are PDFs for 1,5,10,20,50,100, and 500 dollar bills.

Good for any money-handling game, really. Witch Trial comes immediately to my mind. (which uses our monopoly money more than monopoly does)

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From New Scientist Tech: (or, a better use of a Newt/Pye cam?)

To try and develop a more sophisticated model, the team recorded the responses of 49 individual neurons in a part of a cat’s brain called the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN). The LGN receives and processes visual information from the retina, via the optic nerve, before sending it on to the cerebral cortex.

The data made it possible to build a software model of the LGN that can approximate how the neurons would respond to real scenes. The model was tested against scenes recorded from a “catcam” camera attached to a cat’s head.

“We chose the catcam because it was the most natural stimulus we could think of, the closest to what a cat would see when walking around,” Matteo Carandini told New Scientist. Because the catcam footage lacked elements moving independently from the rest of the scene, the researchers also used a scene from Disney’s animated film Tarzan.

The model’s predictions proved to be 80% accurate when shown artificial scenes, but this figure fell to 60% with the natural scenes or the Tarzan movie.

The ultimate goal of the research, still years distant, is to develop an implant that uses visual data to directly stimulate the LGN of blind people whose optic nerve or retina has degenerated from lack of use.

“For these people, a prosthesis in the eye doesn’t help,” Carandini explains. Only people who have recently become blind can benefit from such implants – currently being tested in humans – that stimulate the retina or optic nerve

Work on monkeys last year showed it is possible to stimulate the LGN using electrodes to alter their vision, something previously thought impossible. Software models like that developed by Carandini and colleagues would be vital for an implant to stimulate the right neurons to create a mental impression of vision.

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1 year ago - birth control, thursday, Catching up with TD, good stuff, gp and kat vanishment

2 years ago - man-bear, joker laughs, day off, but on call, if meme

3 years ago - Simple short film expressing life and death, first auto-post, bears, MP calls me, zombies, rapture, flip top box, cannibal, birthday meme, RIP Thurl Ravenscroft, 6 questions meme

4 years ago - robo-scotto, LLAP-Goch, arms, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Fire Cracker Labels, freaky man-made island, bro

5 years ago - yale bombing, kiwano, doodle fizzles, D & I in There

6 years ago - dead picture trail links, bad dreams, re: pus jars, long weekend, train and bus smells, wondering what sci-fi geeks will watch with Buffy and x-files gone. Hm... I guess smallville is it? I don't watch much regular TV, ikkyu poem, ARQuake.

7 years ago - blue rosebuds, gnomon, Herman the human mole, word association, evil news, scottsquatch returns, jelly jack, Joel gorilla

8 years ago - my first user icon - ,Heather outs Alex as a cheater and a bisexual (remember kids, post something publicly on the net, and the world can see it, even people you know.)