Baumblog EST 1968 - A blog for the Baumbachs who originated in Syracuse, NY


	Posts tagged with "news"

Yep, the Make-A-Wish Foundation rocks!
posted by GJ on April 30, 2010 @ 9:36AM

Check out their latest goings-on in Seattle. Take that, Dr. Dark!

UPDATED with video

7 comments | Tags: news

Note to Russia: returning to the Soviet Way nyet likely to work
posted by GJ on June 5, 2009 @ 3:48PM

Now, I'm familiar with revisionist history, and well aware that the winners write history. However, Russia's neo-Soviet government is toying with Soviet-era tactics, like, oh, I dunno, rewriting history. Nyet so fast, Boris! I think the Poles would like a word with you.

No comments | Tags: politics, news

Ghostbusters is rising from the grave!
posted by GJ on May 28, 2009 @ 12:14PM

Those of you who grew up in the 1980s know the Ghostbusters franchise well--it was pretty much everywhere in the mid-80s, and continued on into the early 1990s with the second movie and animated series. It's coming back as a top-notch video game, which should form the launchpad for a third movie, handing the torch to a new set of young Ghostbusters.

The New York Times did a good interview with Dan Akroyd which you may wish to read, if nothing else, to rekindle old memories and learn some fun facts. You might want to check it out!

6 comments | Tags: games, news, entertainment, movie

Marc said 3 minutes later

That's not all. I forget where I read it, but it was another interview with Dan Akroyd verifying that Ghostbusters 3, the movie is coming out. Supposedly is likely to start filming in the winter. The rumor has been floating around for quite some time, but this was straight from Akroyd himself and he verified all of the original Ghostbusters are back to pass the torch on to younger, and female, Ghostbusters. Likely will be terrible.

The game looks pretty cool, graphically, but based on the videos it looks like it will lose the fun factor after capturing 2 or 3 ghosts.
GJ said about 1 hour later

Actually, don't write off the game. I think it could well succeed due to the quality of the writing. It'll be more than just capturing ghosts, methinks. It's being hinted that there is enough original material in the game to equal a movie--no small feat. I'm looking forward to it.

As for the movie, it's hard to say. First order, the movie isn't a done deal--the game is supposed to "test the waters." However, writers have been commissioned, so that's a very good sign. I think filming could potentially start this year if the studio likes the script. The younger ghostbusters won't all be female, btw, but expect at least one female cadet.
Marc said about 2 hours later

I saw a video preview on Gamespot of the game and they said the script is really well written and pretty hilarious, but the gameplay does get old pretty fast. I imagine it will be successful due to the script, but likely won't hold my attention. Every game that focuses on storyline never holds me, but I'll certainly give it a shot and see how I like it.
GJ said about 3 hours later

Thanks for the linky, I'll have to check it out. Me, I like the story-based games just fine--that's partially what drew me to things like Wing Commander back in the day. So long as the game duties don't become totally mind-numbing, it should work for me.
Geoff said about 21 hours later

Looks pretty cool from the Gamespot review.
GJ said about 22 hours later

The gameplay looks interesting, but the graphics were too jumpy for my tastes. Here's to hoping that's cleaned up some by launch. Wonder how it'll look on the Wii.

Is Government Regulation the Answer for This?
posted by GJ on May 13, 2009 @ 12:54PM

By now, you've probably see the stories of the moron who crashed that commuter jet near Buffalo NY in mid-February 2009, killing 50 people in the plane and on the ground in Clarence Center. This doofus, who couldn't pass pretty much every evaluation he took, apparently lied on his app to the airline back in 2005 to hide these failures. He wasn't qualified to even fly the plane he crashed. Finally, in a move that anyone who has played any semi-realistic flight simulator who not do, decided to pull back the stick and climb when the plane warned him that he was approaching stall speed--ignorant of the fact that speed drastically decreasing when climbing altitude in a plane. Duhhhh.

I'm not certain of the rules and regs that are enforced here by the government. Obviously, something broke down--either, there wasn't enough regulation and (as has been shown many times in the past) the company chose profits over safety, or the regulation was there, but not enforced properly.

It's obvious some kind of oversight is needed--but at the same time, you have to ensure that you don't suffocate the company in the process. Boy, the world would be a simpler place if, I dunno, people took responsibility for themselves and those in their care.

What would you recommend?

10 comments | Tags: politics, news

Geoff said about 20 hours later

No it isn't. Are we going to turn to the government for everything? How about fly with a different carrier? Or not fly at all...or build your own plane and fly it. The government has their hands in too much already, and look what they've done. They killed Pontiac. Bastards.
Eric said about 20 hours later

I tend to agree with GJ on this one, to a point. When it comes to passenger air travel, I believe the government needs to be fairly involved. I'm not saying more oversight is needed, but maybe more enforcement. There's no question that airlines, especially discount ones, will put profit in front of safety. The federal government must make sure the interstate and international air travel meets safety standards.

But yes, Geoff. The Fed has their hands in WAY to much already. And they have for many, many years.
Geoff said about 21 hours later

Yeah I thought I would bite on GJ's proposition. Anytime I rag on the Government I usually incite some retaliation...especially tossing GM into the equation haha
Kristen said 1 day later

And people laugh at me for refusing to ride on turbo props. Ha!
GJ said 1 day later

This guy could have been flying anything and would have crashed it. :)
Steve said 4 days later

Geez, the two big time democrats are complaining about how much involvement the government has in private business and people's lives? Are you sure you're in the right party?
Geoff said 4 days later

I consider myself a Libertarian more than Democrat...though I don't look to dissolve the whole government, just a good portion of it :)
GJ said 4 days later

Do show me where I'm complaining about that, please.

Let's see, I said "Boy, the world would be a simpler place if, I dunno, people took responsibility for themselves and those in their care.

I didn't say "Boy, the world would be a simpler place if, I dunno, people took responsibility for themselves and those in their care. So, let's legislate with that in mind and see how it shakes out." That's the GOP line. The Dem line would probably be "Boy, the world would be a simpler place if, I dunno, people took responsibility for themselves and those in their care. Thanks to human nature being what it is, we'll have to put legislative control in to make sure this never happens again."

I specifically stayed away from making an opinion on this one, which is also why my lone previous comment was a dig on this particular pilot's abilities, or lack thereof.

Unlike Geoff, I'm no Paulite. I'm more of a fiscal conservative, social liberal kind of guy. In other words, it depends on the issue. However, if there was an anti-Woo party, I'd be that. :)
Geoff said 4 days later

I don't think you can say the words "fiscal conservative" and "social liberal" in the same sentence. :)
GJ said 4 days later

That's why you're a Libertarian, and I'm not.

Now this is a superhero!
posted by GJ on December 13, 2008 @ 10:29AM

It appears the folks in Sheffield, England have their very own Batman...

No comments | Tags: news

The crazy, it's strong in this one.
posted by GJ on November 16, 2008 @ 12:28PM

I often wonder where one goes to be trained about satanic cults and how to identify their nefarious activites. Rev. James Moligano of St. Martin de Porres Catholic Church in Jensen Beach, Florida seems to know.

3 comments | Tags: funny, news

Big Science News (tm)
posted by GJ on October 21, 2008 @ 8:02AM

Researchers at Ohio State University have made a startling discovery with solar cell efficiency. Before I get into the specifics of this research, let me give you a few facts regarding why solar power hasn't had much of an impact on our energy problems to date:

It comes down to poor efficiency: solar cells absorb very little light in terms of the total wavelength of light (remember that colors are shifts in the wavelength of light, and there are wavelengths that are not visible to humans, too). They also work by having this light jettison a free electron from the substrate material--that's how we generate electricity. However, that electron is only free for a few zillionths of a second, making it hard to capture it (charge separation). The combination of these two issues meant the net efficiency by the late 80s was only 17%...today, some high end cells manufactured for NASA can hit up to 30%, but they're super expensive. Fossil fuels, as a comparison, are 98%. These are also not that cheap to produce, and take a lot of surface area to produce any amount of measurable power. What's the use of solar cells to power your house if you need a solar array the size of your properly to power 50% of your needs?

So, what did these researchers come up with? A new combination of material that now absorbs the full wavelength of light. That's pretty cool--a lot of energy was lost in the wavelengths the old materials would miss. Even better, however, they managed to drop the cost of charge separation, as this material now emits two forms of free electrons and one of them stays ejected in the microsecond range--while that sounds super fast, it's several orders of magnitude in time longer than normal free electrons from the original solar cell design. See this article for some more technical detail, if you'd like it. If that's too high-level for you, try the abstract for the paper instead. :) Just kidding, here's another less-technical summary.

So, what does this do in terms of efficiency? Word is, this approach could bring us right on the doorstep of fossil fuels, and do it in a much smaller footprint. You could conceivably power your house's needs from a few panels on the roof of your house, and it could power ALL your needs. That would be awesome, wouldn't it?

Practical application is years away obviously, and right now we don't know if they'll come up with a cost-effective manufacturing method, which of course is critical for deployment and competition with existing power sources. But hey, this is the first really big news in solar cells since the early 90s, when they managed to up the efficiency to 20% using gallium-arsenide (this eventually tapped out to the 30% they have today). Exciting stuff, indeed!

7 comments | Tags: news, science

Steve said about 10 hours later

Can you say hello to electric cars? Free solar power, to charge your car. Question is, how big of a capacitor is out there to hold the charge from the daylight to recharge your car and run your power at night? I assume there's stuff out there, I just don't know crap about electrical stuff.
Marc said about 12 hours later

Sounds too good to be true, so it probably is. :) If not, Ohio State University just became the most important university in the world.
GJ said about 24 hours later

That capacitor you speak of is the modern day fuel cell, Steve. But yes, electric cars would be just one of the major changes to our lives, should this come to fruition.

Marc--you are absolutely right to be skeptical. This sounds a lot like the "free energy" argument that the perpetual motion folks often claim. In this case, we have a peer-reviewed article, and you can bet your life that it will be tested to death, being re-evaluated by scientists the world over. It may not survive this inquest, especially if these scientists are fudging their numbers. Just look at what happened to the boneheads who tried to prove cold fusion.

I'm inclined to think they may be on to something, though. It's been known since solar cells were first designed that the limitation of frequencies of light and the charge separation cost were the two huge limiting factors that required gigantic arrays to produce measurable power. Certainly, work has been done to expand the frequency pickup--most of the more advanced cells out there today do this, and this allows them to almost double that 17% efficiency rating. Those methods are very expensive and probably won't ever find their way into the public's hands.

This setup picks up all the wavelengths of light--which we knew was coming someday, but never figured it'd be this easy. On top of that, they discovered a new form of free electron that makes the capture of said electrons far, far easier. That wasn't something anyone expected, and it's cool as hell. If they can scale this up without losing that property, we are in for a wild ride. Of course--that's still an IF.

Even if this doesn't pan out, all is not lost. The scientific principles here, some of which have already been vetted, will find their way into other new solar cell designs. Progress moves on, and other advances will occur--and probably quickly, since this has opened up a lot of new thinking in solar cell design. It may well be 20 years before we see commercial applications, but hey, it's a great light at the end of the tunnel.
GJ said 1 day later

Steve--an update. Solar power cars--not going to happen. Even if we increase the efficiency five-fold as promised here, you still won't have enough surface area on the car to generate enough power even in broad daylight. You could, of course, plug your electric car into your solar-powered house to charge it, but in this way it wouldn't matter if your house had solar or not.

Another issue--more to Marc's point. Manufacturing efficiency is still a big issue. One would hope that demand provided by the above solution would serve to light a fire under the manufacturing research folks, as without a breakthrough there, solar will never have enough units on the ground to rival fossil fuels.
Geoff said 1 day later

forget solar...what about an antimatter car? Now that would rock. Had an enjoyable TV show on Discovery called Apocalypse|How which talked about it. Amusing to say the least. Of course right now we have about enough antimatter to power a light bulb for a few minutes according to Wiki, but with a few grams of it we could send a ship to Mars in a couple minutes.

GJ said 1 day later

You missed this quote: "If we could assemble all of the antimatter we've ever made at CERN and annihilate it with matter, we would have enough energy to light a single electric light bulb for a few minutes."

And then there is the cost equation. :)
Geoff said 1 day later

yeah that was funny too. However, if we could manage to convince some nanobots to build us some antimatter, we could take an afternoon trip to Alpha Centauri!

Informative, but hardly surprising
posted by GJ on September 25, 2008 @ 10:17AM

Surprise--people aren't often swayed by the facts.

How else do you explain belief in UFOs, creationism, and perpetual-motion machines?

2 comments | Tags: news, science

What Hath Internet Profanity Filters Wrought?
posted by GJ on September 3, 2008 @ 9:13AM

If you spend any time on FARK, you'll notice that they don't let you use bad words like f**k and sh*t, and a whole bunch of others. Instead, they get "transformed" to things like "fark" and "shiat."

Now, the f-word and s-word aren't usually part of other normal, non-cuss-words. The alternate name for donkey, however, is not so lucky. Check out this article for an amusing analysis of this problem on the web.

2 comments | Tags: funny, news

Pepper Spray, anyone?
posted by Kristen on July 11, 2008 @ 9:53AM

check out this news story: http://video.nbc4.com/player/?id=274663

(sorry, the add link button isn't working, at least on this mac laptop I borrowed from school. Heck, I can't even figure out how to left click without a mouse)

Happened yesterday morning right near where I jog all the time, including the morning before at the exact same time (7:30 am). Luckily I had decided to take a day off! But another woman came forward saying she was almost attacked near the site July 1st. Checked my ipod, and yup, I was out running at the same time that morning. Gee, I must have scared him off with my speedy 10 minute miles. On second thought, I wasn't wearing any make-up, so that could have done it!

I went in search of pepper spray yesterday and found some at Gander Mountain. I had been meaning for some time to buy it, mostly due to the fact that I've had some close encounters with scary dogs. I also ordered one of those road id's that you can strap to your ankle. (that way after I get kidnapped he can then steal my identity!) Went out this morning with my cell strapped to my arm instead of my ipod and pepper spray in hand (with the safety off..LOL). Stayed on busy streets. I got hardly 100 feet from my house before a lady walking her dog reminded me that a gunman was on the loose attacking joggers. What a relaxing run...

sucks to be a girl!

1 comment | Tags: news


	1 2 3 Next page

Username:
Password:
Remember me