Robots and Your Christmas Gifts

Here is an interesting video about industrial robotics that enable order picking in a so-called fulfillment center -- like Amazon has. Each individual shelving unit has a little computerized controller than moves it around on the work floor like a giant gameboard. The computerized shelving units are less robots than drones controlled by a master program.
 

This product, from Kiva Systems, is used by Toys-R-Us, but it is owned by Amazon. Presumably Amazon will use this in their new distribution centers. Amazon appears to be expanding it; Massachusetts-based Kiva has dozens of openings.

Mitt Romney's company Bain Capital was/is an investor in Kiva.

OS X Mountain Lion:

I upgraded to Mountain Lion OSX 10.8. It is the update of the Lion release, and has a minor upgrades and bug fixes. Lion was a major release and it obsoleted a lot of old software. This is mostly little stuff. Maybe that is why it is only $20.

The most notable thing is in Safari -- where the address window now accepts searchers just like Chrome.  A minor feature, but it was one of the reasons that I liked Chrome.

It has scrollbars that hide themselves. I think of them as less convenient, but I seldom use scroll bars, almost always using jesters on the touchpad.

Another little thing is some new desktop pictures and a screensaver.

Another feature is dictation, which still needs some work: here is the transcript for the first dictation:

"Just got him McNab OS X Mountain I am on my night I was upgrade his computer version it's just needed a dude he's my computer working well am anyway so Duncheon any differences really I would've this dictation since I'm taking dictation right now that you write up this blog post will see how it works the first time, and that I was going to what update the mountain on my way to bed."

My policy is to keep the computer up-to-date with the latest revisions. I think it saves me time in the long run.

Diving Off the Fiscal Cliff

I am really tired of politician that can't get anything done. At the end of the year, we have a chance to rid ourselves of all of it. When the tax cuts end and the govenment programs get cut, we just need to embrace it.

We need to get excited about it. I call it Fiscal Cliff Diving.

People get excited about it since it will contract the economy due to the higher taxes and job cuts in government. I say suck it up.

Wood Fungi & Global Warming

Wood Fungi that changed the world.

They even call it the carboniferous age: that was when coal formed in the earth. Then, for some reason it stopped. I have always wondered why, and the climatological explanations never made sense.

Now we know the real reason, it is because fungi evolved a pathway to digest lignin; lignin the inscrutable phenolic component of wood that holds the cellulose together. One species of fungus, Agaricomycetes, evolved a method for digesting lignin, and that ended the new creation of coal. 

Researchers at Clark University and DOE looked at fungal DNA from 31 species of white rot fungus, and then traced back the evolution to the end of the carboniferous period using an assumed model of genetic divergence, and derived 250 million years ago -- matching what is found geologically.

So this little microscopic fungus changed the world

Geo-engineering and global warming

A geo-engineering fix for global warming would be to capture all the atmospheric CO2 -- as trees to, and then lock up so it won't decay and re-enter the atmosphere. The problem is that trees decay. If they did not, then problem solved. That is, we could bury wood underground and entrap all the CO2 that we are releasing elsewhere, but we can't wood fungi makes the wood decay -- back to CO2.

Urbanscreen Light Shows

Google's picture of Manuel Engels,
unconfirmed, but probably right.

Urbanscreen is a group of about 3-6 people, including Manuel Engels, Thorsten Bauer, Till Botterweg. They are based in Bremen Germany.

Urbanscreens is a member of the Urban Screen Association.  The ideas of Ambient Media are described in this article from the University of Applied Sciences Mittweida -- also in Germany. Urbanscreen describes their work as the neologism, lumentecture, which is as good as anything else.

Oh, and they're hiring: so if your German is good, and you want to move to Bremen.

Supermarket Tomatoes Lack Chloroplasts in the Fruit -- that is why They Taste Bland.

Depth of Processing readers probably think that I am obsessed with tomato posts, but Cuong Nguyen at Cornell found a mutated gene in most cultivars of tomatoes that reduce the number of chloropasts in the tomato fruit. 


This gives the fruit a more even color, so that tomato buyers will think a fruit is uniformly ripe even when it is not. 


Importantly, it turns out the chloroplasts also kick out tasty, flavorful chemicals too. This means the commercial varieties are going to taste poorer. 


Haven't you always wondered why commercial growers did not try to breed flavor into the fruit? 

These tomatoes have chloroplasts and have uneven color.

It helps explain why radically different cultivars like Kumato taste better. Check out my Kumato blog post --one of the DoP blog's most popular.  Kumato is a black tomato created relatively recently from salt-resistant cultivars on Galapogos.

Anana Noir, a French tomato, touted for flavor, that
clearly does not ripen evenly. 

Other people claim that Pruden's Purple is one of the best tomatoes for taste, and it is a large, dark and irregularly ripening fruit.  At right is Anana Noir, that ripens very irregularly, but which is supposed to taste great.

This does not help me with why my orange cherry tomatoes taste so good. Perhaps it is because they are so sweet?


The big question going forward is, what will commercial growers do now. Will they look for another way to get good appearance while retaining the flavor producing chloroplasts, or will appearance prevail?

Nike Shox Roadster Review and More Running Shoe Talk

Nike Shox Roadster

I just got some new running shoes I really like. These are Nike Shox Roadster's. There are about eight different colors, but my store only had white -- actually black, white and blue, but the blue looks black. (My skill in photoshopping was not great enough to show the blueness in that dark blue.)

Periodically, I have been posting reviews on my running shoes.  I like shoes that feel good, and that has a lot to do with my injury-of-the-month.  I often think that my exercises regime is a continuous series of recovery from different minor injuries -- does that happen to you?

I like the Shox Roadster because it has three things.

First, a shock-absorbing heel to reduce injury and reduce stress on my knees. These have a tough urethane shock absorber that reminds me of the BASF Cellasto urethane shock absorbers.

Nike Shox Roadster Bottom

Second, a stiff mid-sole to protect my foot. One of the problem with my Nike Lunarglides and Flywires is that get too soft and spongy too fast. As that happens my middle foot starts to hurt.

Z-Coil Freedom

Third, not too heavy. At 443 grams, it is 30% lighter than my Z-Coil Freedom -- an odd shoe with a giant spring on the bottom. The Z-coils make me run noticeably slower. It is also more stable than the Z-Coil which was tippy on dirt paths or grass. 


On the other hand,  it is 17% heavier than my current shoe which is the Under Armour Spectre 2.

Under Armour Spectre 2

The Under Armour Sprectre 2 is a fine shoe, and under ordinary circumstances I think I could wear if fine. It is not helping recover from my overly soft Nike Lunarglides. When my foot heals up, I will go back to them.

Under Armour Spectre 2 Bottom

Here is a list of my recent running shoes and their weights. Obviously all in my size, and just for one shoe. All have pictures here.

Vibram Five Finger   172 g
Nike Flywire              312 g
Adidas Swyft Cushion   323 g
Nike Lunarglide         326 g
UnderArmour Spectre 2     370 g
Nike Agitate Air         417 g
Nike Shox Roadster      443 g
Z-Coil Freedom          623 g

Mosquitos and Repellent Made from Breadfruit

Breadfruit

I have tried organic mosquito repellents before, and I thought they were a big waste of time.  DEET, diethyl toluamide, is the usual one. DEET is a weak neurotoxin, and it numbs the noses of mosquitos, so they can't find you.

Yesterday, I was hauling bricks out of the woods, and I had DEET on my face. When I got some on my lips, I could feel them getting numb. Sometimes infants are harmed by an over-protective mother slathering DEET all over baby.

Breadfruit is a prolific crop grown in southern Pacific Islands, the Caribbean, and other tropical areas.  The flowers of the tree reputedly repel mosquitos and now researchers Maxwell and Jones at U of British Columbia have proven it.

They have separated out all the individual substances and found the three responsible ones---all fatty acids, capric acid, undeconoic acid and laurie acid that have ten to twelve carbons.  

Undecanoic acid is one of the ingredients in breadfruit blossoms.
The flowers are a good spot to find the fatty acids.  

No one thinks that C-10 to C-12 fatty acids are neurotoxins, so I wonder how it works.

My DW believes that coconut oil is a balm for all illnesses, and one that coconut oil is touted for is mosquito repellency. It is interesting coconut oil has a lot of C-6 to C-12 fatty acid, so rancid or over-processed coconut oil might work as a mosquito repellent.  Cooking up coconut oil to degrade it, especially with acid or base would make it work better. I did not find any commercial mosquito repellants like that.

There is a slightly geekier version of this on my other blog.

My Vegetable Garden for '12

This year's garden got a very early start because I could work the soil back in MARCH -- global warming came though with lots of great Spring weather.

Big changes this year are: 

++ Bye-bye Strawberries. After three terrible seasons, I have torn them all out. They kept sending runners so they grew into a mat of tiny strawberries -- each one too small to make fruit. I also tore out the blueberries which have been doing NOTHING.

++ Hello EIGHT tomatoes. Last year, I nearly had CROP FAILURE when the late blight stuck. I put in twice as many this year. I am also growing a few in different ways like, some in Wall-O-Waters and some without. Some staked and some running. And five different varieties. No heirlooms either -- only blight resistant hybrids.   

++ Catnip continues to takeover more real estate. Jenny likes it though. 

++ Asparagus - despite the asparagus jinx, I have big health asparagus ferns this year. [The asparagus jinx is that I always get transferred before I get a chance to eat the asparagus. In the last house I delayed planting it because I did not want to move. Later I got cocky thinking it was just a superstition, and I planted some, and then --- I got transferred. So the healthy crop this year is making a prediction. . .]

++ Marigolds - This year I have marigolds in the old strawberry patch. They are in a bed rather than a border. Sofia French Marigolds in front and  American Marigolds in back. 

++ Miracle Grow -- This year I am a commercial for Miracle Grow. After last year generic products, I am back to name brand fertilizer. I know it is all the same, but Miracle Grow is a good product at a good price. 

Varieties

Burpee's Big Boy. Vigorous and fairly self-supporting so far.

Early Girl Improved. This is the vigorous one;
The less vigorous one produced a fruit on 8-June:
Early!

Acorn squash grown from a sweet variety
we bought at the store. 

A Snack Attack Tomato. Looks good. I'll let you know how it tastes.

This is my Sweet 100. Very vigorous. I have had
two cherry tomatoes so far. Both were from flowers that set inside.

Other crops are basil, peas, eggplant, peppers (pimento), and leeks. The peas are strong, and falling all over each other. 

See my older garden post from 2009, and the 2010 tomato posting.

Thumb Drive

Here is a real thumb drive.

I tried to figure out where you could get one to link to the post, but all the links I could find did not work. An early poster was Ubergizmo, but they don't have it on their site any more.

I wonder if it was photoshopped, but it looks too plastic