rat dreams

Wired article on using biological neural networks to control aircraft.

You know how every once in a while, you read an article that includes a sentence that clearly made the author's entire day?

"Somewhere in Florida, 25,000 disembodied rat neurons are thinking about flying an F-22."

Aside from that, it's not clear to me how this research differs from, say, research that's been going on for a couple of decades...except that in this case the networks are biological rather than artificial. But it's still interesting.

Rubik's Cube and Legos

A Rubik's cube made out of Legos:

http://users.skynet.be/maarten.steurbaut/Rubik_Cube.htm

and a Rubik's cube solver made out of Legos (which, oddly enough, came first):

http://jpbrown.i8.com/cubesolver.html

:) :) :)

The Presidential Horror Show

(Snagged from auros, who apparently got it from his dad.)

http://i.euniverse.com/funpages/cms_content/5809/presidential_horror_show.swf

The scansion and animation are not the best that I've heard/seen. But it's not bad, and there are plenty of people that I know that will count themselves the poorer if they don't see this no matter how bad it is. So...enjoy.