CELEBRATING VERA RUBIN—HERALDER OF DARK MATTER
THERE ARE PEOPLE who confuse cosmologist with cosmetologist. True, cosmology has to do with stars, but not of the Paltrow or Kardashian variety. According to Merriam-Webster, both terms trace back … Continue reading
THE EYES HAVE IT—0R D0 THℇY?
ARE THESE characters above alphabetical Os or numerical zeroes? Is that a backwards 3 or a stylized alphabetical E, or is it the Greek letter Epsilon or Euler’s constant? Here … Continue reading
ON BEING FOOTLESS AND INQUISITIVE
I GET SO MUCH more than book learning from the London Review of Books. Consider this opening line of a Katherine Rundell article: “A common swift, in its lifetime, flies … Continue reading
ROBOTS: DO WE PREFER PALS OR MACHINES? PART 2
YESTERDAY IN SIMANAITISSAYS, we encountered variations of robot design: C3-PO’s plated mechanicals are nonetheless humanlike. R2-D2’s mechanical torso, arms, and legs give him some humanoid cred. HAL 9000’s impersonal red-eye … Continue reading
ROBOTS: DO WE PREFER PALS OR MACHINES? PART 1
SCI-FI AND REALITY have given us extremes of human/robotic interaction, everything from anthropomorphic constructs to idealized machines bearing no resemblance to humans. What do we prefer? A human-shaped C-3PO? A … Continue reading
EGYPTOLOGY, THIS TIME WITH HIGH TECH
WHEN I MENTIONED EGYPTOLOGY as the topic of yesterday’s SimanaitisSays, Daughter Suz said, “Oh, you mean that thing about King Tut’s meteorite?” Then the postman delivered Wife Dottie’s latest BBC … Continue reading
IS IT TIME FOR AIRCRAFT TO PLUG IN? PART 2
ELECTRIFICATION OF MOBILITY is all the rage. So what about air travel? Tidbits yesterday focused on clearing up a misunderstanding (English Electric aircraft weren’t electric) and celebrating a circumnavigation. Today … Continue reading
IS IT TIME FOR AIRCRAFT TO PLUG IN? PART 1
ELECTRIFICATION OF the automobile is a done deal, albeit not without challenges in its becoming dominant. But what about aircraft? Here, in Parts 1 and 2 today and tomorrow, are … Continue reading
SHARING DATA GRAPHICALLY
WE’RE SEEING a Golden Age in the sharing of data through pictures. Here are tidbits of this, gleaned from here and there with my usual Internet sleuthing. Thank René. In … Continue reading
NANOSTORAGE: A KEY TO EFFICIENT ELECTRIFICATION
IT SOUNDS OXYMORONIC: using the incredibly tiny world of nanomaterials to optimize storage of anything. But look a little deeper: On the nano scale, the right materials have gobs of … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 