Dry Bones: Not the Donald

The media is so shocked by Trump's pronouncements that folks can't believe that the quote in the cartoon is not by Donald S. Trump but rather by a liberal Democrat.

Click through to read the entire quote by Al Franken.

Light Reading: I Ate Soylent for a Day: 'Food' Special

I Ate Soylent for a Day: 'Food' Special

... I started looking into several food products that have been engineered to deliver complete nutritional needs. The granddaddy of these, announced more than two years ago, is Soylent. Marketed as "a full day of balanced nutrition made in 3 minutes for $3/meal," Soylent is a bag of mixed nutrient powders that you blend with water and drink. The manufacturers and enthusiasts say you can survive on nothing but Soylent all day -- and some do for months -- though most Soylent users live on a mixed diet of Soylent for some meals and snacks, and regular food for others.

I decided to try Soylent to see how I liked it, and whether I could use it for a few meals or snacks on the road to channel my unhealthy eating into healthy patterns....

Interesting, but I can't imagine wanting to drink this goop in place of going to lunch. Lunch breaks aren't just to keep from starving, but to get out of the office for an hour each day and unwind from the morning's stress.

Imgur: These will be useful in certain comment threads

These will be useful in certain comment threads

A great list of logical fallacies commonly used in discussions (in real life as well as on-line), illustrated with football refs.

I may have to link to some of these when confronted with critics who can't think. The one I put in the tag image above seems to be the one I get hit with most often. Along with these gems:

See the full collection.

Bored Lion: 50 Random Objects You Had No Idea Existed

50 Random Objects You Had No Idea Existed

Fortune: Meet Ericsson’s first 5G device

Meet Ericsson’s first 5G device

This 5G test device may be too big to fit into a car, but it’s already outperforming every 4G phone on the market today.

Telecom firm Ericsson is testing out a new 5G device on the streets of Stockholm, Sweden and Plano, Texas, that will revolutionize mobile technology.
...
Ericsson routinely clocks 2 Gbps in its outdoor tests. That’s already ten times faster than the 200 Mbps theoretical speeds available on today’s most powerful 4G networks, and it’s really only the beginning.
...
"This is not only yet another system for mobile broadband," says Sara Mazur, Ericsson’s head of research. "The 5G system is the system that will help create a networked society."

A fascinating look into one company's "5G" wireless research and a possible glimpse at what we can expect to see in a few years. Read the whole article for more interesting information about this new tech.

Rationalist Judaism: Photos from South Africa

Rabbi Nathan Slifkin, author of the Rationalist Judaism blog, has been on a trip to South Africa, to personally see the incredible variety of wildlife.

He just posted two articles full of photos from this trip. I loved looking at them, and you might too:

What A Beautiful World
In The Jungle

Apple History: More on the GUI

More on the GUI

Several years ago, Bruce Horn, one of the original team of engineers that worked on the Macintosh, had this article published in Guy Kawasaki's Evangelist. Jef Raskin, who started development of the Macintosh before Steve Jobs took the project over, had this to say in response. Horn's rebuttal can be read here, and Raskin's second response can be read here.

For those interested in the history of the Macintosh and GUI design in general, the linked articles are incredibly interesting.

nexpaq: the first truly modular smartphone case

nexpaq: the first truly modular smartphone case

nexpaq allows you to easily customize, enhance, and add features to your smartphone through the case. To put it simply: You can add and remove physical "modules" (think Lego bricks with special powers) directly from the back of your case without powering down!

If Project Ara doesn't start shipping product soon, they may find themselves playing catch-up to this group, that is providing many of the same capabilities via a USB-attached case for already-shipping smart phones

The Verge: Building blocks: how Project Ara is reinventing the smartphone

Building blocks: how Project Ara is reinventing the smartphone

Project Ara is not, technically, a phone. It's not even that accurate to call it a project. It's more like a mission. The end goal for ATAP is to hand off a viable product and stewardship of a hardware ecosystem to Google — Eremenko and his small team aren't just building a series of proof-of-concept prototypes; they're attempting to build an industry within an industry.

For those who haven't heard of this before, Project Ara is an R&D project for a modular cell phone.

What this means is that instead of getting one large "brick" with all the features, you get an "endoskeleton" frame into which you can attach various modules. For example, a screen (clearly necessary to have one of these), battery, camera, speaker, microphone, processor, memory, NFC transceiver, cellular transceiver, Wi-Fi, etc.

Sugru: Anybody here actually used this?

Sugru is mouldable glue

Sugru is mouldable glue. Stick it, shape it and it will turn into rubber. We invented it to make fixing and making easy and fun. And now it comes in 10 handy colours!

I saw a link to this stuff today, but I've never heard of it before. Looks pretty interesting. Looks like it has the potential to be the next great repair goop, along with duct tape and superglue.

If you've had personal experience with this, let me know. I'd be really curious to read something more than the manufacturer's own ads.