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This is not new info but it's interesting enought to be presented here
The same company that makes those cute little household vacuuming robots now has a military robot that is equipped with a pump action shotgun capable of firing shotgun rounds and presumably killing enemy combatants (or anyone who happens to be standing in front of the 'bot). The robot is called the Pacbot, and it has already seen action in Iraq. The Pacbot weighs about 40 pounds, and is propelled by heavy-duty tracks. It also has chemical sensors that detect nuclear, biological, and chemical contaminants. It's currently being tested by the 29th Infantry Regiment at Fort Benning, Georgia. more

Supercomputers: The Design of the zBox Supercomputer

(July 2002) The development of the zBox began on one of my (Joachim Stadel) early visits with Ben Moore in Zurich. We knew we needed a big machine to pursue the type of research we wanted to do, and we were not entirely happy with the available commercial solutions, nor their cost. We were out at "Das Lokal" in Zurich where we began to cook up ideas for how we would build a supercomputer. Once back in Victoria I put the main points of the design down on paper (right). In mid July I arrived in Zurich and we reevaluated our plan, the machine was to have 288 processors, quite a bit larger than the 128 I originally thought we would try. After some rearranging of components so that we could put 3 nodes, or 6 CPUs, on a single platter, we were ready to set things into motion. more

Supercomputers: Building Your Own Super Computer - Building Windows Clusters

Before starting, you should have the following hardware and software:

* At least two computers with Windows NT, SP6 or Windows 2000 networked with some sort of LAN equipment (hub, switch etc.).
* Ensure during the Windows set up phase that TCP/IP, and NETBUI are installed, and that the network is started with all the network cards detected and the correct drivers installed.

We will call these two computers a Windows cluster. You now you need some sort of software that will help you to develop, deploy and execute applications over this cluster. This software is the core of what makes a Windows cluster possible. more

Yachts and boats: Building a stitch and glue dinghy

Building a wooden boat is an exciting and rewarding experience. If you are not well prepared for what is coming however, it can also turn into a frustrating experience (many amateur boatbuilders know this). I believe that the following requirements, in order of importance, must be satisfied if you want to enjoy building your own boat. You surely can work out something with less, but it is likely to take the fun out of boatbuilding. more

Yachts and boats: On Building Terrapin 42

Reuel Parker's Terrapin 42 is an exceptional design for any boatbuilder. I had dreamt of building my own wooden boat, and many are the plans that I had studied with care. I wanted a cruising boat for the Gulf Coast, Bahamas, and something capable of extended trips throughout the Caribbean. It had to be large enough for four adults, but manageable by two when one does not plan to sail round-the-clock. Moreover, since the intended cruising grounds showed that there are many appealing anchorages that can accommodate a draft of 32 in., but not 5 feet, a centerboard seemed appropriate. more

Yachts and boats: About Building the Sheet-Ply Chebacco-20

The Chebacco-20 is a trailerable dayboat designed by Phil Bolger, the prolific American naval architect who is perhaps best known for his ‘Instant Boat’ designs for amateur boatbuilders. The design was commissioned by Brad Story, the boatbuilder of Essex, Massachusetts - a few miles along the coast from Phil’s base in Gloucester. The resulting boat is unballasted, with a shallow keel and centreboard, displacing about 1200 pounds (550 kg). She relies on her form, rather than ballast, for stability although some owners have seen fit to put in two or three hundred pounds of ballast. She is rigged as a cat-yawl, with a high peaked gaff main and small sprit-boomed mizzen. The cockpit is huge, for a 20-foot boat, and the cabin minimal - with room for a couple of sleeping bags on the floor. With a simple boom-tent, there’s room for two more to sleep in the cockpit. more

Yachts and boats: Building the Leah Gent

After a few weeks of rounding up materials and getting to know the UPS guy, we turned the pile of clear yellow pine into frames. We found that there was more slope in the floor of the shed than we thought when we leveled the stongback. The shed was a good size for boatbuilding when we started but got really small as we set up the frames on the strongback. This is a big boat!! more

Astronomy: Plans for Building a Dobsonian Telescope

Yes, it "looks like a cannon," but the above is really a ten-inch (measured by the diameter of the objective) Newtonian telescope that almost anybody can build. Here you will find plans to build this telescope, or a smaller one--either a six-inch, or an eight-inch--of identical design. These plans are only slightly modified from the plans The Sidewalk Astronomers have been sending to interested parties for a mere $2.00 via snail-mail. more

Astronomy: The perfect telescope

This six inch reflector is very close to "the perfect telescope" in many ways. It is inexpensive, reasonably portable, gives good performance on planets, the moon and deep sky objects and is simple. more

Robotics & AI: How to Build a Computerized Android Robot Head for $600.00

It is possible to build a computer-driven, life-size, android robot head (Figure 1) for cost of materials of about $600.00. The android head will have two color video-camera eyes with the video going both into a window on the PC and into an image processing Java application. The robot will have six servo motors controlling: (1) base of the head spins, (2,3) each eye moves left/right, (4) both eyes move up/down, (5,6) each eye-lid opens/closes. All servo motors are controlled via a Java application. The user supplies the computer (PC). The details of how to construct such a head follows, based on the authors creation of Robot Maxamilian, R. Max for short. more

Robotics & AI: Lego Mindstorm ... what a toy :)

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand the power behind this toy. You just have to be a child to ask for one of them and start playing with some really interesting robots :)
You can find some pictures here http://news.zdnet.com/2300-9584_22-6021563-1.html?tag=nl.e589
more

Yachts and boats: An interesting essay about the chinese sail

Nobody could have designed the Chinese Sail, if only for fear of being laughed at. A device so elaborate and clumsy in conception yet so simple and handy in operation could only have evolved through trial and error. It is indifference rather than difficulty that has caused Chinese sailing craft to be so little studied in the West but the difficulties themselves are formidable enough. more

Robotics & AI: DARPA Grand Chalange has a winner

You know the job ... get a vehicle ... put a computer or whatever brain you have (but yours) in it and drive it from one end of the desert to another.
It sounds strange at first sight but it is a straight forward aproach if you want inovation.
DARPA chosed this way and proposed an award of 1 million USD in 2002 (next year it grew to 2 milions). Now they have a winner (named Stanley and build by a team from Stanford University) and more than that ... 5 vehicles were able to finish the track. more

Hardware and general IT info: Old story ... new article: Linux vs Windows

Follow the link and you will see a ZDNet article that is correctly analizing the issue. It shows the thru face of a benchmark and how litle aspects of the configuration can make a difference when you do a test. Nice story and a language for everybody. more

Yachts and boats: The Fastest Kayak

"How designer and builder Ted Warren creates a unique kayak, which floats over the sea rather than nosing through waves like a typical one." A beautifull article about building a boat in the traditional way (even if it use epoxy :)) ) more

Supercomputers: Supercomputing in Linux

A step-by-step guide on how to set up a cluster of PCQLinux machines for supercomputing.
To keep it simple, we start with a cluster of three machines. One will be the server and the other two will be the nodes. However, plugging in additional nodes is easy and we will tell you the modification to accommodate additional nodes. Instead of two nodes, you can have a single node. So, even if you have two PCs, you can build a cluster. more

Supercomputers: Build your own supercomputing Linux cluster using Knoppix-based LiveCDs.

For this I used two boxes. The master node was a Pentium™ III 1.7-GHz box with 384 MB RAM that it shares with the on-board graphics. The drone is a Pentium III 997-MHz machine with 256 MB dedicated RAM. Both have CD-ROM drives. They are connected through a standard crossed networking wire with RealTek 10/100 Mbps LAN cards on both ends.
If you have a home network setup with two (or more) computers with wires connecting them, then your setup is similar to mine. more

Supercomputers: Setting up a Condor cluster

Have you ever been in a situation where you had to run multiple instances of the same application, with different input data each time, in sequence, because the job was too computation-intensive and your machine not powerful enough to run all the instances simultaneously? The solution to that problem could be to harness the machines that are already connected to your local network and apply their unused CPU cycles to your projects. Condor, a specialized batch system for managing compute-intensive jobs, may be your answer. more

Supercomputers: Build your own Java-based supercomputer

If you've ever wanted to build your own supercomputer but have been held back by the demands of parallel programming in C, Pseudo Remote Threads is for you. This prize-winning Java programming model greatly simplifies parallel programming on clusters, bringing supercomputing out of the laboratory and into the hands of everyday Java programmers.
Note that this article assumes you have a working knowledge of Java threads and RMI. more

Yachts and boats: Saint Barbara: Sailboat design

Sam Kovalak of Rockford, MI, is the owner of Saint Barbara, his new Sponberg-designed 37.5' wingmast sloop which is being built by Van Dam Wood Craft in Boyne City, MI. This design had a long, long gestation period—11 years. That was the time between Kovalak's first phone call to me inquiring about a new boat, and the signing of a design contract. This is a record for me. In the interim, Kovalak did a lot of reading on boat design. He even bought a few boats simply to research boat performance and to figure out precisely what he wanted in a new boat. The concepts of wingmast rig, lifting keel, and rudder-in-a-drum had particular appeal, and actually, these were constants throughout a long process of introspection. The one other constant from the very beginning was that Steve Van Dam would build the boat. more

Yachts and boats: Bagatelle: Sailboat design

Thomas Doyle of Waterford, CT, is the owner of this fresh new design from our board, which was launched on 23 July, 2001. An avid racer, Mr. Doyle wanted a lightweight boat that could plane in under 20 knots of wind, point really well and sail fast upwind, and yet still look like it belongs in good company sitting next to a Concordia yawl—in his words, 'a modern classic.' more