PDX Sci Tech

A chemist walks into a pharmacy and asks the pharmacist, "Do you have any acetylsalicylic acid?" "You mean aspirin?" asked the pharmacist. "That's it, I can never remember that word."

TechUnite has started a running database of the companies offshoring jobs. Depressing but a good resource.

Virtual Record Player

"By modifying the instrument and passing it above the grooves used to store audio on vinyl, the researchers were able to visually record their position to an accuracy of a one thousandth of a millimetre.

Furthermore, algorithms used to strip away background noise from particle data proved an effective way to clean up scratches and other flaws on the vinyl. This image of the grooves was then fed into a "virtual" record player to recreate the original sound." Newscientist via AMCGLTD

I never saw or had any desire to see "Donnie Darko", but I saw a plot synopsis (spoilers) that explains how a jet engine from the future lands on his house...think I better give it a rent.

Sciscoop. Science news, tons of links.

World's first apartment lit solely by LED's. Cool gallery pics.

Quark Soup is back.

Oregon Wind Power Map

The 2 things you need to know about every subject.

Exkate . The second generation remote controlled eXkate 24 volt electric skateboard will be launched soon. Electrifying Times is taking orders on a first come, first served basis. The second generation eXkate will be 13 lbs lighter, more maneuverable and have approx. a 10 mile range.

Goldeneye is an new UAV.

"I was a kid during the street-by-street, house-by-house, battle for Stalingrad but listening to the radio I knew more about that battle than I’ve learned from cable news coverage of the street fighting in Fallujah, Ramadi, and all the towns in the Shiite area in Iraq.

Who says modern technology has advanced war reportage."
link

I'm kind of enjoying Reality Carnival.

First ever ultracapacitors in a standard battery size (D).

Ultracaps:
--10 times the power and longevity of batteries
--work at very high and very low temps
--internal resistance so low it takes a charge from almost any source
--can charge and discharge extremely fast.

A remote control with only two knobs on it. A great idea for the elderly. (Sheesh, how many of them got a DVD player this last christmas with the 58 micro-buttons remote?)

I'm finding looking at the Furl latest entries kind of interesting. It's just a list of what other people are bookmarking. A good way to get out of your web rut, although there is someone there intent on bookmarking every Cascading Style Sheets page there is.

Haven't forgotten this site, but, damn, nobody reads it.

Over 100 extrasolar planets have been discovered. Here is a gallery of their images. (Artwork only, unfortunately. While we won't get to the stars in my lifetime, I'm still holding out for a telescope that can actually take pictures of them). link

Joe Tabor designs really advanced electronics. Check out his 8 channel digital voltmeter.

Light transmitting concrete. Cool. link

The biggest impediment to our technological future isn't extending Moore's law. Thanks to recent breakthroughs at the semiconductor manufacturing level, by 2010 top-tier processors should be stuffed with a billion transistors and running at more than 20 gigahertz. No, the biggest challenge to progress is much more ordinary: It's battery life.

link

Solar van. With wind power.

Ryna Karnik, 17, of Aloha, submitted an Intel Science Talent Search project in engineering describing a method of constructing microchips using a focused ion beam (FIB) as a "molecular pencil" to directly "write" transistors onto silicon wafers. This is a departure from traditional methods, which involve a process called photolithography. Using her patent-pending technique, she created a working transistor. Applications of her findings could save microchip developers time and money when creating and testing prototype semiconductor chips. At Oregon Episcopal School in Portland, Ryna enjoys varsity fencing, dressage, aikido and tutoring disadvantaged elementary school students in physics. As a freshman, she built a particle accelerator from an old Van de Graaff generator. She counts among her many honors, several engineering awards at the 2003 Intel ISEF as well as qualifying as a Junior Olympics competitor in sabre fencing. Although Ryna plans to study pre-med at Stanford and eventually complete an M.D./Ph.D. program, she says she is an engineer at heart, who hopes to become a medical researcher. Ryna is the daughter of Milind and Parizad Karnik. link

Skylab.org. Here in PDX.

The Octopus News Magazine Online

Your Octopus, Squid and Cephalopod Information Center.

PreCash, Inc is a fast growing downtown Portland company providing an innovative suite of electronic payments products and services to our nationwide partners in telecommunications, retail and bank processing. We have an exceptional Engineering Team, with a great working environment and challenging technical objectives. We are looking to grow our design and development capabilities with the following positions:

* UNIX Systems Software Engineer

* Web Engineer

* IVR Engineer
(I'm pretty sure that IVR means interactive voice recognition)

OMSI is the crappily-run overloaded-with-management local money pit. It is the only science museum in town, however. I hope they finally got rid of the dead babies on parade on the third floor. Don't go up there unless you really like looking at fetuses.

Wells Fargo Bank: The Worst Bank in the World!!!

The Institute for Science, Technology and Society is that outfit that brings in guest lecturers that you occasionally see in the Oregonian. Tickets are pretty spendy ($40 and up, way up) and they have'nt figured out how to make a web page that isn't wider than your screen, but they serve a laudable function in Portland. Next friday, Mar 17, the guest will be Dr. David Orr.

It's friday. It's open comment time for all two of my readers. (Really. Click on the trackers at the bottom of the page if you don't believe me.) Since I do it all for you two, tell me how to do it better ;)

Scientific Imaging Technology (Tigard) makes CCD's. Not cheap camera CCD's, more like protein crystallography, DNA testing, and astronomy CCD's.

ExplorePdx. Only updated monthly, but high quality posts.

You know that big wall of car stereos you see at stores like WalMart? Turns out there is a company in Hillsboro that makes stuff like that. It can get kind of complicated.

Atomic Veterans History Project. Wilsonville.

It turns out that Portland has a chapter of the Socialist Labor Party. Socialists are the current champs of "Failed Promises Of How Things Will Be So Great When We Are In Charge" contest. (although the neocons are rapidly closing the gap).

Bill Torvund is a Portland area faith healer. (His site is worth a visit just to look at his picture).

Faith healing doesn't really have (much (anything (it's antithetical, actually))) to do with science and technology, but it turns out Bill is also an expert on the health hazards of microwave ovens.

A Vancouver WA company invents peel 'n' stick armor for Humvee's. Let's get that stuff on a plane right away, and worry about the details of the procurement process later.

If you go to Tualatin, you can find a company that takes your smokestack (well, vent gases, I think smoke would be beyond the little critters ability) like methanol and formaldehyde, and adds water and bacteria on the fly to bio-remediate it.

I'm continually amazed by what I find in this town.