Ned Gulley’s Blog. Resident buzzwords: synthetic biology, ambient displays, swarm robotics, wise crowds.
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 31st, 2008
You can now get a personal fabricator for $5000 from Desktop Factory. That’s about the price point where LaserWriters started to gain widespread acceptance. Although I’m a big fan of 3-D printing, I don’t actually expect them to appear in most houses anytime soon. I get excited about them because they dramatically accelerate design cycles [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 29th, 2008
If you haven’t yet been convinced to give podcasts a try, here are two good ones that may push you over the edge. I would never sit in front of a computer and listen to a lecture or radio program, but I really enjoy putting podcasts on my iPod and then listening to them while [...]
Posted in Astronomy on Oct 22nd, 2008
It’s fun to look at pictures of planets taken by our robotic eyeball extenders. We get to see things that are too darn far away to see with even the biggest earthbound telescope.
But there’s another kind of treat when we look at our own sun with new eyes from here on earth. We’re used [...]
Posted in Autism & Jay on Oct 20th, 2008
It was a cold and blustery day at Suffolk Downs, but the sky was blue and the walk was a success. We’ve been doing these fundraising walks with Jay since he was first diagnosed in 2001, and they just keep getting bigger. Years ago a nearby park in Cambridge was big enough to host the [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 15th, 2008
Alan Kennedy has written here many times before, most recently about the many color-related idioms that people use around the world. Alan has wonderful vantage point for making his observations: he teaches English to adults who have come to Manhattan from all over the world. He has taken a particular and abiding interest in colorful [...]
Posted in Autism & Jay on Oct 13th, 2008
This is a picture of Jay. Jay is my son. Jay is autistic. We wish that he weren’t, because his autism makes life difficult for him and for those who care for him. But there you go. It is a fact.
Given that we can’t do what we desire more than anything else, which is to [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 10th, 2008
What divides the North from the South? Surely nothing so simple and stark as the Mason-Dixon line between Maryland and Pennsylvania. It should be something that reflects behavior and cultural norms. We might consider what the locals call a small stream. Is it a branch (southern) or a run (northern)? Appropriately, the battle referred to [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 9th, 2008
This is Charles Brannock, shown next to his device (not to scale).
This is Jack Foley. On the right is a gentleman skilled in his art.
T.J. Freeth (1819-1904), our firm’s founder, was unavailable when the photographer came around, but this is his nephroid. To the right you see an ordinary nephroid lurking in a coffee cup.
You [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 3rd, 2008
Most of us have put away, given away, or thrown away our old film-based cameras. No more 35 mm film canisters… now we have sleek solid state digital cameras. Except that the shutter, as ever, is still a tiny clockwork marvel of gears and levers.
You press the button on top of your camera and it [...]
