I have been looking into a device called a Perkl-Light Energy Spa. Unfortunately the proprietor has a serious dislike of scientists. I don’t know if I can purchase the device from someone who has such disdain for empiricism. I could deal with it if he at least provided some background on how the device works. The implication is that the device likely hasn’t been tested and optimized.
I sent him a note.
I am an electrical engineer and a reiki master.
Your epistemological rant is a little offputting.
Reiki is about being a receiver of sorts, feeling Ki in the Chakras and the aura and situating the hands to help it move. It’s not a talent, it is a human sense that we all have but many ignore. You are surrounded by radio waves every day, but without a radio you can’t detect them. Before radios were developed, radio waves coming in from space met the definition of “Subtle Energies” that the New Agers like to bandy about. Does it make sense to state that radio waves don’t exist?
Science is a method for testing empirical data. If I can’t detect Ki with scientific tools, that doesn’t mean Ki doesn’t exist, it means I need different tools.
As an example, an electronic device called an operational amplifier or OpAmp typically has a minimum frequency of about 0.5 Hz (cycles per second). Low-frequency energies aren’t detectable with OpAmps. If you are measuring a patient’s brainwaves with a tool called an electroencephalogram (EEG) while he is being put under deep anesthesia, it is possible for the brainwaves to become too low to be measured. There isn’t a doctor in the world who would tell you that the anesthetized patient is dead, not sleeping.
One attribute of empirical knowledge is that by taking better and better measurements and improving my hypothesis, I can question authority and expand the horizons of human knowledge.
I tried asking questions in church and was told to leave and not come back. This experience taught me to reject exclusionary dogma, and that is precisely why scientific enquiry appeals to me.
Did the Perkl-Light Energy Spa come into existence in its finished, perfect form, or did you have to engage in a scientific process of testing, modification and retesting?
Interesting concept. The Ambient Devices Ambient Umbrella gets weather data from AccuWeather.com. The Ambient Umbrella waits in the umbrella stand unnoticed until rain is expected, then gives a gentle visual reminder that it will be needed.
The concept behind Ambient Devices products is that some digital information should be “glanceable,” that is, the information is not worth either constant checking or having to shut off an alarm, so it vanishes into the background. Other products from Ambient Devices include Ambient ScoreCast devices that provide real-time stats and scores and the AMBIENT DEVICES Stock Orb which monitors the Dow and indicates in real-time whether the stock market is up for down.
And others the [pe] it is dense the cat cat Hungry Cats
“Harapeko Neko Neko” (“Hungry Cats”) is a Japanese stop-action animation in which two cats are trying to tell their rather dim-witted owner what they want for dinner. They are rather strange cats, as tall as their owner, with expressionless faces and and zippers in the back. The overall impression I get from my limited exposure to Japanimation is that the Japanese conceptualize animals as being little people in fursuits.
Even funnier than the video is the geeky deconstruction on a NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) TV show “Digital Stadium.”
The person of motif and this movie, cat the feeling which has been made foolish going hand in hand (in good sense,) the [te] it was good. When you look at the collapse of last set, when “the lie where entertainment and the movie were after all made” is, the thought [wa] it is done keenly, (you think too much kana? ). You think two writers thinks that the head and sense are good, that and, also degree of completion of the work itself is high. We want becoming “the Cohen sibling” of the doll animation boundary.
Although expression of the cat does not change, the feeling which is gotten angry having come out enormously, it was even the excessively funny work. Also song is good!
While the cat, is a little larger than the human which to do, the bull bull the place where it approaches in the uncle does not accumulate!!
It can enjoy everyone, “the [u] of everyone it is” PV of the wind. The song which has the agitation just a little to be lovely weirdness the humorous place. Betraying development expectation in [ii] sense, it was funny.
Tagaroo is the fine WordPress plugin from OpenCalais that suggests tags and imanges for my posts. It’s a great tool!
There’s just one problem… Tagaroo updates the page every few seconds to change the tags it suggests when I’m writing some posts. Not all, but enough to make blogging with Tagaroo activated become real chore. Each time it does it, my typing is buffered for a second or two. Occasionally the cursor will pop up to the top of the text box, placing the buffered typing in the beginning of the post. It makes it rather difficult to post.
I’ve written about this in a previous version of WordPress and Tagaroo. Does ANYBODY have an idea what to do about this? Maybe an “Update tagaroo” button?
New toy! It’s an HP Netbook PC. A Netbook is a tiny laptop suitable for everyday use. Email, online banking, writing letters. It’s so small you can carry it in that duffel bag you call a purse, and it can connect anywhere. Most models I investigated had integrated wireless (WiFi). AT&T and Verizon both offered Netbooks with 3G broadband wireless capability. Some models had Bluetooth for mouse or headphones.
I purchased the HP1035NA and really put it through its paces. YouTube videos played without a glitch. I will try Netflix videos in a day for two and edit this… Web browsing, email, and document editing were more than adequate, though if you normally run a high speed machine for engineering apps you’ll notice a difference. I didn’t do any tweaks to speed up the netbook, things like disabling indexing or windows animations.
The downside of the HP 1035NA Netbook is that it has less hard drive capacity and is slightly more expensive than some of its competitors, including the ASUS Eee PC 900. However, the slightly larger 10.2-inch display and the nearly full-size tactile keyboard are what sold me on the HP.
Specs:
OS:Windows XP Home SP3
Productivity: Microsoft Works
Display: 10.2-Inch
Processor: 1.60 GHz Intel Atom Processor N270 with 512KB L2 Cache
Graphics: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 (shared) with up to 128MB Total Available Graphics Memory
RAM: 1GB DDR2 System Memory (1 Dimm)
Storage: 60GB (4200RPM) Hard Drive
Connectivity: 802.11b/g WLAN & Bluetooth.
Dimensions: 6.56 (W) x 10.3 (D) x 0.99 (H) approx.,
Weight: 2.38 lbs.
What a freaking nightmare. I lost my phone a couple of weeks ago. Of course, I haven’t been backing it up, it’s only a phone…
Then I realized how much of my life I keep in there. I get email from three different accounts, and store the passwords. I have “secret” email addresses or passwords for posting status and photos to Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, TwitPic, MySpace and of course this WordPress blog. All my friends’ contact information is in there.
The first thing I did was call AT&T to ask them to physically locate the phone. Maybe it was in the car, wedged up between the seats where I couldn’t see it or hear it ring. The nice lady at AT&T support told me about the AT&T Family Map. It isn’t mentioned on the AT&T website at all, you must have the URL to get to it. Check this out, the account holder can track the rest of the family all day. The following result shows an aerial view of the back of my house looking in the window at me. If the picture were in taken in real time it would be seriously creepy.
I am -*here*-
I spent an inordinate amount of time deciding on a new phone. The iPhone was tempting, but I played with one a bit in the AT&T store and decided that a touchscreen phone needs haptic feedback. In the end I wimped out and bought the Samsung Jack.
So now all I have to do is recreate the information in the old phone.
TinyTube is YouTube for phones that don’t support rtsp streaming media. The Jack doesn’t, so this is a big deal for me!
I had to reinstall QuickMark. The lastest version will Twitter the text after decoding. Very kewl. It’s not optimized for the Jack, however. Remind me to send them a screen shot.
Samsung: Imagine Living in the World of Tomorrow Now
This is good, a series of pictures of what folks do to co-workers who are away on vacation. My favorite is the sprouts in the keyboard, a nice “welcome home” for the nature-lover in the office.
I’m reminded of what the entire office did to DH before we were dating. Moths in the cedar pencil holder, a phone list with the phone numbers removed, drawers reversed on the desk. The drawers weren’t just moved, the slides were moved so that the file drawer was on the other side. As he explained it, he didn’t get that the drawers were reversed. He perceived it as a vague uneasiness, a sense that something was wrong but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. You feel that way after a four-week vacation, right?
Everything on the cork board was photocopied and the photocopies placed up on the board. His new diploma was reduced to about 1.5×1.5 inches. All the implements in his pencil holder were rubber-banded together so that when he pulled out a pencil the whole bunch sprang out.
What we did to his teaching manual was the most insidious. One of the guys photocopied some pr0n – I have no idea why he had pr0n in the office. I took the manual to the print shop, removed the GBH binding, punched the pr0n and bound it back into the document. Poor fellow was teaching a course from the manual.
Bored technicians and engineers are a dangerous lot.
include 
which monitors the Dow and indicates in real-time whether the stock market is up for down.
. However, the slightly larger 10.2-inch display and the nearly full-size tactile keyboard are what sold me on the HP.
