Tech Crusade

The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

“The technological singularity is a hypothesized point in the future variously characterized by the technological creation of self-improving intelligence, unprecedentedly rapid technological progress, or some combination of the two.” 

Signs this show was not created by an AI

1.  The show does not get better as it goes along. It just keeps rambling with quotes. If it continues on this path, it will reach Smallville status soon. Also,  more robots. But they don’t do what I like…

2.  The technology does not surprise me at all. If anything, I was looking for a more efficient robot. 

3. Sarah doesn’t play nice with her cybernetic friend.

For students, this is an excellent source for finding scholarship resources. I personally use this as my scholarship search engine for the 2008-2009 year. I’ve found dozens of potential scholarships that I’ve applied or will apply to sooner or later:P. It’s really the Google of Scholarships. You might also want to check out Peterons scholarship search. Fastweb Scholarship Search

  The main thrust of this site is to provide names and addresses of relevant scholarships for students entering any level of college. The student goes through a fairly long process of filling out forms which list their name, address, GPA, hobbies, major, colleges of interest… and much more. There are 5 or 6 “Steps” or Online Pages to fill out. The downside of this is that they feed you some unnecessary information such as offers from colleges that I really would never apply to..

Users of Facebook in the United Arab Emirates have been left wondering if their access to the site will continue after major telco Etisalat appeared to have blocked the site today. Many Web sites are actively blocked in the Persian Gulf country which is home to a large expatriate community from India, the US, Europe and other countries in the Middle East.

The Muslim nation blocks many sites on the basis that they are against the moral or religious values of the UAE, however the selection of sites in the past has often been arbitrary and includes a ban on VOIP, which appears to be more focused on maintaining profits at the two main telcos than concerns over moral values. Earlier this year the
social networking site Orkut fell afoul of UAE’s blocking policies which also prevent access to dating sites.

The move may not be permanent as Facebook users are currently just experiencing a ‘Page Not Found’ error instead of the ‘UAE Screen of Death’ (as pictured) so the authorities may just be testing the waters. UAE Facebook users have been concerned about this possibility for some time and have set up an online petition.

The automaker demonstrates long-awaited homogeneous-charge-compression ignition.

It’s getting harder to believe automakers when they say they can’t meet tougher fuel-economy standards. And it’s their own fault. Not only are they rolling out hybrid vehicles and developing advanced hybrids that can be plugged in: they’re also demonstrating, at least in concept cars, advanced combustion technology that could cut fuel consumption.

This week General Motors announced two drivable concept cars that use homogeneous-charge-compression ignition (HCCI), which provides fuel-economy advantages similar to those provided by diesel engines, but without the extra pollution. HCCI could reduce fuel consumption by 15 percent. The vehicles go up to 55 miles per hour on HCCI, shifting to conventional spark ignition for higher speeds. The best part is it can run on ordinary gasoline.