Robots: The New Face of Environmental Crisis Management

You may have heard that there’s one heck of an oil leak right now in the Gulf of Mexico, which is currently oozing out some 42,000 gallons a day. But what you may not know is that robots are working overtime to help control the situation before it gets even more out of hand. According to the New York Times, there are a fleet of remote control robots operating some 5,000 feet beneath the ocean, doing what they can to stop the flow of oil and get things under control. As you can imagine, getting human beings down such a distance would pose quite the challenge, but in spite of the fact that the operation is not as swift as experts had hoped, the robots are our best hope.

The article explains:

The robots were trying to activate a device known as a blowout preventer, a 450-ton valve at the wellhead that is designed to shut off a well in the event of a sudden pressure release.

If the robots don’t work, the hope is that teams can design a dome to contain some of the oil to prevent further harm to wildlife in the area. Not only is the oil toxic to any marine life, but also the chemicals crews are sprinkling into the ocean—known as dispersants—which help to break down the oil.

At the moment, in spite of robots and futuristic domes, time is of the essence. The effects of a spill of this magnitude will have a dire impact on the industry and environment, and while no cause has been pinpointed, the sooner this mess can get under control, the better. Where’s a Transformer when you need one?



Yub Nub! Catchy Ewok Karaoke

Warning, after listening to this, you will have it stuck in your head for the rest of the day!

[Via Geekologie]

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MTV Recreates Prince of Persia Trailer in LEGO

After hitting the play button on both media player, be sure to sync the videos so they play at the exact same time.

[Via TechEblog]



Blogger’s home raided over iPhone leak

If you think selling an iPhone for $5,000 is criminal, you could be right. But it appears one buyer may also be in legal trouble.

That buyer is tech site Gizmodo, which bought a prototype of the next edition of the iPhone after it was reportedly left in a California bar. The site took the device apart and published photographs before returning it to Apple. That wasn’t enough for the tech giant, which reported the theft to the district attorney’s office in San Mateo County.

One Gizmodo blogger, Jason Chen, returned home on Friday to find his property being raided by police. He says they took four computers, two servers and other devices, including an iPad (which must really have stung.) Rather bafflingly the police also seized a box of business cards.

The search warrant used by the officers said the equipment which could be seized fell into one of two categories: it was used as the means of committing a felony, or that it provided evidence that a felony had been committed.

Gawker Media, the company behind Gizmodo, has now complained that the search was illegal under California law as police cannot confiscate property belonging to a journalist.

That point is being debated among media lawyers. The consensus seems to be that it would have been more appropriate to issue a subpoena demanding Chen hand over the property rather than get a warrant to seize it. That would have allowed Chen a chance to argue his position in court before the computers were forcibly taken.

Trekkies Behold: The USS Meaterprise [PIC]

Hey boys and girls! For those of you with Trekkie significant others, here’s something you can consider adding to their lunchboxes for quite a lunchtime surprise: The USS Meaterprise!

The USS Meaterprise: To boldly go where no meat has gone before. Er… that sounded kind of… wrong… somehow…

[Via Walyou]

How to tell you’ve succeeded as a geek parent [PIC]

A few days ago, Redditor Tax_Ninja submitted this picture to Reddit along with this note:

My kid designed his own scientist costume for career day (including the “to do list”). I feel like I’ve succeeded as a parent.

All we can say is: Indeed! Good job Tax_Ninja!

[Via Reddit]

Crayola Thanks the Tea Partiers

This is hilarious! Watch as fictional Crayola CEO Michelle Perry thanks protesters for making Crayola-brand markers the most used tools for creating protest signs.

Edit: Closing the comments section on this post. I just posted this as most people thought it was funny. Obviously, it was a bad idea.

Farewell to the Floppy

If you’re a geek of a certain age, the chances are you’ve at some point sniggered at the mention of a 3.5″ floppy. Those days are over with Sony effectively announcing the death of the floppy disk drive.

Created in the early 1980s as a smaller, higher-capacity successor to larger formats, the 3.5″ initially had a capacity of around 280 kilobytes. With models available in both single and double-sided versions, along with three different densities, the format could eventually hold 1.44MB. To put that into context, it’s about enough to store a minute or so of audio.

Aside from size and capacity, the major difference between the 3.5″ and its 5.25″ predecessor was that despite the name (which referred to the disk itself), the 3.5″ disk came in a solid plastic casing. This made it both less susceptible to accidental damage, and much more a challenge to deliberately destroy.

The physical design of the 3.5″ disk created a couple of other unofficial characteristics. One was that it was just about the right weight to make it a particular pleasure to use the spring-loaded eject button on the drive: I pity anyone who worked in an office of any kind in the early 90s and didn’t take part in a contest to shoot the disk as far as possible.

The disk casing could also be cracked open when attempting to destroy it for security reasons, with the disk itself then cut to shreds with scissors. This may be a personal quirk, but the metal-on-metal cutting always made me feel downright queasy.

The format is believed to have overtaken its 5.25″ predecessor in 1988 and was the main recordable media format through much of the 1990s. Eventually, though, it was superseded by recordable CDs, which had a drastically higher capacity.

Sony, which was the last major 3.5″ disk manufacturer and had wound up with a dominant market share, has now announced it limited supply to only cover a few markets in March and will cease production in Japan early next year.

PCWorld notes that while 12 million 3.5″ disks were sold in Japan by Sony last year, the total data which could be stored on them wouldn’t fill one side of a Blu-ray disc.

Space Monkey [Video]

Created as a collaboration between World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Ben Lee and Leo Burnett, “Space Monkey” carries a message about our planet, and features Ben Lee’s track, “Song for the Divine Mother of the Universe.”

[Via TDW]

OMG WTF: The Krispy Kreme Double Down [PIC]

So, being loyal Geeks are Sexy readers, you’ve surely all tried making some artery-jamming Krispy Kreme bacon burgers since we’ve posted about them almost 2 years ago, right? And if you didn’t, you probably thought that these burgers were the ultimate in unhealthiness, and rightly so.

But lo and behold folks, the king is dead. Enters the KFC Krispy Kreme Double Down. Long live the king.

[Via Buzzfeed]