Write Lightning is a blog from writer Deb Thompson.
Everyone is welcome here.
(Some links or topics may not be completely kid-appropriate.)
Everyone is welcome here.
(Some links or topics may not be completely kid-appropriate.)
Wed, Jun 01 2005
Flying Flockers
I love anything to do with helicopters, so I enjoyed Wired News' story of experiments using tiny helicopters and Bluetooth to collect and share information in a flock.
Soon someone will probably take the whole idea and produce a movie about the flying flockers flying amok and combining their knowledge to try to take over the universe. Until then, we'll have to be content with movies like these--full of militant mosquitos and other swarming creatures:
The Swarm
Mimic
Mimic 2
Mimic 3 - Sentinel
Bug
Phase IV
posted at: 10:36 | category: /Science | link to this entry
I love anything to do with helicopters, so I enjoyed Wired News' story of experiments using tiny helicopters and Bluetooth to collect and share information in a flock.
Soon someone will probably take the whole idea and produce a movie about the flying flockers flying amok and combining their knowledge to try to take over the universe. Until then, we'll have to be content with movies like these--full of militant mosquitos and other swarming creatures:
The Swarm
Mimic
Mimic 2
Mimic 3 - Sentinel
Bug
Phase IV
posted at: 10:36 | category: /Science | link to this entry
German Mines Floating Toward Airport In Washington
No, that's not a headline from today's news. It was a claim made by someone to the FBI more than 50 years ago. I stumbled upon the FBI's Electronic Reading Room earlier today and had a great time.
The documents are in .pdf format and some of them are difficult to read because they were scanned from original documents. But it's a great place to dig around and find some historical tidbits, including a huge listing of phone logs from J. Edgar Hoover's office. Some are probably legitimate calls, but many others appear to have been made by inebriated individuals. There were also calls made by folks who had mental difficulties of one kind or another. One woman, for instance, called from Ohio and demanded that the Bureau return her love letters. Other calls involved reports of a hitchhiker who was carrying some fifty different check books around with him, someone posing as a meter reader, a piece of supposedly poisoned pie, and an inquiry as to someone named "Lefty" who had been a bootlegger. That last one might have been a legitimate call, but we'll probably never know. The FBI's memo states that the Bureau had, at that time, files on more than 850 people known as "Lefty". Some names have been marked through in these logs, but many others have been left untouched. Fiction writers may find some really great story starters.
posted at: 09:30 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
No, that's not a headline from today's news. It was a claim made by someone to the FBI more than 50 years ago. I stumbled upon the FBI's Electronic Reading Room earlier today and had a great time.
The documents are in .pdf format and some of them are difficult to read because they were scanned from original documents. But it's a great place to dig around and find some historical tidbits, including a huge listing of phone logs from J. Edgar Hoover's office. Some are probably legitimate calls, but many others appear to have been made by inebriated individuals. There were also calls made by folks who had mental difficulties of one kind or another. One woman, for instance, called from Ohio and demanded that the Bureau return her love letters. Other calls involved reports of a hitchhiker who was carrying some fifty different check books around with him, someone posing as a meter reader, a piece of supposedly poisoned pie, and an inquiry as to someone named "Lefty" who had been a bootlegger. That last one might have been a legitimate call, but we'll probably never know. The FBI's memo states that the Bureau had, at that time, files on more than 850 people known as "Lefty". Some names have been marked through in these logs, but many others have been left untouched. Fiction writers may find some really great story starters.
posted at: 09:30 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
