Where will your mood take you today?
 

[url]http://search.slashdot.org/story/12/04/21/2222249/microsoft-patent-hints-at-search-results-tailored-to-users-mood-intelligence[/url]

[URL]http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/actress-marilu-henners-rare-super-memory-recalls-every-014832184--abc-news-celebrities.html[/URL]

Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) for today
 

[url]http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120425.html[/url]

Somewhat US centric, but still interesting
 

New free app to let travelers file complaints with the TSA "on the fly" -- pardon the pun.

[quote]The agencies agreed to allow the app to use the agencies' system for submitting the complaints.[/quote]

[quote]"My hope is that this app will exponentially increase the number of complaints filed with the TSA, flood the system so they get that this is a problem. For too long the Transportation Security Administration has been able to tell Congress this is not an issue, nobody's complaining," Singh said.[/quote]

[url]http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/mobile-app-helps-report-1428651.html[/url]

Happy 235th Birthday to Carl Gauss!
 

[quote=Wikipedia]Known for: [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_topics_named_after_Carl_Friedrich_Gauss"]See full list[/URL][/quote]
[SIZE="1"][COLOR="LemonChiffon"].[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[quote=Wikipedia]Gauss also made important contributions to number theory with his 1801 book Disquisitiones Arithmeticae (Latin, Arithmetical Investigations), which, among things, introduced the symbol ≡ for congruence and used it in a clean presentation of modular arithmetic, had the first two proofs of the law of quadratic reciprocity, developed the theories of binary and ternary quadratic forms, stated the class number problem for them, and showed that a regular heptadecagon (17-sided polygon) can be constructed with straightedge and compass.


Title page of Gauss's Disquisitiones Arithmeticae
In that same year, Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi discovered the dwarf planet Ceres. Piazzi had only been able to track Ceres for a few months, following it for three degrees across the night sky. Then it disappeared temporarily behind the glare of the Sun. Several months later, when Ceres should have reappeared, Piazzi could not locate it: the mathematical tools of the time were not able to extrapolate a position from such a scant amount of data—three degrees represent less than 1% of the total orbit.
Gauss, who was 23 at the time, heard about the problem and tackled it. After three months of intense work, he predicted a position for Ceres in December 1801—just about a year after its first sighting—and this turned out to be accurate within a half-degree when it was rediscovered by Franz Xaver von Zach on 31 December in Gotha, and one day later by Heinrich Olbers in Bremen.
Gauss's method involved determining a conic section in space, given one focus (the sun) and the conic's intersection with three given lines (lines of sight from the earth, which is itself moving on an ellipse, to the planet) and given the time it takes the planet to traverse the arcs determined by these lines (from which the lengths of the arcs can be calculated by Kepler's Second Law). This problem leads to an equation of the eighth degree, of which one solution, the Earth's orbit, is known. The solution sought is then separated from the remaining six based on physical conditions. In this work Gauss used comprehensive approximation methods which he created for that purpose.[9]
One such method was the fast Fourier transform. While this method is traditionally attributed to a 1965 paper by J. W. Cooley and J. W. Tukey, Gauss developed it as a trigonometric interpolation method. His paper, Theoria Interpolationis Methodo Nova Tractata, was only published posthumously in Volume 3 of his collected works. This paper predates the first presentation by Joseph Fourier on the subject in 1807.[10][/quote]

@Dubslow: :tu: Nice found! (I had no idea when he was born!) kudos!
Apropos of dates, we are now home suffering [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workers%27_Day#Thailand"]the holiday[/URL], so we are going to bother you all today (maybe, some other planes are on the line too).

[url]http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2012/04/30/man-sues-bmw-after-motorcycle-seat-allegedly-causes-2-year-erection/[/url]

[url]http://mashable.com/2012/04/30/toylet/[/url]

What is this I don't even...

[QUOTE=ixfd64;298068][url]http://mashable.com/2012/04/30/toylet/[/url]

What is this I don't even...[/QUOTE]
And 'twas a girl who wrote the article... :huh:
How is that decided? Did she volunteer? :confused:

[QUOTE=ixfd64;298068][URL]http://mashable.com/2012/04/30/toylet/[/URL]

What is this I don't even...[/QUOTE]
Haha, that reminds be of the children's games, who pee higher, or so....:smile:
How do you actually... change the game? In our company we produce touch-terminals for industrial use, and we have business relations with many Japanese guys (vendors and customers). When they come to talk business, you usually babble around about many different subjects. We had "coffee-side" discussions about their [URL="http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=japanese+high+tech+toilet+seat&ei=UTF-8&fr=moz35"]"professional" toilets[/URL], with LCD and many different sensors, which can warm the seat for you, can offer you the latest news, even can help you learn Japanese (yes, the market is in general big hotels crowded by foreigners), or measure your blood pressure when you sit, and even can call your doctor if they detect some "irregularities" in your health. The biggest problem, as they said (the people, not the toilet :D), is the fact that the people going in the toilet are reticent to touch the things around. Touch-terminals in the toilet? No way! You don't know what "finger" the person before you used to touch the screen. So, if you could invent a kind of human interface which would be so reliable like a keyboard, or mouse, or touchscreen, but does not involve effectively the "touching", you would be millionaire. Billionaire. But to use your... flow for it? Why didn't I think about it? :smile:

[QUOTE=LaurV;298103]Haha, that reminds be of the children's games, who pee higher, or so....:smile:
How do you actually... change the game? In our company we produce touch-terminals for industrial use, and we have business relations with many Japanese guys (vendors and customers). When they come to talk business, you usually babble around about many different subjects. We had "coffee-side" discussions about their [URL="http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=japanese+high+tech+toilet+seat&ei=UTF-8&fr=moz35"]"professional" toilets[/URL], with LCD and many different sensors, which can warm the seat for you, can offer you the latest news, even can help you learn Japanese (yes, the market is in general big hotels crowded by foreigners), or measure your blood pressure when you sit, and even can call your doctor if they detect some "irregularities" in your health. The biggest problem, as they said (the people, not the toilet :D), is the fact that the people going in the toilet are reticent to touch the things around. Touch-terminals in the toilet? No way! You don't know what "finger" the person before you used to touch the screen. So, if you could invent a kind of human interface which would be so reliable like a keyboard, or mouse, or touchscreen, but does not involve effectively the "touching", you would be millionaire. Billionaire. But to use your... flow for it? Why didn't I think about it? :smile:[/QUOTE]

With items like this, you have need of that extra water so you can last the whole game.