Automation Comes To The Coffeehouse With Robotic Baristas | Singularity Hub

Say goodbye to lattes with funky tastes or attitude from coffeehouse baristas. At the University of Texas, a startup called Briggo LLC has installed a coffee kiosk run by a robotic barista in the acad…

The World’s Most Powerful Celebrities – Forbes

Jennifer Lopez tops our Celebrity 100 with $52 million in earnings and tons of fame. The singer pushes Lady Gaga out of the top spot.

As with others in the city (105.5, 106.5, and, occasionally, 102.9), these stations don’t show up in the FCC’s tables. (For ease of use, here’s a link to Radio Locator. The FCC tables are sometimes slow and tricky to navigate.) The new station is strong and clear just beyond the city’s periphery, which is good, because WODS, at 103.3, is a popular oldies station; interference would attract too much attention.

Educational IT – Karl Hakkarainen – Using Twitter in the Classroom

Smart teachers are harnessing a tool that many see as just a distraction. But the practice is not without its opponents.

ICANN Back on Track With Plan to Expand Top-Level Domains

Applicants now have until May 30 to apply for one of the new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs).

How to: Collect 6,000-year-old swamp mud

Photo:Eric Niiler I spent last weekend in the Harvard Forest, participating in hands-on science experiments as part of the Marine Biological Laboratory’s science journalism fellowship. The goal was to…

The lake water has warmed enough that we can stay around for a few minutes between visits to the sauna. Two weeks ago, it was a jump off the dock, hit the water, and get out as quickly as possible. We’d get back into the sauna, but our legs felt like they were covered in cold cloth.

After sauna, the aches of body and soul were gone. There’s a lot to do in cleanup, routine work, and new projects and most of the work calls on muscles that haven’t been called on for a while. There’s a pile of rocks to be moved, a stack of wood to be split. leaves to be raked, trees to be trimmed.

Most of the work can become meditative, only the work, only that rock that needs to move 40 feet to the south. A wheelbarrow would make the work easier, taking four or five rocks at a time instead of just one. This way, though, I get to think about each rock and where it should go. If I had a plan, I’d use a wheelbarrow.

When my father was my age, he put an oil tank in the cellar, sideways. That the heating system never worked reliably isn’t the point, I think. He did stuff. If it worked, that was good. If it didn’t work, he’d move on. The oil-fired heating system never worked reliably and was replaced by a barrel wood stove that worked fine for 30 years.  The barrel stove connect to the chimney that was to be used by the oil burner.

The lake has warmed so that a thin bit of fog settles on the surface in these cool nights. Heating and cooling take away the aches of the day.

We went out to lunch, 20 of us. I tried to sit at the kids’ table, but was asked to leave because Cassie wanted to sit with her cousin, Caroline.

There was plenty to discuss at the other end of the table. Jennie has completed her book and sent it to her publisher. Joe will graduate from St. Peter-Marian in a couple of weeks; he will go to Southern New Hampshire University in the fall.

After the lunch, we brought Marian back to the nursing home, noting that we’d be missing Mother’s Day celebration with Elvis.

Mother’s Day itself was a quiet day at the camp. In memory of Elvis, we had peanut butter and bananas for lunch.

We’re still settling in after last year’s wonderful renovations. Few things are where they were and lots of things aren’t there at all. My father kept puzzling quantities of unexpected parts, such as a jar full of 1/4″ brass screws, but we couldn’t find a single wingnut. We have long lengths of antique rubber extension cords, the type that don’t kink or get inflexible in the cold, and yet we found only one electrical wire cap, which is two fewer than what we needed.

Sunday we had sauna. The water is fresh but no longer cold, in spite of recent rain and no special warm spells. We have a good supply of leftover pine from the construction project. It’s dry and burns hot. Mix in a little oak and maple and you get a great fire.

From a time with crowds full of laughter and hope to a time sitting on the bench overlooking the cove, hearing the planes heading down Route 2 toward Boston, it’s how the days are now.

Read the rest at my new blog  Get Ready for the Software-Defined Network Revolution on our new site, Intelligent WAN..

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