I am tired of the imposed rhythms of men,
Tethered time, restrained and trained
To a monotonous beat
Digital time blinking exactness
Unliving.
~Phillip Pulfrey
1958 – Yu Suzuki, Japanese game designer and producer is born.
Yu Suzuki is a Japanese game designer and producer who has spent his entire career with Sega Enterprises. Often referred to as Sega’s answer to Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, he has been responsible for the creation of many of Sega’s most important arcade games, including Hang-On, Space Harrier, Out Run, After Burner, and pioneering 3D games such as Virtua Racing, Virtua Fighter, Daytona USA, and Virtua Cop, as well as the critically acclaimed Shenmue series for the Dreamcast. In 2003, Suzuki became the sixth person to be inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame. IGN listed him at #9 in their Top 100 Game Creators of All Time list.
1963 – Equal Pay Act of 1963 aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex. It was signed into law on June 10, 1963 by John F. Kennedy as part of his New Frontier Program.
The Equal Pay Act of 1963 is a United States federal law amending the Fair Labor Standards Act, aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex. It was signed into law on June 10, 1963, by John F. Kennedy as part of his New Frontier Program. In passing the bill, Congress stated that sex discrimination:
- depresses wages and living standards for employees necessary for their health and efficiency;
- prevents the maximum utilization of the available labor resources;
- tends to cause labor disputes, thereby burdening, affecting, and obstructing commerce;
- burdens commerce and the free flow of goods in commerce; and
- constitutes an unfair method of competition.
The law provides (in part) that:
No employer having employees subject to any provisions of this section [section 206 of title 29 of the United States Code] shall discriminate, within any establishment in which such employees are employed, between employees on the basis of sex by paying wages to employees in such establishment at a rate less than the rate at which he pays wages to employees of the opposite sex in such establishment for equal work on jobs[,] the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions, except where such payment is made pursuant to (i) a seniority system; (ii) a merit system; (iii) a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production; or (iv) a differential based on any other factor other than sex [ . . . . ] [2]
1977 – The Apple II, one of the first personal computers, goes on sale.
The Apple II (styled as apple ][) is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) and introduced in 1977. It is the first model in a series of computers which were produced until Apple IIe production ceased in November 1993.
2002 – The first direct electronic communication experiment between the nervous systems of two humans is carried out by Kevin Warwick in the United Kingdom.
…By means of the implant, Warwick’s nervous system was connected onto the internet in Columbia University, New York. From there he was able to control the robot arm in the University of Reading and to obtain feedback from sensors in the finger tips. He also successfully connected ultrasonic sensors on a baseball cap and experienced a form of extra sensory input.
A highly publicised extension to the experiment, in which a simpler array was implanted into the arm of Warwick’s wife—with the ultimate aim of one day creating a form of telepathy or empathy using the Internet to communicate the signal from afar—was also successful in-so-far as it resulted in the first direct and purely electronic communication between the nervous systems of two humans. Finally, the effect of the implant on Warwick’s hand function was measured using the University of Southampton Hand Assessment Procedure (SHAP). It was feared that directly interfacing with the nervous system might cause some form of damage or interference, but no measurable effect nor rejection was found. Indeed, nerve tissue was seen to grow around the electrode array, enclosing the sensor.
2003 – The Spirit Rover is launched, beginning NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover mission.
Spirit, MER-A (Mars Exploration Rover – A), is a robotic rover on Mars, active from 2004 to 2010. It was one of two rovers of NASA’s ongoing Mars Exploration Rover Mission. It landed successfully on Mars at 04:35 Ground UTC on January 4, 2004, three weeks before its twin, Opportunity (MER-B), landed on the other side of the planet. Its name was chosen through a NASA-sponsored student essay competition. The rover became stuck in late 2009, and its last communication with Earth was sent on March 22, 2010.
The rover completed its planned 90-sol mission. Aided by cleaning events that resulted in higher power from its solar panels, Spirit went on to function effectively over twenty times longer than NASA planners expected. Spirit also logged 7.73 km (4.8 mi) of driving instead of the planned 600 m (0.4 mi), allowing more extensive geological analysis of Martian rocks and planetary surface features. Initial scientific results from the first phase of the mission (the 90-sol prime mission) were published in a special issue of the journal Science.
On May 1, 2009 (5 years, 3 months, 27 Earth days after landing; 21.6 times the planned mission duration), Spirit became stuck in soft soil. This was not the first of the mission’s “embedding events” and for the following eight months NASA carefully analyzed the situation, running Earth-based theoretical and practical simulations, and finally programming the rover to make extrication drives in an attempt to free itself. These efforts continued until January 26, 2010 when NASA officials announced that the rover was likely irrecoverably obstructed by its location in soft soil, though it continued to perform scientific research from its current location.
2009 – Adafruit introduces the motor part add-on pack for Arduino!
Make your own Arduino motor party with a motor shield and a fine assortment of motors! Pick up one here.
2013 – Sous-vide controller powered by Arduino (SousViduino) is introduced into our learning system!
Want to make delicious, perfectly-cooked food using a robot? Who doesn’t!? This project will show you how to build your own “Sous viduino”, an automated cooking pot that makes perfect eggs, succulent steaks and tender fish without the whole “slaving over a stove.” All this is possible due to a recent advancement in cooking technology – instead of using a pan or pot, a “sous vide” (pronounced suu veed) machine heats the food in sort of a cross between a jacuuzi and a crock pot.
Sous vide is rapidly becoming an important cooking technique in many of the very best restaurants in the world. Sous vide combines principles of molecular gastronomy with industrial temperature controls to precisely manage the chemical reactions of cooking.
We love good food as much as we love science and technology, so of course we had to build our own sous vide controller. This project turns an inexpensive rice cooker into a precision cooking instrument capable of maintaining cooking temperatures within +/-0.1 C.
By precisely controlling the temperature, you can ensure that foods are cooked exactly to the desired level of doneness and no-more. This makes sous vide the preferred cooking method for everything from the ‘perfect’ soft-boiled egg to the steak that is medium-rare from edge-to-edge.
