New Lightweight Exoskeleton Suit being developed

Leon Fisk · 2012-04-26T20:40:51+00:00

Came across this the other day and thought it looked pretty cool. Canthink of a lot of uses and it actually looks affordable."A lightweight exoskeleton will allow the elderly to move around moreeasily. New Scientist heads to a Japanese laboratory to try it on forsize." are some videos around for it too. Check youtube. Maybe:

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Leon Fisk 14 years ago

I use an old iRiver iFP-800 mp3 player. Being able to pause and back-up

20 sec with a simple flip of a switch is priceless. Noisy truck goes by, somebody stops to chat, mind/attention drifts off... flip of the switch and you go back 20 sec and listen to that part again. It also remembers the spot you were at when turned off. Really important features if you try to buy something for listening to books. A lot of libraries have books available on CD now. You could rip them to mp3, reducing the quality down to 32kb and 16khz. You really don't need CD quality for just voice. This is the LAME command line I use for the final wave to mp3 conversion:

lame --noreplaygain -mm -q7 -b32 --resample 16.000 trtd-01.wav trtd-01.mp3

You get some funny noises with the quality (-q7) set that low but it doesn't bother me while out walking and converts to mp3 really fast. I just delete the mp3 files when I'm done so it really doesn't matter.

I'm a glutton, still read mysteries but I know what you mean. And I agree, the British authors are usually better.

Oh! after reading this bit of insight into your tastes I think you'll like them now for sure. Don't let your sister forget! And make sure you have some time available before diving in. They are really hard to put down...

The language is a bit dated now, "...Oh, she's a splendid girl. Wonderfully pneumatic. I'm surprised you haven't had her..." and some people get turned off with such. And it kinda plods along at times (shrug).

I'll keep these in mind, add to my list. Thanks ;)

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DoN. Nichols 14 years ago

Some mysteries are fun, and not that predictable. One series which I enjoy is the one which starts with _Murder with Peacocks_ by Donna Andrews. The heroine, Meg Lanslow, is a blacksmith artist, which gets some of the stories into our metalworking field. :-) The whole family is strange, which is what makes it so much fun. Probably the one which did the least for me was _Murder with Puffins_, but the rest are loads of fun, in various environments. For example _We'll Always Have Parrots_ takes pace at sort of a science fiction convention -- except that it is dedicated to a particular TV series -- and her (then to be) husband is an actor and a literature professor. Every title has some kind of bird in it -- even if not feathered, such as _Revenge of the Wrought Iron Flamingos_.

I mostly read science fiction and fantasy, but this series is one (of several) which both my wife and I enjoy.

BTW Headed to a SF con this weekend -- probably pick up a few more books. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

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Larry Jaques 14 years ago

I love the babe in the movie. I need to go see that, or rent it. Then I'll get the book and see just how much of the good stuff they left out.

I like it! "Pneumatic" Bouncy babe!

My inbox is a 3' wide, 7' tall 6-tier bookshelf which is full at the moment. Plus, I have numerous lists. ;)

-- When a quiet man is moved to passion, it seems the very earth will shake. -- Stephanie Barron (Something for the Powers That Be to remember, eh?)

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Leon Fisk 14 years ago

Thanks for the offer Gunner. I'm on dial-up yet so big emails are painful to say the least...

Finding material to massage/convert into something worth feeding my mp3 conversion process isn't hard. I'm pretty good at rattling the bushes, snooping around and I already have a considerable backlog I'm working on. This thread just piled on a whole bunch more of good sounding (vetted) material, which I already have a bit of :)

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