marines

With seemingly every car on the road being designed by the same three people, all of whom live in the same subdivision, it seems the only leap forward in auto design is the leap upward.

Many hearts, then, were sent soaring at the news that the Federal Aviation Administration is giving the Terrafugia Transition a little light leeway in order to allow it to qualify as a light aircraft rather than a heavy machine. And now the Marines seem to be getting in on the flying Ford Focus act.

Logi Aerospace has announced that it has sent a proposal to … Read more

Deriq is not your typical Internet star. He often hides out of view and one of his pastimes is taking apart his Mr. Potato Head. Perhaps the most exciting thing he does is eat--underwater.

But that's all perfectly normal behavior for the most popular resident at the visitor center at Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport. Deriq, a giant Pacific octopus, can now be seen by even bigger crowds thanks to a submersible Webcam recently installed in his tank.

The OctoCam's live 24-hour video stream takes viewers underwater and inside the octopus tank, which is also populated by sea stars and sea anemones. At first glance, all might appear to be quiet. But then the tip of a tentacle comes into view. Suddenly, more tentacles unfurl and appear to be coming straight for you, causing you instinctively to lean back just a little--even though the show isn't in 3D.

The submersible Webcam is a Lorex CVS 1000, which has infrared capability and allows images to be transmitted even when lighting is low. (The best viewing times are during the center's business hours, when the lights outside the tank are on.)

Installing the camera in the tank was no easy task. Octopuses, as you might guess, are adept at taking things apart. But the OctoCam team also had to consider how best to protect the octopus from the camera. Most of the hardware available commercially is out because it's made of metals that break down in sea water.

So the team had to design their own housing. They used a stainless-steel electrical box and applied a special marine-grade powder coating to prevent zinc contamination. Also, they smoothed all the edges of the nontoxic nylon bolts that hold the camera box together so the octopus couldn't unscrew them. … Read more

Be open, but be careful. That's the watchword for those serving in the Air Force and in the Marines, who can now tweet and use Facebook for official military business and authorized personal matters.

The U.S. Air Force is slowly and cautiously opening its network to social media sites, starting this week with five bases in the Pacific, to be followed by a wider rollout later in April, according to the Air Force's official Web site. The U.S. Marine Corps, meanwhile, this week opened up full access to all personnel, says the Marine Corps Times.

The … Read more

Even though I take the time to write out a dinner menu plan each week, I frequently find myself looking at a hunk of non-marinated meat at 5 p.m. on a school night. Sure, we can slap some barbecue sauce on it and toss it on the grill, but when you actually take the time to let the meat absorb the marinade, it's more tender, more flavorful, and just plain better.

I've accepted that I'm not the girl who checks her list the night before and makes the marinade well in advance. But I could be … Read more

Alright now, you know-it-alls, show-it-alls, and tell-it-alls. It's time you people learned a little discipline, a little social decorum, a little good old fashioned discretion.

So here are the rules. No more Twittering. No more friending. And definitely no more updating people on your latest moods, feelings, lovers, and hangnails.

Yes, in what seems like a concerted effort on the part of traditional culture, two highly similar organizations, the Marines and the NFL, have decided to fight back against all the careless talk.

They have each reportedly begun to ban Twitter and Facebook.

Let's start with the Marines. … Read more

Radio Shack, as we mentioned yesterday, is changing to The Shack. But a good restaurant in Connecticut is also called The Shack and has pie. Radio Shack does not have pie. They lose. We also talk about Google dropping search share and the rumored new PS3.

Buzz Out Loud interviews Aneesh Chopra, Obama's Chief Technology Officer http://www.cnet.com/8301-19709_1-10302978-10.html

Google search share drops as Bing gains momentum http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/08/bing-continues-to-chip-away-at-googles-search-share.ars

Misunderstandings abound … Read more

When Ford launched the Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner hybrids five years ago, the company hoped the SUVs would be a hit. Now, the vehicles remain the most fuel-efficient SUVs on the market. Yesterday, workers at Ford's Kansas City assembly plant celebrated a milestone as its 100,000th hybrid SUV rolled off the line.

The Ford Escape Hybrid SUV and Mercury Mariner Hybrid SUV deliver 34 mpg city driving, 31 mpg highway. The newest entries to Ford's hybrid lineup, the Fusion Hybrid and Milan Hybrid deliver 41 mpg city driving, 36 mpg highway, the most fuel-efficient midsize sedans … Read more

An Internet security company claims that Iran has taken advantage of a computer security breach to obtain engineering and communications information about Marine One, President Barack Obama's helicopter, according to a report by WPXI, NBC's affiliate in Pittsburgh.

Tiversa, headquartered in Cranberry Township, Pa., reportedly discovered a security breach that led to the transfer of military information to an Iranian IP address, according to WPXI. The information is said to include planned engineering upgrades, avionic schematics, and computer network information.

The channel quoted the company's CEO, Bob Boback, who said Tiversa found a file containing the entire … Read more