This is so cool it's scary. The U.S. government is experimenting with a technology that can identify the molecular components of cargo crossing the border. So it can tell if the contents of a barrel are flour or cocaine. Or anthrax.

Right now, it's just one machine, and it will only be used for suspicious trucks passing in from Mexico. But if the government made everything passing through its border pass through this, the drug trade would stop in its tracks. As would other smuggling activities.

The downsides are significant right now. First, the cost: $10 million per unit. Second, the time: it takes 10 minutes to scan the contents of a 18-wheeler. And third: it's nuclear, so operators require radiation protection. Still tough, those things can be overcome in time.

The privacy invasion brought on by the PATRIOT act may be nothing compared to this. Soon, the US will be able to count exactly how much money is in your wallet without you even knowing. Or be able to tell what you had for lunch by examining the contents of your stomach as you pass through the XRay machine.

New Nukes at U.S. Border

U.S. agents next week will start scanning trucks crossing the Mexico border with a device that shoots neutrons to detect what exactly is hidden in the cargo. By Ryan Singel.

 

Alice Cooper is selling school supplies for Staples. That is cool.

Little Girl: “I thought you said school was out forever.”
Alice Cooper: “No no no. The song goes, school's out for summer. Nice try though.”

On a recent trip to Dallas, Texas, I came across a sign warning patrons not to bring their handgun into the restaurant.

I guess the gun culture found in Texas (and other Southern States) is quite foreign to me as a Canadian, so seeing signs like this makes me laugh.

What makes it funny, to me at least, is that bringing concealed handguns into a Texas bar is such a common occurrence, that they have to create a sign to tell people not to.

I've talked a lot about my experience ripping open my old Dell Inspiron laptop. Here are some pictures.

Here's a picture of the laptop without the keyboard or the screen:

Here's a picture of the laptop with the palmrest assembly removed:

Notice the battery and floppy disk have already been removed, which are the two empty bays at the bottom left and right of the picture.

Here is a picture of the laptop motherboard:

On the left is the PCMCIA slot. On the right is the laptop security mechanism, to which a cable can be attached so noone steals your laptop off your office desk. Just to the left of the security mechanism, taking up most of the right side of the motherboard, is a complex looking heat redistribution system.

A few months back, I blogged about my broken Dell laptop. I was determined to fix it, since I spent so much money on it 6 years ago to purchase it. Read the history here and here.

The symptoms:

The battery stopped recharging. Even when plugged in, the laptop reported running on battery power. The laptop would not boot when plugged into the wall with the battery removed.

The possible causes:

Searching the web, I discovered that there are three possible causes:

1. A bad electrical cord
2. A cracked motherboard
3. An expired battery

Discounting the causes:

The bad electrical cord looked unlikely, because the green light was still working. Also the cord was not frayed.

The battery was indeed old - the original battery from 6 years ago. But the laptop was still working off the battery, so it's not like the battery just stopped working. There is a diagnostic button on the back of the battery, and it showed everything was OK.

So that left the cracked motherboard. Replacing this sounded exciting - I'd never seen the inside of a laptop before.

Fixing It: Attempt One

I ordered a new motherboard off eBay for about $100. I downloaded the laptop disassembly instructions from Dell and printed them. I got my tools out, and started taking the laptop apart.

It was easier than I expected. I was quite worried that the laptop was put together in a way that once you took it apart, it was impossible to put back together. This turned out not to be true. There were only a couple of places were cables were either glued or taped on, and so you definitely have to be gentle with this thing.

The one tip I would give is, there are a LOT of screws you need to remove, and they come in about 15 different sizes and shapes. What I did was arrange the screws on a desk in the order in which I removed them. Then when I put the thing back together, I just used the screws in reverse order. It makes things a lot easier. (Somehow, I had two extra screws left over. I don't know where they were supposed to go.)

So after I replaced the motherboard with the one off eBay, and put the whole thing back together, I plugged it back in and turned it on. I noticed two things on reboot. One, my touchpad mouse was not working and two, the battery was still not recharging. So the motherboard replacement did not fix the problem.

Fixing It: Attempt Two

So, the next logical step is to order a new power cable. Those cost about $12. (A new battery costs $125 or so, so I wanted to leave that option til last.) After some confusion with the seller, in which he apparently shipped it to the wrong address, I got my new power cable.

Plugged it in, and lo and behold, it worked! After all the motherboard stuff I did, it was the power cable. Of course, my touchpad mouse still did not work. But, oh well. Worst case scenario is that I have to use an external mouse.

Unfixing the First Attempt

I decided to remove the new motherboard and put the original back in. This meant disassembling the laptop again. I waited a little while before embarking on that journey one more time.

Last week, however, I did replace the new motherboard with the old one. This time, I also found places for those two leftover screws from last time. And I must have plugged the touchpad in correctly, because it now works.

Everything is back to normal.

I don't know what to do with this extra laptop at this point. In the time since my old one broke, I bought a new one. I might repave the old one, put some experimental OS on it (like Longhorn) and play around with it. We'll see. But for now, I have a working laptop.

I'm sitting here watching the Olympics, and I notice a significant percentage of the commercials shown are simulations of Olympic events. I don't mean that they are Olympic-related (ie: “Official sponsor of the 2004 Olympics!“) I mean these commercials show actor-athletes participating in events.

Air Canada - Cycling
Volkswagen - Cycling
LG Plasma TV - Relay, high jump, diving, gymastics
Bell Expressvu - Weightlifting, gymnastics
Royal Bank - Running
Air Canada - Floor dance

All within a fifteen minute span of watching TV. I think these type of commercial has been overused.

I did not know this, but in order for a new Olympic record to be set in weightlifting, the old record has to be broken by at least 2.5 kg (or 5 lbs). Apparently, the officials at the Olympics didn't know this either. A female weightlifter from Thailand thought she had set a new record by lifting 125.5 kg, beating the previous record of 125 kg. Even official news sources celebrated her new record. But “she should not have been allowed to lift that weight” according to an anonymous official.

The good news is that this female lifter asked the Prime Minister of Thailand if she could join the army, and he said yes. It's important to have dreams, I guess.

Tennis superstars Venus Williams and Andy Roddick are finding themselves playing in front of record crowds - record-low that is. For instance, the first match Venus Williams played was in front of about 500 spectators in an arena that seats 8,000.

When was the last time Venus Williams played a real event in a stadium only 5% full? I'm guessing it has been since the days before she turned pro.

The U.S. Olympic men's basketball team lost for the first time in 16 years to Puerto Rico. I guess it had to happen sometime.

This brings up the age-old question: should professional athletes be allowed to compete in the Olympics? It's a tough question to answer - I can see both sides of the argument.

On the one hand, if you bring in professional athletes in basketball, you are going to be in a situation like we have had for the last 16 years, where one country dominates the sport. Using amateur athletes generally assures a fairer contest.

Another interesting observation is that athletes that make tens of millions of dollars per year tend not to get as much out of the Olympic experience. They fly in just before their event, stay in the most expensive suite in a 5-star hotel, and fly back to their home country after their event is over. They miss the Olympic village, the comraderie with other athletes, the ceremonies - some athletes make friends that will last a lifetime. But I doubt Ervin “Magic” Johnson took those experiences away with him during his Olympic games in 1992.

And thirdly, amateur athletes spend four years of their life preparing for the next Olympics. That is their "world championships". Professional baseball players have the World Series, basketball players have the NBA Championships, hockey players have the Stanley Cup. These pros already HAVE a dream to persue. It would seem that, to many of them, winning at the Olympics is actually worth less than winning their own sport's championship. It's almost a wasted gold medal - I'd rather it go to someone who appreciates it.

Looking at the other side of the coin, if the Olympics are about finding the best athletes in the world, noone should be excluded. If the professional figure skaters were excluded from the Olympics, then the gold medal winner could not claim to be the best skater in the world, as some professionals might be able to beat them.

Second, the only difference between a "professional" and an "amateur" is money. A professional makes a living from the sport - endorsements or winnings. Do we want all of our Olympic athletes to be poor and destitute? Or should the only people eligble to compete come from rich families that can afford to subsidize them? That seems like a silly distinction to me. If you can make a living being a professional weight-lifter, all the power to you. If you work at Home Depot and only weight lift on the side, you might not be able to devote as many hours to training as the professional, but it's still a fair competition.

In the end, I guess I agree that professionals should be allowed in the Olympics. Perhaps I have a problem with some of these modern sports being Olympic events. I mean, if baseball, basketball and soccer are Olympic sports, why not football and chess?

But that's another argument for another day. ;)