“Chads” are those little circles of paper left when you punch a hole in it. You may know of the controversy chads caused in the 2000 USA election. It seems to have become quite a problem.

You see, in the USA, some voters are required to punch a hole on their nominated vote. When the small circle of paper remains stuck to the sheet, this is called a “hanging chad.” Obviously problematic when counting votes.

Chads are now a problem for us in the tally room.

Because the paper used for printing the running tallies of votes for each seat has arrived at the tally room, but the chads haven’t been punched out.

- The Poll Vault

We now have our very own “chad puncher.” Gary, is there to ensure all the chads are clear from the paper so that printers don’t jam during the election coverage on Saturday night.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qymxCMz3Uzo[/youtube]

Straight out of a Wallace and Gromit film (actually, it’s from France) comes this automatic pet washing machine, that “eliminates the stress produced by current pet cleaning methods.” Yes, they actually say that. Not only does the Pet Spa safely wash your pet with hydro massage jets, it’s also able to deliver “a variety of medications and chemicals” (like flea powder, I’m guessing). After the wash, your pet gets to enjoy a nice relaxing blow-dry.

It’s designed to be totally safe for your pet, with continuous air circulation and water jets that come out of the floor to avoid eyes and ears. Designed for large pet stores, the Pet Spa costs over $30,000. Suggested cost per wash is $15; actual cost in shampoo and stuff is only 45 cents. Although you can stuff yourself inside the compartment to keep your dog company, based on the video, I would not recommend doing the same thing with your cat.

Hat tip to OhGizmo!

First I bumped into this through Digg. Pretty amazing images but also pretty fake (check the link at the bottom of the page).

Then I found the video below on YouTube. Now that’s pretty amazing. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYM__s3R5q0[/youtube]

I watched a fair amount of the recent space walk by Scott Parazynski and Doug Wheelock on NASA TV last night. It was a pretty amazing and difficult walk involving the entire ISS and Discovery crew. Parazynski spent a few hours repairing a solar array which hard torn during deployment. This was part of the recent STS-120 shuttle mission to the space station.

It was a dangerous walk because of risk of electrocution (they couldn’t turn off the solar array) and the fact that Scott would be one hour away from the safety of the station. He needed to ride on the end of a robotic arm which was outstretched as far as it could possibly be in order to reach the array.

This video on the NASA site will show you the movement the arm had to undertake to get Scott to the damage site.

During the telecast, I noticed how amazingly the team worked together. There were no egos, not frights and plenty of great banter. Everyone (including those back on Earth) were happy to defer decisions to those people with the most reliable information at the time. It was quite a pleasure to watch a team work so well together.

I took a heap of screen shots of the cast so here they are each with a brief description:

• Start of the ride
• Discovery docked to the ISS.
• Parazynski attached to the end of the OBSS.
• At the solar array.
• Putting the first cufflink in place.
• View from Doug Wheelock’s wireless camera.
• View from an ISS cameras.
• About to cut the damaged ropes.
• The five cufflinks in place.
• Taking a photograph of himself.