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Among the startups tucked between restaurants, squeezed into office buildings and squatting in storefronts near Mountain View’s main drag is one that might stop you cold: @WalmartLabs.

Yes, Wal-Mart — the behemoth of Bentonville, Ark., the fount of falling prices, the beyond-gigantic retailer — has established an outpost here in its search for startup mojo.

What do you mean, nothing with Walmart in its name could be a startup?

@WalmartLabs talks like a startup. “It’s a great place to come and change the world,” says Anand Rajaraman, who runs the place.

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George Carlin, where are you when we really need you?

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He watched doctors treat up to 40 patients a day and have at least four staff members each to handle the nitty-gritty paperwork.

“It’s around 70 percent overhead,” he says. “It wasn’t like this decades ago. Doctors served their neighborhoods, took cash, and didn’t charge a lot because there was so little overhead. So I designed a process that went back to this model, looking at it from the patient’s perspective, and just injected a little technology.”

There are two major fields remaining in which automation is long overdue: Education and health care. This is a very good start.

 With $1,500, he set up a house-call-only practice in his Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood, serving only two zip codes. He created a website through Apple’s iWeb that featured his resume, and posted his schedule on a Google Calendar so patient’s could enter in an appointment time online.

Note: No office, so no office expense. (When was the last time you saw a doctor make a house call? I remember one when Eisenhower was President. Nothing since.) Scheduling is done online, which ensures that (a) his prospective patients are at least middle-class, since they have Internet access, and so will probably be able to pay him, and (b) no staff expense.

Freeberg always gets the good stuff.

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Now that’s America.

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How cool is that?

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Assuming, of course, that Commissioner Gordon knows how to use Mathematica.

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Because nothing says America like useless decorative shit on a vehicle.

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Assume that Dr Phibes got a government job….

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Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield issue a report on the state of the poor in America.  The short answer is that the poor, by historical standards, are doing well, enjoying what were considered luxuries a few generations ago.  President Obama, as usual, seeks to obscure these issues and to implement a new definition of poverty that assumes economic growth never helps the poor.

We keep forgetting that ‘poor’ is a relative term. The ‘poor’ in modern America eat better, sleep better, are healthier, and live in more comfort than any king prior to the First World War.

I am reminded of Dinesh D’Souza’s anecdote about a friend from India who told him that he was emigrating to America. When Dinesh asked why, his friend said, “I want to live in a country where the poor people are fat.”

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I am not making this up.

I always suspected that Bill was full of it, but hey….

Read it. And watch the video.

Pretty cool. You don’t need a transmission — the ball rotates at a constant speed, and your ground speed is controlled by what part of the  ball (relative to the center rotation point) touches the ground … which also governs whether you are going forward, backward, or turning.

I suspect that the tricky part would be wear on the hemisphere, and shock absorbtion. But I’m sure that there are engineers who could handle that.

This would be perfect for a gas turbine engine, which really prefers to operate at the same speed all the time.

Watch it.

And about time, too.

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We have the technology.

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We have the technology.

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Customer service. That’s what it’s all about.

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I am not making this up.

Freeberg distills the essence.

1. Before we realize absolute success in making life completely perfect and before everybody’s safety and happiness are resolutely guaranteed, I think we can stop making new rules. Yeah, before we get there. For no reason, just stop. Otherwise, all things within our ability fall into two categories: What’s already illegal now, and what will be someday. And, you know, I don’t like that.

2. I don’t want my elected officials to make me a better person. I don’t think they have what it takes to do that, even when my favorite guys are the ones that got elected. It’s just not in the job description.

3. I think the whole point of taxation is to raise revenue for vital services. Their purpose is not to punish or reward people, or offer people incentives to start or stop doing certain things.

4. If you have a hot new idea, I think it should be tested out someplace where it doesn’t impact anyone, before we force it on people. That’s just the way I see it. For this reason alone, I can’t be a democrat.

5. I believe in equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.

6. I don’t think we’re more civilized when we find reasons not to lock up violent criminals, or look for excuses not to execute them when they’ve killed innocent people. That doesn’t protect the innocent. Actually, I think that’s barbaric behavior, because innocent people get hurt and we know it. I think we’re more civilized when we pull the switch.

7. I think when some people produce goods and services of value and other people do not, the people who produce things can go ahead and do their producing without advice or regulations from the non-productive people. Those non-productive people, if they knew anything about the best way of producing things, I figure they’d already be doing it.

8. The way I see it, humans are part of nature. Even when you take humans out of nature, this doesn’t make nature “pristine,” or free of malice, violence, death, even sadism…so what’s the point? Leave humans in it. We belong in it.

9. I don’t think it’s right to count “jobs created or saved.” I think when you create jobs with money you forcibly removed from other people by means of taxation, you need to produce a “net”; you need to factor in the jobs that failed to materialize because the people who would’ve created them, had to worry about these taxes.

10. I think when you earn money, and you pay all the taxes in effect at the time, whatever’s left belongs to you. And that is perfectly okay.

11. It remains okay even if you end up with vastly more money than some other guy. I don’t think there is any one point where you’ve made enough money.

12. I respectfully disagree with Michael Moore. Private property is not a “national resource.” It is a resource that should be placed under the control of the people who own it.

13. I’m worried about the exploding public debt. I’m worried about it when we debate tax policy…AND…unlike democrats, I keep worrying about it when we discuss where the money should be spent. I can’t turn it off like a switch.

14. By the way, those two are separate in my mind. Because I’m not mentally disabled, I don’t think a tax cut is something that “costs” us anything.

15. When we talk of the virtues of “choice,” I don’t think sex means an awful lot. To be a democrat, you have to think choice is important when you’re talking about sex, then you have to be suddenly anti-choice when we’re not talking about sex anymore. I just can’t bend that far.

16. I don’t think, when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.

17. However, when a child has both a mother and a father…I do think, generally, that is good for everybody.

18. Drill, baby, drill. Consuming resources is a natural part of living life, and going after those resources is a natural part of consuming them. There is no shame for anyone in any of this. The shame is in compelling others to make sacrifices you yourself are not willing to make.

19. I don’t think people are necessarily better if they voted for Obama.

20. I don’t think people are necessarily better because of the color of their skin.

21. I don’t think people are necessarily better if they’re women.

22. I don’t think people are necessarily better if they’re gay.

23. I don’t think people are necessarily better if they choose to be vegetarians.

24. I don’t think people are necessarily better if they happen to work for the government.

25. I know too much to be a democrat. I know you can’t restore the hours that the library is open, by cutting defense spending.

26. I don’t think a nation can tax its way into prosperity. I don’t think the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. And if they are, then that’s great, because you can only get so poor, but if the rich are getting richer then that would mean the economy is doing better, and who would have a problem with that?

27. I don’t believe the middle class is taking any kind of a beating when it is found that fewer people are in it. I don’t think organized labor is taking a beating when there are fewer members. I don’t think people appreciate the environmental movement more when they see more hybrid cars or eco-cups. I don’t think college graduates enjoy a brighter future when there are more college graduates. In short, I can’t be a democrat because I appreciate the simple economic truth that commodities become precious through scarcity, not through abundance.

28. I think a study that is funded by the government has just as much chance to be biased and inaccurate, as a study funded by oil companies, in fact the government-backed study has greater potential to rely on false information.

29. I don’t believe in “unfettered capitalism.” Such a thing is an impossibility, because you cannot have capitalism without a free market, and in a free market all transactions 1) must involve at least two parties representing different interests, and 2) are suspended by default, permitted to go forward only if both sides believe they’re coming out of it ahead. Capitalism is self-regulating. Socialism, on the other hand, works within the rules only until such time as it figures out it needs to break the rules, and then consistently tries to find ways to break the rules.

30. I know Ronald Reagan was right: If not a one among us is sufficiently competent to manage his own affairs, there cannot be anyone among us sufficiently competent to manage everybody else’s.

And that pretty much says it all — thirty pieces of gold to match the Democrats’ thirty pieces of silver. Print this out and post it on your wall. Put it on the ceiling above your bed so you see it first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Stick it on the front door so that people will know what real American’s believe.

Steve Sailer looks at questing in America.

One day, you should compile all the ongoing Ponce de Leon like quests in contemporary America:

1) The Great White Defendant
2) The Great Bright Illegal
3) The Magic Bullet To Close The Achievement Gap (or Home Ownership Gap or Firefighter Test Scores Gap)
4) The Great Moderate Muslim (I guess this one’s more of an international scope) or Democracy Loving Islamic Nations That Love Us Back
5) The Great Black Quarterback
6) The Great Republican African-American
7) The Great Gay Male Athlete (in sports people care about) or The Great Gay Soldier [recent — there are a lot of them from awhile ago]
8) The Incredible Latino Supervote (as you once called it)
9) The Great Female Movie Director [or cinematographer — I campaigned for Mandy Walker to become the first woman to get an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography for Baz Luhrman’s Australia but the insensitive sexists in Hollywood didn’t listen to me]
10) Green Jobs, Shovel Ready Jobs

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Beats working.

Watch it.

Because your life will never be the same.

Check it out.

I guess California isn’t totally worthless.

Paul Carr and Sarah Lacy are Not Safe For Work.

Delightfully entertaining. (Complaints always sound more sincere in a British accent.)

My favorite is PETA wanting to re-name the Tenderloin area in San Francisco to ‘the Tempe district’. I am not making this up.

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And I, for one, am looking forward to it.

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One of the killer features of the Desmos Whiteboard is an interactive calculator that graphs equations as you write them. (Founder Eli Luberoff was a double math and physics major at Yale). Desmos has now taken that and rewritten it as a standalone online graphing calculator. It instantly draws the equations as you update them, it’s free, browser-based, color-coded, and you can share any graph with a bitly link.

Who could ask for anything more?

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I am not making this up.

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A boon to conspiracy theorists everywhere.

67 percent of vegetarians have dyed their hair, compared with 44 percent of people in general.

Truly, one can find anything on the Internet.

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Intuary, a mobile app startup, recently launched its first app, called Verbally, which is designed to bring speech to those without. Verbally is an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) solution built for the more than six million people in the U.S. suffering from speech disabilities — caused by Lou Gherig’s Disease, stroke, brain injury, Parkinson’s, cerebral palsy, autism, and more. The app allows users to tap the words they wish to communicate onto the app’s keyboard, or choose from pre-prepared words or phrases, which are then in turn transmitted into audio phrases.

This is the ‘voder’ we all know and love from classic science fiction stories.

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Every worthwhile thing in life has a Greek name.

1. Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it’s still on my list.

3. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

4. If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.

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More than a century ago, it was a fairly common practice for up-and-coming cities to build underground tunnels and shops.

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New Hampshire, appropriately enough, is #1. Indiana, my home state, is #3.

The top 5 are all Red states and the bottom 5 are all Blue states. That ought to tell you something.

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Room 77, which officially launched in public beta in February, has collected and indexed data on more than 500,000 hotel rooms in 2,500 properties and also crowdsources reviews and ratings from travelers.

The site provides travelers with specific details about each hotel room at a property, including the room category, square footage, bed type, elevator proximity and if it is a connecting room. For each room, Room 77 also generates a virtual Room View, simulating the actual view from that room’s window using Google Earth-enabled technology.

The best rooms for each traveler are automatically ranked using Room 77’s proprietary Room Rank algorithm that adjusts to each individual’s preferences for high or low floor, distance from elevator, view importance and need for connecting rooms. Each room is then scored with a color-coded match percentage indicating: “strong match” (green), “fair match” (yellow) and “weak match” (red). Room 77 also gives travelers insider tips on how to request desirable room(s) directly from the hotel and increase the probability of securing one.

The future is here.

For now the company is focusing on indexing every hotel room at every three- to five-star hotel and resort worldwide, which the company estimates to total approximately 25,000 properties.

Although not quite yet for us Best Western types….

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“Dig This” is a construction theme park developed by New Zealand-born Ed Mumm, who stumbled upon the idea while using a rented excavator to build his home in Steamboat Springs, Colo. After a couple of days of digging, he realized that operating machinery was a blast.

As indeed it is.

The 10-employee park has five pieces of machinery, including a pair of Caterpillar D5 track-type bulldozers and three Caterpillar 315CL hydraulic excavators. Dig This sells three-hour packages that consist of a 30-minute safety and operation orientation followed by two hours of maneuvering either a bulldozer or excavator.

Guests can either dig a trench up to 10 ft deep or build an earthen mound; there are also skill tests like picking and moving 2,000-lb tires or scooping basketballs from atop safety cones. ??Packages are priced at $400, which reflects equipment maintenance and insurance costs. Patrons 14 and older can play in the dirt.

Oh, I would so love to do this….

“Half of our customers are females, including housewives and grandmothers,” says company spokeswoman Cathy Wiedemer. “Throttling up a powerful engine and moving mounds of earth is very empowering.”

Remember it.

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Ball’s in your court, Steve.

The Other McCain appreciates one of life’s little ironies.

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Sometimes the old ways are best.

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Everybody loves comic books.

Everybody loves dinosaurs.

What’s not to like?

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A blog devoted to food mentioned in George R.R. Martin’s books from Song of Ice and Fire.

I am not making this up. I’m sure there’s one about Tolkien-oriented food, too.

Freeberg has some fun. Watch the  video.

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US military boffins have added cheap “fire and forget” autonomous seeker heads to basic, lightweight dumb rockets of a type which can be fired in large numbers. By seriously reducing the size and cost of smart weapons, this development is yet another big step towards changing the way wars are fought.

A single helicopter armed with LCITS 70mms would be able, as the ONR suggests, to cause a frightful slaughter among a “swarm” of attacking speedboats. Normally the chopper crew would be slowed up or even stymied by the need to hold laser dots on targets moving at high speed and probably weaving or jinking unpredictably. There is a “fire and forget” version of Hellfire but it can only be shot from more sophisticated Apache copters mounting the Longbow radar: and an Apache can only carry 16 Hellfires as opposed to 76 LCITS 70mms.

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The new underground locomotion tech comes from Professor Daniel Goldman of Georgia Tech and his colleagues, funded in their mechanical mole research by the US Army and National Science Foundation. The prof and his team were inspired by the sandfish lizard of the Sahara desert, which “swims” through the sand seas there.

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We have the technology.

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These curved, solar-panel-covered seats rotate on an axis to keep them facing the sun, generating additional energy from the rocking motion created when people climb inside. All that harvested electricity can be used to recharge gadgets plugged into the three USB ports and to illuminate a light strip on the inside of the loop.

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As you can see, it’s not technically an alarm clock, but it does have an alarm of sorts: four tunable strings that are plucked using a spinning guitar pick.