Windows 7

via XKCD

Web 2.0 2010

Great discussion between two of the biggest VC guys in the world, John Doerr (Kliener Perkins) and  Fred Wilson (Union Square) about the nature of Web 2.0 and whether you need to be in silicon valley any more to build great tech. 38 minutes and worth it.

Full House Shows up to watch concert by holographic characters

Only in Japan.

Free style biking

Danny MacAskill in Scotland.

Out of Sight

Powering the Cell: Mitochondria

Demolition Fail

MIT Panel Discussion: Reducing accidents in Oil and Gas industry

 

Priorities

From [xkcd]

Untangling Skill and Luck

A very interesting look at how luck and skill interact and which of these dominates in different activities.

Untangling Skill and Luck: How to Think About Outcomes—Past, Present, and Future [PDF]
Fortuna, by Albrecht Dürer
Legg Mason, July 15, 2010

 
The illusion of control also comes into play here. This illusion says that when we perceive ourselves to be in control of a situation, we deem our probabilities of success to be higher than what chance dictates. Saying it differently, when we are in control we think our ratio of skill to luck is higher than it really is. Remarkably, this illusion even holds for activities that are all chance. For example, some people throw dice hard when they want a high number, and gently when they seek a small one. Like the belief in small numbers, this illusion is not a problem in high skill, low luck activities but becomes more problematic as the contribution of luck grows. Here again, our minds are poor at differentiating between activities, so what works in one setting fails miserably in another. 
 
•  Helps you share feedback properly.  The best way to ensure satisfactory long-term results is to constantly improve skill, which often means enhancing a process. Gaining skill requires deliberate practice, which has a very specific meaning: it includes actions designed to improve performance, has repeatable tasks, incorporates high-quality feedback, and is not much fun.  Deliberate practice works well in domains that are dominated by skill—learning to play the cello, for instance.

 
The challenge is providing good feedback. The reason is that the outcome is the only quantity you can measure with any reliability, but it doesn’t easily reveal the contribution of luck. The natural default for most of us—whether it’s a manager evaluating the performance of a direct report or an investor sizing up how a money-manager has done—is to rely on outcomes because that is something we can measure. What we can measure in the short term, however, may not be what matters in the long term. Ultimately, it is a good process that leads to satisfactory outcomes, but the quality of the process gets swamped in the short term by luck. 

Things being destroyed very slowly

 

The McGurk Effect– Is seeing believing?

Sensory inputs interfering with each other.

These Gears really Work

Used Bookstore Ad

What happens when you stick your hand in the Large Hadron Collider?

One question, many answers :)

Diminished Reality

This video processing system from a German university removes any object from a video in (almost) real time, takes only 40 ms to do it.

Professor Tim Wu on Google and Net Neutrality

How Google changed its tune on net neutrality. One of the most interesting parts is between 14:00 and 18:00 min marks.

1962: Exploding H-Bombs in space

 

Web Video as driver for creativity

This kid is the definition of the word ‘Dude’

This is hilarious!!

Note to Prospective thieves

Via [PassiveAgressiveNotes]

Two Rocks Converse

From Artist Tom Gauld [Link].

Letters from an Oil Man

to his employees. The company folded (what a surprise!) but the words of wisdom live on. There are more of these nuggets at Lettersofnote.com

 

China plans “Straddling Buses”

10% of the cost of a subway and cool to boot :) [Link]

Proposed by Shenzhen Hashi Future Parking Equipment Co., Ltd, the model looks like a subway or light-rail train bestriding the road. It is 4-4.5 m high with two levels: passengers board on the upper level while other vehicles lower than 2 m can go through under. Powered by electricity and solar energy, the bus can speed up to 60 km/h carrying 1200-1400 passengers at a time without blocking other vehicles’ way. Also it costs about 500 million yuan to build the bus and a 40-km-long path for it, only 10% of building equivalent subway. It is said that the bus can reduce traffic jams by 20-30%.

 

Here is the presentation by Song Youzhou, chairman of  Shenzhen Hashi Future Parking Equipment Co., Ltd. The interesting part starts at the 45 second mark.

 

A headset that reads your mind

Really interesting idea. Train a computer algorithm to recognize your brain waves in reference to some aspect of a user interface and from there on, it should be able to recognize the command from analyzing your brain waves. The action starts 4 minutes into the video.

Lucky Pilot

One second late and he was toast, literally.

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity

Sheeple

Complaint letter to Richard Branson

A dissatisfied customer’s witty complaint letter to the Virgin Airlines head Richard Branson. Read the fill letter here. [Link]

REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008

I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit.

Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at thehands of your corporation.

Look at this Richard. Just look at it: [see image 1, above].

I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?

You don’t get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it’s next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That’s got to be the clue hasn’t it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in: [see image 2, above].

The best post-acquisition letter to employees, Ever …

So Woot  was acquired by Amazon and their CEO proceeded to communicate this information to the employees in a hilarious letter. [Link]

Date: Weds,  30 June  2010
From: Matt Rutledge (CEO – Woot.com)
To: All Woot Employees
Subject: Woot and Amazon

I know I say this every time I find a picture of an adorable kitten, but please set aside 20 minutes to carefully read this entire email. Today is a big day in Woot history. This morning, I woke up to find Jeff Bezos the Mighty had seized our magic sword. Using the Arthurian model as a corporate structure was something our CFO had warned against from the very beginning, but now that’s water under the bridge. What is important is that our company is on the verge of becoming a part of the Amazon.com dynasty. And our plans for Grail.Woot are on indefinite hold.

Over the next few days, you will probably read headlines that say “Matt Rutledge revealed to be monstrous pseudo-human creation of Jeff Bezos.” You might even see this photo making the rounds. Rest assured that these rumors have nothing to do with our final decision. We think now is the right time to join with Amazon because, quite simply, every company that becomes a subsidiary gets two free downloads until the end of July, and we very much need that new thing with Trent Reznor’s wife on our iPods.

Other than that, we plan to continue to run Woot the way we have always run Woot – with a wall of ideas and a dartboard. From a practical point of view, it will be as if we are simply adding one person to the organizational hierarchy, except that one person will just happen to be a billion-dollar company that could buy and sell each and every one of you like you were office furniture. Nevertheless, don’t worry that our culture will suddenly take a leap forward and become cutting-edge. We’re still going to be the same old bottom-feeders our customers and readers have come to know and love, and each and every one of their pre-written insult macros will still be just as valid in a week, two weeks, or even next year. For Woot, our vision remains the same: somehow earning a living on snarky commentary and junk.

We are excited about doing this for all sorts of reasons. One, our business model is so vague that there’s no way Amazon can possibly change what it is we’re truly doing: preparing the way for the rise of the Lava Men in 2012. Also, our deal means that Jason Toon will finally be released from that Mexican jail owned by Zappos honcho Tony Hsieh. No, don’t lie, Tony, we’ve seen the paperwork. And we need a powerful ally in case Steve Jobs finally breaks down and comes after us for all our Apple jokes over the years. Don’t think of it as a buyout; think of it as NATO!

I will go through each of the above points in more detail later, but first, let me get to the top 5 burning questions that I’m guessing many of you will have.

TOP 5 BURNING QUESTIONS:

Q: F1RST!!!!
A: Okay, that’s not a question, but it is a good place to mention that our forums will still be policed by a team of moderators, as before. And also, Woot’s previous and always-in-effect privacy policy will still be just as always-in-effect, so don’t worry, there are no plans to suddenly give up or merge your forum data.

Q: Is Snapster leaving?
A: Are you kidding? He’s out the door about ten seconds after that check clea- that is to say, Snapster will continue as Woot.com CEO, just like before, and the rest of our staff’s not going anywhere either. Woot and all our various sites will continue to be an independently operated company full of horrible, useless products and an untalented jerkface writing staff, same as it ever was.

Q: Will the Woot culture change?
A: Amazon is interested in us because they recognize the value of our people, our brand, and our unique style of deep-tissue, toxin-releasing massage. And they don't want to start changing things now. Amazon's hoping our nutty Woot steez continues to grow and develop (and perhaps even rubs off on them a little). They’re not looking to have their folks come in and run Woot unless we ask them to, which incidentally you can do by turning off the bathroom lights and saying the word “Kindle” three times; a helpful Amazon employee will appear in the mirror. That said, Amazon clearly knows what they're doing in a lot of areas, so we’re geeked about the opportunities to tap into that knowledge and those resources, especially on the technology side. This is about making the Woot brand, culture, and business even stronger than it is today, and we expect that any changes will be for the better or we wouldn't bother with this endless paperwork.

Q: Where can I get one of those vuvuzelas?
A: Are you even paying attention?

Several months ago, when we were all sitting on Jeff Bezos’s bumper drinking orange Mad Dog and trying not to be noticed, we heard a voice in the distance yelling “You kids better not scratch my Mercedes or I’m calling the cops!” We ran. It was later that night when Amazon came by the house and said they liked our style and also wanted to get that money we owed them for messing up the chrome. We like to think that our relationship with Amazon will continue at this level for many, many, many years to come.

But we here at Woot are still a thoughtful company, so, at the end of the day, I watched the sunset, and its golden-hued glory made me think about two questions:

1) Is there really a universal deity?

2) Does such a thing preclude free will or are we humans in control of our own destiny?

After spending a lot of time falling asleep at the library while facing the philosophy books, I determined that the concept of destiny is a construct that allows man a gentle release from facing the terror of his existence, and that a Hyundai full of twenties would pretty much offer the same benefits. And so, I ultimately said YES!

This is definitely an emotional day for me. The feelings I’m experiencing are similar to what I felt in college on graduation day: excitement about getting a check from my folks combined with nausea from a hellacious bender the night before. I remember fondly that time when an RA turned on the lights and yelled “WHO OWNS THESE PANTS?” Except this time, the pants are a company, and the RA is you, and the sixty five hours of community service is a deal that will ensure the Woot.com experience can continue to grow for years and years and years, like a black mold behind the Gold Box. Join us, because together, we can rule the galaxy as father and son. Also, there will be six muffins waiting in the company break room, courtesy of the nice folks at Amazon.com. Welcome to the family!

Matt Rutledge
CEO, Woot

iPad Portrait

Artist David Kassan making a portrait on the iPad. Amazing!

The Difference

WorldCup 2010: Disease outbreak potential

For the eternal optimists among us, here is the potential of the world cup as a disease vector :)  Click the picture for more …

Home made Camera Balloon looks at earth

from 24 Miles up. Used a GPS transmitter to locate it after it came down. cool.  [link]

Surfing

Amazing Camera work …

Lunar Solar Belt

Here is a truly mega project proposal from Shimizu corporation [Link] to lay a belt of solar cells all around the equator of the moon using local materials and then transfer the electricity to earth using microwaves. They have other interesting extremely large scale projects on their web site also like space hotels.

The Solar Belt Configuration

1. Lunar solar cells

To ensure continuous generation of power, an array of solar cells will extend like a belt along the entire 11,000km lunar equator. This belt will grow in width from a few kilometers to 400km.

2. Electric power cables

The cables will transfer the electric power from the lunar solar cells to the transmission facilities.

3. Microwave power transmission antennas

The 20km-diameter antennas will transmit power to the receiving rectennas. A guidance beacon (radio beacon) brought from the Earth will be used to ensure accurate transmission.

4. Laser power transmission facilities

High-energy-density laser will be beamed to the receiving facilities. A guidance beacon (radio beacon) brought from the Earth will be used to ensure accurate transmission.

5. Transportation route along the lunar equator

Materials needed for the construction and maintenance of the Solar Belt will be transported along this route. Electric power cables will be installed under the transportation route.

6. Solar cell production plants

The plants will move automatically while producing solar cells from lunar resources and installing them.

Problem Solving

Interesting lecture on problem solving by Adam Savage (of Mythbusters).

F*** Grapefruit

Debt as a trigger for historical events

A very interesting talk by economic historian Niall Ferguson on how debt has effectively shaped history and the course of empires. Also some very good insight about the current economic situation and the impact it will have on the world geo politics in the coming decades. Video is quite long, about an hour.

Launch of the first solar sail powered space craft

… has been delayed. It is heading for Venus, when the weather clears up! [National Geographic]

Once in space, the cylindrical, 677-pound (307-kilogram) craft will separate from the rocket and spin itself to unfurl its roughly 46-foot-wide (14-meter-wide) solar sail.

First proposed in the 1920s, solar sails are large reflective membranes that allow a spacecraft to be pushed by radiation pressure from sunlight, negating the need for heavy onboard fuel. (Explore a time line of space travel milestones.)

"It's the space equivalent of a yacht sailing on the sea," said Yuichi Tsuda, deputy project manager for Ikaros. Like wind filling a boat's sails, particles of light—or photons—streaming from the sun bounce onto a mirrorlike aluminized solar sail.

As each photon strikes, its momentum is transmitted to the spacecraft, which begins to gather speed in the almost frictionless environment of space. A solar sail can eventually reach speeds five to ten times greater than a rocket powered by conventional fuels.

Ikaros is considered a hybrid, because the sail's membrane—itself just 0.0075 millimeters thick—sports thin-film solar cells for generating electricity, which will power Ikaros's high-efficiency ion-propulsion engines, Tsuda said.

NASA engineer Les Johnson views interstellar sail material. [Wikipedia]

Photoshop crash reports

Interesting …. Many more at ManiacalRage.net [Link]

 

The most useless machine ever .. in LEGO

What happens when you turn it on? A little hand appears and turns it off again.

Awesome AD

To the tax cheats. They’ve got the 1984 voice down.

Its not the banks, its the bankers

Good analysis on what creates the unhealthy risk appetite (and a suggestion near the end on how to possibly control it.) [Link]

I learned very early in my business career that the most important factor in managing a sales force is defining the comp plan. Salesmen are smart. They will quickly understand what the comp plan tells them to do and they will do it. You had better make sure that the comp plan tells them to do exactly what you want them to do! Bankers are super salesmen. Bankers are smart. Bankers do exactly what their comp plan tells them to do.

What does a Bankers comp plan tell him to do?

First, understand that bankers are playing with Other People’s Money (OPM). What if they lose it all? Well, it’s not their money. What if they invest it conservatively and make a modest return? They probably get to buy a midsize American car and a 2 bedroom house in a distant suburb. What if they gamble it on really high risk bets and they win? They buy a Bentley and a penthouse condo with a 360 degree view. Understand that, when bankers are playing with the OPM, the comp plan tells them to take huge risks. Heads I win, tails you lose! If I lose all your money I will just play again with someone else’s. There seems to be no end to the people who will line up for the privilege. If I soil one corporate platform I will just jump to another.

Many years ago, when the investment banks were partnerships - they played with their own money. The risk management responsibility was understood by everyone in the firm. It was THEIR money!! Then a really smart generation of managers figured out that they could sell the shares of the bank to investors. This was a blinding insight!!

Commitment

Stephen Hawking: How to build a time machine

Well, if any one has credibility when describing the design of a time machine, it has to be Stephen Hawking. He has written an article describing a few ways that time machines could be built. [Link]

 

Any kind of time travel to the past through wormholes or any other method is probably impossible, otherwise paradoxes would occur. So sadly, it looks like time travel to the past is never going to happen. A disappointment for dinosaur hunters and a relief for historians.

But the story's not over yet. This doesn't make all time travel impossible. I do believe in time travel. Time travel to the future. Time flows like a river and it seems as if each of us is carried relentlessly along by time's current. But time is like a river in another way. It flows at different speeds in different places and that is the key to travelling into the future. This idea was first proposed by Albert Einstein over 100 years ago. He realised that there should be places where time slows down, and others where time speeds up. He was absolutely right. And the proof is right above our heads. Up in space.

This is the Global Positioning System, or GPS. A network of satellites is in orbit around Earth. The satellites make satellite navigation possible. But they also reveal that time runs faster in space than it does down on Earth. Inside each spacecraft is a very precise clock. But despite being so accurate, they all gain around a third of a billionth of a second every day. The system has to correct for the drift, otherwise that tiny difference would upset the whole system, causing every GPS device on Earth to go out by about six miles a day. You can just imagine the mayhem that that would cause.

The problem doesn't lie with the clocks. They run fast because time itself runs faster in space than it does down below. And the reason for this extraordinary effect is the mass of the Earth. Einstein realised that matter drags on time and slows it down like the slow part of a river. The heavier the object, the more it drags on time. And this startling reality is what opens the door to the possibility of time travel to the future.

Right in the centre of the Milky Way, 26,000 light years from us, lies the heaviest object in the galaxy. It is a supermassive black hole containing the mass of four million suns crushed down into a single point by its own gravity. The closer you get to the black hole, the stronger the gravity. Get really close and not even light can escape. A black hole like this one has a dramatic effect on time, slowing it down far more than anything else in the galaxy. That makes it a natural time machine.

I like to imagine how a spaceship might be able to take advantage of this phenomenon, by orbiting it. If a space agency were controlling the mission from Earth they'd observe that each full orbit took 16 minutes. But for the brave people on board, close to this massive object, time would be slowed down. And here the effect would be far more extreme than the gravitational pull of Earth. The crew's time would be slowed down by half. For every 16-minute orbit, they'd only experience eight minutes of time.

Around and around they'd go, experiencing just half the time of everyone far away from the black hole. The ship and its crew would be travelling through time. Imagine they circled the black hole for five of their years. Ten years would pass elsewhere. When they got home, everyone on Earth would have aged five years more than they had.

Transocean Deepwater Horizon Explosion-A Discussion of What Actually Happened?

A good article about the recent oil platform explosion in the U.S. with lots of technical details and eye-witness accounts. [Link]

Witnesses state that the lights flickered on the Deepwater Horizon. Then a massive thud shook the vessel, followed by another strong vibration. Transocean employee Jim Ingram, a seasoned
offshore worker, told the U.K. Times that he was preparing for bed after working a 12-hour shift. "On the second [thud]," said Mr. Ingram, "we knew something was wrong." Indeed, something was very wrong.
Within a moment, a gigantic blast of gas, oil and drilling mud roared up through three miles of down-hole pipe and subsea risers. The fluids burst through the rig floor and ripped up into the gigantic draw-works. Something sparked. The hydrocarbons ignited. In a fraction of a second, the drilling deck of the Deepwater Horizon exploded into a fireball. The scene was an utter conflagration.

Canon 7D on a helicopter

Sending HD video over a 5.8 GHz wireless connection … [Link]

Circuit Diagram

Scientists and Aliens

Professor Stephen Hawking has warned humans not to go looking for aliens if we know what’s god for us. Some people apparently thinks that the reason might be a little selfish :)  [Link]

Of course, we need science — it gives us good things like headache cures and glow sticks — but let’s not pretend it’s warm-hearted. There’s a reason that scientists in comic books and B-movies usually get the prefix “evil”. That’s the wisdom of the people.

I wonder if Professor Hawking is against us communicating with aliens because such contact could prove embarrassing for the scientific community. Though scientists miss out on fun stuff like ghost stories and pulling wishbones, their great consolation is that they know more than anyone else about science. What if a bunch of aliens turn up and know a whole lot more? What if some dude with antennae and sucker-feet takes one look at the Large Hadron Collider and says: “Aren’t you going to take the lens cap off?”

Robot balancing on a ball

Highway Engineer Pranks

Solar Flare

This video was made by NASA’s recently launched Solar Dynamic Observatory. It was launched in Feb 2010 and captured this huge solar flare on Mar 30.

The Solar Dynamics Observatory is now NASA’s best eye on the sun, with a resolution far-exceeding any previous telescope. It will send 1.5 terabytes of data to Earth every day. With the more precise data and the SDO’s ability to see the whole sun at once, scientists anticipate that they’ll be able to solve some longstanding questions about how the sun’s magnetic field works.

What’s going on …?

 

The New Apple iPhone

This was left in a cafe by someone from Apple. The person who found it, sold it to Gizmodo for $5000. They have done a detailed review. The last sentence in the “How it feels” sections just might be the funniest ever encountered in a tech review.  Apple is wants it back and Steve Jobs called Gizmodo to urge them to give it back. [Link]

What's new

• Front-facing video chat camera
• Improved regular back-camera (the lens is quite noticeably larger than the iPhone 3GS)
• Camera flash
• Micro-SIM instead of standard SIM (like the iPad)
• Improved display. It's unclear if it's the 960x640 display thrown around before—it certainly looks like it, with the "Connect to iTunes" screen displaying much higher resolution than on a 3GS.
• What looks to be a secondary mic for noise cancellation, at the top, next to the headphone jack
• Split buttons for volume
• Power, mute, and volume buttons are all metallic

What's changed

• The back is entirely flat, made of either glass (more likely) or ceramic or shiny plastic in order for the cell signal to poke through. Tapping on the back makes a more hollow and higher pitched sound compared to tapping on the glass on the front/screen, but that could just be the orientation of components inside making for a different sound
• An aluminum border going completely around the outside
• Slightly smaller screen than the 3GS (but seemingly higher resolution)
• Everything is more squared off
• 3 grams heavier
• 16% Larger battery
• Internals components are shrunken, miniaturized and reduced to make room for the larger battery

More from Eyjafjallajokull 2010

more awesome photos here.

Eyjafjallajökull 2010

Apple A4 Dissected

Ifixit and Chipworks look into all the chips (by Xraying them) on the iPad board, including the Apple A4 processor. Then they dismantled it. Complete process is detailed at ifixit.

Step 6

• So what is a package? You're looking at one.

• This is a cross-section of the iPhone's ARM processor + RAM package. Click here to see it in its full, 2854x313 glory.

• The processor itself is the center rectangle. The silver circles underneath it are solder balls.

• The two rectangles above the processor are RAM dies. They are offset from each other to make room for the wirebonds, which you can't see in this shot.

• Having the RAM so close to the processor both reduces latency—making RAM access faster—and cuts power consumption, helping your battery last longer.

Step 16

• Before dismantling it, Chipworks took an X-ray image of the A4 processor to get a feel for how things are laid out inside.

• If you look closely, you can see hundreds of thread-like interconnects (wirebonds) that carry electronic signals between dies.

• The A4 has three layers: Two layers of RAM (Samsung K4X1G323PE), and one layer containing the actual microprocessor.

• This Package-on-Package construction gives Apple the flexibility to source the RAM from any manufacturer they want—they're not locked into Samsung.

Step 18

• This is a die metal 8 layer.

• Every iPhone processor that we have dissected has had a Samsung part number on the processor die. We have not found any Samsung markings on the A4 (outside of the DRAM), perhaps the clearest sign to date that Apple is in firm control of the semiconductor design.

• We don't expect to find any markings from PA Semi, Apple's recent acquisition, but it's safe to assume they played a major role in designing this package.

Congressman worried that island could tip over …

from excessive population. Whatever he is smoking, its powerful stuff.

Biking in the woods

Wrong

How not to Cut a tree down

Some examples.

Significant Other

 

Into a Newton Fractal

Awesome zoom into a Newton fractal up to (or down to..)  e^75.

A deep magnification of the infinity deep and vastly complex Mandelbrot fractal set. The final magnification is e.75.  Want some perspective? A magnification of e.12 would increase the size of an actual single particle to the same size as the earths orbit! e.21 would make that particle look the same size as the milky way! e.42 would be equal to the universe! This zoom is nearly double that. If you were “actually traveling” into the fractal, your speed would be faster than the speed of light.

Microsoft Courier

Dual 7” screens IPad killer. But this is a CG video so it should qualify more as a wish list of features rather than a product at this point. More at Engadget.

Beware of the tree

Jobs ‘96 vs. Jobs ‘10

So Apple Sued HTC for patent infringement and the CEO Steve Jobs says: [Link]

"We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We've decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours."

In a 1996 interview, some other guy called Steve Jobs says:

“We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.”

OK, maybe the context was different but this was too good to pass up :)

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

 

Woman wants to get stolen Wi-Fi back

She even buys a Wi-Fi extender to see if that works.

Big Brother is watching …. Really

Look at 4:39 mark in the video. The school principle actually shows how he monitors the students through the webcam in their laptops.

This internet thing will never work

An article from Newsweek (1995). The following paragraph almost seems like a sales pitch for Google that would not exist for another 3 years. [Link]

What the Internet hucksters won’t tell you is that the Internet is one big ocean of unedited data, without any pretense of completeness. Lacking editors, reviewers or critics, the Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data. You don’t know what to ignore and what’s worth reading. Logged onto the World Wide Web, I hunt for the date of the Battle of Trafalgar. Hundreds of files show up, and it takes 15 minutes to unravel them–one’s a biography written by an eighth grader, the second is a computer game that doesn’t work and the third is an image of a London monument. None answers my question, and my search is periodically interrupted by messages like, “Too many connections, try again later.”

Height

From xkcd. [Link]

Ouch!

Talk about hitting below the belt. One network adapter manufacturer frying an egg on their competitor's product. Of course the targeted company sued them right back but is their anything that can  undo the following punch line:

"If you want the lowest temperatures, the best performance, and proven reliable products, come to Emulex," he says, "if you want breakfast, go to QLogic."

Total Solar Eclipse 2009

Composite of 31  pictures taken with a Canon EOS 5D. More pictures here. [Link]

Strangest Places on Mars

More pictures at Wired. [Link]

Names

Pedal to the Metal

 

Lightning on a Volcanic Eruption

From NASA. [Link]

Why does a volcanic eruption sometimes create lightning? Pictured above, the Sakurajima volcano in southern Japan was caught erupting early last month. Magma bubbles so hot they glow shoot away as liquid rock bursts through the Earth's surface from below. The above image is particularly notable, however, for the lightning bolts caught near the volcano's summit. Why lightning occurs even in common thunderstorms remains a topic of research, and the cause of volcanic lightning is even less clear. Surely, lightning bolts help quench areas of opposite but separated electric charges. One hypothesis holds that catapulting magma bubbles or volcanic ash are themselves electrically charged, and by their motion create these separated areas. Other volcanic lightning episodes may be facilitated by charge-inducing collisions in volcanic dust.

Floating in the air

 

 

 

 

not really …… its a wet spot :)

Ship Captaincy FAIL

 

Hourface – iPhone app

Tape measure Spiderman

The awful truth dawns on the Mars rover