“The cyber-weapons paradox: ‘They’re not that dangerous'”

Oops, another perfectly good disaster scenario down the drain. Unless something like the metavirus from the novel Snow Crash appears, capable of infecting both humans and computers, I think we’re fairly safe on that front. At this rate, right-leaning politicians and other fear-mongers must be seeing a new disaster on the horizon: running out of …

Continue reading ‘“The cyber-weapons paradox: ‘They’re not that dangerous’”’ »

“Global warming COULD SHRINK THE HUMAN RACE”

Apparently the historical size of horses is inversely proportional to the temperature — in other words, when temperatures were hotter, the ancestors of modern horses were smaller, and vice versa. It makes sense, since smaller bodies are easier to cool. Unfortunately it’s also well-known that reptiles have just the opposite response, getting larger as temperatures …

Continue reading ‘“Global warming COULD SHRINK THE HUMAN RACE”’ »

Git makes website maintenance easy too!

We’re gearing up to release our first program for the general public in quite some time, so we’re going to need a real website again, rather than the one-page placeholder that I put up several years ago. The last time I had to design a website was before the turn of the century. I started …

Continue reading ‘Git makes website maintenance easy too!’ »

“RIP: Peak Oil – we won’t be running out any time soon”

It’s so hard to find a good, credible, looming disaster to panic about, and then those pesky scientists keep destroying the few that we manage to find. Runaway global warming keeps getting kicked in the teeth by inconvenient facts. Nuclear power disasters persistently refuse to be anywhere near as disastrous as people hope. Scientific advancement …

Continue reading ‘“RIP: Peak Oil – we won’t be running out any time soon”’ »

“How to remove your Google Web History”

I did this (thanks for the early heads-up, Ploni), though I had a few problems getting to the history page. Once I managed it, I was appalled to see how much stuff they’d managed to associate with me… nothing damning, just massive amounts of it. If someone wanted to cause me problems, or wanted to …

Continue reading ‘“How to remove your Google Web History”’ »

“Laser used to cool semiconductor”

I can imagine the marketing blurb now: “Now with lazer cooling!” (Yes, I know laser is spelled wrong, but marketing guys are very fond of their Zs. Which might explain why it’s so tempting to sleep through most of their presentations, but I digress.) With some work, this sort of thing might someday be employed …

Continue reading ‘“Laser used to cool semiconductor”’ »

“Lesbian Necrophiliacs”

You don’t find an article whose title includes the phrase “Lesbian Necrophiliacs” too often. And it’s safe-for-work (and for my more prudish readers) too! 😉 Even without the title, the article is pretty interesting. Cloning has apparently evolved lots of times over the history of Earth, but it’s almost always a death sentence: if every …

Continue reading ‘“Lesbian Necrophiliacs”’ »