From the always-interesting forgetomori site: [...] But today I discovered at long last that there are natural lasers. This is quite a thing, as even if you already knew about that, I’ll say it also involves Martians! HG Wells! And Alien Abductions! [...] If you’re at all interested in how science and science fiction go [...]
Archive of posts filed under the Interests category.
“Evil Witch from Snow White added to Apple logo on back of iPad”
Ooh… if I had any artistic talent at all, I’d try to duplicate this on my iPod Touch. It just seems too right.
“You Are Not Your Phone”
Hear, hear.
“Terrorist Sorcerers Are Coming To Rape Our Cars, warns Florida senate candidate”
If this sort of thing appeared in a science fiction/fantasy novel, people might just blink and accept the premise. If it appeared in a history text, they’d shake their collective head over it and silently thank the deity of their choice that no one is that stupid anymore. But if it’s spouted by a modern-day [...]
“Keep Going. Concentrate on Something Useful.”
The text I quoted above got me thinking. As many of my readers know, I’ve been working on an extremely difficult programming problem for the last seven years. Many really smart people have attempted to solve it before me, and so far, none have succeeded; many others, equally intelligent, believe that it simply can’t be [...]
“Set Up a Super Simple Evaporative Cooler for Immediate Heat Relief”
Our new house has no air conditioning, and no ductwork that air conditioning could be vented through. We’ve bought a small air conditioner, but it’s only good for one room (we put it in the bedroom). We spend most of our time in the basement office during daylight hours (where it’s naturally cooler), but in [...]
“IBM hard disk drive from 1956″
A whole five megabytes, and I’ve been inside bathrooms that weren’t much larger than that thing. There’s no mention of price, but I’m betting it’s in the six- or seven-figure range. (I didn’t click through to find out; the details of computer artifacts from before I was born just aren’t that interesting to me.)
“Solar Sail Hybrid Launches Today From Japan”
I can’t believe I missed this. I’ve been fascinated by the idea of solar sails ever since I first read The Mote in God’s Eye as a kid.
“Suspended-animation cold sleep achieved in lab”
This would be extremely useful, and not just for medical purposes — “cold sleep” is a common plot device in science fiction books and movies, for dealing with decades-long interstellar voyages, just as one example. And since humans obviously can do it, I think it’s inevitable that science will find a way to harness it, [...]
“State of Decay”
I generally find Verity Stob pretty over-the-top, but she didn’t have to exaggerate this one much, if at all. It’s an old one, but it had me smiling and nodding because I’ve seen more than my fair share of Windows machines with nearly every one of the symptoms she mentions. Far too often they’ve been [...]