“Enormous 1km ice-cube machine fashioned at South Pole”
Neat. I’d heard of neutrino detectors in played-out salt mines, but this is far larger. And hopefully far better at its job too.
Archive of posts filed under the Interests category.
Topics on my particular interests.
“Stiglitz: wealth concentration will be America’s downfall”
There’s a growing movement to “do something” about the massive inequality of wealth in the US, but no one seems to know what to do, or even what can be done. The obscenely wealthy essentially control the politicians (if you don’t believe me, just look at the rhetoric of “tax cuts for the wealthy!” that …
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“Got a buck to send M Night Shyamalan to film school?”
I’ve never watched any of his other movies, so far as I know — they seldom appeal to me — but I happened to like the movie The Last Airbender, though I know I’m in the minority. If I’d ever followed the series it was based on, I’d probably be donating to this too. Probably …
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“Lasers set to replace spark plugs in car engines”
It seems that we’re finally on the verge of the future we geeks have been dreaming about for the last half-century. Laser spark plugs… how cool is that! 😉
Exasperating!
VMware Fusion 3 is a great piece of software, but it has some very annoying quirks. My Linux virtual machine was getting some very annoying delays at times that it shouldn’t have. Compiling a fairly small project resulted in a ridiculous amount of “iowait” time. Even switching folders in my current e-mail program could take …
“Happy Birthday, Skynet!”
It seems that I missed an important date in science-fiction yesterday: Today’s the day when Skynet achieves sentience, according to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The nuclear armageddon happens in a couple days. […]
“Möbius Gear: a one-sided, toothed gear”
If asked, I’d have said this wasn’t possible. Just goes to prove that I’m not omniscient. 😉 I wonder what use someone will find for it. The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it. — Harry Emerson Fosdick
“What Lucky People Do Differently than Unlucky People”
You know, there may be a lot of truth to this. But I think there’s more going on there than today’s science alone can explain. I do keep my eyes open around machinery (mechanical, electrical, or electronic), and I tend to understand it very well, by a combination of aptitude, interest, and training. But when …
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And now, the news…
I think the spammer registration problem may be dealt with, at least for the moment. Since I added the new layers of defenses, only one spammer account has gotten through the first layer of registration (which checks its information against multiple online databases of known spammers). It failed the e-mail confirmation step and was auto-deleted …
“Central U.S. prepares for earthquakes”
Odd as it may seem, it’s not such a bad idea. When I was living in Illinois, I heard an offhand remark on a science program that that area of the country was “overdue” for an earthquake already, and that was twenty-five years ago. I don’t know what science might be behind that assertion, but …
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