“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 …

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“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 …

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“The Pirate Bay torrents printable 3D objects”

Ever since I read Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, I’ve been wondering what would happen when anyone could download a set of plans and print their own, for example, Star Wars toys. And more to the point, what would happen when those plans could be pirated. Anything digital can easily be copied; the Internet is …

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“Password Sharing Among American Teenagers”

I’ve always stressed that passwords should never be shared with anyone, to everyone I discuss them with — the only passwords that my wife and I both know are the ones to the iTunes and e-book accounts that we both share. Unfortunately there’s a problem when it comes to minors: parents only have a limited …

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“Life-size Portal gun to shoot onto shelves soon”

I’m a big fan of the game Portal, and it’s fairly classic, but I’m baffled by this. Replica swords and other medieval weapons I can understand, even replica firearms, but a replica portal gun doesn’t even sound as interesting as a replica lightsaber (which I refuse to even consider until a blade portion actually appears …

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Linux compiles and massive IOWait delays, Part III

Remember the last IOWait delay entry, a couple days ago? If you took a look recently, you’ll have noticed a big WARNING! label on the top. There’s a good reason for that. Everything was going along fine, but I started noticing some little problems (such as, the restart button on the shutdown dialog wouldn’t actually …

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