Graphene. It’s what’s wrapping breakfast. 😉
“Movie, tech giants prep universal online media store”
It’s a good concept, but is it going to catch on?
[…] the question remains, will consumers care about not possessing the files? There are clear advantages in not doing so: you don’t need buckets of local storage, and you don’t have to fear losing your collection to burglars or housefires.
There are clear advantages the other way too, as all too many people have learned in recent years: you don’t have to rely on anyone else — who might change their minds and shut down their servers at any point if (for instance) they don’t feel that they’re making enough money on the service — to allow you to play your movies in the future. It’ll be quite a while before I’ll trust anything like this, for just that reason. Give me a DVD any day, I’ll convert it myself if I want to watch it on my iPod Touch.
“Hundreds of Human Genes Still Evolving”
Proponents of evolution have always thought that it stopped working on humanity as we became more intelligent, all the way back to Darwin himself. But apparently he had a bit more to learn.
“Stop Trusting Your Future Self to Get Stuff Done. Do it Now.”
“World’s Greatest Homeless Sign Ever!”
Being homeless is no laughing matter. But pretending to be homeless in order to cash in on peoples’ charity… that’s big business. Find the right street corner, in the right city, and you can make a bundle. The startup costs are low: all you need is a piece of cardboard, a marker, a hard-luck story, and no scruples about being a parasite.
When I lived in the Washington DC area, there was one guy who panhandled on a corner near where I lived, who I know was faking it, and several more that I have my suspicions about.
The only problem with it is that, like a job, you have to be there in order to make money at it. Apparently one enterprising fellow is trying a way around that. I wish him luck.
(Via BoingBoing)
The History and Opponents of Evolution
(This is not about evolution, it’s about a small group’s attempts to subvert democracy for their own purposes. Evolution is just their first target.)
This four-part series of articles (here, here, here, and here) make it very clear that attacking evolution is just the tip of the iceberg. The goal of the very small — but very vocal — minority opposing it is the outlawing of science in its entirety, at least anywhere that it conflicts with their religious assertions.
Fortunately for the rest of us, they haven’t been able to hijack the legal system to force their views on the majority, despite no less than ten major US court cases, all documented in the fourth article.
You’re welcome to believe what you wish, and even to preach it to anyone you can get to stand still long enough. But if you try to force it on me or anyone else, you’ve crossed the line.
“30 Old PC Ads That Will Blow Your Processor”
I wish these ads were dated, or at least put in order of their release. I recognize a good portion of the hardware — and the prices — but some of the ads look very sixties-esque, a decade I wasn’t around for.
(Via Lifehacker)
“Water Freezing and Boiling Myths”
Interesting chemistry facts and fantasies about that most-useful of chemicals, H2O.
(Via LifeHacker)
“Quantum Time Machine Lets You Travel to the Past Without Fear of Grandfather Paradox”
It’s rather fascinating, and pretty non-intuitive. The intuitively obvious scenario is that, if someone could time-travel to their own past, there would be nothing to stop him from killing his own grandfather before his father was born. But there actually would be something stopping him: the fact that he exists to go back at all is proof that he never did anything to prevent his birth.
In other words, there’s no paradox possible — it simply never happened.
I’m not explaining that well, but it makes perfect sense by the laws of logic.
(Via Boing Boing)
“Detect A Good Liar By Knowing Their Most Effective Tactics”
Although I might object to the term “good liar,” the idea is sound.