“Ball lightning is all in the mind, say Austrian physicists”

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I always wondered about ball lightning, even when I first heard of it in grade school. It just didn’t seem to make sense. This is certainly one explanation, and it makes more sense than some form of lightning that ignores the known laws of physics.

I’m not sure I buy it though. I’d have to study the TMS stuff they cite, and the reports of people who’ve witnessed it, to see if it really fits. That isn’t likely to happen any time soon (if at all), so I’m sticking this into the mental “maybe” file for the time being.

“The Wild World of Robots”

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Interesting facts and statistics. And if you squint at it just right, you can almost see the future that science fiction has foretold for the last sixty years or so, right around the corner.

(Via Lifehacker)

EDIT, 2013-05-01: The first sentence above used to link to <http://www.onlineschools.org/blog/wild-world-robots/&gt;, but I was asked today by someone from onlineschools.org to remove it. I would have left it there anyway (I don’t take kindly to censorship in any form), but they’ve deleted the page it used to link to as well, so there’s little point.

“‘Steve Jobs’ switches to Android”

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Just for balance, after yesterday’s thorough Microsoft-bashing post, here’s an Apple-bashing one that I thoroughly agree with too. I still plan to get a fourth-generation iPod Touch when they come out later this year, to replace my aging first-generation one, because it’s still the best non-cell-phone organizer available at present — but I’ll get it in spite of Apple, not because of it.

“German boffins develop sharkskin paint for ships, planes”

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World War II warplanes were often painted with sharp-toothed heads on the fronts, to improve the morale of the pilot’s side and, hopefully, decrease it on the enemy’s. But apparently that’s not enough; now scientists have come up with a justification for stenciling the whole thing to look like a shark. 😉

(All kidding aside, this does sound interesting. And probably looks pretty neat too, when you’re close enough to see it.)

“Online Privacy: Check Yourself (Before You Wreck Yourself)”

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I like snarky-but-true comments. This one is particularly good. The article it leads to is also packed with good advice.

I don’t particularly worry about my online privacy. I have my browser set to delete cookies (including Flash super-cookies) whenever I close it, I keep Javascript blocked for most sites, and I absolutely refuse to participate in the privacy train wreck that is Facebook, but most of my online privacy comes from the fact that I’m very careful with what I share online. Just about any information can be used maliciously in one way or another — trust me, I learned it the hard way — so unless you’re one of a select group of friends, most of my information is none of your business.