Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Weekly Links
The optimism spot has been found.
The statistical semiotician debunks The New Republic. (H/T chuck)
American kids are dumber than dirt.
Human beings aren't evolved for security in the modern world.
Coding the right stuff.
25 unexpectedly useful websites.
Remains of a shattered moon found in Saturn's rings.
The North Korean nuclear test confirmed.
Smile when you see your robot.
Better than mind-mapping?
Taking over the visual system for better hearing.
OS X slips past Vista.
Maxwell the poet.
Guide to the new Word.
Neanderthals had red hair, but weren't the ancestors of Vikings, contrary to rumor.
Wolfram debunked.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Gates of Vienna
Interesting goings on over there the past few days. Lottsa fascinating posts and commentary.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Yon oped in the NY Post
Here. If you have been following Yon, it's mostly old material, although the bit about Iraqis sending in e-mail tips with Google Earth maps pointing out the position of the bad guys is a new one to me.
Ain't technology wonderful. It's good to see Michael get a little mainstream exposure.
h/t: Betsy's Page
A soldier was blown up and killed about 400 meters away on Thursday evening. LTC Frank told me the other day that his best weapon system is his cell phone. Calls come to him (through his interpreter) every day and into the night, with information from locals about the whereabouts of wanted JAM members. Many local people are clearly fed up with the violence. Some even send e-mails with Google Earth maps showing exactly where suspects are, and they are doing it in real time.
Ain't technology wonderful. It's good to see Michael get a little mainstream exposure.
h/t: Betsy's Page
Sunday Links
Ecce the electronic nose.
Terrorists are using Google Earth to attack Israel.
How to change your thoughts.
Is geothermal power the answer?
The scandal of American foreign policy. (H/T Bruce)
A terabyte in every pocket?
How to tell a liar.
8 ways to think more effectively.
Focus fusion.
Russia blocks Chevron: "the Russian elites have decided the government should own the pipeline."
17 ways to perk up your work passion.
Microsoft buys a pittance of Facebook for a small fortune.
Has Ford invented the future of aviation?
Space telescopes borne by big baloons.
China launches its lunar orbiter.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Ooooops...
Wait, this can't be just an accident. There must be an underlying cause. Perhaps this tragedy was caused by global warming? Could the Mother Duck's parenting skills have been eroded by liberal college professors? Maybe Mommy Quack was lured across the grate by Blackwater? Say... just what is the agenda of the MSM to cause them to be so silent on this tragedy? Chimpy Bu$Hilter? Elderly giant paper mache head toting hippies? Chicken Hawks or Copperheads?Such a cacophony we live in.
The New Republic/Scott Beauchamp story has been interesting to watch as it plays out in the blogs. To me Beauchamp was just a foolish young man who didn't consider the price of spinning yarns from a public soapbox, and Franklin Foer, Senior Editor at the New Republic, crashed and burned because he had no idea how to manage the crisis brought on by publishing the shoddy "Shock troops" columns.
Other people, people on the other side of the divide, see it as a tale of the Army, the government, and of folks like me I suppose, ruthlessly intimidating, smearing and squashing Beauchamp and the New Republic to push our nefarious narrative. Threats of Court Martial, monitored phone calls, withholding of evidence -- all signs of liberty eroded to silence an author who was only speaking of our sins.
Of course, to most normal people, if they know of it at all, it is just a tempest in the blogosphere teapot. Like opposing sports fans who tediously barrage each other with differing stats as they argue over who is the best third baseman of all-time, they view us political cranks of both stripes as seeing what we want, and ignoring what is inconvenient. So the ear plugs go in, the world goes on, and soon enough Beauchamp won't even merit a footnote.
Then again, as Asimov said, "When people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."
That is the importance of untangling the "Shock troops" kerfuffle, and all the other political kerfuffles that come down the pike. We have to see where we are walking because if we follow the flat-earthers we're liable to all fall through the grate.
(by the way, no baby ducks were harmed in the making of this post -- the ducks in the picture were rescued)
June Links—A Recap
Some of these links are golden oldies worth looking at again, so following Buddy's suggestion I'm going to try to start bringing them all into one place at the end of every month. Since I'm already way behind on this project, let's start with a June recap. Here's your chance to catch up on a few of these you missed the first time through.
There's no absolute freedom of speech in Sweden.
Google is building a lobbying powerhouse in Washington.
This doomed star is approximately 150 times the size of the Sun.
Cheap ethanol from glycerin, from biodiesel, care of bioengineering.
France bans Canadian Blackberries on fear of US spying.
11 cures for procrastination.
New study shows Vista more secure than Linux or Macintosh OSX.
The world's best business sites. (hat tip: Buddy Larsen)
A binary adder made from marbles. (hat tip: Seneca the Younger)
Top cities for young professionals.
Sun delivers its first Blackbox data center to Stanford.
Social trip finder.
We actually belong to the Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy, not to the Milky Way. Who knew?
How to cool your house.
If fire were made of water.
The essential 1,000 films.
Aurora Borealis from space.
Philosophy of History.
Quantum dots might be the key to teleportation.
Giant penguins roaming the tropics.
The UK is the worst for social mobility.
The coming global cooling.
7 secrets of the super-organized.
Chimps can be altruistic.
World's first robot construction worker.
1 in 10 Brits born overseas.
Inside China's factories.
Iranian forces cross into Iraq.
Hot rocks keep North America afloat.
Facebook vs. MySpace.
China is blocking Flickr.
Decorative pencils.
World's cheapest car.
Nitrogen pollution is causing trees to soak up more CO2 from the atmosphere.
The feathered dino explained.
Rome reborn.
Talking jewelry.
23 ways to improve your work life.
Over a thousand parents named their daughters "Unique" during this decade. I guess they aren't.
The seven engineering wonders of the world.
Scramjet hits Mach 10.
Is Google scarier than the FBI?
Venezuela launches the sale of "Bolivarian" linux-based computers for the masses.
How motherboards are made.
The full panoramic view from Everest.
A new particle was discovered at Fermilab, one representing all three families of quarks for the first time.
The SEC just ended an important safeguard in the stock markets. Will this be another example of being condemned to repeat history?
In nature, bacteria emit proteins to sweep up nanoparticles into innocuous clumps.
Totalitarian communist and Gaiaist propaganda compared.
Thousands of pearls found.
Deja vu explained.
Too much sex in the Bible?
The Jefferson Memorial is sinking.
It's now legal for women to be topless in New York.
Space colonization may be hopeless. (hat tip: Luther McLeod)
Why the Soviet Union collapsed.
What people are doing online and which demographic groups participate.
How to give yourself a good life.
Chinese slaves freed.
Calculations with two qubits were successfully performed for the first time.
Floating sand.
Microinjection of materials into a single cell at the nano-level.
Wildlife is returning to Chernobyl.
Honda is discontinuing the hybrid Accord.
A list of the most overpaid CEOs in America.
The world's latest tallest building.
Bullet points kill your presentation.
The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati says that aid to Africa does more harm than good.
New uses for the Internet.
Normal skin cells can be reprogrammed into becoming stem cells. No need for embryos.
Paper that talks to you.
What the world eats.
The Picture.
A major advance in our understanding of the genetic basis of many diseases.
Everything you ever wanted to know about video codecs.
Were puddles of water discovered on Mars?
Bob Dylan wrote all the pop songs of the last 35 years.
High wages in India are forcing Tata Consultancy Services (one of the largest Indian consultancy firms) to outsource to Mexico.
Why Iran won't compromise.
Why your kids expect to be rich.
25 most popular blogs.
Massive volcano pluming into space.
America's best and worst paying jobs.
The company which Privacy International has called "an endemic threat to privacy", worst on their list.
China continues to build its cyberwarfare units.
China and Russia are vying for uranium in Africa.
The Pentagon is standing up a new high-level command focussed on Africa.
Firefox is up to a 25% market share.
The potentially revolutionary Silverlight was introduced.
A gallery from Microsoft 3D maps.
Google's new street-level view.
Stopping brain cancer with electric fields.
Altruism is built into the species.
Weird clouds over Nebraska.
Computers in the headband.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Friday Links
Why cold weather really does spread the flu.
25 skills every man should know.
Say you're sorry, make more money.
Is this why wild monkeys are not allowed in the Northern Virginia and Maryland woods?
Common repairs made easy.
The story of Baikonur.
Undercover in the Apple Store.
How quantum cryptology works.
Character—not technology—is the solution to crime.
Or did the Clean Air Act lower crime?
The Nigerian child sex trade smashed.
Is OPEC the new Fed?
Thursday, October 25, 2007
The Sky Is Falling!!
October 16 Homebuilder Outlook Falls to Record Low
October 17 New Home Construction Plummets Again
October 24 Existing Home Sales Tumble 8 Percent
October 25 New Home Sales Rebound in September
Whoops. What's that doing in there? Don't those buyers understand that the end is nigh?
It will take at least three months of flat or very moderate growth before we'll be seeing any 'the worst is behind us' articles and there is a very good chance that September figures just reflect families wanting to get the kids into new schools. Nevertheless - I'll stick with my call that August marked the absolute bottom for housing nationally. Babies continue to be born at a markedly faster rate than oldsters are dying and that will be true until about 2021. Demand pressure should bring the market back to 2003 construction levels by spring of '09.
Barring a recession, of course.
Now, where's my umbrella?
October 17 New Home Construction Plummets Again
October 24 Existing Home Sales Tumble 8 Percent
October 25 New Home Sales Rebound in September
Whoops. What's that doing in there? Don't those buyers understand that the end is nigh?
It will take at least three months of flat or very moderate growth before we'll be seeing any 'the worst is behind us' articles and there is a very good chance that September figures just reflect families wanting to get the kids into new schools. Nevertheless - I'll stick with my call that August marked the absolute bottom for housing nationally. Babies continue to be born at a markedly faster rate than oldsters are dying and that will be true until about 2021. Demand pressure should bring the market back to 2003 construction levels by spring of '09.
Barring a recession, of course.
Now, where's my umbrella?
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
The New New Republic?
Wow. Hello to the visitors from Fark , Instapundit and Conservative Grapevine. Glad to have you drop by. This is a group blog that is partly political, and partly whatever pops into our head. Have a look around if you have some time to burn.
Weekly Links
The top 50 neuroscience brain teasers.
What the quants have been up to.
How Lord of the Flies really works in practice.
Build your own Sputnik.
Awesome paper art.
Did Yahoo lie to Congress?
More free audio books for learning.
Is there a black hole larger than can be contained in today's philosophy?
Criminals are already using steganography.
Build your own helicopter.
25 useful Greasemonkey scripts.
From fat cell to nerve cell.
31 ways to motivate yourself to exercise.
Mother Russia protects her hackers.
Real progress against AIDS.
Thinner, more colorful e-paper.
How El Niño slows the rotation of the Earth.
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