January 2009
36 posts
December 2008
47 posts
NYT: No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in ‘Passive... →
From the outside, there is nothing unusual about the stylish new gray and orange row houses in the Kranichstein District, with wreaths on the doors and Christmas lights twinkling through a freezing drizzle. But these houses are part of a revolution in building design: There are no drafts, no cold tile floors, no snuggling under blankets until the furnace kicks in. There is, in fact, no furnace.
...
Trekkies Go To Great Lengths to Explain Why the... →
Look at how long that article is. Jesus. Don’t read it all, just skim it.
Are die-hard Star Trek fans having trouble sleeping over all this? Do we really have to care this much? The new Star Trek movie is non-canon because if it was canon, it would be another bad film.
I’ve heard some anecdotes around the web that a lot of Trekkies are unhappy with the new trailer, the new ship...
WatchDaaaang.
Thx G.
WIRED: Diary of a Self-Help Dropout →
This is really funny.
Day 9 My girlfriend informs me that there’s a black widow nesting in a drainpipe near our garage. I have now been on the GTD program for several days and am a next-action machine. I say out loud to myself in a robot voice, “Processing … dot dot dot …” I head outside, already planning my next action: “Pour water down drain to send...
JPL: Five Years on Mars →
“That’s, Like, 120 in Robot Years.”
[via Riding with Robots]
WatchBehind the scenes at NPR.
Bad Astronomy: Top Ten Astronomy Pictures of 2008 →
Some of these are admittedly a little nerdy, but still cool!
This is number eight:
WatchHoly crap, I think I just found my favorite video from 2008. This is really profound.
The footage is from Japan’s lunar orbiter, the first space probe able to transmit HD video feeds.
PvP: "Except Rowlf" →
Nothing going on but the rent: Deal or No Deal as... →
The UK version of ‘Deal or no Deal’ strikes me as a perfect allegory to explain why people cling to religion despite it making not a jot of difference to their lives. So bear with me and imagine one episode of Deal or No Deal is an entire life.
BECOMING A BELIEVER At random a contestant is selected - a Chosen One if you will. This Chosen One is convinced he has the best box in the room. He...
pictures for sad children: Nice Lunch →
WatchFacebook now lets you embed your videos. Hooray!!
Gizmodo: It Could be Possible to Stop Hurricanes... →
Hurricanes, as we’ve seen, can wreak serious havoc when they strike populated areas. We’ve never had control over them before, but one researcher thinks they could be broken up with F-4 fighter jets.
In theory, sending in a pair of the jets to do loops around the eye of the hurricane while it’s still out over the ocean, creating sonic booms, would break it up before it hits...
Thank God For Evolution: Creationist Confusion →
I was interviewed on radio yesterday by a Intelligent Design creationist who kept repeating, like a mantra, “There’s no evidence for evolution.” I was amazed that this person could be so unaware of our collective best understandings of cosmic, biological, and human evolution. When I got off the call, I determined to write a blog post with links to some of the best webpages and...
Some Advice
If you ever find yourself in a situation where you’re living at home with your parents again and your wireless internet connection goes on the fritz, and you know it’s because of that goddamned old V-Tech phone sitting on your dad’s desk, the one that’s been going haywire the past few days and keeps cutting out on your phone calls and making the house line go dead for hours...
Your Light Cone →
This is cool!! Type in your birthdate and it will generate an RSS feed to tell you what astronomical objects your light cone is enveloping.
In general relativity, the future light cone is the boundary of the causal future of a point and the past light cone is the boundary of its causal past.
Basically, your light cone is an ever-expanding sphere of photons that were reflected/emitted from you,...
SPACE.com: Odd Comet Possibly from Another Star... →
The bizarre chemical make-up of a comet suggests the blob of ice is an interloper, possibly flung into our solar system from beyond, astronomers now say, adding that the wacky comet is forcing them to create a new category for such objects.
The comet, called Machholz 1, was discovered in 1986 by Donald Machholz of Loma Prieta, Calif. Since then, the icy denizen has made a few appearances,...
AOL Political Machine | Star Trek: The Vexed... →
1) Obama as Data: I really don’t see who else he could be. Data’s character, as I mentioned yesterday, was new to the world. It learned of him as he learned of it. Seems like a perfect fit to me. Besides, who doesn’t think Barack Obama has an evil twin brother? You know he does.
With more treasures. :]
Explosm.net - 12/02/2008 →
“Die! You Commie son of a bitch!”
Spiegel Online: An Infinite Loop in the Brain →
Price can rattle off, without hesitation, what she saw and heard on almost any given date. She remembers many early childhood experiences and most of the days between the ages of 9 and 15. After that, there are virtually no gaps in her memory. “Starting on Feb. 5, 1980, I remember everything. That was a Tuesday.”
…
“People say to me: Oh, how fascinating, it must be a...
BB Gadgets: Free GPS tracking unit to protect... →
The miraculously named marketing director of Lightning GPS, Jason Lazarus, let us know about a new program the company is rolling out this holiday season to protect outdoor nativity scenes. They’ll be leasing GPS tracking devices to non-profit organizations — think churches — that can be placed inside those plastic baby Jesuses and used to track them down if miscreants make off with them...
Gizmodo: Video Proof that Black Friday Turns... →
Above: a video of a bunch of dealcrazed shoppers decimating a pallet of Xbox 360 Guitar Hero bundles at Walmart on Black Friday. Below: a time lapse video of a bunch of ants eating a dead gecko. I don’t think any further analysis is necessary, do you?
Urban Dictionary: homobrophobia →
The fear that your brother will be or is gay.
Roger suffers from homobrophobia because his brother Brian is very effeminate.