Based on the new version of Wists, in progress – Cribcandy version 2 launches. Enjoy! Cribcandy 2 point oh!
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Study finds that wearing a cycling helmet increases your chance of being hit by a car. Wearing a long flowing wig provides the greatest protection. BBC NEWS | UK | England | Somerset | Wearing helmets ‘more dangerous’
Is the iPod past it? Apple’s iPod was a form factor success – learning from the mistakes of the disastrous Newton they went for the cigarette packet standard rather than try and invent something new. Lately, however, I’ve noticed that the Sidekick/PS2/Blackberry are onto something with a genuinely new form factor that will possibly blow away Apple if they stick to the iPod format. The problem is that Apple can’t stick to its own format anyway – the thumbwheel doesn’t leave enough room for a large enough video screen – and if it gets replaced by on screen navigation with the device being landscape rather than portrait, it begs the question as to whether that is the same design at all. In fact any viable full screen video iPod would be half way towards the two-thumb typing Sidekick style format that is now ubiquitous on Japanese and European phones which…
Friends, Alex, Helen, James and Nancy built a geodesic dome for burning man. By built, I mean completely from scratch i.e. they fabricated the tube connectors. Now admittedly James is a NASA engineer, but if this had been me the dome would still consist of a bunch of steel rods and a few empty wine bottles. Flickr: Photos from alexnigg
Google news archive has just launched. I searched for the most life changing experience I ever had. It was there, and emotional to read. In February 1983, a group of us fell 800 ft while climbing in Wales. RIP David Solomons and Richard Palmer. I won’t forget you. – Google News Archive Search
Would climate change be a good measure for SETI searches for intelligent life. It seems that long after the pyramids of Giza have crumbled and the last remnants of our civilizations are swallowed up by the galcial movements of plate tectonics, our single legacy will be our affect on the climate. If another intelligent species evolves over time – then traces of this would be the most obvious clue that they had intelligent ancestors. The time difference between us and animals that we evolved from which had similar intelligence to many long extinct species is 2 million years. This is out of a time period of higher life forms several hundred times longer. We can see our impact on the climate on a scale of about a million years. Can we measure the climate on a scale of hundreds of millions of years? If so, would a sudden spike be…
When my favorite architecture critic, Ian Nairn, drove around America in the 50s, his favorite towns were in Pennsylvania, particularly Pittsburgh, whose post-industrial transformation he would have been proud of. On our Labor Day excursion to Philadelphia, we explored some towns on the way – particularly Bethlehem, the Moravian town with the legendary steelworks. Bethlehem, has what suburban America, for the most part, does not – a sense of place. It is a town, once rich, once poor, which is a perfect model for viable, sustainable towns of the future. The most stunning thing about Bethlehem is the rusted steel cathedral of the disused blast furnaces that dominate the skyline. Given that Bethlehem, is famous for its Christmas lights, it is surprising that the blast furnaces do not form part of the decoration. When I worked for set designers Fisher Park, there was a project in the office, to illuminate…
Well done Schwarzenegger. Smack bottom Bush. Science News Article | Reuters.com
The only channel I ever watch on TV is PBS. I ditched Cable, because the only channel I ever watched was HBO. I like the Tivo interface, but there is no way that I’m paying a rental fee or premium for TV listings, as a very occasional viewer. I also don’t have a land line telephone. The Toshiba PVR with DVD burner, below is ideal – it gets free listings from TV guide, directly from within the channel 13 signal, so you buy it and stick a co-ax cable into it and you’re done. No signup with any service and no phone connection required. Works with Cable but not Dish services, if you are into paying a mortgage for TV. Cheap: $320 Toshiba | RD-XS35: Multi-Drive DVD Recorder with 160GB Hard Drive
What is both rare and everywhere? – Uranium is rare, but everywhere. One ton of an ordinary rock, such as granite, contains 16g of Thorium and Uranium. A kilogram of Uranium is equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT, which is approx. the same as the energy potential of 20,000 tons of gasoline. One ton of common-or-garden rock contains the equivalent fuel of 320 tons of gasoline. It could take a lot less than that to extract it. Until recently, what did environmentalists and Car/Oil companies have in common? – A reason to hate nuclear power. It used to be very easy to make a case against nuclear energy, and if you are either a treehugger or a oil exec. you would be historically allied.
Its like watching a real life version of the Risk board game. Google is telling the other players, ‘I won’t attack you for the next ten moves’ as it prepares to roll the dice and line up all its armies next to Microsoft who will also do the same. Because a Microsoft/Google battle royal is kind of innevitable, Google wants to avoid any other trouble. Its caving on personal media with an Apple board seat for Google’s CEO and holding off a PayPal and listings assault on Ebay, with a ‘partnership’. Both companies will lose in the medium term, in the long run one will survive. Remember what happened to Novell, IBM, Commadore? I think Google will win in ‘three rounds’, but nothing is certain. Its a game of dice , after all. Microsoft: ‘We Are Watching Google’
CNN.com – Rep. Harris: Church-state separation ‘a lie’ – Aug 28, 2006 “Katherine Harris told a religious journal that separation of church and state is “a lie” and God and the nation’s founding fathers did not intend the country be “a nation of secular laws.” Why are Americans putting up with this crap? Katherine Harris is exactly what they fought the war in 1776 to escape.