Links for 23-11-2006
Russia’s Hubble, nanotube cutlery, Robert Pirsig interview, give me Modafinil, truth serums, hacking passwords in Windows…
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“Russia is eyeing first place in the “telescope space race” and plans on building a telescope that would not only rival Hubble, but surpass its American cousin completely.”
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“It looks like Appliance maker Whirlpool has become the first big company to upload 3D models of its products to the 3D Warehouse of objects for use in SketchUp, which can in turn be imported into Google Earth.”
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“The Seventies bestseller ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ was the biggest-selling philosophy book ever. But for the reclusive author life was bitter-sweet.” I love that book – so sue me.
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“Researchers [...] have designed a carbon nanotube knife that, in theory, would work like a tight-wire cheese slicer.” For a ridiculously tiny piece of cheese, mind you.
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“New insight into one of the most intriguing word-associated conditions may have been found, with the discovery that, for one type of synaesthesia at least, the meaning of a word is key to the sensation experienced.”
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“The War of the Worlds, by H. G. Wells, has been continuously in print for over 100 years. Collected here are the covers of many of those editions, submitted by generous fans from around the world.” Awesome collection, via the Rob-Bot.
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“Modafinil is just the first of a wave of new lifestyle drugs that promise to do for sleep what the contraceptive pill did for sex – unshackle it from nature.” Hell yes – I’ll buy all you can ship. Wait for modafinil spam!
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“Hollywood agents who take their cut of an artist’s earnings are going after budding film-makers, writers, directors and actors who have sidestepped the studios to gain an audience by posting video on the web.”
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Madeleine Roberts discusses copyright as pertaining to author contracts at DeepGenre.
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“The Mars Global Surveyor is probably lost in space according to NASA scientists who have tried unsuccessfully to contact the probe over the past two weeks.” Bad news, but ten years is a good innings.
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“Small clouds of the stuff are thought to have coalesced after the big bang, and then gradually merged together. When enough dark matter is gathered into a huge “halo”, it attracts ordinary gas to form stars, and so becomes a galaxy.”
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“Archaeologists said Tuesday they have unearthed 22 graves in northern Peru containing a trove of pre-Inca artifacts, including the first “tumi” ceremonial knives ever discovered by archaeologists rather than looted by thieves.”
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“Eight years in the making, the … LMT will be the most precise radio telescope of its kind in the world and will be used to study the composition of comets, the atmospheres of planets beyond our solar system, and the origins of the universe.”
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“Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces have found a new design principle at the nanoscale which is responsible for the enormous stability and deformabilty of bone.” Nature 1z t3h roXx0r!
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“The debate earlier this year on interrogation techniques in the war on terrorism raised anew a question that goes back at least 2,000 years. Is there something you can give a person that will make him tell the truth?”
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“Cain & Abel is a very powerful tool that helps you to recover a number of passwords from Microsoft operating systems.” Like the Force, it could be used for good or evil, too.
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“Still, it’s not hard to see how this works — if you don’t agree to having your fingerprint scanned, you’re suddenly a lot more suspicious looking.” Gee, it’s lucky I don’t have anything to hide!
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“Sid Meier’s 1990 DOS game Railroad Tycoon has been released as a free download.” w00t! I was a serious junky for that game back in the day – I know what I’m doing over the holidays now!
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That SF/F book-list meme remixed in the best way possible, with assessments of the cultural impact and relevance of each novel – funny but spot on at the same time. Go read.
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“The Chicago Manual of Style is the bible for how text is presented in books.” They’ve changed the punctuation rules, and Robert J. Sawyer is not impressed.
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“Japanese businesses looking for an employee with tireless enthusiasm and an unrivalled work ethic can now hire robot workers for an hourly wage.” Befriend a benefits officer now!
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“At this point, we feel we’re ready to move ahead and tackle what will be the largest challenge to date for Bigelow Aerospace…to develop a habitat that will actually be capable of supporting a crew.” Running before they can walk?
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“Paul Collins at Slate is predicting that Google’s book search will help turn up plenty of plagiarists, including (he expects) some well known authors.” Ouch. That could get messy.
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The Big G announces a revamped interface for Google Booksearch. w00t!
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“I originally thought I’d be tracking the emergence of something with some serious potential. But, with two million accounts projected for the end of the year [...] I’m wondering if I’m not here to document its collapse.” Angst und wagling.
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“…it’s great to see marketers in place. Now we need more of our media partners joining us to complete the circle, perhaps giving rise to an advertising economy that is analogous to what lives offline.” The marketers smell blood in SL’s water.
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