2008 Nov 13, 10:30"There was bittersweet news for Keepon fans last month. The funky fuzzy yellow robot - pictured - is to be released commercially. But it won't come cheap - it carries a $30,000 price tag."
keepon robot dance humor video 2008 Oct 29, 3:09Video showing some more interesting touch screen ideas from Microsoft Research. A touch sensitive sphere that can accomodate multiple users and a table which projects one image onto itself and
another image onto objects beyond itself: "But hold another piece of a translucent glass in the air above the table, and it catches a second ghostly image. This trick is in the tabletop glass, which
electronically flickers between translucent and transparent 60 times per second, faster than the eye can notice."
research microsoft video touchscreen table 2008 Oct 23, 1:58"The table can sense the level of liquid inside a glass, making it possible to tip off a waiter that it's time for a refill."
microsoft surface research restaurant refill 2008 Oct 14, 11:45A bit of interesting history on Apollo 7 on the 40year anniversary of its launch: "More surprising yet, this was the first US spaceflight in which there was major friction between the crew and
Mission Control."
history space nasa apollo apollo7 article 2008 Oct 13, 2:35"The robotics community outdid itself once again at DARPA's 2007 Urban Challenge. This contest featured all the challenges of the original Grand Challenge, along with a few new ones: the vehicles
navigated a simulated urban environment and were required to interact with human-driven vehicles while obeying all traffic laws. Six teams successfully completed the course, with Boss, a car
developed at Carnegie Mellon, claiming the prize." Sure, sure but when will they fly?
article robot car science technology transportation ai 2008 Oct 10, 1:32Xkcd providing answers to questions that I forgot I had, like what is the answer to the lawn-sprinkler question from Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman. "Feynman used to tell a story about a simple
lawn-sprinkler physics problem. The nifty thing about the problem was that the answer was immediately obvious, but to some people it was immediately obvious one way and to some it was immediately
obvious the other. (For the record, the answer to Feynman problem, which he never tells you in his book, was that the sprinkler doesn't move at all. Moreover, he only brought it up to start an
argument to act as a diversion while he seduced your mother in the other room.)"
humor feynman comic blog xkcd physics science math 2008 Sep 23, 1:11"...a film crew and a renowned scientist are plunked down on a busy city street corner, and an impromptu Q&A session with the public ensues." I like the concept. Two videos on the topic
video science education physics nyc via:boingboing 2008 Sep 9, 8:36"You'd better read this today, because it's possible the world will end tomorrow. Strictly speaking, the probability of doomsday isn't any higher than it is on any normal Wednesday, but there's been
a fair bit of kerfuffle and hullabaloo over the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and whether it will create a black hole that will destroy the entire planet."
lhc cern humor wired technology science blog physics apocalypse 2008 Sep 9, 8:33Wired's excellent and awesome photos from CERN's LHC. "On November 27, 2006, the final superconducting main magnet was delivered to CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) -- the most ambitious physics
experiment ever created."
wired photos lhc cern science photo 2008 Sep 9, 8:29Article on the data centers that backup the Internet Archive and handle CERN's LHC's data. "CERN embodies borderlessness. The Swiss-French border is a drainage ditch running to one side of the
cafeteria; it was shifted a few metres to allow that excellent establishment to trade the finicky French health codes for the more laissez-fair Swiss jurisdiction. And in the data sphere it is
utterly global."
lhc history internet cory-doctorow nature physics network hardware library science cern internet-archive 2008 Aug 26, 3:42Links to write ups on how much energy it would take to destroy the Earth or at least make it inhabitable in various fashions: "Destroying the Earth, It is often asked what it would take to shatter
the Earth into little pieces. Erik Max Francis gives a rough answer. A less drastic measure would be to sterilise it by heating the outside. Brian Davis does the arithmetic, but I think he should
have calculated what it would take to boil the oceans, which is a few thousand times more by my BotEC. Occasionally it is asked what would happen if you shot a fast-moving projectile at the Earth;
I've written something up."
scifi science math 2008 Aug 14, 3:59"13 things that do not make sense, Updated 11:22 19 December 2007, From New Scientist Print Edition. Michael Brooks". Thirteen mysteries of physics and biology currently under contention.
science article michael-brooks biology physics 2008 Jul 22, 6:15Determine one's personality based on their home. Feels like pop science, fortune cookie results still fun though: "Sam Gosling, psychologist ... analysed photos from a handful of New Scientist
readers to see what he could deduce about their personalities
science psychology article personality 2008 Jul 22, 5:17Down on the Farm by Charles Stross. Short scifi story with elements of steampunk and a math/csc based version of the occult.
math scifi fiction free tor literature charles-stross
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