Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Wow

Such a cool legal idea.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Prizes

So I'm going to participate in this contest and I think everyone should. Lots of people have good ideas, and they should air them. Doesn't matter if you're an inventor, designer, technologically savey, you all have good ideas and should participate.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Break

I'm taking a break from regular blogging. I don't think this will be blog death, just less frequent posts for a while.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Scaaarry

This video is really scary.... and somewhat funny

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Futuristic sea "eco-rigs"

This article makes me think of that quote; "the future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed". Japan has been big leader technologically for a while and this is yet another example. This is the kind of project that I wish we were seeing seriously pursued in the US. I see projects all the time like this in the US and you know what the difference is? They're pipe dreams. Plans by architecture post-grads with good media connections, politicians or business moguls trying to get attention by announcing a "forum" or "committee-formation" to discuss some incredible idea that no one will actually pursue. This seems like it might actually have some resources behind it.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

The road to zero emissions shipping

A great article from Wired about various technologies that people are working on with the goal of making international shipping a zero emissions business. I've posted about the resurgence of sails in shipping and here's more in that vein. I find this idea really interesting because one of the assumptions of many local food advocates is that international shipping will always be less environmentally friendly that buying local and I just think the situation is more complex than that. I'll be keeping an eye on this.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Virtual Twins

A good NYT article on the study of virtual twins (I had never heard of this before), a new thread in the nature-v-nurture debate.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Cool wind power design

Wow! This looks so awesome. It probably won't be useful for large scale stuff but using it for small scale home stuff might be really good.

Great David Brooks column

In some ways this blog was started so I could say "Dammit, this man's a genius!!!" every Tuesday/Friday :)

But seriously folks, he has an insightful column up today.


P.S. For your amusement; Heinlein's fan-mail solution

Monday, September 8, 2008

My brain is melting

I saw this article title: "Colbert's DNA to be shot into space" and I HAD to know. After reading it, all I have to say is thank you CNN, you've truly outdone The Onion today.

I think my favorite is the sentence: "In the unlikely event that Earth and humanity are destroyed, mankind can be resurrected with Stephen Colbert's DNA," Garriott said in a statement. "Is there a better person for us to turn to for this high-level responsibility?"

Issues

Sometimes (in economics, foreign policy, civil liberties) I find myself disagreeing the "liberal" positions (I'm toying with the idea of self-identifying as a progressive) on those issues but on social issues I almost never come down on the conservative side of issues. So here are some good pieces that I just found that I agree with.

Sarah Vowel in an NYT op-ed on John McCain



And just for chuckles take a look at this video from comedienne Sara Benincasa

Somewhat heartening article about transfolk in the workplace

A nice article about how transfolk are getting better treatment in the workplace. We'll see if this trend continues.

AWESSSOOOOME

Wired's top 10 physics videos!!!!!!!!

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Totally pie-in-the-sky plan for the Sahara

I'm skeptical that this plan for using solar power to create greenhouses in the Sahara will come to reality (although some of the creators have had successes elsewhere), but it's still neat to think about. Very Dune in some ways.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

I'm going to follow this

This could be really neat, an ebay for learning things, sort of. Too bad it's only in the UK, I hope it moves to the US.

Friday, September 5, 2008

They're breeding!!!!

A new and horrifing species is spreading: fear the movie trailer announcers!!!

Thursday, September 4, 2008

A new broswer

Google's just put out a browser, I'm trying it out now. So far so good, better than IE and Safari, probably better than Opera, not sure if it's better than Firefox

Additions to the blog roll

As you may notice there have been some changes to the blog roll over the last couple of weeks. I've removed some science sources (physorg, Scientific American etc) and I may remove some of the political sources because of information overload. I'm also making the following additions:

1. What: Schoolhouse Rock
Why I added it: I'm interested in becoming a professional teacher. I may discover that this interest will peter out like many (but not all) of my interests. For now though I'm going to start blogging about education topics that interest me. I've started with education reform politics (something I'm a little familiar with) but I may move on to other topics such as technique, pedagogy, education theory. If I find myself posting about this often enough I may move this topic to another blog, we'll see.
Example article: teacher merit pay

2. What: Inhabitat
Why I added it: this seems to be the best of the "environmental aesthetics" news sources that seem to be popping up. Many of their posts are too fashion oriented for me but they do have some neat things from time to time.
Example article: The Accordion Shelter

3. The Times - Environment Section
Why I added it: I've been looking for an environmental news perspective from across the pond and I've decided to give this one a try. If it doesn't work out I may try The Guardian's environment section.
Example article: Ghost ships control climate change

This tickled me

From the Onions department of "oh so wrong, but oh so funny" I give you this article

Yaaaay, a good news day

The last couple of days have been pretty interesting-news-lite but today I've found a bunch of cool stuff. First I'll lead off with something I find really depressing: Sarah Palin's speech last night was really good, according to at least one source. I agree that it was very good, so good in fact that I couldn't watch it. Why? Because I disagree with so much of what she had to say AND I she looked so damn good saying it. It came out easily, she was funny, confident, and could do a great deal to close the enthusiasm gap that currently exists thanks to McCain's lackluster rhetoric. I was slightly (very slightly) cheered up by this article saying that her speech was going to make an impact no matter what she said.

The other thing that really pisses me off is that the republicans (and McCain specifically) seem to have finally started catching on to the fact that the only way to win this election is to run on a reform platform. Up till now I felt a good deal safer because it didn't seem like the republican leadership was really going to get behind the idea of a "reform" campaign. That would have lead to lots of infighting (McCain the reformer fighting with the incumbent republican leadership) and a probable loss. Picking Sarah Palin (who does appear to have a genuine reform record) is exactly what I would have done, and then setting the tone of the convention as "Washington is Broken" (even if you're somewhat vague about what exactly is broken) is really the only way to win this thing. That depresses me because I think the democrats have way better ideas and I really want them to win. Grrr.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

I've been aware of this site for a while but haven't posted about it

If you like graphs check out this article and the site it links to.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Light on Posts

Sorry dear readers, the news hasn't been really inspiring lately. So for now, have a funny video!!!

I have to get this USB stick for someone

The increase in strange USB sticks has amused me but this one is really funny. Maybe I'll give it to someone as a gift

Monday, September 1, 2008

Kitties on Treadmills!!!!

SILLYYYYYY