The Big Think

BBC has a list of the top 50 places in the world to visit. Cool!

From IRAQ NOW… A soldier looks right back at the media.

Yesterday I took a convoy out on an all-day mission to Al Asad and back. We had some trouble getting lined up for the return trip last night, and were running late. So we didn’t arrive at the outskirts of Ramadi until after sunset.
As you approach the city, you pass a lot of little roadside stands, where locals can buy cigarettes, sodas, produce, juices, or meats.
As we passed one of the roadside stands, the shopkeeper—just a regular Iraqi, a regular guy–stepped out in front of his wares and stood ramrod straight, at a textbook position of attention. He then and rendered a perfect, soldierly, salute.
I watched him from the back of the truck. He stood perfectly still, and held his salute until the last vehicle passed, then dropped it and turned back into his store. We continued on with our mission—delivering supplies, mail, and parts to Hurricane point. He continued on with his—supporting his family and getting on with life without Saddam Hussein.
Josh Marshall says, “We’re all alone.”
I know we’re not.

How big of a geek are you? I scored a 165!

Moving Mars by Greg Bear. Normally I don’t care too much for first person perspective books. I prefer the “god view” of a third person perspective, but Greg Bear has impressed me. His other book, Eon, left me unimpressed. This one is making up for it. Reminds me of Card in a way.
Got to finish this so I can start the Return of the King before the movie comes out.

From the Harrow Technology Report:
[According to Lin], the photonic crystal may not be merely shunting
energy from long to short wavelengths. It might also be emitting
more energy across the electromagnetic spectrum than Planck’s Law
deems possible. Some of the team’s data indicate that this is
probably the case.

And don’t miss the article on “Personal Fabricators”. Way cool stuff. His newsletter is worth subscribing to.

Erin and I spent 5 hours outside today doing some much-needed work on the yard. Mowing, raking, weeding, edge and weed-eat, fertilized (winterizer), water, etc. *whew* am I glad that’s done. I lost the spring from our weedeater, though, and it was very difficult to weedeat. I had to manually pull the cord out whenever it got short (about every 15 seconds). Took forever to do the whole yard. That’s what I get for buying an el-cheapo toro weedeater. Next time I’ll get one of these.

The Tenth Planet, by Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

South Korea, already one of the most wired nations on Earth, is making plans to upgrade its capacity to handle 100mbps to each home by 2010.

Eight finalists have been chosen for the World Trade Center memorial. I really like them all, with “Reflecting Absence” and “Dual Memory” my favorites.

“Worldwide annual emissions of carbon dioxide, considered a culprit in global warming, are expected to increase by 3.5 billion tons, or 50 percent, by the year 2020, an executive for ExxonMobil Corp said. There are now 15 cars for every 1,000 people in the world, but ExxonMobil expects that number to rise to 50 cars per 1,000 by 2020.” (from CNN)

Some incredible 3D chalk work. Transitory and beautiful. I wish there was more of this kind of thing around; surprising, quirky, transitory beauty created just because. I especially like (in a weird way), this one. Okay, it’s damned souls, but I think the artistry is amazing.
Oh, and I was hoping the artist would try this and pull it off. Success!

Just got a new black ink jet cartridge for my Epson Color Stylus Photo 820. Can you believe they’re asking almost $30 for the cart?!?! I saw something somewhere that compared the price of various liquids. Ounce for ounce, ink jet ink is more expensive than Chanel no 5, Dom Perignon. Just found the post: from gizmodo.com:

While the price of inkjet printers continues to plummet, the price of ink seems to just keep going up and up, with some clever observers noting that ounce for ounce, ink for inkjet printers costs more than 1985 Dom Perignon champagne (and tastes a lot worse). Plenty of people have tried to work around that, refilling ink cartridges with syringes rather than pay full price for a new cartridge. Making that task even easier, an inventor in Singapore has built an automatic inkjet cartridge refiller called the Inke, which does the job of refilling for you. Just pop in an old cartridge, press a button, and it’s ready to go in five minutes. Should come out here in January of next year.

Here’s hoping. If I replace the color and B/W carts twice per year, that’s over $100/year on ink alone!!! I bought my old laser printer almost 10 years ago and only had to replace the toner once. Got over 17,000 prints out of it before it died. A much better price/sheet.

In 1827, Georg Simon Ohm discovered that the flow of electric current through a wire is equal to the potential difference (the voltage drop across the wire) divided by the internal resistance (I=V/R). Ohm, a high school teacher at the time, hoped that his discovery would lead to a university appointment.
Things did not go as Ohm had hoped. Not only did he fail to secure a professorship, but his discovery (now called “Ohm’s Law”) was met with such opposition by rival scientists that he was forced to resign his position at the high school. (via anecdotage.com)

Nova rocks. I’ll just get that out of the way right now. Tivo caught an episode last night on the Earth’s magnetic field. It seems that the field has been reducing in intensity for the last 300 years. It’s well accepted that the North and South pole switch orientations every so often. In fact, on an average of 200,000 years and we’re currently a half-million years overdue for a flip. Many scientists think that this is the beginning of the next magnetic flip. If it happens, north and south will swap positions soon. It’ll go like this: for the next 300 years or so, the earth’s magnetic field will get weaker and weaker, “mini-poles” will pop up in as many as 8 places on the planet where new field lines are forming, causing aurora all over the planet. This will be followed by up to about 3000 years of virtually no magnetic field- resulting in no protection from solar flares and coronal mass ejections. This will result in up to a quarter million additional deaths per year from various cancers (a number which I found surprisingly low. I would have thought the absence of a magnetic shield around the earth would pretty much wipe us out).
Very cool an interesting stuff.
If you’re interested in catching the episode yourself, here’s a schedule.
(oh, and Tivo rocks too for catching this)

NASA says the Space Shuttle is on track for a launch on September 12, 2004. Glad to see it’s going back up, I just wish it wasn’t almost a year away. *Sigh* We need something different, and we need it soon.

“The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion… It is the man who carefully advances step by step, with his mind becoming wider and wider – and progressively better able to grasp any theme or situation – persevering in what he knows to be practical, and concentrating his thought upon it, who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree.”
– Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) , Scottish-born American inventor

Googlerace lets you race the candidates against each other based on how many times google finds a certain word (your choice) in conjunction with each candidate. Hours (well, minutes) of fun!

Happy 9th anniversary to Giles and Jennifer!

If you’re a Wal-Mart or Sam’s customer, you owe it to yourself to read this article:

“How can it be bad for things to come into the U.S. cheaply? How can it be bad to have a bargain at Wal-Mart? Sure, it’s held inflation down, and it’s great to have bargains, but you can’t buy anything if you’re not employed. We are shopping ourselves out of jobs.”

Gamespy has posted a great review of Mario Kart Double Dash. Sing with me: All I want for Christmas is a Gamecube box…hmm, I’ve seen it cheaper elsewhere.