February 2010
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“[T]he next time you hear about an orca attack, don’t dismiss it from...”
– Jason Hribal, quoted in Tillikum: the slave killer whale who chose to fight back by Alexander Cockburn, via The Browser.
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The Amazing Vegetable Oil Jet →
At the agency, they refer to some problems as “DARPA-hard.” What does that mean, and what kinds of things are DARPA-hard?
DARPA-hard means something that other government agencies and even private companies shun because it is viewed as being nearly impossible to pull off. DARPA-hard means taking on big risks for the chance of a big payoff. For example, scramjets have been theorized...
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Can Psychiatry Be a Science? →
What if your sadness was grief, though? And what if there were a pill that relieved you of the physical pain of bereavement—sleeplessness, weeping, loss of appetite—without diluting your love for or memory of the dead? Assuming that bereavement “naturally” remits after six months, would you take a pill today that will allow you to feel the way you will be feeling six months from now anyway?...
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“Writing a poem about lust, pride, imprudence—about ordering a call girl or...”
– Molly Young via The Browser.
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Pull the plug. Your battery will thank you. →
Easy enough to understand but still technical explanation of why you shouldn’t keep a battery (cell phone, laptop, plug-in electric car, etc.) plugged in after it’s done charging. Best thing you can do: don’t keep your laptop plugged in all the time.
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WatchJohnny Weir responds to commentators who questioned his gender, example he sets
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“Forget about this. We can’t be thinking about how Barnes & Noble has so much...”
– Jeff Bezos in an all-hands meeting with Amazon’s 125 employees after at least one prominent tech pundit predicted Amazon would get wiped out when Barnes & Noble launched its website in 1997, quoted in How Amazon Innovates: Lessons in Strategy for Microsoft and Others. B&N had 30,000...
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Official Google Blog: Serious threat to the web in... →
In late 2006, students at a school in Turin, Italy filmed and then uploaded a video to Google Video that showed them bullying an autistic schoolmate. The video was totally reprehensible and we took it down within hours of being notified by the Italian police. We also worked with the local police to help identify the person responsible for uploading it and she was subsequently sentenced to 10...
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“Norway has won more Winter Games medals than any other nation. Last week it...”
– Norway’s Olympic Medal Haul Earns It Little Respect
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Massive hints of a front-facing camera in the iPad... →
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Why Craigslist Is Such a Mess →
Should craigslist ever be sold, the price likely would run into the billions. Newmark, by these lights, is a very rich man. When anybody reminds him of this, the craigslist founder says there is nothing he would care to do with that much money, should it ever come into his hands. He already has a parking space, a hummingbird feeder, a small home with a view, and a shower with strong water...
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“I sent a text to Ev the day that we closed the [Google] deal, and I said, ‘I’m...”
– Technology Review: Can Twitter Make Money?
Biz just tells it like it is… (via bijan)
I talked to Biz for maybe ten or fifteen minutes at the Digital Life show at Javits in 2003 while he was working for Google. He was promoting Blogger but the only thing I remember from the conversation was how...
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“NTT DoCoMo has created headphones that sense eye movements. For instance, you...”
– Looks can’t kill but might control your phone
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“The mayor of 12 places (including the Roger Smith) and the proud possessor of 34...”
– Beyond Twitter: An App That Lets You Truly See City
Love this half paragraph.
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“According to the filings in Blake J Robbins v Lower Merion School District (PA)...”
– School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home
!!!
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“In general, people who commit felonies avoid publicly confessing to having done...”
– Glenn Greenwald (via azspot)
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MIT Developing Body Heat-Powered Electronics →
Huge for biomedical applications.
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“By finagling the 0.4 to a 0.5, accountants then get to round up to the next...”
– Mathematical Proof: Companies Manage Earnings
“Most stuff that is genuine is better left unsaid.”
– J. D. Salinger
True or false? I think it’s absurd.
Should We Clone Neanderthals? →
Legal precedent in the United States seems to be on the side of Neanderthal human rights. In 1997, Stuart Newman, a biology professor at New York Medical School attempted to patent the genome of a chimpanzee-human hybrid as a means of preventing anyone from creating such a creature. The patent office, however, turned down his application on the basis that it would violate the Constitution’s...
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WatchJamie Oliver’s TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food | Video on TED.com
Last night’s fantastic speech was just posted.
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I am Food & Wine Magazine's Home Cook Superstar!
homecooksuperstar:
In the Editor’s letter of the March issue of Food & Wine magazine, Dana Cowin made an announcement. After crafting answers to five short essay questions and spending months uploading content showcasing my culinary and entertaining skills, they chose me out of thousands of contestants as the Nation’s best home cook.
This is an honor that comes with many rewards. First,...
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“[T]he gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the...”
– Robert F. Kennedy
David Cameron just read this during his TED talk.
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“And for those who managed to liberate their cars from the Snowpocalypse of 2010,...”
– John Locke in Washington
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“[W]hen I heard about the ‘poke’ feature that did it for me. It...”
– Facebook is Worse than AOL
Yes.
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Watchleitch:
Thanks, Vulture.
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Oscars: How a big win for "The Hurt Locker" could... →
annahinks:
With The Hurt Locker now having all but vacuumed up the year’s critical acclaim, and with Avatar having just this week become the top-grossing domestic movie of all time, Avatar vs. The Hurt Locker is an awesomely symbolic race (and not just because James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow were once married). It’s a clash of size, values, popularity — of essential notions of What Movie Art...
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The Human Shuffle: Is ChatRoulette the future of... →
Tyler Cowen:
The first time I entered ChatRoulette—a new website that brings you face-to-face, via webcam, with an endless stream of random strangers all over the world—I was primed for a full-on Walt Whitman experience: an ecstatic surrender to the miraculous variety and abundance of humankind.
That’s the premise, the actual story is at this link. Here is one excerpt:
The first...
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“Franken recalled that back in the 1980s, the television networks urged the FCC...”
– Sen. Franken to Comcast, NBC execs: merger no laughing matter
“Even Sen. Orin Hatch (R-UT) confessed some concern about the marriage. He called...”
– Ars on Comcast, NBC merger
Accidentally referring to a megamerger as murder makes a lot of sense if history is any guide.
Boxee's response to NBC's president and CEO, Jeff... →
(via zachklein)
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Probably the best review I'll ever receive →
cathyerway:
So humbled and intrigued by Charlotte Freeman’s assessment of three food blog-turned books. I, too, enjoy the blog Chez Pim but have not yet read her book nor Jam Today, by Tod Davies, so I can’t comment on the other reviews here; but this review itself seems thoughtful, and a timely subject.
I can’t wait!
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Physicist Discovers How to Teleport Energy →
Since energy and mass can be converted back and forth (E=MC2), it’s only a matter of time before teleportation is real. 2010!
All this is possible because there are always quantum fluctuations in the energy of any particle. The teleportation process allows you to inject quantum energy at one point in the universe and then exploit quantum energy fluctuations to extract it from another point....
If we don't pass this, I don't know what...
southpol:
Ezra Klein:
Today’s televised session between Barack Obama and the Senate Democrats wasn’t encouraging to those of us hoping the Democrats are spending their time worrying about how to pass the health care bill. There were questions on the deficit, on jobs, on partisanship, on energy and on judicial nominees. No one bothered to ask about health-care reform. The closest was New York’s...
