Entries from April 2007 ↓

I played a lot of Starcraft back in college. It was a fun game, but I was never as obsessed with it as some of my classmates were. A lot of them missed classes, turned in homework late, and just generally spent too much time on it. I even knew a guy who started writing fan fiction based in the Starcraft universe.
It looks like this guy was one of those people who was a little too obsessed with it. Check out the Starcraft origami from this guys flickr pool. Somebody has way too much time on their hands.

Via The UnderWire: They call it Papercraft
Flickr Pool:gluek’s photos/Tags/starcraft

I recently read an interesting commentary by Loyd Case over at ExtremeTech on the difference in information gathering and transmission between those who grew up in a connected world, and those who didn’t. It used as a backdrop the way that information got out about the VA Tech shootings. Much of the population was glued to their TV sets and network news feeds waiting on the next bulletin. Even for those who were getting their news on line, most were getting it from standard old media news sites. Old media reporters were writing the standard sound bytes and updates based on what they could find out about what was going on.
The “connected generation” was busy updating and reading blogs, Myspace, and Facebook entries about the tragedy. A Wikipeida entry went up almost immediately, with live updates and new links showing up constantly. Text messages went out from the scene and were posted as fast as they could be. Breaking news and updates got out a lot quicker for the younger generation than it did for the older generation. Furthermore, the news was generated not by professionals sent there to “get the story”, but by the people who happened to be on the scene. It wasn’t as organized or even always as accurate, but it was fast. The article is a pretty good read and quite interesting when you compare the difference between the ways that news is disseminated amongst the two.
Check it out for your self: Generations

It seems that the HAL-5 exoskeleton will be available for rent next year in Japan. It will only set you back around $580 a month. So if you have some heavy moving to do, and don’t want to over strain your back. You can rent one of these things.

This has got to be one of the coolest gadgets ever. Japan always seems to get the best stuff long before we get it over here in the US. The HAL-5 was designed by Cyberdyne Inc as a system to assist partially paralyzed or severely injured people walk. With the addition of arm supports, it can now assist with carrying as well. Since it isn’t limited to use by disabled people, it has some obvious uses in other areas where strength is a factor.

Via Gizmodo: Feeling Weak? Rent an Exoskeleton.

Found an extremely addicting flash game over the weekend. I was sitting at home recovering from a sunburn, and started browsing for something to do. What I found was Desktop Tower defense. the goal of the game is to build a maze of towers to try to kill the bad guys before they get across the map. For every bad guy who gets across the map, you lose a life. You get money to build more towers by killing bad guys. sounds simple, but it actually is pretty hard on the higher levels, and the game is surprisingly addictive.
Check it out: Desktop Tower Defense

Matthew Hurst, a scientist at Microsoft Livelabs, has collected data on how Blogs interconnect. He used that data to generate maps showing the different ways that news and people travel from blog to blog. The map above represents data collected over six weeks.
The maps are pretty cool looking. The white dots on the map above, are the most active blogs. As you can see, most of the other blogs connect to the active ones in some way.

Check out the Discover article: http://discovermagazine.com/2007/may/map-welcome-to-the-blogosphere
See Matthew’s Blog for more maps and more info: Data Mining: Text Mining, Visualization and Social Media

Russia has proposed the building of a tunnel connecting Siberia with Alaska in the Bering strait. The project is estimated to take between 10 and 15 years to complete. It will also cost about $65 Billion to build. The tunnel, if built, would be huge. It would contain a high speed rail line, a full size highway, an oil pipeline, a natural gas pipeline, electricity cables, and fiber optic data cables. The tunnel would be 64 miles long. which makes it twice as long as the UK France tunnel under the English channel.
Currently the project has strong supporters in the Russian government, and supporters in the Alaskan state government. It hasn’t really been pitched to the US federal government. So there is no time table on when this will happen or if it will happen.

Via Gizmodo:Tunnel Between Russia and Alaska in the Works and Bloomberg: Russia Plans World’s Longest Tunnel, a Link to Alaska

Angelo Batle, an artist living in San Francisco, sculpts items using Graphite. Which means you can draw with his sculptures. Each of his sculptures are simple but elegant, and all can be used to draw as though they were an ordinary lead pencil.

Check out his site: asbWorkshop

Found via Cool Hunting: Agelio Batle: Graphite Sculptures

The Voynich manuscript is a book that is thought to have been written sometime between 1450 and 1520. It is written in an unknown language using an unknown script. It was discovered in 1912 by a book dealer Wilfrid Voynich. No one has ever been able to decipher it. Some of the best cryptologists in the world have worked on it, and have not been able to come up with any meaning to the text in the book. Many believe the entire book to be an elaborate hoax. Several researchers have done statistical analysis on the word structures and have proposed that the text is likely gibberish. The entire book is filled with illustrations and what appear to be text descriptions of these illustrations. All of the illustrations are painted in a medieval style. The only thing that has been confirmed about the book is that it is very old.
Anyway, all of that was to give you a background for the Flickr photoset that I found. Someone has taken a lot of high resolution scans of the book and put them in a photo set on flickr for people to look at. The images are pretty cool.

Flickr Photoset: Voynich Manuscript
For a detailed history of the manuscript read the Wikipedia Article: Voynich manuscript

The big news today is that Ethanol based fuels may actually be just as bad for the environment and for public health as Gasoline. In fact, Ethanol can even increase smog in some areas of the country. Ethanol is a plant, usually corn, based fuel that can be produced locally in our country. E85 is the most commonly used type of ethanol fuel.
This is really bad news for the alternative fuel crowd, because E85 has been pushed recently as a viable alternative to Gasoline. It seems that while certain chemicals and pollutants that Gasoline produces are reduced or not present when burning ethanol based fuels, others that are just as bad are increased.
I’m all for reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and for finding better fuels that don’t pollute the environment. But we really need to be smart about it. There are a lot of possible alternatives to Gasoline. Any alternative that we push, should be evaluated and properly studied to make sure that the alternative is actually better than the current system(Gasoline). Especially if the alternative is going to be more expensive than Gasoline.

Via Wired: Ethanol Fuel Greener, But Not For Lungs
And LiveScience: Surprise: Ethanol as Deadly as Gasoline For Now
Stanford Study this is all based on: Effects of Ethanol (E85) Versus Gasoline Vehicles on Cancer
and Mortality in the United States (PDF format)

BusinessWeek has an interesting article on a Japanese business. The business was named Kongo Gumi. Up until last year It was the oldest continuously operating family business in the world. The business was a construction business that specialized in building temples in Japan. It was founded in 578 AD and finally went under due to excessive debt and a changing society in 2006. It was a diversified business that had a lot of other construction types, but the specialization in temples was its mainstay. Recent cultural changes in Japan have led to a decline in temple donations and building projects. Revenues shrank and debt climbed as Japan became more secular. Eventually leading to the dissolution of the company in 2006.

I really think it is incredible that a business that was founded so long ago, could have survived. Furthermore, it’s amazing that the business remained under the control of the same family for so long.

The picture above, is of the Shitennoji temple that was built by the company.

Via JapanProbe: 1,400-year-old Japanese Business Kaput and BusinessWeek: The End of a 1,400-Year-Old Business