Archive for April, 2007

Starcraft origami

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 [ READ MORE ]

Generations and Informational News transfer

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 [ READ MORE ]

Rent a mech suit in Japan

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 [ READ MORE ]

Desktop Tower Defense

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 [ READ MORE ]

Mapping the Blogosphere

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 [ READ MORE ]

Russia wants to build tunnel to Alaska

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 [ READ MORE ]

Graphite sculpture tools

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 [ READ MORE ]

Voynich manuscript Images

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 [ READ MORE ]

E85 causes more smog than gasoline

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 [ READ MORE ]

1400 year old Japanese business goes bankrupt

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 [ READ MORE ]