Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Chuck Colson: C.S. Lewis: Prophet of the Twentieth Century

"My task today is to talk about C. S. Lewis as the great prophet of this century that I believe he, along with Francis Schaeffer, indeed was. But before I do, I hope you will indulge me a bit of personal reflection."

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Digging a Hole

If I dig a very deep hole, where I go to stop?

Another stupid application for Google Maps...

Are you concerned about where you go to arrive if you dig a very deep straight infinitous hole on Earth? Your problems are solved!

Monday, November 28, 2005

Brothers Judd Good Books and Recommended Reading

"Orrin periodically reviews books from various lists. These include best of and worst of lists, book club lists and more."

Bibliography from Web

"Kids Do Ecology"
U.C. Santa Barbara
http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/nceas-web/kids/

"Chaparral"
West Tisbury School, Martha's Vineyard
http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/chaparral.htm

"Biome"
Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biome

"Chaparral"
Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral

"Santa Ana Wind"
Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Ana_wind

Sunday, November 27, 2005

Panama Canal Miraflores locks time-lapse, 1 week compressed into 11 minutes - Google Video

"This is a time-lapse video i made from the miraflores lock's webcam. I grabbed the stills with my selfmade program WebcamThief and stitched them together with my selfmade program PhotoLapse. "

Saturday, November 26, 2005

Morse Code Music by Phil and David Tulga

"Welcome to my Morse Code Music page! It includes: 1) an explanation on how to translate Morse Code into music; 2) an online Morse Code Music activity you can play right now on your computer; and 3) a description of my new Morse Code Mambo group activity — an entertaining blend of Morse Code, Language Arts, and rhythm! So take a couple of minutes and learn more about Morse Code and the wonderful connections we can make between language and music."

Popcasts -beta-

"Popcasts is an aggregator of the most popular podcasts from many different directories and ranking sites, all on one page."

Motion Mountain - The Free Physics Textbook

"How do objects and images move? Why do animals move? What is motion?

How does a rainbow form? Is levitation possible? Do time machines exist? What does 'quantum' mean? What is the maximum force value found in nature? Is 'empty space' really empty? Is the universe a set? Which problems in physics are still unsolved?

This site publishes a free physics textbook that tells the story of how it became possible, after 2500 years of exploration, to answer such questions. The book is written to be entertaining, surprising and challenging on every page. With little mathematics, the text explores the most fascinating parts of mechanics, thermodynamics, special and general relativity, electrodynamics, quantum theory and modern attempts at unification. The essence of these fields is summarized in the most simple terms: it is shown how they are based on the notions of minimum entropy, maximum speed, maximum force, minimum change of charge and minimum action."

Friday, November 25, 2005

The American Enterprise: Star Trek Warps to an End

"But before the Enterprise charges up its dilithium crystals and warps off for good, let's recap four decades of space-opera TV, and see what each series says about the zeitgeist that produced it."

Thursday, November 24, 2005

A Party Girl Leads China's Online Revolution - New York Times

"Chinese Web logs have existed since early in this decade, but the form has exploded in recent months, challenging China's ever vigilant online censors and giving flesh to the kind of free-spoken civil society whose emergence the government has long been determined to prevent or at least tightly control.

Web experts say the surge in blogging is a result of strong growth in broadband Internet use, coupled with a huge commercial push by the country's Internet providers aimed at wooing users. Common estimates of the numbers of blogs in China range from one million to two million and growing fast."

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Flipbook Printer - Mouser - Software - DonationCoder.com

"Flipbook Printer is a program that lets you make your own printed 'Flipbooks' from avi movie files using business cards.

A gift from DonationCoder.com especially for the holidays, and especially for the young at heart.
Makes a great present - have the kids send a flipbook of them waving hello to the grandparents, or send your loved one a movie of you smiling or blowing them a kiss. It's the ultimate in low-tech movie making!"

Boing Boing: Amateur band performs Super Mario theme on marimba

"After seeing the Marimba Mario Medley, I thought it was about time someone made a collection of the best of the bunch."

Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project

"Cylinder recordings, the first commercially produced sound recordings, are a snapshot of musical and popular culture in the decades around the turn of the 20th century. They have long held the fascination of collectors and have presented challenges for playback and preservation by archives and collectors alike.

With funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the UCSB Libraries have created a digital collection of over 5,000 cylinder recordings held by the Department of Special Collections. In an effort to bring these recordings to a wider audience, they can be freely downloaded or streamed online."

Joseph Schumpeter, "Creative Destruction"

"Capitalism, then, is by nature a form or method of economic change and not only never is but never can be stationary. And this evolutionary character of the capitalist process is not merely due to the fact that economic life goes on in a social and natural environment which changes and by its change alters the data of economic action; this fact is important and these changes (wars, revolutions and so on) often condition industrial change, but they are not its prime movers. Nor is this evolutionary character due to a quasi-automatic increase in population and capital or to the vagaries of monetary systems, of which exactly the same thing holds true. The fundamental impulse that sets and keeps the capitalist engine in motion comes from the new consumers, goods, the new methods of production or transportation, the new markets, the new forms of industrial organization that capitalist enterprise creates."

Leg o Zone: NumaNuma Song

"Sing and dance along!"

The Dilbert Blog: Results of Why I’m Stupid

"If you are new to the Internet, allow me to explain how to debate in this medium. When one person makes any kind of statement, all you need to do is apply one of these methods to make it sound stupid. Then go on the offensive."

FindSounds - Search the Web for Sounds

"Welcome to FindSounds.com, a free site where you can search the Web for sound effects and musical instrument samples."

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

War on Brats - 11/20/05

"Café's move to boot bad kids kicks up skirmish between the childless and the child-centered."

Monday, November 21, 2005

Warning Label Generator

"Step #1: Choose a warning label..."

Structured Wiring - How To - wire your own home network, video and telephone

"The ideal time to install a home network is while your home is being built. It is so much easier to run all the cabling throughout your home before the walls are finished. This web page will describe the network that I installed in my new home as it was being built with a focus on the 'How To' aspect. "

Saturday, November 19, 2005

WEBPAGE of DENNIS HAVLENA - W8MI Mackinac Straits, MI

"Articles here include how-to-build simple but nice sounding/playing folk instruments."

HOW TO: Getting Started with RSS at PaulStamatiou.com

"RSS has become a valuable technology for everything from casual web users to webmasters. According to a recent Yahoo survey only 12% of internet users are aware of RSS and a mere 4% have knowingly used RSS. RSS exists as a means to gather and display information quickly and easily. By the end of this article, you should know what RSS is and how to use it to make your life easier."

ペーパークラフト工房|マイルーム|つくっちゃお大作戦|探検キッズ

Paper models of classic panasonic appliances.

"松下電器のむかしの家電を再現(さいげん)したペーパークラフトだよ。全部作ってならべてみよう!"

Friday, November 18, 2005

OSM Business Model

Kaching!

Stuff page

"Things that ended up tossed but that seem like they have another life ahead of them."

Flight Patterns

"Air traffic as seen by the FAA.

The following flight pattern visualizations are the result of experiments leading to the project Celestial Mechanics by Scott Hessels and Gabriel Dunne. FAA data was parsed and plotted using the Processing programming environment. The frames were composited with Adobe After Effects and/or Maya and the final piece was highlighted at SIGGRAPH 2005 in the NVIDIA Immersive Dome Experience."

Proof of "Paper Folding Theorem"

"We begin by folding a single piece of paper in two. The fold forms a half-circle of radius t, which has perimiter πt. Therefore, πt units of the paper are used in the fold itself. A piece of paper shorter than this cannot be folded even once, because there is not enough paper to form the fold. After folding, the result is a two-layer piece of paper, with total thickness 2t."

Fold Paper in half any number of times

"For extra credit in a math class Britney was given the challenge to fold anything in half 12 times. After extensive experimentation, she folded a sheet of gold foil 12 times, breaking the record. This was using alternate directions of folding. But, the challenge was then redefined to fold a piece of paper. She studied the problem and was the first person to realize the basic cause for the limits. She then derived the folding limit equation for any given dimension. Limiting equations were derived for the case of folding in alternate directions and for the case of folding in a single direction using a long strip of paper. The merits of both folding approaches are discussed, but for high numbers of folds, single direction folding requires less paper. "

How to Read 12 Digit UPC Barcodes - WikiHow

"Most barcodes in the US are 12-digit UPC barcodes, with ten digits at the bottom of the code and one small number to each side. Impress your friends by asking them to select a random item from the kitchen with a removable label and cut the numbers off of the UPC barcode; you can then proceed to read the numbers encoded in the lines."

Google Holiday Logos

"We have a variety of logos commemorating holidays and events. We've put them in this online museum for your amusement. Please do not use them elsewhere."

Uêba !! -> Logotipos Comemorativos Do Google

Google logos

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Top Gear playing darts with cars - Google Video

"James & Richard play darts with something slightly bigger, CARS!"

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 by Popular Mechanics - Project Gutenberg

"The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1
700 Things for Boys to Do"

Katazuke - the tidy table

"Katazukue is a table which ensures it is always clear. The table has a powerful pair of integrated conveyor belts which periodically move anything on the table onto the floor."

Monday, November 14, 2005

SSRN-Harry Potter and the Half-Crazed Bureaucracy by Benjamin Barton

"This Essay examines what the Harry Potter series (and particularly the most recent book, The Half-Blood Prince) tells us about government and bureaucracy. There are two short answers. The first is that Rowling presents a government (The Ministry of Magic) that is 100% bureaucracy. There is no discernable executive or legislative branch, and no elections. There is a modified judicial function, but it appears to be completely dominated by the bureaucracy, and certainly does not serve as an independent check on governmental excess.

Second, government is controlled by and for the benefit of the self-interested bureaucrat. The most cold-blooded public choice theorist could not present a bleaker portrait of a government captured by special interests and motivated solely by a desire to increase bureaucratic power and influence. Consider this partial list of government activities: a) torturing children for lying; b) utilizing a prison designed and staffed specifically to suck all life and hope out of the inmates; c) placing citizens in that prison without a hearing; d) allows the death penalty without a trial; e) allowing the powerful, rich or famous to control policy and practice; f) selective prosecution (the powerful go unpunished and the unpopular face trumped-up charges); g) conducting criminal trials without independent defense counsel; h) using truth serum to force confessions; i) maintaining constant surveillance over all citizens; j) allowing no elections whatsoever and no democratic lawmaking process; k) controlling the press. "

OmniNerd - Articles: Is a Hybrid Worth It?

"Gas-electric hybrids are the most fuel-efficient passenger cars on the road and ecologically there isn't a more viable option. Until something big changes, though, the industry-high efficiency can't economically offset the steep sticker price."

TurboTap - Products and Technology

"TurboTap’s groundbreaking, fluid-controlling draft beer technology is the product of a unique collaboration between fluid engineers and draft industry experts. We knew there had to be a better way to control and improve draft pouring."

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Unlimited Printable Calendars

"Printable Calendar is a service that provides unlimited printable calendar templates in two different formats (Word and PDF), ready to print at the touch of a button. Just select your options below and hit the 'Create Calendar' button."

Saturday, November 12, 2005

OpinionJournal - Featured Article

"THE WEEKEND INTERVIEW

Old School
William F. Buckley explains why he thinks conservatism has become 'a little bit slothful.'
"

Friday, November 11, 2005

Sushi quality fish in East Bay

"Tokyo Fish, San Pablo (near REI) - best in East Bay for this, I think
Yaoya-San in El Cerrito also has a selection"

"Tokyo Fish Market On SanPablo & (near) Gilman in Berkeley
9am - 6pm (closed on Sunday)
Very helpful staff there so ask what's good today?

They have some items still frozen (scallop & amaebi) so ask if you
are looking for those even if you don't see items in glass case.
Unagi is in the freezer case other side of the wall and Edamame is
right next to it. "

"Monterey Fish on Hopkins St in Berkeley
Berkeley Bowl
Trader Joes

For anyone who is looking in SF for excellent quality fish at a surprisingly reasonable price (particularly if you smile real pretty)
Yum Yum Fish Market on Irving and 23rd cannot be beat."

Thursday, November 10, 2005

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

"Starting your own Pixar

So, you want to start your own animation dynasty like Mr. Jobs? Well Pixar released RenderMan for Maya this week. RenderMan is the magic software developed in-house by Pixar to 'draw' the frames of their movies."

Book Reviews from Metacritic.com

Like rotten tomatoes for books.

Prince Rupert's Drop Demo Video

"Explosive Glass:
A Rupert Drop Video"

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Emily Dickinson's Poetry -- The Railway Train

XVII. THE RAILWAY TRAIN.

I like to see it lap the miles,
And lick the valleys up,
And stop to feed itself at tanks;
And then, prodigious, step

Around a pile of mountains,
And, supercilious, peer
In shanties by the sides of roads;
And then a quarry pare

To fit its sides, and crawl between,
Complaining all the while
In horrid, hooting stanza;
Then chase itself down hill

And neigh like Boanerges;
Then, punctual as a star,
Stop -- docile and omnipotent --
At its own stable door.

Info on Erdos number project

"Most practicing mathematicians are familiar with the definition of one’s Erdös number [that is actually a long Hungarian umlaut over the “o” but we will represent it here by the ordinary two-dot umlaut widely available in html, since the true Hungarian umlaut isn't visible in some browswers — here is what it looks like if your browser supports it: Erdős.]. Paul Erdös (1913–1996), the widely-traveled and incredibly prolific Hungarian mathematician of the highest caliber, wrote hundreds of mathematical research papers in many different areas, many in collaboration with others. His Erdös number is 0. Erdös’s co-authors have Erdös number 1. People other than Erdös who have written a joint paper with someone with Erdös number 1 but not with Erdös have Erdös number 2, and so on. If there is no chain of co-authorships connecting someone with Erdös, then that person’s Erdös number is said to be infinite."

Ex Libris Anonymous

"Book Journals
It should be noted that EACH JOURNAL IS UNIQUE, as in one of a kind. they are all made from recycled book covers and because of it each one is a different size. but please know that we do our best to only put up journals that are of an average or reasonable size. if you have questions about how big a journal is please email me, i'd love to give you more information."

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Lew Aerospace - Inventus UAV - Gallery

"The Inventus is a state-of-the-art reconnaissance system packaged in a highly efficient, highly stable flying wing constructed from composite materials. Able to fly manually or autonomously, the Inventus-UAV offers a line-of-sight real-time video and flight link."

Monday, November 07, 2005

Fuller Theological Seminary

"The Cultural Debate over Fantasy and Human Imagination"

Friday, November 04, 2005

Rainy Day Magazine : Maxtor pic

"We chatted with the Maxtor folks about some of the gear they were showing at DigitalLife. Go here to find out just how much data this box can hold!!!"

no direct link, search for Maxtor

River Rock Floor Mat **WITH TUTORIAL**

"I saw this somewhere else and figured that I could recreate it!!

So Hubby and I went for a little trip to 'the Depot' to collect our supplies.
* 1 roll of that rubbery shelf liner stuff in a neutral color(about $3-$4).
* 1-2 bags of river rocks from the garden center (the 1 to 3 inch variety was about $3 a bag)
* 1 tube of Landscaper's adhesive - I bet you could use silicone, but hubby was with and he's all about making things STRONG. (about $3)
* 1 can of polyurethane"

Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy

"Have you always harbored a secret (or not so secret) yearning to write? This course is designed to help you learn many of the skills you need to write successful science fiction and fantasy stories. You can use the skills you'll learn here in other kinds of storytelling, as well.

Whether you're trying to write for the first time, or have been at it for a while, you'll probably find some useful tips here. The course is intended mainly for younger (high school and middle school) writers, but it covers fundamentals you can build on no matter what your age."

How to Make a Thinking Cap

"A thinking cap can boost your confidence, and focus your mental energies. Here’s how to make one."

How to Find Lost Objects

"Have you lost something? Have you misplaced your keys, wallet, or other vital possession? Is it hiding from you, somewhere in your home or office? Well, I can help you find it.

How? By running you through my method. Interested? Okay, let’s go—let’s find your lost object!"

Jawbone Radio: Jawbone #81: In Search of Bill Watterson

"On this episode of Jawbone, I go in search for an American cartooning icon, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson. Out of the public spotlight for a decade, Watterson remains incredibly elusive and private. With my Sony mic and IRiver in tow, I travel to Chagrin Falls, Ohio and try to track down one of the most influential comic artists of the 20th century. And what I get is more than I ever expected. Listen in now!"

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Coyote Blog: Problems with Amazon Prime

"I actually got and called their customer service phone number, which you will never find on their site (write this down: 1-800-201-7575)."

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Independent Online Edition > Science & Technology

"Smearing skin with broccoli can help reduce risk of cancer

Eating cabbage, cooking meat with garlic and smearing your skin with extract of broccoli can all help reduce the risk of cancer, scientists have found.

A series of studies presented yesterday to the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research add to the burgeoning evidence that changing your diet may be among the most effective ways of prolonging your life. Up to a third of cancers are thought to be associated with diet. Experts say eating more fruit and vegetables is the second most effective way to cut the risk of cancer, after not smoking."

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

California Insider - Security--not

"Schwarzenegger's people have called a press conference for later today to complain about this assault on one of their supporters at a union rally against the governor's agenda in Los Angeles on Friday."

Productive Strategies: List of Academic Lecture Podcasts

"Several universities are making lectures available as Podcasts. Not every class is work well on an iPod, but the content is much more directed toward people who want to learn and not just be entertained. Of course the flip side of this is that some professors are boring in person, to say nothing of listening to their recordings on an iPod. You may need to look around to find someone who is interesting to listen to, but once you find the right feed, you have a tremendous amount of content regularly published for entire semester.

You can subscribe to a class and set iTunes to download new lectures, sync them with your iPod, automatically delete them once you've listened to them (configured under iPod properties in iTunes). This is a great way to expand your education without spending the time required in a traditional class."

Crab vs. Pipe

"Crab vs. Pipe
This is a video taken in 6000 feet of water. An undersea robot is sawing a 3mm wide slit (1/10th of an inch ... remember that width) in a pipeline. The pressure inside the pipeline is 0 psig, while the pressure outside is 2700 psi, or 1.3 tons per square inch. Then a crab comes along...."

Society for Neuroscience | Neuroscience 2003

"Preparing Effective Posters

A poster should be self-contained and self-explanatory, allowing different viewers to proceed on their own while leaving the author free to discuss points raised in inquiry. The poster session offers a more intimate forum for discussion than the slide presentation, but discussion becomes difficult if the author is obliged to devote most of the time explaining the poster to a succession of viewers. Remember that the time spent at each poster figure is determined by the viewer, not the author, as in the case of slide presentations."

Online Extra: Meet Mario's Papa

"Legendary designer Shigeru Miyamoto talks how he aims to bring the family together around Nintendo's new console

As the brains behind the video games at Nintendo, Shigeru Miyamoto has shown a knack for inventing games that kids would get hooked on. In 1985, his Super Mario Bros. -- the world's hottest-selling game ever -- was the first with a scrolling screen, which expanded the playing space vertically, not just horizontally. The next year, he came up with the labyrinthine fantasy world called The Legend of Zelda, which could take skilled gamers hours, and sometimes weeks, to complete. And in the 1990s, his Super Mario 64 was the first console title with 3D graphics. It even forced him to tweak the standard joystick to handle more complex commands."

Manufacturers Blog: CoolStuffBeingMade.com

"You'll find some fun stuff, like the Posters and the very, very cool videos. Don't forget to check out Friday Follies. They are just totally random, but funny clips, videos, rants, you name it. You'll find something in there to like, believe us.

And you'll also find a lot of very pro-manufacturing stuff. We are manufacturers, we make stuff and we do it better than anybody in the world. Sometimes folks get in our way and bug us, like trial lawyers and enviros, and when they do, we say it. Hide the children."