Microsoft Readies 'BitVault' Self-Healing Data Store

Microsoft Readies 'BitVault' Self-Healing Data Store: "Microsoft is working to commercialize 'BitVault,' a Microsoft Research technology designed to store large volumes of seldom-changing information—the kind of material that overwhelms enterprises needing to house lots of compliance and reference data.

BitVault is Microsoft's code name for a 'content-addressable retention platform for large volumes of reference data.' BitVault incorporates P2P (peer-to-peer) technology for self-managing and self-healing and uses 'massively parallel repair' to reduce the vulnerability of data loss, according to a white paper on the project. Much, if not all, of the work on the BitVault strategy and working prototype seems to be coming out of Microsoft Research Asia.
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Archaeology of the Undead

Archaeology of the Undead: "Does the archaeological record hold any zombie-related lessons for us today? What can our ancestors teach us about meeting and, ultimately, defeating the undead menace?

The greatest lesson our ancestors have to teach us is to remain both vigilant and unafraid. We must endeavor to emulate the ancient Romans; calm, efficient, treating zombies as just one more item on a rather mundane checklist. Panic is the undead's greatest ally, doing far more damage, in, some cases, than the creatures themselves. The goal is to be prepared, not scared, to use our heads, and cut off theirs."

Archaeology of the Undead

Archaeology of the Undead: "Does the archaeological record hold any zombie-related lessons for us today? What can our ancestors teach us about meeting and, ultimately, defeating the undead menace?

The greatest lesson our ancestors have to teach us is to remain both vigilant and unafraid. We must endeavor to emulate the ancient Romans; calm, efficient, treating zombies as just one more item on a rather mundane checklist. Panic is the undead's greatest ally, doing far more damage, in, some cases, than the creatures themselves. The goal is to be prepared, not scared, to use our heads, and cut off theirs."

PJM News - Mel Brooks wants people to see his films - because he says they're worth it (8109954/AP)

PJM News - Mel Brooks wants people to see his films - because he says they're worth it (8109954/AP): "'I think people should buy 20 of them. Buy 20 and save a lot of them for Christmas presents. Who knows how many of these they make? They might be gone,' Brooks said, and not entirely in jest.

It's not that Brooks, 79, who turned his 1968 film The Producers into a Broadway money machine, could be financially strapped. Profit isn't the issue, he said.

'I want these movies to be seen. Nobody has seen The Twelve Chairs or Silent Movie,' he said, naming two of the hard-to-find titles in the boxed set out this week."

Poynter Online - Fifty Writing Tools

Poynter Online - Fifty Writing Tools: "At times, it helps to think of writing as carpentry. That way, writers and editors can work from a plan and use tools stored on their workbench. You can borrow a writing tool at any time. And here's a secret: Unlike hammers, chisels, and rakes, writing tools never have to be returned. They can be cleaned, sharpened, and passed on.

Each week, for the next 50, I will describe a writing tool that has been useful to me. I have borrowed these tools from writers and editors, from authors of books on writing, and from teachers and writing coaches. Many come from the X-ray reading of texts I admire."

Reformissionary: Jack Bauer Facts

Reformissionary: Jack Bauer Facts: "When Google doesn't know the answer, it asks Jack Bauer for help."

The A-Team Blog :: Theological Jack Bauer Facts

The A-Team Blog :: Theological Jack Bauer Facts: "Luckily, the Egyptians gave in after the 10th plague because number 11 was going to be Jack Bauer."

Negotiation and Agility

Negotiation and Agility: "How should we reach wise agreements? How should we reach agreements that create good outcomes for both parties?

There are excellent answers to these questions. The answers stem from extensive research and apply to all kinds of negotiation, from buying used cars to nuclear disarmament. They were documented by Roger Fisher and William Ury in their classic book, 'Getting to Yes'. (It still sells over 3000 copies per week, 25 years after it was first published). Fisher and Ury have applied their findings in many areas, from industrial disputes and corporate mergers to the highest levels of international politics. They have personally facilitated peace talks in war zones around the world.

Fisher and Ury call their approach 'principled negotiation'. It contains four key elements:

Separate People from the Problem

Focus on Interests, not Positions

Invent Options for Mutual Gain

Use Objective Criteria

Each is explained in 'Getting to Yes'."

O'Reilly Network: What Is Web 2.0

O'Reilly Network: What Is Web 2.0: "What Is Web 2.0
Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software
by Tim O'Reilly

The bursting of the dot-com bubble in the fall of 2001 marked a turning point for the web. Many people concluded that the web was overhyped, when in fact bubbles and consequent shakeouts appear to be a common feature of all technological revolutions. Shakeouts typically mark the point at which an ascendant technology is ready to take its place at center stage. The pretenders are given the bum's rush, the real success stories show their strength, and there begins to be an understanding of what separates one from the other.

The concept of 'Web 2.0' began with a conference brainstorming session between O'Reilly and MediaLive International. Dale Dougherty, web pioneer and O'Reilly VP, noted that far from having 'crashed', the web was more important than ever, with exciting new applications and sites popping up with surprising regularity. What's more, the companies that had survived the collapse seemed to have some things in common. Could it be that the dot-com collapse marked some kind of turning point for the web, such that a call to action such as 'Web 2.0' might make sense? We agreed that it did, and so the Web 2.0 Conference was born.

In the year and a half since, the term 'Web 2.0' has clearly taken hold, with more than 9.5 million citations in Google. But there's still a huge amount of disagreement about just what Web 2.0 means, with some people decrying it as a meaningless marketing buzzword, and others accepting it as the new conventional wisdom.

This article is an attempt to clarify just what we mean by Web 2.0."

Presentation Zen: Gates, Jobs, & the Zen aesthetic

Presentation Zen: Gates, Jobs, & the Zen aesthetic: "As a follow up to yesterday's post on Bill Gates' presentation style, I thought it would be useful to examine briefly the two contrasting visual approaches employed by Gates and Jobs in their presentations while keeping key aesthetic concepts found in Zen in mind. I believe we can use many of the concepts in Zen and Zen aesthetics to help us compare their presentation visuals as well as help us improve our own visuals."

The Great Taco Hunt

The Great Taco Hunt: "A guide to the Los Angeles taco scene"

BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Time to end Sri Lanka time split

BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Time to end Sri Lanka time split: "Sri Lanka is a country divided not just by war, but also by time. Officially the country is six hours ahead of GMT. But in Tamil Tiger controlled areas, the time difference is five and a half hours ahead of GMT, the same as in India. Now that may change."

BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Time to end Sri Lanka time split

BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Time to end Sri Lanka time split: "Science fiction guru Arthur C Clarke has spent many hours pondering the great mysteries of space and time.

Having made Sri Lanka his home for the past 50 years, he now finds himself embroiled in a clock fight.
He has written to newspapers here saying it is foolish to return to a time zone half an hour out of step with GMT.

'We should be in line with the rest of the world,' he argues. 'It's very inconvenient if we're not."

Twitch - Trailer For Carl Zhang's Lovers

Twitch - Trailer For Carl Zhang's Lovers: "Let me say this: if you're a twenty year old unproven film maker you'd better have some serious goods to back yourself up if you're going to give your production outfit a name like The Style Embassy. Carl Zhang does.

Splitting his time between Shanghai and Melbourne, Zhang is currently working on his debut feature. Titled Lovers it is being shot in Shanghai and he has just posted an early teaser reel of footage. It gives no real clue as to story line but the camera work is just beautiful ..."

Central Desktop Blog

Central Desktop Blog: "The Good In Email (or Why Email Is Still The Most Adopted Collaboration Tool)"

PistolWimp - The Art of Motion

PistolWimp - The Art of Motion: "The Art of Motion"

Tour de Babel

Tour de Babel: "This is my whirlwind languages tour — the one I was going to write for the Amazon Developers Journal this month, but couldn't find a way to do it that was... presentable.
[...]
My whirlwind tour will cover C, C++, Lisp, Java, Perl, (all languages we use at Amazon), Ruby (which I just plain like), and Python, which is in there because — well, no sense getting ahead of ourselves, now."

Folklore.org: Macintosh Stories

Folklore.org: Macintosh Stories: "The Original Macintosh
Anecdotes about the development of Apple's original Macintosh computer, and the people who created it. (118 stories)"

XML-RPC for C and C++: Features

XML-RPC for C and C++: Features: "A lightweight RPC library based on XML and HTTP."

test please ignore

test1

Gmail Filesystem

Gmail Filesystem: "Gmail Filesystem provides a mountable Linux filesystem which uses your Gmail account as its storage medium. Gmail Filesystem is a Python application and uses the FUSE userland filesystem infrastructure to help provide the filesystem, and libgmail to communicate with Gmail."

All Things Distributed: S3 - The Amazon Simple Storage Service

All Things Distributed: S3 - The Amazon Simple Storage Service: "Go check out the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). This is Amazon.com’s Internet scale storage service available through a web service interface. S3 is another example of the Amazon Web Services mission: to expose all of the atomic-level pieces of the Amazon.com platform. Providing scalable, reliable, secure and fast storage is something that Amazon developers have already enjoyed for some time and now it is available to the developer community outside of Amazon.com.

S3 has a simple programmatic read/write interface through REST and SOAP services, and the data can be access through different distribution protocols. HTTP and BitTorrent are provided in this first release."

Amazon.com Amazon Web Services Store: Amazon S3 / Amazon Web Services

Amazon.com Amazon Web Services Store: Amazon S3 / Amazon Web Services:

"Amazon S3™ - Simple Storage Service

Amazon S3 is storage for the Internet. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers.

Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to developers."

Top 10 Sources

Top 10 Sources: "My weblog All Things Distributed was started when I worked as a researcher at Cornell University, and focused on hard core distributed technology with the tagline, “Werner Vogels’ weblog on building scalable and robust distributed systems”. Occasionally, I would mix in some more personal stuff on traveling, or books, music, and video."

The Ward-O-Matic: Ava Thursday: Plussing Faces

The Ward-O-Matic: Ava Thursday: Plussing Faces: "Walt Disney coined the term plussing as a way of making an idea even better. By telling his workers to plus it, even when they think they nailed it, gave Disney that extra edge when it came to quality animation back in the day. Pixar is a staunch believer in plussing their work. And it shows. "

MICKEYAVENUE.com - Disney Fonts

MICKEYAVENUE.com - Disney Fonts: "THE FONTS"

BibliOdyssey

BibliOdyssey: "Books~~Illustrations~~Science~~History~~Visual Materia Obscura~~Eclectic Bookart."

Archaeologist Links Ancient Palace, Ajax - Yahoo! News

Archaeologist Links Ancient Palace, Ajax - Yahoo! News: "ATHENS, Greece - Among the ruins of a 3,200-year-old palace near Athens, researchers are piecing together the story of legendary Greek warrior-king Ajax, hero of the Trojan War."

A Feminine Mystique All Her Own - New York Times

A Feminine Mystique All Her Own - New York Times: "RECENTLY, a biography of Phyllis Schlafly, the Missourian who traveled the country battling the equal rights amendment with a hairdo like a treble clef, arrived to make a case for its subject as one of the most influential figures in modern American political history."

Windows Database Service: Introduction to Data Modeling

Windows Database Service: Introduction to Data Modeling: "This document is an informal introduction to data modeling using the Entity-Relationship (ER) approach. It is intended for someone who is familiar with relational databases but who has no experience in data modeling. The basic techniques described are applicable to the development of microcomputer based relational database applications as well as those who use relational database servers such as MS SQL Server or Oracle."

Property Values - Office of the Assessor - Alameda County

Property Values - Office of the Assessor - Alameda County: "To review property assessment information, or parcel map, enter a parcel number, or address of the property and press the submit button."

Hitachi Storage Technology

Storage Technology: "Get Perpendicular"

Seed: Prime Numbers Get Hitched

Seed: Prime Numbers Get Hitched: "In their search for patterns, mathematicians have uncovered unlikely connections between prime numbers and quantum physics. Will the subatomic world help reveal the elusive nature of the primes?"

How To: A Complete Terabyte File Server For About $500

How To: A Complete Terabyte File Server For About $500:
A short while ago, I received a challenge from a reader who didn't believe me when I said in print that it was possible to put together a brand-new terabyte (1,000 Gbytes) file server for around $500. Well, you can, and I did. The example system I put together now resides on the far side of my office, offering up a thousand gigabytes--that's a lot of disk space!--as network storage on my office LAN.

ISUZU GEMINI TV advertisment from 1980s (video) - Auto Moto Portal

ISUZU GEMINI TV advertisment from 1980s (video) - Auto Moto Portal: "Watch the TV advertisment of ISUZU GEMINI, 'Dancing in Paris', note that all were not computer graphic, those cars were really 'flying' in the air!

The Isuzu Gemini was a compact car built by Isuzu and sold from 1974 through 2000."

The 20 Most Important Tools Ever - Forbes.com

The 20 Most Important Tools Ever - Forbes.com: "In order to celebrate these devices, and so we might reflect upon the ways that we are the tools we use, Forbes.com decided to compile a list of the 20 most important tools of all time. These are the tools that have most impacted human civilization and helped move the course of history."

How to Think Like a Computer Scientist: Learning with Python

How to Think Like a Computer Scientist: Learning with Python:
"by Allen B. Downey, Jeffrey Elkner and Chris Meyers"

Bruce Eckel's MindView, Inc: Thinking in Python

Bruce Eckel's MindView, Inc: Thinking in Python: "This is not an introductory Python book. This book assumes you've learned the basics of Python elsewhere."

Dive Into Python

Dive Into Python: "Python from novice to pro"

Chapter 11. HTTP Web Services

Chapter 11. HTTP Web Services: "You've learned about HTML processing and XML processing, and along the way you saw how to download a web page and how to parse XML from a URL, but let's dive into the more general topic of HTTP web services."

Christie Hefner: How Playboy Protects Its Assets

Christie Hefner: How Playboy Protects Its Assets: "What content management and digital rights management technology does Playboy use?

Our content management tools are all currently designed and built in-house, but we're in the process of evaluating vendors for an enterprise system that will allow us more flexibility and shorter time to market. We use Microsoft's DRM for Windows Media files and Real's Helix Server for Real Media files [for digital rights management].

What were the challenges in deploying the technologies?

Our biggest challenge so far has been in finding qualified people to help us build the infrastructure. The kinds of projects we're taking on are relatively innovative and experts can be difficult to find, particularly with respect to distribution of content to mobile devices and the home. For example, we recently launched a subscription-based 'video podcast' offering—at the time we released it we were the only company offering this type of service, so it was a challenge to find people with that expertise."

The Blog | John Brockman: The Selfish Gene: Thirty Years On | The Huffington Post

The Blog | John Brockman: The Selfish Gene: Thirty Years On | The Huffington Post: "'They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines.'"

List of Crazy Patents

List of Crazy Patents: "Crazy Patents! For the USPTO to issue a patent, the invention must be novel, non-obvious, and 'useful.' The standard for usefulness is certainly the weakest of the three -- any possible utility, no matter how small, will suffice. And, useful does not necessarily mean commercially viable. In other words, you can get a patent on some crazy things that will never make it to the shelves of your local store."

Google Corporate Information: Ten Things

Google Corporate Information: Ten Things: "Ten things Google has found to be true"

Ezprezzo.com - Overloaded

Ezprezzo.com - Overloaded
Pictures of overloaded vehicles!

Data Jockey And Musician - Altoids tin can video camera mount $3-$11

Data Jockey And Musician - Altoids tin can video camera mount $3-$11: "I wanted some night-time car footage from my video camera and I'm way too cheap to buy any sort of professional mount."

Coffee Art

Coffee Art: "Coffee Art"

Can Stirling Engine

Can Stirling Engine: "The Can Stirling engine can rotate using a candle as the heat source. This engine is constructed with very simple materials. There are a can, a balloon, a wood board and others."

Computer Networks: The Heralds of Resource Sharing - Google Video

Computer Networks: The Heralds of Resource Sharing - Google Video: "A 1972 documentary on ARPAnet, the early internet. A very interesting look at the beginnings of what is now a huge part of most of our lives."

YouTube - Mike for Monarch

YouTube - Mike for Monarch: "Mike for Monarch"

Roboclaw Flash Game

Roboclaw Flash Game: "Roboclaw Flash Game"

Inventory: 14 Exceptionally Memorable Movie Robots | The A.V. Club

Inventory: 14 Exceptionally Memorable Movie Robots | The A.V. Club: "Any list of great movie robots can only begin with Metropolis, Fritz Lang's 1927 vision of a future in which science has made Earth a paradise for the privileged"

The Magical Number Seven

The Magical Number Seven: "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information
by George A. Miller
originally published in The Psychological Review, 1956, vol. 63, pp. 81-97"

Nihilist In Golf Pants: Top 11 List Archive

Nihilist In Golf Pants: Top 11 List Archive: "NIGEL TUFNEL: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
MARTY DIBERGI: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
NIGEL TUFNEL: Exactly.
MARTY DIBERGI: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
NIGEL TUFNEL: Well, it's one louder, isn't it?
"

Nihilist In Golf Pants: Top 11 Most Obsequious Things I Will Say To Bill Gates Should We Ever Meet

Nihilist In Golf Pants: Top 11 Most Obsequious Things I Will Say To Bill Gates Should We Ever Meet: "Top 11 Most Obsequious Things I Will Say To Bill Gates Should We Ever Meet "

America's New Path: A March toward Personal Responsibility

America's New Path: A March toward Personal Responsibility: "In a free society, finding clarity is often as important as convincing others. Americans reap the blessings of the freedoms we have; we need to undergo the fatigue and the work of sustaining them. As we launch into this election season at full speed, it may be wise to try to establish a few ground rules for talking with instead of just talking about our political enemies!' Here are twelve tips on how to disagree without being quite so disagreeable:"

Mp3Wrap Project Homepage

Mp3Wrap Project Homepage: "Mp3Wrap is a free independent alternative to AlbumWrap. It's a command-line utility that wraps quickly two or more mp3 files in one single large playable mp3, without losing filenames and ID3 informations (and without need of decoding/encoding)."

MP3Info

MP3Info: "MP3Info is a little utility used to read and modify the ID3 tags of MP3 files. MP3Info can also display various techincal aspects of an MP3 file including playing time, bit-rate, sampling frequency and other attributes in a pre-defined or user-specifiable output format."

TurboDbAdmin, presented by TurboAjax Group

TurboDbAdmin, presented by TurboAjax Group: "A single-page solution for exploring and editing databases from a browser. Edit data just like you would in a desktop application, without submit buttons or page refreshes. Built using cutting-edge TurboWidgets and the Dojo Toolkit.
TurboDbAdmin is free to download and install on any standard web server. Version 0.2 is now available with new features including experimental PostgreSQL support."

Common Good: 83 Steps to Fire a N.Y. Teacher

Common Good: 83 Steps to Fire a N.Y. Teacher: "Reports The Washington Post:

'The phrase 'in a New York minute' probably doesn't apply to the city's school bureaucracy, which serves 1 million students, says Common Good, a reform group.'

It takes 66 'bureaucratic steps' to suspend a disruptive student, and 83 to fire an incompetent teacher, the Post notes, citing Common Good's new Over Ruled study.

Harvey Robins, former deputy chancellor of the New York City public schools said, 'Control of schools is meaningless . . . unless you cut the 250-page teachers contract down to five pages.'"

Impact Lab - Amazing 3D Sidewalk Art Photos

Impact Lab - Amazing 3D Sidewalk Art Photos: "These unbelievable photos are chalk drawings done by Julian Beever. Beever uses his drawings to create an amazing 3D illusion."

FORTUNE: Trapped in cubicles - Mar. 9, 2006

FORTUNE: Trapped in cubicles - Mar. 9, 2006: "The cubicle was not born evil, or even square. It began, in fact, as a beautiful vision. The year was 1968. Nixon won the presidency. The Beatles released The White Album. And home-furnishings company Herman Miller (Research) in Zeeland, Mich., launched the Action Office. It was the brainchild of Bob Propst, a Coloradan who had joined the company as director of research."

The Polar Bear Experience - Google Video

The Polar Bear Experience - Google Video: "There should be a dress code!"

The Coldest War | Outside Online

The Coldest War | Outside Online: "High in the Karakoram, the stubborn armies of India and Pakistan have faced off for 19 years on the Siachen Glacier, the world's highest battleground and a flash point in the deadly dispute over Kashmir. In this exclusive report, an American writer and photographer spend two months inside the ultimate no-man's-land, witnessing the human and environmental devastation of a conflict without end."

O'Reilly Radar > Entrepreneurial Proverbs

O'Reilly Radar > Entrepreneurial Proverbs: "I gave a talk at ETech on Monday called 'Entrepreneuring for Geeks.' I've given this general talk a few times now -- how can the more technically minded among us move into making companies of our own? I really enjoy the talks because I really enjoy entrepreneurs; at least, I enjoy the ones who are really excited about making something fantastic through their efforts. 'Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to change the world?' Right."

DAVID STOVE'S HELPS TO YOUNG AUTHORS

DAVID STOVE'S HELPS TO YOUNG AUTHORS: "How to rewrite the sentence: Cook discovered Cook Strait."

Guardian Unlimited | Columnists | Madeline Bunting: Our culture of contempt for parenthood

Guardian Unlimited | Columnists | Madeline Bunting: Our culture of contempt for parenthood: "The painful paradox is that while women have liberated themselves from being defined by their biology - the fate of the girl in many African and Asian societies who is not truly a woman until she has given birth - mothers have ended up relegated to the status of constant abject failure in a culture driven by consumerism and workaholism. There is no kudos in being a mum, only in being other things - such as thin, or the boss - despite being a mum. Motherhood is a form of handicap."

TechCrunch » Exclusive Screenshots: Google Calendar

"CL2 makes it easy — even effortless — to keep track of all the events in your life and compare them to what your friends and family have going on in theirs. We’ve designed a calendar that works for you — helping you add events from email, friends, and other public calendars — so you don’t have to spend all your time maintaining your schedule. CL2 even helps you discover new events you might be interested in. We think it’s a great tool for managing your daily schedule, keeping track of what everyone in your family is doing, organizing events for a club or team, or creating public events that you can promote to the world."

The $39 Experiment: Asking Random Companies for Free Stuff

"The way I looked at it, if I took $39 and went to buy groceries, I wouldn't be able to get all that much. On the flipside, if I took $39 to a casino and lost it all, I wouldn't be all that upset. With that said, I decided I was going to try something — I was going to take my roll of stamps and send 100 letters to 100 different companies, asking for free stuff. I figured that I couldn't do any worse than blowing the $39 at a casino, and who knows... maybe a few of these places would actually send me something good."

Ship locations

"ship database updated"

Dean's Benchtop: Extreme Pinewood Derby

"In this pinewood derby, nearly all the time-honored racing rules were eliminated. The only rules were:

* No open flames.
* No human physical contact with the cars while they are on the track."

Eat Smart: Science News Online, March 4, 2006

"Foods may affect the brain as well as the body"

Modern Mechanix » The Gas That Makes You Laugh

"This is a Popular Science article from 1949 which teaches budding young chemists how to make nitrous oxide. It even helpfully explains that the gas produces “a feeling of exhilaration when inhaled”."

Unearthed Monty Python Footage From 1975

"KERA-TV in Dallas was the first PBS station to broadcast Monty Python's Flying Circus, and it was the Pythons' first stop in the US after the premier of Monty Python and the Holy Grail in Los Angeles in 1975. This interview footage first aired live on KERA that year, and hasn't been seen by the public since. It was discovered on an old reel that had been saved by an engineer, and as you can see, it cuts off after about 14 minutes... the engineer taped over the rest. It's a look at the group being candidly questioned by fans at the peak of their fame and creative powers."

miXscope

"miXscope 2.0 now supports the QX3/QX3+, QX5, and MiScope USB microscopes.

miXscope enables the above microscope users to take snapshots or create time-laspe movies of the world around them. In addition to snapshots and movies, users can add time stamps, text comments, image overlays, make measurements and/or draw on the live view images."

Foundation Repair Specialists | The Crack Team

"a dry crack is a happy crack!"

Plasma Pong - Final Prototype

"PLASMA PONG is a variation of PONG that utilizes real-time fluid dynamics to drive the game environment.

Players have several new abilities that add fun twists to the classic game. In the game you can inject plasma fluid into the environment, create a vacuum from your paddle, and blast shockwaves into the playing area. All these abilities have fluid-based kinetic effects on the ball, making Plasma Pong a fast-paced and exciting game."

Spore Gameplay Video - Google Video

"Will Wright talking at the Game Developer's Conference about 'Spore', which looks like it could possibly be the best video game ever."

M.G.L. - Chapter 2, Section 51

M.G.L. - Chapter 2, Section 51: "Chapter 2: Section 51. Donut of commonwealth

Section 51. The Boston Cream Donut shall be the official donut of the commonwealth."

Tom McMahon: What I Have Learned In 15 Years

"It was 15 years ago today that our 8-year-old son Ryan suffered a severe brain injury that left him unable to walk or talk or feed himself. He was in the hospital (in two hospitals, actually) for over six months, and ever since has lived with us at home. I thought I would share some of the lessons I've learned in these past 15 years:"

Using Ruby on Rails for Web Development on Mac OS X

"This article introduces you to Ruby on Rails by building a trivial web application step by step. Consider it a ride on the express train—an overview of what Rails can do, including a look at features new to Rails 1.0. In the end you'll be better equipped to consider the advantages of powering your web application with Rails."

Daniel Weintraub: Breaking free from employer-managed health care - The Sacramento Bee

"Imagine for a moment that your employer was required by law to buy a plan to manage your nutrition needs - rather than simply paying you a wage, out of which you buy the food you want to eat."

SonnyRadio.com :: Feel better about being alive!

"That's what Chris Bliss is about to do for you and he'll do it with his hands, three juggling balls, and an imagination that speaks from his heart. This amazing video is actually the juggling finale to his comedy performance."

1001 things to do with liquid nitrogen

1001 things to do with liquid nitrogen: "In the course of studying physics one is officially taught that liquid nitrogen is simply (and mainly) used to cool things down to 77K. But everybody who once has observed students in practical courses 'working' with this stuff knows that this is not true.
My intention is now to tell the truth about what is really done with liquid N2 before its remains are taken and used for cooling. "

Word Cloud Generator

"* Automatically generate a word cloud from your blog.
* Customize it to best fit YOU.
* Simple interface makes creation quick and easy."

On TV - The Gadget Show

"If you watched this week's show, you'll have seen that Jason succeeded in building a fully working Hoverboard for just £150. You'll probably also remember that he told you, you could find full details of how to make your own Hoverboard on this website. Well, you can, and here they are..."

Tecnical books online

"DIY Audio Home
Technical books online!
1,043 megabytes and growing!
Preserving the Knowledge of the Ancients?

I've found that most of the technical books published before about 1964 never had their copyrights renewed, so now are in the public domain. So I am endeavoring to digitize and post some selected books relating to the 'vacuum tube age' of electronics here."

Bubblewrap simulator

ahh, satisfying.

#1 Song on This Date in History

"Billboard magazine has been publishing the most authoritative pop chart each and every week
since 1940. It started out as a list of the best-selling records in the country. In 1958, the 'Hot 100'
chart was born, incorporating sales and radio airplay data into a single chart."

VirtualBreadboard.com

VirtualBreadboard is an easy to simulation and modeling tool that can be used in place of a real breadboard for quickly performing experiments and testing out electronic and microcontroller powered 'embedded' applications. Since 1999 VirtualBreadboard has been a favorite with universities and enthusiasts from all around the world.

TV : Easy Entertaining with Michael Chiarello : Marrakech Nights : Food Network

"It's a trip to the Kasbah as Michael goes Moroccan with a party that just sounds exotic. With recipes for Tagine of Lamb Stracotto w/ Spring Onions, Ceci with sage & garlic,Couscous, Dates & figs for dessert with mint tea"

wikiCalc Alpha Test Home

"The wikiCalc program is a web authoring tool for pages that include data that is more than just unformatted prose. It combines some of the ease of authoring and multi-person editing of a wiki with the familiar visual formatting and data organizing metaphor of a spreadsheet. It can be easily set up to publish to basic web server space accessed by FTP and there is no need to set up server-side programs like CGI. It can, though, run on a server and be used with nothing more than a browser on the client."

Starting November 9, 2005

"The product is the wikiCalc program -- a web authoring tool that creates web pages. It is for creating and maintaining web pages that include data this is more than just unformatted prose, such as schedules, lists, and tables. It combines some of the ease of authoring and multi-person edit ability of a wiki with the familiar formatting and data organizing metaphor of a spreadsheet. While you edit using a browser-based UI in a spreadsheet, with the A-B-C 1-2-3 grid showing, the final output, like printout from the productivity product, is static and only shows cell borders where you explicitly set them. It handles freeform text in a wiki-like manner and works well with large blocks of text."

STOP International Pet Ant Trade!: Risks and Dangers of Increasing International Pet Ant Trade (Hymenoptera, Formicidae)

"In this article I discuss various risks of this trade: Escaping ants may establish as pest species, may become invasive species, carry diseases that switch over to indigenous species, bastardize local faunas, and even „intraspecific“ faunal bastardization may occur.
I suggest to urge the governments of all nations to ban the trade of invertebrate species, in particular ants and exotic species, for commercial and non-scientific purposes. Exceptional permits should only be granted when escape-proof keeping can be guaranteed."

Cardboard Domes

Cardboard Domes - Homepage: Constructing Cardboard Geodesic Domes That Will Survive Burning Man and the Black Rock Desert: "The design was borrowed from a 1973 edition of Popular Science and was improved upon to meet the rigors of the Black Rock Desert.
These domes have served as an effective shelter against wind, extreme heat and, once painted, rainfall. The largest of the three domes in the picture opposite measures approximately 12' 7' in diameter and is about 6' 3' high at its center."

The Segway creator's next entrepreneurial spin - Feb. 16, 2006

"'Eighty percent of all the diseases you could name would be wiped out if you just gave people clean water,' says Kamen. 'The water purifier makes 1,000 liters of clean water a day, and we don't care what goes into it. And the power generator makes a kilowatt off of anything that burns.'"

Letterfu - Letter-writing without envelopes, cutting or glue

"Letter-writing without envelopes, cutting or glue"

Pew Research Center: Are We Happy Yet?

"Americans have always had a thing about happiness. We all have certain unalienable rights, declares our Declaration of Independence, among them 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'

So then, a couple of centuries into the chase, how are we doing?

Alas, only so-so. Just a third (34%) of adults in this country say they're very happy, according to the latest Pew Research Center survey. Another half say they are pretty happy and 15% consider themselves not too happy. These numbers have remained very stable for a very long time."

Joby Gorillapod: Part Deux - Gizmodo

"Joby’s Gorillapod is a tripod designed for smaller, lightweight cameras that allows placement in a variety of places that traditional tripods just can’t manage. The tripod allows you to utilize the environment around you with the three flexible legs that can wrap around a variety of objects."

The New Road to Riches - October 1, 2004

"HOW TO GET AHEAD IN THE POSTBUBBLE WORLD: BUILD A COMPANY CHEAP. FLIP IT FAST. REPEAT."