October 31, 2011
Well, they did it. They killed the best part about Google Reader. [more inside]
September 12, 2009
The Erdős-Bacon number quantifies how close a person is professionally to both Kevin Bacon AND Paul Erdős. If you're like me you might be thinking "Who even has a defined number?" and if so you're not appreciating the size of the network effect. It's not just professional nerds like Brian Greene or Carl Sagan but also professional actors-who-are-also-nerds like Danica McKellar and Natalie Portman.
I post this because it's interesting but also I know a lot of you nerds out there and I bet none of you have looked up whether you have a defined Erdős number. Surely someone in this group was an author with an author with an author.....
July 08, 2009
Exasperated by the GD temperatures in Austin again today, I looked for some perspective on the web. I got all that and more with this well-constructed blog post charting the last decade of temperatures in Austin. They may be reading too much into only a decade of data (not long in a meteorological sense) but it does provide an immediate look at whether you can support an assertion that "this year has to be the worst in a while." (Of course anything could happen the rest of the summer but looking at the graph I think you can support the idea that it is hotter than usual).
[more inside]
June 23, 2009
Wordnik may be my new default online dictionary. It seems to be a good combination of reputable sources, multimedia, and crowdsourcing. [more inside]
May 04, 2009
So cute. Lolbots anyone?
February 24, 2009
The 2008 Feltron Annual Report is available now.
January 16, 2009
Webcitation archive page
-- following on the AOL Hometown / Digital Eviction Without Notice debacle, I was recently made aware of WebCitation.org. I hope everyone already knows about the Wayback Machine, archive.org's searchable rolling backup of the web. This is its proactive counterpart, allowing you to immediately checkpoint the state of a web page and refer to its cached version by a permanent link.
January 07, 2009
AOL Hometown was one of these Tripod/Geocities era sites that hosted simple web pages for people with AOL accounts. Unfortunately, as part of AOL's continually evolving business model/death spiral they decided to take Hometown offline forever. Many of these pages were quite old and represented a unique look at the early history of what people did with their space on the internet. They notified all the users that 4 weeks hence they were typing "format c:" and if you wanted it saved you'd better do it. Sockington's owner rightly believes that this was an epic travesty and that rules for "online eviction" should be in place just like they are offline. In this longer post he gives more detail and describes how he singlehandedly tried to wget everything from a dying site named Podango who gave its users 5 days warning starting Dec. 26 that they were going under. The Archive Team might spring into action more and more as small sites go down the tubes thanks to the recession. If you think it could never ever happen to the data you are asking Google or MSN or their ilk to keep on your behalf, think back to how strong AOL used to be in the days of Hometown...
December 10, 2008
Brian Malow - Earth's Premier Science Comedian. As seen in Nature (subscription probably req).
December 03, 2008
50 NES Quotes Every Gamer Should Know - time on AE for an old school "list" post. Some of them are pretty memorable although it turns out I didn't actually play a lot of these games. I do definitely remember the referenced scene from Golgo 13...hot stuff. Also this provides me a chance to point out to habcous that the unsanitized Soda Popinski of Punch-Out fame really existed and was called Vodka Drunkenski.
October 22, 2008
Geography of Newspaper Endorsements
- me trying out online graphing tools. Apart from the unsurprising evidence that (choose one: [[Obama is the logical choice]] -OR- [[there is overwhelming liberal media bias]]), I'm struck by the mismatch between papers' endorsements and their "Red State" vs "Blue State" alignment.
[more inside]
September 17, 2008
I thought the iPhone fans would be interested in a look behind the vetting process for the App Store.
September 01, 2008
My first thought about Google's new Chrome browser was "Why the hell do I need another browser?" After reading Scott McCloud's commissioned comic, I realize how badly I've missed running tabs as separate processes (so that when one goes down it doesn't take down the whole browser).
August 31, 2008
Here's a cool lecture by Mythbuster Adam Savage about following your obsessions. (20min talk followed by Q&A about his talk and various Mythbusters questions)
August 22, 2008
Timeline of Internet Memes - Don't be like me: click on this *after* you've gotten something productive done today. my excuse: compiling. link via DonCarlo's goofeed. [more inside]
August 08, 2008
Hey lookit that: 8:08 on 8/8/08. Prosperity!
August 05, 2008
Kite-produced electric power prototype (with video). Funny thing is I used to have the exact same kite they were using...
July 22, 2008
Cost/Benefit Analysis of Airline Security - "considering their effectiveness, their cost and expected lives saved as a result of such expenditure", are the current air travel security measures worth it? A few yes, several no. What I found most fascinating, however, was the table giving cost-per-life-saved for various security measures. (The table is on PDF page 7 and reproduced within). Banning asbestos costs almost 20x the values lives saved. Banning unvented space heaters and requiring Seatbelt+air bags each cost about 1/70th the value of lives saved. More boring policy analysis within. small>[via Schneier] [more inside]
July 06, 2008
BillG's Last Day At Microsoft
- feat. Jay-Z, Bono, Napoleon Dynamite, Bill Gates playing Rock Band Guitar Hero (!), and so much more...
[more inside]
July 01, 2008
Ever wondered what your Myers-Briggs "letters" were? This subject just came up today in emails with a friend of mine, turns out we have the same letters.
So at my last job there was one co-worker within R&D who was really into Myers-Briggs personality testing, she had read so much about it she could usually guess people's letters based on their behavior. I was an odd duck for her though and she needed me to take the test to figure it out. The reason for her confusion is cause until me she had never run across an ENFJ. Most of the folks in R&D were INTP's, go figure.
At my current job we actually had to take a personality test and had a workshop centered around learning more about our coworker's personality types and how to improve our communication with each other based on what we learned about each others communication styles from the personality testing. It wasn't Myers-Briggs but it had several common features. I actually found it to be a really good exercise.
So if you're ever wondered about the whole Myers-Briggs thing (choose the Jung typology test), the above link will let you know where you fall. I have a sneaking suspicion there will be a lot of INTP's here too. ; )
June 20, 2008
Spore Creature Creator Available for Free Trial Download Spore has their creature creator up now for a free trial download. It is a biggish download.
Now I haven't touched a game in years but I have to admit, I think I might buy this one when it releases. I'm really geeking out on it.
May 31, 2008
twitter@mars - when is the APS getting a twitter presence? [more inside]