November 07, 2005
In which we stop Catherine the Great from cheating
Amazon's Mechanical Turk intrigues and fascinates me. Cooler (not only because one can make money) than the ESP game built by academic researchers, the Turk challenges the human to write, decipher images, select and compare, and all sorts of menial... Read more
November 03, 2005
In which it is a selective sort of engineering
arup and co. are taking none of the blame for the designed-by-committee Millennium Bridge shenanigans: the current fashion blames the pedestrians on the bridge of collusion in causing structural instability through collective synchronisation. Not quite as dramatic as Galloping Gertie,... Read more
October 25, 2005
In which the spheres have music
The Long Now Project triumphantly presented its Orrery Clock. a picture, because I like it.... Read more
October 19, 2005
In which we can tear the weaving from our loom
Scraps of papyri arrive at Berkeley, and the crocodiles in the Nile are shivering. The Tebtunis Papyri form the largest and most bewildering collection of ancient writings in the US. Though it took 105 years for the papyri to reach... Read more
October 16, 2005
In which we must move mountains
The New York Times has a fascinating report on the solid-waste disposal problem that results from the recent hurricanes: 22 million tons, which may require 3.5 million truckloads to haul it away. x 3.5 million... Read more
September 09, 2005
In which the new is old again
A story about urban archaeology in San Francisco contrasts with a story about the rebuilding of the Central Freeway ("Octavia Boulevard", the Road That Goes Nowhere). Other now-inland shipwrecks serve as interesting obstacles for public works projects. The new Municipal... Read more
August 26, 2005
In which we are non-deterministic
A random link and another offer great insight into the adage that entropy "isn't just a good idea, it's the law!".... Read more
July 30, 2005
In which we praise the metric system
Pierre Mechain discovered stars as well as measurements.... Read more
March 15, 2005
Can you use it with your friends? I say yes.
20q is an online neural net that simulates the "Twenty Questions" game. It guessed with suspicious accuracy what I was thinking of. You were thinking of a tabby cat. Is it considered valuable? You said Yes, I... Read more
March 12, 2005
you're going to miss me when I'm gone
Fiona wrote about the animal most likely to eat you when you're dead. I can hear Roky Erickson hollerin'.... Read more
March 10, 2005
Lies, damn lies, and
gullible.info, an aptly-named blog that contains enough trivia to choke ten thousand pub quizzes.... Read more
February 23, 2005
December 23, 2004
It's on America's tortured brow
Do you want to IM with Martians? Vinton Cerf considers the possibility. NASA is already studying designs for a "Mars network" of multiple orbiting relay satellites. These satellites would be launched over a period of years, possibly starting in 2005,... Read more
December 03, 2004
November 24, 2004
Malady of the month
Malady of the Month features photos and a layman's explanation of a different disease each month. Syphilis, aka "The Pox", has long fascinated me. A friend called up a few months ago, saying, "I found a book and immediately thought... Read more
October 10, 2004
aye-POD
Moonset in Catalan. The original site has a cheery FAQ: Q13. What if I used to be a millionaire but then I believed something I read on APOD and now own only a single dented bucket? The authors also post... Read more
October 07, 2004
Carta blanca
Online maps keep getting more and more interesting. Multimap have a not-so-humble motto: "Online maps to everywhere". And the overlays they produce are very pretty. The MIT service has nice lowsrc quips about the application. Ha! Geeky fun.... Read more
September 23, 2004
To infinity and beyond!
While I admit to a love of infinity and of a certain cat, I never thought to combine the two. And a-propos of math, a research group at Berkeley will place puzzle placards on a quarter of MUNI buses. The... Read more
August 07, 2004
Riot-proof, and you know how to swim
The current issue of the University of Chicago Magazine features an article on myths that have arisen about the school: the swimming requirement; the (old) student union's namesake, Mrs Ida "Come on bring the" Noyes; and the legendary steam tunnels... Read more
June 09, 2004
The psycho zeta buckdown.
The twin prime conjecture and the Riemann hypothesis have long remained two of the long-standing conundrums in number theory. And now they are solvéd? And the latter for a pretty purse? Louis de Branges of Purdue University has published a... Read more
June 02, 2004
MIx First and Separate LAter?
separate faeces from urine; produce energy and reduce wastewater usage http://www.holon.se/folke/kurs/Distans/Ekofys/Recirk/Eng/mifsla_en.shtml http://www.wost-man-ecology.se/clearvac_duo.... Read more
May 26, 2004
Like Mercator
This online mapping tool produces interactive maps (with nearby transit stops marked!) for almost any address in the European Union.... Read more
inquotes
Syntax and semiotics are sciences, and Bob the Angry Flower is our relict, at least when it comes to the inappropriate use of quotation marks, apostrophes, and possessives (or should I write possessive's?). Spotted this stern warning on a van... Read more
May 23, 2004
Errare humanum est
The collapse of the new terminal 2E at Paris' Charles de Gaulle must teach us lessons: we learn from the structural failures more than from our successes. This is the moral of Henry Petroski's excellent To Engineer is Human, in... Read more
May 20, 2004
Round up the usury suspects
Heard Muhammad Yunus, the Bengali economist and founder of Grameen Bank, speak today. His autobiography, Banker to the Poor, touches on Bangladesh's historical patriarchy, terrible fight for independence, and periodic natural disaster as sources of its contemporary poverty. Yunus is... Read more
May 05, 2004
Lime in the cocoa-nut?
I am re-reading Robert Kanigel's evocative biography of Srinivas Ramanujan The Man Who Knew Infinity. Amongst the thrilling problems presented in the text is the case of the guavas and the monkey: "Two monkeys having robbed an orchard of 3... Read more
May 04, 2004
Catalans and bears, oh my!
Perhaps not as graphically compelling as one of my all-time favourite links, the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences sports a spiffy "webcam" for examining sequences in the database. Spiffy sequence of the day, although with a misnomer: The Catalan sequence... Read more
April 22, 2004
Bargee brings mud!
The New York Times' Monica Davey has a spectacular piece on mud transplantation, from Peoria to Chicago. In Chicago, United States Steel will use the nutrient-rich mud to slather a slag heap on the South Side, making a 573-acre site... Read more
April 06, 2004
Everywhere they looked (and they looked in a lot of places)
The proof is in the pudding: computers have validated Dr Thomas Hales' proof of (also known for Sir Walter Raleigh, who demanded an estimate of the cannonballs in a yay-high stack). He didn't call it face-centered cubic packing, and probably... Read more
April 05, 2004
... to hang from my own thread
Civil engineers are designing a steeper cliff better bridge to strike with a big barge.... Read more
February 13, 2004
Learning math at the corner store.
Yesterday I smelled something pleasantly tangy as I walked into a meeting. One of my colleagues was nestling a Wint-O-Green Life Saver candy in his mouth. According to this morning's New York Times, scientists have made another important breakthrough in... Read more
