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gregladen | June 17, 2010Did you know that YouTube has a video editor? It's new. Click here.
And finally, a solar airplane exists. I still want my jet pack.
gregladen | June 17, 2010Amazon now owns the patent on social networking. Here. When is this insanity going to stop?
Apple admits mistake over "Ulysses" app.
gregladen | June 17, 2010In a moment of astonishing stupidity, Italian prosecutors are taking up a case against geologists who failed to predict a somewhat severe earthquake.
The scientists had investigated a series of low magnitude quakes, and indicated that these quakes did not mean that a larger quake was coming. Then, a few weeks later, the 6.3 mag L'Aquilla quake occurred, killing 308 people.
See: Hazardous Living: Geologists to be charged for not predicting earthquake?
mspringer | June 17, 2010As you might expect for a guy who does experimental optical physics, I get to spend a tremendous amount of time in labs with some fairly snazzy lasers. Most of them are fairly specialized pieces of equipment that aren't really designed simply to dump huge amounts of power in industrial applications. As far as danger goes, they're not going to come to life and murder you in your sleep. But still, we have open beamlines of infrared lasers with average powers on the order of 1-4 watts. Unfocused they usually won't do much to exposed skin other than make you uncomfortable (for instance, like a…
gregladen | June 16, 2010Paula Begoun is the bestselling author of "The Beauty Bible" and "Don't Go To The Cosmetics Counter Without Me." We'll examine the science behind some popular beauty products, and find out what real research says about makeup myths.
Submit a question for Paula to live@skepticallyspeaking.com for a chance to win a copy of "Don't Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me."
Go here for all the details and stuff!
gregladen | June 16, 2010Check out this thing. It's called the "em chart" and it allows the quick application of the formula that you use to calculate relative "em"'s ... a measure of space in HTML. Web designers who use this sort of technique are making web page that scale properly when the user changes the size of the page. The other web designers ... we'll, they're designing shit.
Do you do Twitter API? If so, check out the Twitter API explorer. here.
One plus one equals two. Unless you are a JavaScript programmer. Go here to make fun of the JavaScript
gregladen | June 16, 2010Here's one theory:
Earlier this week, Pickle Monger pointed us to the very, very bizarre story of Alvin Greene winning the South Carolina Democratic primary despite being broke, unemployed, holding no campaign appearances or rallies, and having raised no money. No one knew who the guy was, basically, until after the election happened... which is certainly quite strange. Also, once the news came out and the press scrambled to figure out who the hell this guy was, it came out that he's facing felony charges for obscenity. ...
Of course, there are many different theories as to why Greene won…
gregladen | June 16, 2010Or, not... There is what appears to be a very good FOSS alternative:
Cross platform open source app OpenProj comes to the rescue. OpenProj markets itself as a complete replacement for Microsoft Project and boasts complete integration with existing Project files and Primavera.
Reviewed here
gregladen | June 16, 2010Quiche Moraine has a new look, but hopefully the same feel. We liked our old look but it was not working for a lot of our readers. So, we have dropped the Magazine Format and gone to a minimalistic bloggy format. I'd love to know what you think of it.
Also, Stephanie Zvan has a new post that addresses the nature of allies, on the Internet: What is an Ally? Have a look!
grrlscientist | June 16, 2010
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
The most recent issue of Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People); "Scientia Pro Publica 32: Biology Overload" was published by Philip at his blog, The Dichotomous Trekkie 2.0. This was Philip's first ever blog carnival, and he did an excellent job! So go there, leave some warm fuzzies for Philip, then read the linked essays and be sure to leave your comments on at least one of those essays, either telling those authors what they did well, or making…
cwilcox | June 15, 2010Oil supplies the United States with approximately 40% of its energy needs. Billions upon billions of gallons are pumped out of our wells, brought in from other countries, and shipped around to refineries all over the states. 1.3 million gallons of petroleum are spilled into U.S. waters from vessels and pipelines in a typical year. Yes, it would be great if we never spilled a drop of oil. No matter how hard we may try, though, the fact is that nobody is perfect, and oil spills are an inevitable consequence of our widespread use of oil. The question is, once the oil is out there, how do we…
gregladen | June 15, 2010
This is the Gariep (aka Orange) River sinking into the granite bedrock just before plunging off the cliff at Augrabies Falls, in the Northern Cape of South Africa.
gregladen | June 15, 2010A very cooly and heavily illustrated chapter from the book Evolution: The Story of Life by Douglas Palmer is available for free download from the National Center for Science Education . CLICK HERE for the download. Visit the NCSE web site here.
gregladen | June 15, 2010What should we do about a case of Internet Identity theft? Here's the story: There is an individual of some reasonable degree of fame. I shall call him Guy-1. There is this other individual who is not famous. Guy-2. Both are similar in many respect, including, as far as I can tell, their political views, and those views correspond more or less to at least some of the views professed on this blog.
UPDATE: The offending fake Facebook page has been taken down. I am not sure exactly why, though I do know that some individuals reported the page.
Guy-2, some time ago, created a facebook…
gregladen | June 15, 2010... while you are cleaning your pistol and watching Hulu.
I've been trying to watch this movie staring Klaus Kinski (oh, by the way, when they make my biography, I want Kinsky to play me. Oh, wait, he's dead. OK, he can play the very last scene). Anyway, it's called "Timestalkers" and I'm watching it on Hulu. The problem is, every time I sit down (or, rather lay down) to do so, I'm tired and worn out, and it takes me to long to find where I left off, and I end up shutting down (me and the computer both) at the same exact moment in the movie. So, I'm watching Timestalkers, but I'm getting…
cortex | June 15, 2010Sam Tanenhaus has an interesting essay on the relationship between age and literary genius, which was prompted by the new New Yorker fiction issue, featuring a list of 20 accomplished writers under the age of 40. Tanenhaus argues that the purpose of the list - "to offer a focused look at the talent sprouting and blooming around us" - neglected to mention one crucial fact, which is that many of these writers have probably already composed their best work:
The emphasis on futurity misses an essential truth about fiction writers: They often compose their best and most lasting work when they are…