Why you should stand away from the car when the cop tells you to
This man makes a rather compelling argument:
Alan Cox’s IBM ThinkPad explodes
This burning laptop thing is starting to get old.
There is nothing of honour here
If you look at it just right, the universal radiation warning symbol looks a bit like an angel. The circle in the middle could indicate the head, the lower part might be the body, and the upper two arms of the trefoil could represent the wings... The U.S. Department of Energy has been grappling with that problem recently, as they designed the warning markers to use at Yucca Mountain and at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) nuclear waste storage facilities.
AUUG 2006
There seems to have been some controversy over the future of AUUG, mainly caused by delays in organising some aspects of the conference, and Greg Lehey sending some email asking if it is time to wind up AUUG. I thought I should just post and say that I am speaking at AUUG 2006 and certainly intend to attend.
When the Russians drilled 12 kilometres into the ground, they didn’t reach China
Beginning in 1962, the drilling effort was led by the USSR's Interdepartmental Scientific Council for the Study of the Earth's Interior and Superdeep Drilling, which spent years preparing for the historic project. It was started in parallel to the Space Race, a period of intense competition between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. The survey to find a suitable drill site was completed in 1965 when project leaders decided to drill on the Kola Peninsula in the north-west portion of the Soviet Union. After five more years of construction and preparations, the drill began to nudge its way into the ground in 1970. Damn Interesting Wikipedia.
When Henry Ford imported America to export rubber
Wow. A few interesting random stories tonight. It appears that Henry Ford wanted to pay less for rubber for his car tires. What's the logical solution? How about moving a piece of America to Brazil and trying to grow plants on rocks? ...by the late 1920s, the infamous automobile tycoon Henry Ford set out to break the back of this rubbery monopoly. His hundreds of thousands of new cars needed millions of tires, which were very expensive to produce when buying raw materials from the established rubber lords. To that end, he established Fordlandia, a tiny piece of America which was transplanted into the Amazon rain forest for a single purpose: to create the largest rubber plantation on the planet. Damn Interesting Wikipedia.
Natural nuclear reactors
In the early- to mid-1950s, Dr. Paul Kuroda from the University of Arkansas described the possibility of naturally occurring nuclear reactors lurking in the crust of ancient Earth... Such a reactor could not exist today, because too much of the Earth's natural U-235 has decayed… but a billion and a half years ago, there was enough of it around to make the idea plausible. In point of fact, it has since been discovered that it actually happened. Damn Interesting, Wikipedia.
Nice write up of sci foo 06
Forbes has a nice write up of Sci Foo 06: Many of the SciFoo "campers" were the people that other conferences are built around: Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems (nasdaq: SUNW - news - people ) and inventor of Berkeley UNIX; Danny Hillis, co-founder of Thinking Machines, one of the first massively parallel supercomputers; Esther Dyson, long-time technology pundit and now venture capitalist; the Google duo, Larry and Sergey, along with their new compatriot, Larry Brilliant, who helped squash smallpox and is now running the billion-dollar Google Foundation; and Donald Hopkins, who directs health programs at the Carter Center and is leading the fight to eradicate guinea worm disease.
Joseph Pujol
Joseph Pujol, a man of singular talent, was born in Marseilles, France in 1857. In his early youth it became clear that he was a natural entertainer, singing, dancing, and performing for his parents' house guests. He had a love for music, and over the years he became handy with a trombone, but it was a different wind instrument that led to his eventual fame and fortune. Damn interesting Wikipedia
Looking for Women studying computing in Australia
I was in an unrelated meeting at work today, and it came up that the first annual Anti Borg scholarship is closing it's application window in a few days. I thought it was worth mentioning here, in case there are people who are interested in applying. The basic deal is: Dr. Anita Borg (1949 - 2003) devoted her adult life to revolutionizing the way we think about technology and dismantling barriers that keep women and minorities from entering computing and technology fields. Her combination of technical expertise and fearless vision continues to inspire and motivate countless women to become active participants and leaders in creating technology. As part of Google's ongoing commitment to furthering Anita's vision, we are pleased to announce the 2006 Google Australia Anita Borg Scholarship. Through the scholarship, we would like to encourage women to excel in computing and technology and become active role models and leaders. Scholarships will be awarded based on the strength of candidates' academic background and demonstrated leadership. A group of female undergraduate and postgraduate student finalists will be chosen from the applicant pool. The scholarship recipients, selected from the finalists, will each receive a $5,000 AUD scholarship for the 2007 academic year.…