August 2011
1 post
“Young man, if I could remember the names of these particles, I would have been a...”
– Enrico Fermi (as quoted in Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything)
July 2011
1 post
“Popularity spoilt him for all further real use, as it has done many another.”
– Anthony Trollope, in The Warden
May 2011
1 post
“You are all computer scientists.
You know what FINITE AUTOMATA can do.
You...”
– Prof Manuel Blum in his Advice to a Beginning Graduate Student
October 2010
1 post
September 2010
1 post
“To travel is to dispel the mists of fable and clear the mind of prejudice taught...”
– Thomas Cook
December 2009
1 post
“It is the largest thing we have ever built,and we have assembled it from...”
– George Whitesides describing the Internet, in No Small Matter: Science on the Nanoscale (via bioephemera)
November 2009
1 post
“Among the compensations of advancing age is a wholesome pessimism, which, while...”
– P. G. Wodehouse (in Something Fresh)
October 2009
1 post
June 2009
1 post
March 2009
6 posts
WatchRube Goldberg Machine Destroys Easter Eggs
“In contemplating Man, as at the head of those animals with which we are...”
– Evolving Thoughts: William Smellie on the great chain of being
February 2009
5 posts
Martin Luther King Jr’s address to the...
January 2009
23 posts
Remembering Challenger
It was 23 years ago today that the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded, resulting in the death of all 7 crew members.
Google Earth reveals hidden oasis →
Space may be the final frontier, but scientists who recently discovered a hidden forest in Mozambique show the uncharted can still be under our noses. BirdLife were part of a team of scientists who used Google Earth to identify a remote patch of pristine forest.
WatchMindCandy Volume 1: PC Demos
Watch Trixter, Statix and Future Crew talk about the demoscene.
Not-So-Lonely Planet - NYTimes.com →
“A very small fraction of this energy is caught, not by rock and wind and water, but by life. That fraction of a percent captured by plants and other photosynthetic organisms flows into and through the food webs of the world. It is this sunlight, endlessly refreshed, that allows the grass to grow, the birds to sing — and you to live. The Sun’s energy flows through your breakfast cereal, your...
superuseless superpowers →
Wish you had some superpowers? How about these?
1 tag
“Knitters leave a bit of yarn sticking out of the day’s knitting so they...”
– Cory Doctorow, Writing in the Age of Distraction
“Out: ability to organize and manage a physical meeting, event, workshop, or...”
– Diomidis D. Spinellis - The Changing Value of Knowledge and Skills
“when you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather...”
– _why
“Psychologically, there is a difference between mathematicians and physicists,...”
– Stanislaw Ulam, Physics for Mathematicians
“Flat is the new up.”
“The 220 message, as Jon had recommended in his seminal RFC, is used when one...”
– An Internet Prayer Wheel for Jon Postel.
2 tags
WatchPopping water balloons in zero-gravity.
1 tag
The Story of Maths
The BBC is running a series called The Story of Maths on TV. Highly recommended.
