Monday, June 27, 2011

Daily Links: June 27, 2011




Euthanasia Coaster is a hypothetical euthanasia machine in the form of a roller coaster, engineered to humanely kill a human being.

Have you ever wondered what New York was like before it was a city? Find out at The Mannahatta Project, by navigating through the map to discover Manhattan Island and its native wildlife in 1609. The Welikia Project goes beyond Mannahatta to encompass the entire city.


Love in the Age of Self Consciouness: Rob Horning argues authentic, risk-taking romantic love has been replaced, in the age of social networking, by peacocking aspiring to sprezzatura. "Modern identity, then, is born of the alienation of auto-surveillance, which makes the self seem a discrete thing we manipulate from behind the curtain of publicity."


Six Second ECG Simulator. "The Cardiac Rhythm Simulator generates 25 of the most common cardiac rhythms for you to explore, review, and play."

Snail attack | The Savage Colors of Naked, Toxic Sea Snails . Bonus link: giant slug eats flower.


"The technology used to create FabFi networks seems like it leaped out of an episode of MacGyver. Commercial wireless routers are mounted on homemade RF reflectors covered with a metallic mesh surface. Another router-on-a-reflector is set up at a distance; the two routers then create an ad-hoc network that provides Internet access to a whole network of reflectors. The number of reflectors which can be integrated into the network is theoretically endless; FabFi's network covers most of Jalalabad."
FabFi is an open-source initiative to bring low-cost, mesh-based networking to remote areas. Using little more than cheap, widely available routers and window screens, they piloted their idea in Kenya and launched JoinAfrica as a free, distributed ISP. In Afghanistan, they've brought the internet to Jalalabad, where One Laptop Per Child is also focusing their efforts.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Daily Links: June 24, 2011


10 Most Poisonous Spiders on Earth

10 Notable Staircases. They are all so different, yet you would kill to have any of them in your home.

The File Inside the Cake: True Tales of Prison Escapes. The most successful of these were tales where the inmate thought outside the cake box.

From SimCity to Real Girlfriend: 20 years of sim games

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Daily Links: June 23, 2011



6 Insane Discoveries That Science Can't Explain

Firefox 5 - Yes, you can download it now.

Philosophy Bro: Philosophy is hard - I read and summarize, so you don't have to, man. Nietzsche, Rand, Plato, Mills, etc.

Printable metamaterials means practical invisibility cloaks you can wear

Secret Agent Cat barks when you're not looking. Housecat is caught barking and goes back to meowing when caught by his humans. Single link Tosh.0. 

Tips my Dad Says. Last week, MAKE Magazine asked their staff, contributors and readers to share some tips and words of wisdom from their dads and granddads. They received over 140 responses and have created a downloadable card of some of the best.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Video Distraction: Lion vs Toddle



Trent has balls of steel and he’s only a toddler. During a recent visit to the zoo he got up close and personal with a lion and didn’t flinch when she opened her huge mouth, revealing some killer teeth.

Our 1 year old son Trent has the attention of Angie, a 400 pound lioness at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Daily Links: June 15, 2011



7 Website Mashups. They’ve managed to cross websites I read with websites I don’t read, to humorous ends.

The Anatomy of a Hard Drive. Bill Hammock, the Engineer Guy, years up a hard drive and explains how it works in a way even I can understand.

A comparison of Apple iCloud vs Google vs Amazon Cloud Drive vs Dropbox vs Microsoft SkyDrive from Pocket-lint.

The File Inside the Cake: True Tales of Prison Escapes. The most successful of these were tales where the inmate thought outside the cake box.

Horton Sees a Pluto. It's like Dr. Seuss meets Dr. Phil Plait (the Bad Astronomer).

How to be a good GREAT teacher. Some basic encouragement to those of the class of 2011 who are charged with educating future classes.


Researchers Build a Living Laser. Human kidney cells with green fluorescent protein made the light which was amplified by mirrors -but of course it wasn’t that easy.

Robot Flâneur is an explorer for Google Street View. Select a city to start exploring.  

Science Not Fiction tackles the burning question that has puzzled bloggers and internet surfers alike: Why are there so many top ten lists?

Monday, June 13, 2011

Daily Links: June 13, 2011

Via: Reddit


A gallery of incredible spiders. They are talented, resourceful, and able to reduce a large human to a quivering ball of jelly by just being seen.

Humans become 'pets' in rise of the machines: Apple co-founder

The Internet Is My ReligionJim Gilliam gives a moving ten-minute speech at the Personal Democracy Forum on surviving cancer, faith, activism, interconnectedness and the internet.

The official Google Earth plugin is one free download that makes all sorts of cool stuff possible in your browser. There's a full screen version of the program (complete with underwater views and 3D buildings) which can be searched by entering queries at the end of the URL. There's a framed version with support for layers, historical imagery, day/night cycles, and the Google Sky starmap. Less useful but more fun are Google's collection of "experiments" demonstrating the possibilities of the Earth API, including a "Geo Whiz" geography quiz, an antipode locater, a 3D first-person view of San Francisco, a virtual route-follower, and MONSTER MILKTRUCK!, a crazy fun driving simulator that lets you careen a virtual milk truck through the Googleplex campus, ricochet off the Himalayas, or explore any other place you care to name. Lots more can be found in the Google Earth Gallery -- highlights include a look at mountaintop removal mining, a real-time flight tracker, a guide to trails and outdoor recreation, a 360 panorama catalog, geotagged Panoramio photos, and the comprehensive crowdsourced Google Earth Community Layer.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Video Distraction: Baby Pygmy Hippo



Three-week-old pygmy hippopotomus Monifa takes her first swim, watched by a Taronga Park Zoo keeper. The little addition to the Taronga family is named Monifa, which means "I am lucky" in Nigerian. Read more at the Daily Telegraph in Sydney Australia.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Daily Links: June 1, 2011


Build the ultimate geek bar: Geeks and alcohol go together like chicken and peanut sauce. You wouldn’t expect them to mesh, but they combine into something unspeakably awesome.

Dissertation Haiku: distilling years of work into 17 syllables.

Ever wonder how much room a million dollars would take up while watching some movie about a ransom?

A Guy Tells His 81-Year-Old Father Twitter Is A Search Engine

How to sleep in an airport

“I have to admit, I admired her style,” . . . “the most awesome robbery ever.” . . . “twisted, intellectually bright, dysfunctional individuals who outsmarted themselves” . . . "from threats to farce to violence" . . . "He smelled really good." . . . Slate and Longform.org team up to being you the tales of five remarkable bank heists.

If high school was horrible because you were ostracized as a geek, you may be on the path to success. At least, compared to the popular kids who ruled the school.

Map of the World Drawn Entirely Using Facebook Connections


A slingshot that shoots circular sawblades, of course.

Top Ten Myths About the Brain. Science marches on, meanwhile the same old urban legends circulate.