Homemade High Altitude Photos

The Big Picture has a series of photos about some Spanish students who built their own high altitude balloon and sent up a digital camera. Their balloon flew for two hours and reached a height of 30,000 meters (19 miles).

Planets over Australia

Astronomy Picture of the Day has a nice photo of the moon together with Mercury, Jupiter and Mars in the sky over New South Wales.

Spacestation Tour

YouTube has a four part tour of the International Space Station. Each part is about 10 minutes.

• part 1
• part 2
• part 3
• part 4

via slashdot

At the Elephant Wash

National Geographic Photo of the Day has a nice picture of an elephant being washed by its handler.

Spitfire for sale

Still looking for the perfect present? The Times has a short article about an air worthy Spitfire that comes up for auction soon. It is expected to sell for GBP 1.5 million.

The Autofocus Time Management System

As astute readers will know, while not particularly productive myself, I have always had an interest in productivity systems. The latest one to come up is the Autofocus system.

The Autofocus system is similar to Getting Things Done (GTD) in that you write everything down. The difference is that you have one large list that you cycle through rather than a bunch of smaller context specific ones.

There is a video on the linked to page where the creator of the system explains how it works.

via lifehacker

Fish Photo

National Geographic has a nice picture of a coi feeding in a pond.

Interview with Alexa

Since the last article I linked to about Alexa got hidden behind a password I'm going to try again with a link to this interview with her.

Flash Game: Splitter

Another Flash game to kill an hour or so.  In Splitter you use a knife to cut ropes and blocks on each game level to try to get the smiley faced ball to roll to the target.

via kottke.org

Tracking Presidential Promises

PoliFact has a website that aims to track President Obama's campaign promises and how many of them have been fulfilled. So far he has kept 7, broken 1, is working on 18 and has 482 to go.

This could be quite handy if it were to catch on in other locations and for different levels of government.

TED Talk: Photosynth demo

This short TED talk (7 minutes) is a demo of some experimental software called Photosynth. The software builds composite images from collections of photos. The really interesting part is how it can find the photos on its own.

Player Piano Rolls

The Buffalo News has an article about the ending of production of player piano rolls. The interesting thing is not so much that they aren't made anymore but that production stopped on 31 December 2008.

via slashdot

February Smashing Wallpaper

As you can guess from the post title, the February Desktop wallpaper collection is out at Smashing Magazine. I've gone with the lizard picture.

A Non-Corporate Annual Report

I'm not sure who Nicholas Felton is but I have read his annual report and he seems to keep track of a lot of data about his life. I can't help but wonder how he does it.

via kottke.org

Deserted London

This Flickr set shows the results when you get up early Christmas morning and drive around London taking pictures - the whole place is deserted.

I was especially amazed at the picture of Villiers street - that's the street that turns up from Embankment tube station, its a pedestrian street except for all the cars. It is always packed with people.

via kottke.org

Related: The Big Picture has some great aerial shots of London (though these have people in them).

Tom's Laws of Life

Tom Hoobyar presents his Twelve Laws of Life. I don't know who Tom Hoobyar is but the laws are interesting and worth a read, even if they are a big new-agey.

For example, number 8 - Nobody wakes up in the morning choosing to be the villain.

via lifehacker

Sailing Pictures

The Big Picture has some really nice sailing photos.

Web Comic: Easter Island Explanation

Truck Delivered Kibble has a comic that finally explains the mystery of what the giant heads are for on Easter Island.

via reddit

Guide to Urban Exploration

WebUrbanist has a summary post about urban exploration. The links should be enough to get you started on a life of sneaking into abandoned buildings but if you just want to watch some of the linked articles have some great photos.

TED Talk: Third World Stats

The TED conference has another talk, this one about various statistical misconceptions about the developing world. While the statistics themselves are interesting, the graphics that he uses to present them are also worth a look.

New Limo for New President

The Detroit News has an article about the new US presidential limo. Built by GM it seems to be pretty much a custom vehicle made to look like a large sedan.

via Danger Room

Follow up: Bruce Schneier has a blog post with some more links. One is the same graphic linked to in one of the comments below while the LA Times article has an actual picture of the new limo.

Boring Machines

Dark Roasted Blend has an article about the giant machines used to bore underground tunnels.

The machine tows nearly 800 tons of backup equipment through the tunnel, including trailers for electrical support systems, firefighting supplies and even a lunchroom.

Light Cone

A bit of a strange one today, this site provides an RSS feed that lets you know when the theoretical light from the moment of your birth reaches various nearby star systems. Physicists call this a light cone.

For example, 5 months ago my light cone reached 58 Eridani.

via kottke.org

edit: fixed typo in star name

UK planned secret army in case Germans invaded

The Times has an article about a unit of the Second World War British Home Guard which was to go into hiding in case of German invasion and perform acts of sabotage.

The only clue to their alter egos might have been the pieces of paper in their pockets – informing any police officer suspicious of their behaviour “to ask no questions of the bearer but phone this number”.

TED Talk: Giant Trees

An interesting TED Talk about the giant redwoods in California. Some pictures of climbing / camping up in the canopy and lots of information about what goes on up there. I had never heard that the redwoods were fractal for example.

Rotating Mechanical Calculators

Dark Roasted Blend has a post about the old rotating mechanical calculators (the kind that look like pepper grinders). I've never played with one of these but they look like a nice steampunk gadget.

The Psychology of a Con

Psychology Today has an article about why people fall for cons.

THOMAS is a powerful brain circuit that releases the neurochemical oxytocin when we are trusted and induces a desire to reciprocate the trust we have been shown--even with strangers.

The key to a con is not that you trust the conman, but that he shows he trusts you. Conmen ply their trade by appearing fragile or needing help, by seeming vulnerable.

The article includes the story of a con played on the author when he worked at a gas station.

via Bruce Schneier

Smashing January Wallpaper

Smashing Magazine has its January desktop wallpaper selection. I've gone with the trees.

Abandoned Antarctic Accomodations

Dark Roasted Blend has an interesting article, with some great pictures, of various abandoned human dwellings and installations in Antarctica.

Samurai Horse Archery

Yahoo has an article, with some nice photos, about Yabusame the Samurai art of mounted archery.

Factoid: Hard Drive Facts

Toms Hardware has an article with some interesting information about computer hard drives and the heads therein.

if the read/write head were a Boeing 747, and the hard-disk platter were the surface of the Earth:

• The head would fly at Mach 800
• At less than one centimeter from the ground
• And count every blade of grass

The article is one of those slightly annoying multi-page click throughs.

via kottke.org

Last Photos

The List Universe has a post with a list of last photos either of or by various famous people.

The ones found on people's cameras after their deaths are particularly interesting.

via kottke.org

Alexa in the National Post

My friend Alexa (of Cheap Eats Toronto / Ottawa fame) has been quoted in the National Post regarding this year's cancellation of the Kensington Market Festival of Lights.

Tracing Digital Photos

The New Scientist has an article about a new technique for determining what kind of camera has taken a particular digital photo.

While many people own the same camera models, Pollitt believes that this technique can still be used forensically. He says that because digital cameras have a shelf life of only 18 months, this can help to narrow down when and where it was sold.

via slashdot

American Religious Beliefs

Harris Interactive has the results of a poll on American religious beliefs.

80% of adult Americans believe in God – unchanged since the last time we asked the question in 2005. Large majorities of the public believe in miracles (75%), heaven (73%), angels (71%), that Jesus is God or the Son of God (71%), the resurrection of Jesus (70%), the survival of the soul after death (68%), hell (62%), the Virgin birth (Jesus born of Mary (61%) and the devil (59%).

Recreation of "Oldest Computer"

Wired has an article (with a demonstration video) about a British scientist who has made a working reconstruction of the ancient Greek Antikythera mechanism.  The device, consisting of a complex series of rotating metal disks is several thousand years old and is believed to have been used for astronomical calculations.

Space Shuttles for sale (sort of)

Yahoo is reporting that NASA is trying to decide what to do with the Space Shuttles once they are retired. One could be yours for $43 million (shipping not included).

Using Your Desktop Wallpaper

I've linked to some desktop wallpaper before (mainly on Smashing Magazine) but here is one designed not to look pretty but to be used. The idea is hat you put different files in the different areas of the wallpaper depending on what they are for or how urgent they are.

It's worth a look but since I run all my applications full screen I don't really see my wallpaper that often.

via lifehacker

Using DNA Evidence to find Criminal's Relatives

The LA Times has an article about the police using DNA evidence to find criminals when the criminals aren't in the DNA database. They can now find people in the database who are relatives of the actual criminal. Normal police work follows from there.

Long Distance Keycutting

This article announces that researchers have successfully duplicated a key from a long range digital camera picture. In the example the picture was taken from 195 feet.

Warbirds over the Pacific

National Geographic has a nice photo of three American WWII aircraft flying in front of a sunset.

Lego in the Kitchen

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratory has a post about using Lego in your kitchen. Some of the containers don't look half bad (though as a Lego fan I may be biased).

Factoid: The Soviets weren't allowed to use the Panama Canal

The BBC has an article about a Soviet warship transiting the Panama Canal after a visit to Latin America. What caught my eye was this:

The 50-mile (80km) canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans was shut to the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Do It Yourself Compact Calendar

Another tool for do-it-yourself productivity folks, this website lets you create your own "compact calendar".

I think I've talked about the compact calendar before, these are an interesting way to view a whole year and do high level planning. Today's site lets you custom make your own. You can specify the start and end points as well as any holidays. Once you print it out you can scribble all over it to do your planning.

New Drug may cure Jet Lag

The LA Times reports on the discovery of a drug that might eliminate jet lag.

Some research has shown that administering melatonin can adjust sleep cycles in travelers and workers, but the results have been mixed.

Because melatonin can't be patented, drug companies have been interested in developing melatonin mimics, such as tasimelteon, which can be patented.

DVD: The Illusionist

Set in 19th Century Vienna, The Illusionist is the story of a stage magician who returns to the city after years wandering the world.  The son of a woodworker, he was forced to leave after a teenage romance with a member of the local noble family.  On his return, under a stage name, he finds his former love is now all but betrothed to the Crown Prince.  Naturally things become complicated, especially when a Police Inspector with an interest in magic gets involved.

There are a few minor problems with the plot but overall I definitely enjoyed this movie and would recommend it.

Planets over Los Angeles

Astronomy Picture of the Day has a nice photo of Venus and Jupiter together with a crescent moon over the lights of Los Angeles.

For the next little while Venus and Jupiter will be close together in the sky and very bright. It has been cloudy in Ottawa for the past few days but this evening I manged to see the two planets and they were extremely bright. Worth looking for if you are out and about.

Followup: A later Astronomy Picture of the Day has a photo of the same three objects in an amusing configuration.

The End of Wall Street?

Portfolio.com has an article by Michael Lewis about how he sees the current financial crisis as Wall Street's own incompetence coming back to kill it.

Lewis wrote the book Liar's Poker in the 1980s about his experiences at an investment bank. The book is considered by many to be the classic book about 1980s Wall Street.

I thought I was writing a period piece about the 1980s in America. Not for a moment did I suspect that the financial 1980s would last two full decades longer or that the difference in degree between Wall Street and ordinary life would swell into a difference in kind. I expected readers of the future to be outraged that back in 1986, the C.E.O. of Salomon Brothers, John Gutfreund, was paid $3.1 million; I expected them to gape in horror when I reported that one of our traders, Howie Rubin, had moved to Merrill Lynch, where he lost $250 million; I assumed they’d be shocked to learn that a Wall Street C.E.O. had only the vaguest idea of the risks his traders were running. What I didn’t expect was that any future reader would look on my experience and say, “How quaint.”

The History of the Lego Minifig

Gizmodo has a pictorial history of the minifig (the little yellow men that come in Lego sets). I hadn't realised that Jar-Jar had made an appearance in Lego.

Ice on Mars

Astronomy Picture of the Day has a photo of some ice that was found underneath the Phoenix Lander on Mars.

A Modern Day Depression

The Boston Post has an article that tries to predict what a modern day depression would be like.

Beyond that, two of the basics of existence - food and clothing - are a lot cheaper today, thanks to industrial agriculture and overseas labor. The average middle-class man in the late 1920s, according to the writer and cultural critic Virginia Postrel, could afford just six outfits, and his wife nine - by comparison, the average woman today has seven pairs of jeans alone.

First Picture of the Earth from the Moon

Astronomy Picture of the Day has a newly restored image from 1966. This is the first picture of the Earth taken from the moon and was taken by Lunar Orbitor 1.

As an aside, today is the 10 anniversary of the International Space Station.

Japanese Vending Machines

Dark Roasted Blend has a post with lots of pictures about vending machines in Japan. The flower vending machines would be particularly helpful after too many visits to the beer vending machines.

Visualising Sorting Algorithms

Another geeky one here.  This page is a visual representation of various sorting algorithms and how they affect the data being sorted on each pass.  On the page you can click on the images and watch as the rows are slowly reordered.  Handy for getting your head around the ways the various schemes work.

Trail of an asteroid

Astronomy Picture of the Day has a photo of the trail left behind in the sky by a meteor that fell to earth in daylight. The asteroid was the first to be detected in space before it entered the Earth's atmosphere.

First Picture of Extra-solar Planet

Science News has an article with what is believed to be the first picture of a planet orbiting another star.

via slashdot

Logo Evolution

Best Ad has a post showing how various famous logos have evolved over time.  Some of them, like General Electric, have stayed remarkably similar while others, like Nokia, have changed completely.

Stretching a Cruise Ship

wtfurls has a post (with pictures) about a cruise ship being stretched like a limousine. They cut the ship in two, insert a pre-built middle section then weld the whole thing back together.

Bump Key Video

Lifehacker has a post with a video that demonstrates how easy it is to open a normal lock with a "bump key". I knew that this was possible but thought it took a bit more effort than it appears to in the video.

The Perils of Translation

The BBC has an article that illustrates the risks of making a sign in a language you don't understand. Signmakers in Wales needed to translate a sign from English into Welsh so they emailed the English part of the sign to a translator then put the response on the sign. Unfortunately the response was an automatic out of office reply.

Flash Game: Chronotron

Another flash game for your amusement.  Chronotron isn't quite as much fun as Amazing Contraption was but the idea is brilliant.  It is basically a time travel based level game.  To complete each level you have to cooperate with an earlier version of yourself.  As I mentioned, the game isn't the greatest but it is worth trying for the way it makes you think about the levels.

via kottke.org

Factoid: Leno has met all the Bonds

A minor claim to fame, Jay Leno has met all of the actors who have played James Bond. And according to the same article, he thinks they should be kinder to their cars.

Long Term Storage

Kevin Kelly has an article about an attempt to build a modern day Rosetta Stone that will last 2,000 years. The 3 inch metal disk will be etched with 350,000 pages of the Book of Genesis translated into over 1,500 different languages. You need a 750 power microscope to read the text.

via slashdot

First World War Sketches

The Mail on Sunday has an article about a First World War British soldier and the sketches he made during scouting missions on the front lines at places like Vimy Ridge. The sketches themselves are amazing, especially given the circumstances under which they were made.

Observation: TVs at the gym

Often when I go to the gym in the afternoon I am the only person in the cardio room. This means I get to change the channels on all the the TVs. Usually I change them from sports or soap operas to the news. In the past few weeks however I have noticed that the TVs are often set to the various financial news channels.

I'm not sure if this counts as an economic indicator or not.

Where did those chains start?

Bootsnall has a post detailing the original locations of 15 now massive chains.

I have vague recollections of visiting the original KFC (then known as Kentucky Fried Chicken) on a family trip to Florida.  I also think I may have been to the original Barnes and Noble in New York City but I'm not sure.

Virgin Galactic Reject Porn Deal

Space.com reports that Virgin Galactic have rejected a $1 million offer to make a porn film in space.

Post-blogging the Sudeten Crisis

Another geeky post here but this one is for history geeks. Aviation history blogger Airminded has just finished an experiment of "live-blogging" a historical event. He used newspaper archives and other sources to post-blog the Sudeten Crisis.

The Sudeten Crisis is also known as the Munich Crisis and is the series of events leading up to the famous "Peace for our time" announcement just before the Second World War.

Cake In A Mug

I haven't actually tried this but it looks like it might be fun.  It would be perfect for the lunch room at work assuming you happened to have all the ingredients.

Do Not Call Lists

Security expert Bruce Schneier has a blog post where he mentions the new Canadian Do Not Call List.  One thing he mentions:

Here's my idea. If you're a company, add every one of your customers to the list. That way, none of your competitors will be able to cold call them.

My question is, couldn't someone write a small program to pull all of the phone numbers in Canada from say Canada411.com and add them all to the Do Not Call List?

October Smashing Wallpaper

I'm a bit late with this one but Smashing Magazine have another set of their monthly desktop wallpapers.  I decided to skip the Halloween themes and went with the large ship in the fog. 

Moleskine Monster Post

Being a bit of a paper productivity geek, I've been intrigued by the current interest, some would say fetishism, for the Moleskine notebook. To summarise it all, Freelance Switch has a post with a huge list of links to articles about things you can do with your Moleskine.

NASA Photo Archives

NASA has a new website with all of their photo archives.  There are some very nice pictures there.

First launch

Astronomy Picture of the Day has a nice black and white photo of the first launch from Cape Canaveral.

A Slightly Rude Comic

I'm not sure why but I like this comic. Note that it would be suitable for work anywhere I've ever worked but your mileage may vary.

via reddit

Safer Fertilizer

The New York Times has an article about a new process to make ammonium nitrate fertilizer unusable as an explosive.

Economics Experiments

Slate has an article about some economists who experimented on the payment schemes for fruit pickers and managed to increase their production.

Hack: Put your keys on your moneyclip

Lifehacker has an interesting idea to keep your keys and moneyclip together. It won't work if you have too many keys or with modern car keys but still an interesting idea.

Things that are only sort of banned

Security guru Bruce Schneier has a post about something that had always bothered me but that I'd never been able to put my finger on.  Basically there are some things that you can't take on a plane but that don't get you in any trouble if you get caught trying to take them on a plane.

Eclipse from space

Futility Closet has a post with a picture of an eclipse seen from the Mir spacestation.  You can see a large black spot on the surface of the earth - not sure how wide it is.

Comic: Mister Bookseller

A very nice one shot comic.

via reddit

Flash Game: Fantastic Contraption

Fantastic Contraption is a fun little game where on each level you have to move an object from a starting point to a goal.  You do this by constructing a machine from various parts and then letting the machine do the actual moving.  

After you have completed a level you can see what machines other people built to solve the same problem.  Some of these are amazingly complex.

via kottke.org

Fibonacci Converter

Futility Closet has a short post about how you can use the Fibonacci sequence to convert miles to kilometers.

This works because the two units stand in the golden ratio (to within 0.5 percent).

Paper Kid's Trainsets

If you have little kids who always wanted a trainset (or if you are in the same category) then this webpage has links to PDF files that you can print to build your own paper trainsets.  The page is in Japanese but you should be able to figure it out.

Obit: David Caminer the first systems analyst

The New York Times has the obituary of David Caminer. Caminer worked at Lyons which was a British tea shop chain. After losing a leg in the Second World War he returned to Lyons and became the manager of their systems analysis office. It was there that he helped implement the world's first commercial computer system.

The finished LEO, which had less than 100,000th the power of a current PC, could calculate an employee’s pay in 1.5 seconds, a job that took an experienced clerk eight minutes. Its success led Lyons to set up a computer subsidiary that later developed two more generations of LEO, the last with transistors, rather than the noisy vacuum tubes used in the first two models.

Google Chrome Comic Book

For the introduction of the new Chrome browser from Google, they have created an online comic book that explains the browser's features.  The comic is by Scott McCloud of Understanding Comics fame.

According to this post on TechCrunch one of the physical comics, of which only a few were produced, is already on sale on eBay.

Monthly Smashing Wallpaper

Smashing Magazine have their monthly post of desktop wallpaper. I've gone with the shot of St Paul's Cathedral (mostly because that used to be the view out my window) but I do miss last month's levitating kung fu rabbit.

TED Talk: The Oil Endgame

Another interesting presentation from the TED conference, this one is about strategies to deal with the increasing scarcity of oil. There are several interesting points about car design.

Vintage Signs

If you like old fashioned neon signs here is a great flickr set for you.

via kottke.org

Factoid: Car Sales

Ford's venerable F150 pickup ended its 17-year-run as the best-selling vehicle in America last month, dethroned by the Honda Civic and three other Japanese sedans. General Motors is looking to unload Hummer, the epitome of gas-guzzling excess, after sales fell 60 percent in May. The number of Civics sold in one month exceed the number of Hummers GM expects to sell all year.

From this interesting Wired post about how high gas prices have killed the SUV.

via slashdot

Weaving with Index Cards

This isn't origami but it is something sort of useful that you can do with an index card. Craft magazine has a video that shows how you can make a loom out of two index cards. Obviously this only works if you want to weave something the width of an index card.

via Robot Wisdom

Evolution Observed in Lab

The New Scientist is reporting that evolution has been observed in bacteria in a laboratory. A scientist raised 44,000 generations of E. coli bacteria and eventually one batch evolved the ability to use a nutrient that normal E. coli can't.

via Slashdot

Quiz: 100 Commonest English Words

Codebox Software has a quiz that lets you find out how many of the 100 commonest English words you can list in 5 minutes.

I got 44 in case anyone needs a goal.

via Kottke.org

Factoid: Eating Out

The average Canadian household spends 24.4 per cent of its total food dollar on food service, compared to 41.4 per cent for U.S. households.

I'm not exactly sure what this means or why the difference is so large.

This is from an article, which is worth reading on its own, about an experiment that shows that people will spend more money in a restaurant if the menus don't have dollar signs on them.

Don't talk to the police

Security guru Bruce Schneier has a post that links to this video of Professor James Duane of the Regent University School of Law explaining why you should never talk to the police. While I'm not sure how relevant the advice is under Canadian law, it does seem to make sense. Once the police are interested in you as a suspect there really isn't anything that you can say to change there minds.

The problem is that Professor Duane doesn't really explain what to do when you aren't a suspect. I don't think that he's really suggesting that witnesses shouldn't talk to the police but he should have made that clear. The problem of course is that you can start out as a witness and end up as a suspect and I would imagine that the transition between them isn't very clear.

Another video shows the second part of the lecture and features a police officer discussing, and essentially agreeing with, the points made by the Professor.

Follow up: John has also blogged about this.

Target Panic

The New York Times has an article about target panic. This is a condition suffered by champion archers which prevents them from aiming at a target.

via kottke.org

Mile High Showers

The Telegraph reports that certain models of the new Airbus A380 will have showers in first class.

Such luxury is reserved for the 14 people in the first class cabin, who will have access to the two showers during the trip.

The passengers will book their 25-minutes slots, which will include five minutes in the shower itself and some extra time to dry themselves off and get dressed again.

Follow up: Here's a blog post with pictures from a tour of the plane, including some of the shower.

Spacestation crosses the sun

Astronomy Picture of the Day has a great photo of the International Space Station silhouetted against the sun.

Torpedo Video

The blog The Stupid Shall be Punished has a post with a video of a retired American warship being sunk by a torpedo fired from an Australian submarine.

Calendar Desktop Wallpaper

An interesting idea from Smashing Magazine, fancy desktop wall paper with a built in calendar. I've never been a big fan of desktop wallpaper - I usually leave the one the comes with the machine - but these are interesting in that they each (well most of them) have a calendar of the month somewhere in the image. Plus they come out with new ones every month.