Lunch delivery Indian style

This article in the Independent describes the dabbawallahs, the Indian delivery men who pick up thousands of home cooked lunches each day and deliver them to people at work.

China pictures

A page of really nice pictures from China.

Crop circle

A link to a crop circle on google maps. You may have to zoom in a little to see it.

Benford's law

This article discusses Benford's law which says that numbers starting with a 1 are more common than others.

How to get rich

The text of a lecture by Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs and Steel, on why some societies are richer than others.

Trevor Greene

Here is a bio of the Canadian officer wounded in the axe attack in Afghanistan. He sounds like an interesting fellow. Hopefully he'll pull through.

Fake miniature pictures

This article describes how to take a nomal photo and make it look like a photo of a miniature model. This flickr page has some examples.

via robot wisdom

Another robot mule

A New Scientist article describes, and has pictures of, another robot mule for the US Army. This one has legs.

A Canadian blog from Kandahar

This is a blog written by a Canadian officer with the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar Afghanistan. It isn't up dated regularly but is interesting nonetheless.

Robo-Truckers

This blog post describes a new robot truck that can follow the truck in front. Aimed at the military this will initially allow drivers to rest without having to stop the convoy.

The Earth with clouds

This site shows a picture of the earth with current cloud cover.

CNN says that KFC has a new comercial aimed at viewers with VCRs and PVRs. You have to watch it in slow motion to find out how to get a special deal.

Recommended Reading

Locus magazine lists its recommended science fiction and fantasy for 2005.

A picture of the spacestation Mir taken from above with New Zealand below.

The space elevator gets taller

A New Scientist article on experiment with a cable for the space elevator that got to mile in height. There is a picture of the cable hanging beneath a balloon.

Followup: Here's a press release about the test. via slashdot

High tech ski suits at the Olympics

According to this article in the New Scientist, the suits worn by this year's Canadian and American downhill ski teams are reinforced with fibres that harden on impact to protect the skier in a fall.

Better think again

A list of some unfortunate domain name choices.

via reddit

Robot mule

This blog entry describes, and has pictures of, a small robotic truck that it designed to carry extra gear for soldiers.

The power-law vs the Normal distribution

This article is a bit longer than the ones I usually post but it interesting nonetheless. The article is about how focusing on specific individuals can sometimes be more effective than trying to solve a problem in general. The examples used are homelessness and police brutality.

via rebecca's pocket

GPS Gumballs

Spiderman had his spidertracers and now, according to this article, Los Angelos police will soon be able to track fleeing vehicles by shooting a sticky ball at them.

Followup: Here's another article and a related slashdot article.

via rebecca's pocket