April Smashing Desktop Wallpaper

I'm a bit late here once again but Smashing Magazine's April desktop wallpaper post is out. I'm leaning towards the shot of English Bay.

Lego: Mini Chess Set

Make has a post with some nice shots of a usable, miniature chess set made entirely with Lego. The set is 12 studs by 12 studs and has drawers for holding the pieces.

How Many Cousins How Far Removed?

jish.nu has a chart showing what the various degrees of cousins (and other relatives) are and how they relate to you. I always wondered what the difference was between an nth cousin and a cousin n-times removed.

via Rebecca's Pocket

Handpowered Record Player

Make has a post about a hand powered record player made as a freebie by an ad agency. They provide a link to instructions on how to make your own.

International Space Sation Over Time

USA Today has a great animation showing how the International Space Station grew over time.

via Angel Station

Origami with a Hoodie

Conceptual Devices has a post showing different useful things you can make by refolding your hoodie. You can make a laptop sleeve, a shoulder bag, a backpack or a baby carrier. Obviously you may want to do some testing before you run around with your laptop in an improvised bag.

Capturing a Satellite by Hand

Astronomy Photo of the Day has a great photo from 1984 that shows an astronaut who has flown out from the Space Shuttle to a satellite to manually attach a recovery device.

Lego: The gun is bigger than the ship

Who can resist a Lego steampunk model where the gun is almost as big as the ship.

$1 Million Comics

Two big sales recently in the world of comic books. Yahoo reports that a copy of Superman # 1 sold for $1 million.

"The fact that this book is completely un-restored and still has an 8.0 grade, it's kind of like a diamond or a precious stone. It's very rare," he said.

There are only about 100 copies of Action Comics No. 1 believed to be in existence, and only a handful have been rated so highly. It's rarer still for those copies to be made available for sale.

Also, the BBC reports that a copy of Detective Comics #27, the first appearance of Batman, sold for $1.075m. Apparently the seller bought the comic for $100 during the 1960s.

The POW who broke into Auschwitz

The Times has an article about Denis Avey a British POW who actually broke into Auschwitz concentration camp to gather information that he thought might be needed after the war.

What They Took to War

Ptak Science Books has a post, with photos, about what First World War British soldiers were issued to carry with them to the front. There doesn't seem to be a lot of it but I would imagine it would be rather heavy.

via Air Minded

Best Drives on Earth

National Geographic Traveller has a large article about the 50 best drives in the world.

As an added bonus, someone has created google maps of all of the routes.

Have any of you ever driven any of them?

Reflected Liftoff

Astronomy Photo of the Day has a great shot of the trail of a launching Space Shuttle reflected in a canal.

How to fall from 35,000 feet

Popular Mechanics has a how to article about a potentially very useful skill, how to survive a fall from 35,000 feet.

via Walter Jon Williams

Origami High Chair

Here is an interesting origami idea - a baby's high chair made our of cardboard. This might be a bit tricky to make on your own and possibly a bit noisy if your design fails during user testing.

An Illuminated Frog

National Geographic has a photo of a small frog in the process of swallowing a lit Christmas light. Don't worry, it all works out in the end.

Stars over the Himalayas

Astronomy Photo of the Day has an excellent photo of the night sky over the Himalayas.

A Wordy Clock

Make has a post about a clock that uses words rather than number or hands.

Photo: Desert in House

National Geographic has a photo of the desert reclaiming the inside of a house in Namibia.

A box that will only open in one location

Make has a post about an interesting wooden puzzle box. The box can only be opened in one place on earth. Personally I think you should be able to change the batteries without opening the box but that is a minor quibble.

Google Chart API

This is a bit of a geeky one but it might be useful for people who need to get graphs into their webpages / blogs but don't want to learn how to create images in a spreadsheet.

The Google Chart API lets you draw quick little graphs (and other graphics) using just a URL.

For example the url:
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&chd=t:70,30&chs=250x100&chl=Chris|World

will create the following image:







You can change the image just by editing the URL. So, for instance, if you don't like the division in the above graph you can change the 70:30 ratio in the URL. So
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&chd=t:10,90&chs=250x100&chl=Chris|World would give you:



The other parts of the URL are the type of chart (p3 for pie chart), the size of the chart (250 by 100 pixels) and the labels for the two sections (Chris and World).



There are lots of other charts available as well:

bar charts:






Venn diagrams:







A stranger example is maps. For example, this url: http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=t&chtm=world&chco=FFFFFF,FF0000,FFFF00,00FF00&chld=CAGBSGUS&chd=t:0,0,0,0&chs=440x220
creates a map showing all the countries I've lived in:

A Home Grown Chair

Atlas Obscura has an article, with a picture, of a chair that was grown from a specifically planted stand of trees.

via Hot Roasted Blend

Million Dollar Murray

Malcolm Gladwell has an article about Million-dollar Murray. Murray was a homeless man who lived in Reno, Nevada. Because he was poor he got all of his medical treatment at the hospital emergency room. Because he was an elderly alcoholic who lived on the streets he ended up in the emergency room a lot. The local social services estimate that they had paid over $1 million for Murray's medical care.

The article raises an interesting point. Obviously it would be cheaper to just rent Murray an apartment and find him a job and a regular doctor. The problem of course is moral hazard, ie if you help everyone who ends up on the streets then people have no incentive to not end up on the streets.

The article, which is from 2006, discusses several other similar situations.

Life Magazine on line

Google Books now has the entire run of Life Magazine on line for free.

The interface makes it pretty easy to find, for example, the issue from the week you were born. The cover of mine shows Martin Luther King Jr and proclaims "A Historic Turning Point for the Negro's Cause".

You can see the whole list of magazines on Google Books here.

One of our intrepid correspondents has reported that they have the entire run of the World Weekly News for those of you researching the history of Bat Boy.

How People Spend Their Day

The New York Times has a nice interactive graphic that shows how people in various groups spend their time over the course of a day. It is interesting to click on the buttons and see what people are up to.

via kottke.org

Going for the Paper Airplane Record

WTOP has an article about a recent attempt to break the record for keeping a paper airplane aloft from a throw from the ground. Amazingly the record is 27.9 seconds.

An Eclipsed Blue Moon

Astronomy Picture of the day has a nice shot of a partially eclipsed blue moon.

Free Air Miles (well, not anymore)

The Wall Street Journal has an article on what used to be a great way to get free flights. Basically the US Mint was selling dollar coins for $1 with free shipping. So you buy as many as you can on your credit card, get the air miles, then, when the coins arrive you use them to pay off the credit card. Repeat until done.

Sadly, the mint doesn't let you do this anymore.

Obit: Roy King, England's master bowmaker

The Times has the obituary of Roy King, a English man who had mastered the ancient art of bowmaking.

But perhaps King's most enduring contribution was to the Mary Rose Trust, which asked him to replicate the bows recovered from Henry VIII's flagship, which sank off Portsmouth in 1545 and was raised in 1982. Few examples of longbows from that era – the last years before gunpowder weapons became dominant – were then known to exist. But among the many treasures raised with the Mary Rose were 139 complete, and 33 partial, longbows.

And in true modern fashion he was born in Poland.

Ultimate Model Airplane

Now this is a model airplane. It is a 1:16 scale model of a P-51D Mustang fighter plane, was handcrafted from aluminium and took three years to make.

A Campervan with a Loft

Here is a pop top camper with a bit of a difference. Instead of adding extra headroom when the top is up. The top here provides a second floor for use as a sleeping area. Also interesting is the way the roof pivots up from one side rather than just popping straight up.

As a related bonus here is a really cool looking trailer that pops open into a camper.

How big is Antarctica?

This picture compares Antarctica to the continental US. It's bigger than I thought.

Plot Drawings

Xkcd.com has plot diagrams for the Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Jurassic Park. The diagrams show the location and groupings of the various characters as the stories progress.

I'm not sure how useful something like this would be if you were writing a story rather than studying one but the idea is certainly interesting.

via Walter Jon William's blog

Flash Game: Totem Destroyer 2

Totem Destroyer 2 is another cool flash game. In this one instead of building up a pile of things you start with a pile of things with an idol at the top. You goal is to blow up the items in the pile so as to lower the idol to the ground. (Actually not the ground but to the special dark coloured blocks.)

Some of the levels need a bit of luck but on the whole a fun game.

via kottke.org

Obit: Richard Sonnenfeldt, chief interpreter at Nuremberg

The Economist has the obituary of Richard Sonnenfeldt, the chief interpreter at the Nuremberg war crimes trials.

I thought this section was particularly interesting:

When he asked Rudolf Hoess, commandant of Auschwitz, whether he was ever tempted to enrich himself from the inmates, Hoess replied: “What kind of man do you think I am?”

Prize awarded in Space Elevator Contest

The Washington Post reports that a design team from Seattle has won a prize in NASA's first space elevator contest.

The contest requires that the machines climb 2,953 feet up a cable slung beneath a helicopter hovering nearly a mile high.

SF Gate also has an article on the contest and says the prize was $900,000.

Attractive Quarterbacks are Better Quarterbacks

The Ottawa Citizen has an article (as does the National Post) about a new study that shows that the facial attractiveness of NFL quarterbacks is directly correlated to their ability on the playing field.

A new study shows that the facial attractiveness of NFL quarterbacks — as rated by panels of female students who have no idea they're pro athletes — mirrors their athletic ability on the field, regardless of other attributes such as age or ethnicity. Other studies have demonstrated similar patterns with professional hockey and soccer players.

Steel Velcro

The New Scientist reports that German engineers have built what is essentially steel Velcro. The strips can support 35 tonnes parallel to the join or 7 tonnes perpendicular.

via Make

Massive Crater on Phobos

Astronomy Picture of the day has a photo of the Stickney Crater on the Martian moon Phobos. The crater is huge - it takes up one whole end of the not-very-round moon.

Ponoko - Make Stuff from a Picture

Have you every drawn something on a napkin and decided you would really like the real object but had no idea how to make it? Check out the intro video on this page at Ponoko. If you send them a digital photo of the napkin they will make the object for you.

They can also make an object from a more conventional CAD file.

Note that I haven't actually used this service I just like the idea of it.

The Fall of the Berlin Wall

The Washington Post has an interesting article about the events that lead to the opening of the Berlin Wall. The article says it was a bureaucratic misunderstanding started by a bumbled press conference.

Factoid: Deutsche Bank has 60,000 pieces of contemporary art

This article in the New York Times has an article about the amount of art owned by banks.

Deutsche Bank is believed to own the largest corporate collection in the world, with some 60,000 pieces of contemporary art. UBS owns 40,000 pieces, and JPMorgan Chase 30,000. Combined, that approaches the Museum of Modern Art’s trove.

Stars over Easter Island

Astronomy Picture of the Day has a beautiful shot of, well, stars over Easter Island.

Tides

Wolfram Alpha will show you the tides for a given location. We don't have tides here in Ottawa but if you type in "tides Singapore" it will show you the tides there.

You can also add a date if you don't want today's tides:
tides oahu tomorrow
tides kitty hawk 1 January 1969

Gnome Bowling

Here's a project for a rainy day: Paper gnomes for you to use as bowling pins.

Plot Generator

Looking for a plot for your novel? Big Huge Thesaurus will generate a whole list of them for you every time you load the page.

Some examples:

• A servant is held hostage in Washington D.C..
• A maid grabs the wrong briefcase by mistake in a spooky cemetary.
• A mystical shaman discovers a shocking secret in the sewers.
• An abused woman must save the president from terrorists while on Safari in Africa.
• God takes a vacation that goes horribly wrong in a prep school.
• A young man misses an opportunity of a lifetime and ends up betraying his best friend.
• An army chaplain fights for his life in Australia.
• A battle-scarred warrior enters a hot dog eating contest while on a date.

Top 50 Foods and Where to get them

The Guardian has an article on the best 50 foods in the world and the best places to get them. I haven't had any of the things on the list so I can't really agree or disagree. Have any of you tried any of them?

via kottke.org

The Crescent Nebula

Astronomy Photo of the Day has an awesome picture of the Crescent Nebula.

September Smashing Wallpaper

I'm even later than usual with a link to Smashing Magazine's September Wallpaper selection. I've gone with the dog and flower.

Flash Game: Two Rooms

Two Rooms is a Flash puzzle game. The interesting thing is that there are two boards that you flip between using the spacebar. A few of the levels require a bit of arcade action but most of them just need a bit of thinking.

Make Money on an iPhone Upgrade

Alec Saunders has a blog post showing how you can make money upgrading your old iPhone to a new one. It basically hinges on a trade-in program from Best Buy.

My Old School Makes the News

My old high school in Burlington seems to have made the Globe and Mail. It sounds like some things have changed a bit since my day.

I don't normally link to the Globe since their articles vanish after a while but I thought I would chance it this time.

Another interesting aspect of the article is its use of the word "gummer" to describe students in grade 9. I don't think I've heard this term since high school and Jen says she's never heard it so I'm wondering if it is a Burlington specific term - or maybe even a MM Robinson term. Maybe there is a Burlington dialect after all.

Lessons from mortality rates

According to this blog post your chances of dieing in a given year double every 8 years.

This startling fact was first noticed by the British actuary Benjamin Gompertz in 1825 and is now called the “Gompertz Law of human mortality.” Your probability of dying during a given year doubles every 8 years.

The author goes on to see what the implications of that law is.

via kottke.org

Find your magnetic declination

Ever wondered what the magnetic declination (the difference between where a compass points and true north) is where you live? In the old days you had to look on a map or chart and then adjust it for the time that has passed since the chart was printed. Now you can just asked Wolfram Alpha.

If you type in:

geomagnetism Ottawa

it will tell you that the declination here is 13.68deg West.

If you put a date after the location you can also get the declination for other dates. For example the day I was born the declination in Ottawa was 16 degrees West.

TED Talk: Motivation

TED has an interesting 20 minute video of a speech by Dan Pink. He talks about how to motivate people for different kinds of jobs. It turns out that rewards like money only work for certain kinds of work.

WWII Posters

The Telegraph has a slide show of WWII British posters. The posters mostly deal with life under the threat of air raids. Some are recruitment posters for the ARP and Air Wardens while others remind people of the dangers of leaving a train in a blacked out station or how to park your car on a blacked out street.

Moon Landing Sites

Nasa has an article about pictures recently sent back by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. In some of the pictures you can see things left behind by the Apollo astronauts and in one you can see a path they wore into the lunar surface.

Swimming with Whales

National Geographic has a picture of a swimmer and a sperm whale. I'm not sure I've ever seen a sperm whale from that angle before.

Find your next solar eclipse

If you want to find out when the next solar eclipse is in your area, you can just ask Wolfram Alpha.

For example if you type:

next solar eclipse ottawa

into the search box on Wolfram Alpha you'll learn that the next solar eclipse visible from Ottawa will be on 20 May 2012 at 7:52pm. It even gives you a nice map showing what areas the eclipse will cover.

Launch Years of Popular Websites

Pingdom.com has an article showing the original launch dates of various popular websites.

Some interesting stats:

• 43% of today’s top sites were started in 1996 or earlier.
• The three “biggest” launch years, from largest to smallest: 1996, 1995, 2005.

Richard Feynman: Why Trains Stay on the Rails

Kottke.org links to a YouTube video of Richard Feynman explaining why trains stay on the tracks. The answer is not as obvious as you think.

Cat Ladders

In case you doubted that there was a blog for every conceivable topic, this one is about cat ladders.

Krakatoa Pictures

The Daily Mail has an article with a series of nice photos of the volcano Krakatoa erupting.

DropBox

I am probably a bit late in recommending DropBox (found at the slightly hard to remember getDropBox.com) but I will do it anyway.

DropBox is essentially an online file storage service that appears like a normal directory on your computer - the key feature is that you can access a local copy of the files when you aren't connected to the net and they will automatically update on your other machines when you reconnect.

I have been using it lately on my little Dell netbook. I have had problems in the past with files that live on the laptop. I often forget to back them up to the main system and sometimes I update a file on the main computer and then forget to copy it onto the laptop. Now I just keep any files that I might want on the laptop in my DropBox directory.

As an added bonus, if you sign up using this link then both you and I get an extra 250MB of storage.

Fold a Dress Shirt

Lifehacker has a post, with a video, on how to fold a shirt. I'm pretty sure that this is the method that my aunt tried to teach me everytime I went for a visit. Her method kept the shirts unwrinkled even when stuffed into a duffle bag for the train ride back to London.

Bacon Sandwich Really Does Help Hangover

The Telegraph reports that bacon sandwiches really do help cure a hangover.

via lifehacker

Planets during eclipse over Great Wall

Astronomy Picture of the Day has a nice shot of four planets lined up in the sky during the recent solar eclipse in China.

Protect your wallet with a baby picture

The Times has an article about a proven way to improve your chances of getting a lost wallet back - put a baby picture in it.

When faced with the photograph of the baby people were far more likely to send the wallet back, the study found. In fact, only one in ten were hard-hearted enough not to do so. With no picture to tug at the emotions, just one in seven were sent back.

US Social Security Numbers not so hard to guess

Slate has an article illustrating a flaw in American Social Security Numbers. Apparently if you know where and when someone was born you can make a pretty good guess at their SSN.

NYC Travel Times

triptropnyc.com would be a handy website if you were looking for a place to live (or a hotel I suppose) in New York City. You type in an address and it gives you a heat map showing how long it takes to get from that address to other places in NYC.

SUVs and the Feeling of Safety

I was watching a Ford TV commercial the other day and the people in it kept going on and on about how their Ford "made them feel safe". I couldn't help wondering why they would care how safe they felt, surely they would rather actually be safe than feel safe?

Then I came across this article by Malcolm Gladwell (author of the Tipping Point and Outliers) from 2004 about SUVs and the feeling of safety. He discusses how the quest for the feeling of safety has lead us away from actual safety (and caused many other problems as well).

Video: Whitehouse photo op

The New York Times has a blog post with a video that shows how astoundingly short a White House photo op is.

via kottke.org

Business card turns into catapult

The cardapult is a business card that turns into a small catapult. Imagine how popular that would be in meetings. There is a video that shows the device in operation.

Photo: Stealth Bomber breaking sound barrier

The Telegraph has a photo of a Stealth Bomber breaking the sound barrier.

Follow up: They also have a very nice photo of an F-18 doing the same thing at an air show. The angular cloud is much more noticeable in this one.

Flash Game: Perfect Balance

If you like balancing things on top of other things then you'll love this flash game. Perfect Balance has 40+ levels, each of which requires you to balance various objects on various things.

via kottke.org

Aubrey de Grey on life extension

An interesting TED talk by Aubrey de Grey about life extension and why he feels it is necessary. He goes through the 7 ways in which people age - all of which he feels can be prevented.

June Smashing Wallpaper

Smashing Magazine has their monthly set of desktop wallpaper. I went with the one of the Spitfire flying off into the sun.

Hubble Mission Pics

The Big Picture has a series of photos of the recent Space Shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Make Your Own Tilt Shift Pictures

tiltshiftmaker.com is a site that lets you modify your own pictures so that they look like pictures of miniatures or models. The technique is known as tilt-shift photography because of the special camera lens used to achieve the effect "in real life".

Here's a picture of my house modified by the site. It's not as good as some of the examples on the site but it should give you the idea.

Display anywhere

This TED talk is a demo of an interesting new wearable computer technology. The computer hangs around your neck and has a projector that sends images forward. The computer detects the images and can adjust for where they are projected. For example you can use a wall as a display and manipulate the objects being displayed with your hands (the computer can follow the positions of your fingers). An other example near the end of the video is that if you draw a circle on your wrist the computer projects the time (onto your wrist).

I first saw this in an article in the National Post that was sent to me by email. The article was very irritating - especially given how cool the device is. Firstly they seem to think the sixth sense reference has something to do with the movie of the same name. Secondly, I was a bit shocked that someone who writes a pop and culture blog would insultingly refer to someone who develops new technologies as a nerd. Whether an MIT nerd is better than a non-MIT nerd I will leave as an exercise for the reader (assuming there are any).

Slashdot also linked to the video.

Amazing Biking Video

Kottke.org has a post with an amazing video of a fellow riding his bike and doing tricks in an urban environment. It is almost like parkour on a bicycle. I would never have thought that you could just ride up to a fence and jump over it without a ramp.

Hubble as seen from Earth

Astronomy Picture of the Day has a photo of the space shuttle and Hubble telescope passing in front of the sun. The picture was taken from the ground but the shuttle is easily recognisable.

Volvo Ocean Race

The Big Picture has a nice set of photos of the Volvo Ocean Race. The nine month round the world race is now in Boston after completing the 5th of 10 legs.

What's up with bond holders

My friend Tim has a blog post about why some bond holders have an interest in driving the companies whose bonds they hold into bankruptcy. Basically if you have insured the bond using a Credit Default Swap (a CDS - one of the derivatives that is so much in the news lately) then you get all your money back if the issuer of the bond goes under. You'll get a lot less than that in a settlement.

Titan, Saturn and a rock

Astronomy picture of the Day has a nice shot of Saturn's rings in front of the moon Titan with a smaller moon passing by.

Flickr Formation

A neat page on Flickr where a photographer has taken advantage of the standard Flickr page layout to make a composite picture.

via reddit

Bodum Double Walled Glassware

CoolTools has an article about Bodum Insulated Glassware. I encountered these on our recent trip to New York City. After walking around for a few hours we decided to stop for a latte and a snack. We ended up at a place called Max Brenner: Chocolate by the Bad Man. My latte was served in one of the Bodum glasses and I was impressed right away. The glass was cool to the touch even though the drink was initially too hot to drink.

The restaurant itself is worth a visit if you're in the area and fancy some dessert- and it is near the NY location of the Forbidden Planet. (Here is a review of the restaurant with some pictures.) I had some very nice chocolate cake which came with some fruit, some ice cream and a small flask of raspberry sauce. It was a bit expensive though so you wouldn't want to go everyday.

Reserve your user name

Have you ever tried to find a user name to use on all the sites that make you pick one? Well namechk.com will let you check a huge list of sites to see if your name is still available. Sadly chris is taken.

Film Addict

Film Addict is a site that lets you find out how many of the IMDB top 250 films you have seen. You can also compare to your friends to see who has seen more of the films.

I've seen 35.6% of the films on the list. You can compare to me here.

via kottke.org

Trees of the Glebe

glebetrees.com is the website for a small community project that is trying to inventory all the trees in my Ottawa neighbourhood. It is a good example of the sorts of things that you can do now that we have the Internet.

Lego Yamato

The Brothers Brick has a post, with pictures, of the largest Lego ship ever made. It is 22 feet long and took 6 years to build. You could build you own if you have 200,000 Lego bricks in your basement.

Zeppelin Knot

Mother Earth News has an article about a knot used for securing the mooring lines of Zeppelins and other airships.

The article is from 1980 and quotes someone who trained US Navy airshipmen 50 years before.

via Make
(in an article with a video about using a trucker's hitch to tie down a canoe on a car)

Followup: Survival Topics has an article with a better explanation of how to tie the knot.

Sunlit Poetry

Make TV has a short video of a project that uses the moving light of the sun to project poetry onto the sidewalk. The video contains a few different items but the sun poetry is the first one.

I'm not big on poetry but this would be a cool idea for a monument or memorial.

Segway Puma

Make has a post with some pictures of a concept vehicle from Segway and GM. It has two wheels and balances like a Segway but the occupants sit site by side and are covered by a roof.

It could but fun for running errands but would probably need a trailer to carry groceries.

A Programmer in the Trading Room

New York Magazine has an article by a computer programmer who used to work on derivatives desks in trading rooms in New York. He retired a few years ago and is now an oyster farmer but seems to feel some guilt for his work on systems that packaged mortgage backed securities. My guess is that the traders involved don't feel anything similar.

The article reminded me of several reasons why I don't work in a trading room anymore.

Thumb Calendar

Here is an interesting scheme that lets you print an entire year's calendar on a business card. It is called a Thumb Calendar because you use your thumbs to cover the parts of the calendar that you are not using.

An Eclipse from the Moon

The Japanese Space Agency has an article with pictures of an unusual eclipse. The picture is taken from the moon and the body blocking the sun is the earth.

via slashdot

Gap Minder

I have previously blogged about a TED presentation that used an application to show a series of statistics over time. Now the software is available as a flash application at GapMinder.org. The app is preloaded with all sorts of data that you can compare over time.

There are some demo videos and some preset examples that you can play with. It looks like you can upload your own data if you want to.

Worth checking out. The user interface is extremely well done.

Space station grows again

Astronomy Picture of the day has a nice photo of the newly expanded International Space Station.

A German Serial Killer (or not)

The Questionable Authority has a post about a hunt for a serial killer in and near Germany.

The mystery woman has been linked by DNA to six murders and a string of thefts in a 15-year spree in three countries.

Eventually the DNA was found to belong to a worker at the factory that make the swabs used to gather evidence at crime scenes.

via Bruce Schneier