April 14, 2006
Vegan diets healthier for planet, people than meat diets | Science Blog
Vegan diets healthier for planet, people than meat diets | Science Blog: "'We say that however close you can be to a vegan diet and further from the mean American diet, the better you are for the planet. It doesn't have to be all the way to the extreme end of vegan. If you simply cut down from two burgers a week to one, you've already made a substantial difference.'"
April 13, 2006
The slow-motion trap | Salon.com
The slow-motion trap | Salon.com: "Inside the administration, the breakdown of the national security process has produced a vacuum filled by dogmatic fixations that become more rigid as reality increasingly fails to cooperate. But the conceit that executive fiat can substitute for fact has not sustained the illusion of omnipotence. The precipitating event of the investigation of the Bush White House -- Wilson's disclosure about his Niger mission -- was an effort by a lifelong Foreign Service officer to set the record straight and force a debate on the reasons for going to war. Wilson stood for the public discussion that had been suppressed. The Bush White House's 'concerted action' against him therefore involved an attempt to poison the wellsprings of democracy."
April 12, 2006
Everingham Rotating House - Gallery
config.trim_on_minimize - The little known FireFox memory "saver" - Aaron Tiensivu's Blog
config.trim_on_minimize - The little known FireFox memory "saver" - Aaron Tiensivu's Blog: "config.trim_on_minimize - The little known FireFox memory 'saver'"
April 11, 2006
Spherical Tree Houses
Link: "Free Spirit Spheres can be hung from the trees as shown, making a tree house. They can also be hung from any other solid objects or placed in cradles on the ground. There are four attachment points on the top of each sphere and another four anchor points on the bottom. Each of the attachment points is strong enough to carry the weight of the entire sphere and contents. "
April 04, 2006
ThinkGeek :: Buzzaire - Metered Dose Caffeine Inhaler
ThinkGeek :: Buzzaire - Metered Dose Caffeine Inhaler.
April 03, 2006
March 31, 2006
Study fails to show healing power of prayer - Yahoo! News
Study fails to show healing power of prayer - Yahoo! News: "A study of more than 1,800 patients who underwent heart bypass surgery has failed to show that prayers specially organized for their recovery had any impact, researchers said Thursday."
March 30, 2006
The Emperor Has No Votes
Inspired by this
Once upon a time, things were peaceful at Castle Dale. Every few years, just before Election Day, the people would gather in Ward houses to find out whom they should vote for. And every year, Bishops across the land would gently remind the faithful that there wasn’t really a CHOICE to make, just a correct answer to indicate. And the people were happy, confident that their votes would be counted equally when sending off their representatives with super-majorities.
Then one day a swindler arrived from the far off land of Diebold, promising that their magical machines could offer the most magnificent elections ever seen. Not only were there no messy ballots to keep track of, but the machines had the added virtue of keeping their votes invisible to anyone stupid or faithless enough to doubt them. “What a splendid idea, and what a useful device” the emperors’ thought. “If we had such a machine, we could know at once which of our people is too faithless or independent for his post. Not wanting to appear quaint, and ever mindful of the need to appear progressive, the emperors gave the men from Diebold 27 million gold coins, and they promptly returned with their magical new machines.
Over the months, one elections official after another began to look at the new machines. They didn’t know how the machines worked, and even when they tried to look closely, they still couldn’t see the votes. But no one wanted to appear stupid or faithless, so they all said “these machines truly are magnificent!” Until one day, a simple and honest official named Bruce went to work to prepare for the upcoming elections. Bruce had been doing his job for most of his life, and he loved sorting out a contested primary, so he thought it strange that his shiny new machine seemed to have an old memory. Bruce was confused, but he didn’t want to appear faithless, so he quietly summoned patriots from a distant land that could help him understand his machine.
News of the patriots’ arrival spread quickly, and the men from Diebold swooped back to Castle Dale. They reminded the emperors that only those with the digital Urim and Thummim could look at the machines without sin. So they were whisked away for exorcism, and Bruce was made to stand day and night before the inquisition until he resigned his post.
Eventually Bruce returned to his job, his skepticism washed clean with home teaching, and Castle Dale returned to normal. At last, (primary) Election Day arrived. The people finally got to see the new machines, and even push their shiny buttons. The polls closed, and the men from Diabold came to peek into the magical boxes. People gasped when it was announce that LaDell Smith had defeated LaVron Smith, even though LaDell jr. had returned home early from his mission. A few people even started to wonder if their votes had really counted, but Bruce’s kids were still having a hard time in seminary, so the skeptics kept their concerns to themselves.
Once upon a time, things were peaceful at Castle Dale. The people were happy, and they still are, fairly confident that their emperors magical machines from Diebold will count some of the votes when sending off their ‘representatives’ with super majorities.
March 24, 2006
AVR Butterfly MP3
AVR Butterfly MP3: "The main goal of this project is to create an open design for a portable MP3 player, in both hardware and software. The secondary goal of this project is to make it as simple to construct, and as cheap, as possible."
March 21, 2006
Little Red Schoolhouse
Little Red Schoolhouse: About: "Teachers tell us about children showing up the first day of school without any supplies. Dressed in inadequate or ragged clothing, they often avoid school activities because they are embarrassed to be seen. Not having paper to take notes, or crayons to contribute to the class pool, may seem small, but to kids who are already struggling, having the basic supplies and clean, decent clothing can make a HUGE difference!"
March 16, 2006
A Tight Squeeze: The Making Of Accordion Hero
Gamasutra - Schadenfreudian Slips Postmortem - "A Tight Squeeze: The Making Of Accordion Hero
March 15, 2006
Edge: WHY GORDIAN SOFTWARE HAS CONVINCED ME TO BELIEVE IN THE REALITY OF CATS AND APPLES
From Edge: "Wouldn't it be nicer to have a computer that's almost completely reliable almost all the time, as opposed to one that can be hypothetically perfectly accurate, in some hypothetical ideal world other than our own, but in reality is prone to sudden, unpredictable, and often catastrophic failure in actual use?"
March 08, 2006
Simple Skype VoIP analog adapter
GRYNX � Simple Skype VoIP analog adapter: "It’s a very cheap Skype/VoIP interface to your wired or wireless phone."
March 07, 2006
reputation economies
The Escapist - Game Design in the Transfigured World: "new reputation economies will pervasively reshape culture as dramatically as the invention of money. Entirely novel kinds of human interaction will spawn new social classes, power structures and lifestyles. Reputation economies will be abstractions of relationships, in the same way that money abstracts material wealth and labor."
February 23, 2006
Invisible JTable Column Headers
THE SWING/JFC FAQ: "3.2. Why doesn't my JTable show the column names? Although JTable has the column information, it only shows the column headers when the table is put into a JScrollPane: panel.add(new JScrollPane(myJTable))"
February 19, 2006
February 17, 2006
Lost Garden: Software Development's Evolution towards Product Design
Lost Garden: Software Development's Evolution towards Product Design: "The diagram also contains a surprising amount of poo. But then, that is the bigger lesson lurking within the scrawls. Much of what software developers create fails to serve the full spectrum of their customer’s needs."
February 16, 2006
February 15, 2006
February 14, 2006
Slashdot | Firefox Memory Leak is a Feature
Slashdot | Firefox Memory Leak is a Feature: "firefox's memory usage has always been a thorn in my side. I tend to average around 20 to 25 tabs open, usually while I'm running other ram hungry applications. Firefox generally was eating up about 200-250 megs of ram on my machine (and I've seen it go as high as 600 megs). After changing the browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers to 0 and running 'top' firefox seems to be using about 46 megs of ram right now. It also doesn't feel particularly slower than it did before. I have a feeling that the benefit of caching so much was actually having a negative return after a certain point because the machine was so starved for ram. On a side note, if anyone is like me and looks in about:config for browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers and doesn't see it, you have to actually add the line. Right click and choose 'new' then type in 'browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers' and then 0 (or whatever you like)."
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