Ned Gulley’s Blog. Resident buzzwords: synthetic biology, ambient displays, swarm robotics, wise crowds.
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 29th, 2002
More joys of the Astronomy Picture of the Day, a.k.a. APOD. I think this must be one of the best (and most cost effective) public relations efforts ever managed by NASA. I used to work at NASA Ames Research Center, and I remember how important PR was, given their steady diet of taxpayer’s cash. It’s [...]
Posted in Jay Cz on Oct 25th, 2002
My good friend Jay is, in addition to his many other diverse interests from military history to birdwatching, an amateur genealogist. He recently sent me a hot tip that the 1880 U.S. census is now online courtesy of the Mormon Church. It took 17 years for church volunteers to transcribe all the handwritten documents and [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 23rd, 2002
I always enjoyed the book Science Made Stupid, a parody science book. The writing is hit-and-miss, mostly relying on goofy sound-alike puns (the three kinds of rock are ignominious, sedentary, and metaphoric). Enough of the writing hits the target to make you believe the author, Tom Weller, is truly (or was trained as) a scientist. [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 22nd, 2002
My old pal Rob the Coffee Czar sent me a good link this morning: check out the animated timepiece at Industrious Clock at yugop.com, which appears to be related to the Japanese design firm MONO*crafts. I haven’t even had time to check out all the mesmerizing Flash demos they have up, but the ones I’ve [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 16th, 2002
The web is a wonderful place for the LEGO-obsessed. LEGO fanatics seem to have the right genes for crafting detailed sites devoted to their love. Consider the inimitable LUGNET (LEGO User’s Group Network), an extraordinary community site dedicated to lovers of the plastic brick. And take a look at Escher’s “Ascending and Descending” in LEGO, [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 15th, 2002
Ned Lud was a real person who smashed a knitting frame and was thereafter celebrated for striking a blow against the job-sucking engines of the Industrial Revolution. From that seed grew the mythical figure General Ludd, a shadowy figure credited with organizing the anti-technology Luddites. My little graphic notwithstanding, I did find several references on [...]
Posted in Books on Oct 14th, 2002
EXTRA! Hand of Smith revealed by Smith; invisible appendage appears in wind tunnel
Vernon L. Smith was recently awarded the 2002 Nobel prize for economics. And what contribution earned him half a million dollars and a date with the Queen of Sweden? The answer has to do with wind tunnels.
As luck would have it, I’m reading [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 8th, 2002
That headline is no joke. This story is about the world’s funniest joke. I was absolutely certain that it was a bait-and-switch kind of a story about the psychology of jokes, but they did not disappoint. Follow the link, and there is a real joke there. As far as being the world’s funniest, I don’t [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 7th, 2002
The Houston Chronicle has a story this week about football players who can’t get enough. When they’re not playing it on the gridiron, they’re playing onscreen: Texans addicted as anybody else to video-game craze. NFL players have the benefit of seeing themselves playing in the computer game. As you can imagine, they take great interest [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 6th, 2002
My latest issue of The Atlantic came in the mail. James Fallows has a thoughtful piece on what would happen in Iraq after we won a war. That, in itself, is interesting, but not surprising. The surprising thing about my new issue of The Atlantic is this: I never subscribed to The Atlantic. If anyone [...]
