Archive for June, 2009
Carnivorous Clocks
June 30th, 2009
Engadget is running an article titled Carnivorous Clock eats bugs, begins doomsday countdown.
Memo to Me
June 28th, 2009
Memo to Me can automatically send you email reminders at specified times. It’s a terrific way to establish good habits and routines for yourself, or to just remind you of appointments. I’m scatterbrained and email-attentive, so having my mail client boss me around is a great way to actually get things done.
Boston Molasses Disaster
June 25th, 2009
“The Boston Molasses Disaster, also known as the Great Molasses Flood and the Great Boston Molasses Tragedy, occurred on January 15, 1919, in the North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts in the United States. A large molasses tank burst, and a wave of molasses rushed through the streets at an estimated 35 mph (56 km/h), killing 21 and injuring 150. The event has entered local folklore, and residents claim that on hot summer days, the area still smells of molasses.” — from Wikipedia
The Peony
June 23rd, 2009
Regarding peonies:
“In Europe, in the Middle Ages, superstitious gardeners dug its roots by the light of the moon to avoid observation by woodpeckers. It was believed that if woodpeckers looked on anyone digging or planting peonies he would be struck by blindness.”
- quoted from Herbs and Herb Lore of Colonial America
Nixon Now!
June 21st, 2009
There aren’t a lot of things that I like more than old campaign advertisements. This is one of the best.
Sources of Information
June 18th, 2009
Baekdal has a neat little article (with some terrific infographics) discussing how sources for news and information have changed over the past couple hundred years.
While you’re there, take a look at the steel pipe lamps, pillows, and inflatable beach sofas.
Snakes of Hawaii
June 16th, 2009
I liked this selection from Philip K. Dick’s essay How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later:
In Plato’s Timaeus, God does not create the universe, as does the Christian God; He simply finds it one day. It is in a state of total chaos. God sets to work to transform the chaos into order. That idea appeals to me, and I have adapted it to fit my own intellectual needs: What if our universe started out as not quite real, a sort of illusion, as the Hindu religion teaches, and God, out of love and kindness for us, is slowly transmuting it, slowly and secretly, into something real?
We would not be aware of this transformation, since we were not aware that our world was an illusion in the first place. This technically is a Gnostic idea. Gnosticism is a religion which embraced Jews, Christians, and pagans for several centuries. I have been accused of holding Gnostic ideas. I guess I do. At one time I would have been burned. But some of their ideas intrigue me. One time, when I was researching Gnosticism in the Britannica, I came across mention of a Gnostic codex called The Unreal God and the Aspects of His Nonexistent Universe, an idea which reduced me to helpless laughter. What kind of person would write about something that he knows doesn’t exist, and how can something that doesn’t exist have aspects? But then I realized that I’d been writing about these matters for over twenty-five years. I guess there is a lot of latitude in what you can say when writing about a topic that does not exist. A friend of mine once published a book called Snakes of Hawaii. A number of libraries wrote him ordering copies. Well, there are no snakes in Hawaii. All the pages of his book were blank.
For the purposes of this post, I’m going to go ahead and ignore all the interesting metaphysical material that PKD deals with here and just say that I want that book.
Furoshiki
June 14th, 2009
Check out this Lifehacker article on folding furoshiki. With a decent piece of cloth, you can make a pretty swell bag in three knots. The video’s kinda great.
While you’re at it, take a look at this article from the Japanese Ministry of the Environment for a variety of other folds.
Google Wave
June 11th, 2009
You’ve probably heard about Google Wave already, but in case you haven’t, it’s basically Google’s conception of what email would be like if it was invented today. Collaboration and Ajax abound.
The full 80-minute preview on the main page exceeds my attention span, so I’d recommend taking a look at the collection of clips on Lifehacker.
This thing should be released in a few months!
Listening to the Printer
June 9th, 2009
A research team at Saarland University in Germany has developed a program that can translate the squeaking and grinding sounds of dot-matrix printers into text. Read a quick summary, or the group’s more complete explanation.