Archive for July, 2009
The Igloo Cabin
July 30th, 2009
The Australian company Icewall One builds, among other things, an igloo cabin. This may replace (or at least supplement) my previous dream of building a house entirely out of shipping containers.
Shatner Performs Palin
July 28th, 2009
This is MSNBC covering William Shatner, who reads one of Sarah Palin’s speeches as free verse on the Tonight Show. If you liked that, I’d suggest this other clip in which he reads her Twitter feed in the same style.
These videos seem to be taken down pretty frequently; if this one’s gone, I’d suggest running this search.
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.com
July 26th, 2009
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s masterwork, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, is simultaneously the most clearly written and most incredibly dense piece of writing I’ve ever encountered outside of a Springer textbook. The book consists of Wittgenstein basically showing that most philosophical problems can be reduced to issues of linguistic analysis.
The Tractatus is incredibly structured – it’s almost like a big outline, complete with sub-sub-sub-topics – and as a result readily lends itself to online reading! So, if you’re as huge a nerd as I am, you might enjoy the hypertext version of the Tractatus.
Treehouses at Longwood
July 23rd, 2009
The ever-pleasant Longwood Gardens in SE Pennsylvania hosts a few treehouses, so while I was visiting a couple weeks ago I snapped some photos. I’m always planning the perfect treehouse, so I was both impressed by the craftsmanship that went into these and disappointed that they’re all actually supported by steel columns, which is clearly cheating.
Quines
July 21st, 2009
Named after the American philosopher and logician W.V.O. Quine, a quine is a program whose only output is its own code. Here’s a neat example in Lisp/Scheme, taken from the wikipedia article:
((lambda (x) (list x (list 'quote x)))
'(lambda (x) (list x (list 'quote x))))
computer science, language, math, old dead white guys | No Comments »
Fab@Home
July 19th, 2009
Fab@Home is the closest thing I’ve yet found to a von Neumann machine. Want.
Anaglyph Webcam
July 16th, 2009
Apparently the picture in this article are miscalibrated, but I’d still like to play around with this 3D webcam.
Apart from anaglyphs, it can also be used to film stereoscopic video:
Giant Beetle
July 12th, 2009
Look at this beetle! Last night, as I pulled in my driveway, I found him crawling on the side of the house. He’s about the size of my thumb. I’ve never seen such huge beetles in this area! Does anyone have any idea of what kind he might be?
How to Eat a Banana
July 9th, 2009
This video will change your life. Seriously. THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS.