Glimpses of the websurfing habits of a computer science professor, obsessive crafter, occasional gamer, and all around geek
This is probably the best electronic hacker project I’ve seen ever: a computer-controlled push puppet for IM notifications. [via JK] How can you go wrong? You get to build a neat robot thing, attached to a cuddly puppet dog, and it contributes to your IM addiction by letting you know when your friends are around! Scroll down for the video – soooo cute! It’s enough to make me switch to Linux….
It’s too bad I’m not teaching my Cyberattacks class again this January, because the Month of Apple Bugs would be a great resource. I always run that class on Windows PCs because, statistically, there are just more Windows exploits out there right now, but it’s important to remember that no operating system is immune from exploits. We should definitely expect that, as Apple continues to grow their market share, OS X exploits will become more common too. What’s interesting is the number of exploits that aren’t just coming through traditional operating system holes anymore, but are taking advantage of online … Continue reading Worm in the apple?
Today marks the third anniversary of the Mars rover Spirit landing safely, with Opportunity’s anniversary coming up in just a couple of weeks, and the accomplishments of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission in that time are astonishing. Not only have they kept two robots running on the surface of a distant planet years longer than planned, but they’ve continued to use them to collect valuable data. The rovers have recently had their programming updated again to allow new functionality, including new recognition algorithms based on what we’ve been able to learn about the surface of Mars so far and what … Continue reading Happy Anniversary, Again!
I’ve been a fan of the online comic Narbonic for quite a while now, and was sad to see it come to a close at the end of 2006, though with the strip becoming more plot-driven, and its overall longevity, it was actually a satisfying close. If you missed the strip and want to check it out, not only are the archives all available online, but starting yesterday Garrity is re-circulating the strip to her front page starting from the beginning, adding a “Director’s Cut commentary” to each one – interesting back story if you don’t mind the risk of … Continue reading Narbonic Rewind
If, like me, you never remember to get a new calendar until the start of the new year, you could always just print out a copy of the Classic Pulp Sci Fi Magazine Cover Calendar downloadable from the Website at the End of the Universe. [via Boing Boing] While I would generally object to what is essentially a bikini-girl calendar, I love the old sci fi art and I think it’s really interesting to consider the images as historical artifacts. There are actually four years worth of calendars at the site to browse through, if you are interested in such … Continue reading Welcome to 2007!
The year rolls to an end tonight, and most of the people I’ve talked to have very little exciting planned for this evening. So, whether you are looking for something to distract yourself while waiting to see how badly they manage to mis-time the ball drop or are looking ahead for distractions for tomorrow after festivities tonight, here are some fun things I’ve come across in the past day or two: A total ad campaign, but Viking Movies challenges you to identify twenty movie titles based on scenes recreated using office supplies. I’m up to having 15 of the 20 … Continue reading A Very Geeky New Years to You
I always enjoy Brian Hayes’ Computing Science feature in American Scientist, but his thoughts on the real-world applicability of mathematical proof were both interestinig and laugh-out-loud funny, if you’re the sort of person to laugh out loud at angle trisection jokes and spoofs of Socratic dialog. The article also discusses the controversy over the imfamous computer-aided proof of the four-color theorem and the recent Hales proof of the Kepler conjecture. Hayes comes down on the side of computer assistance as a valid and valuable aid, not least as a tool for providing empirical data and aiding intuition. This is supported … Continue reading Math – yet again hard…
It’s that magical time when I geek out about the latest Knitty, this time the Winter 2006 issue. There are a few socks, which is great (Monkey is a cute pattern, and the model is wearing totally cute shoes), and the felted brown bag is awesome. But, the prize has to be Binary, which I will definitely make, and in which the pattern of 1s and 0s will definitely not be random….
Via J, I’ve been wasting a lot of time browsing the Uncyclopedia – a communal wiki based encyclopedia dedicated to misinformation. I was originally pointed to the list of weapons that don’t exist, but should (Radioactive Zombie Badger Launcher! Ninja-in-a-box!) and the accompanying list of weapons that exist, but shouldn’t (Kool-Aid Man! Blue Screen of Death! Incredibly Hot Anime Girls!) and list of weapons that don’t exist, and shouldn’t (Automated Crotch Kicker! Punxsutawney Phil Stuffed With Dynamite!) But other favorites include How to Smell a Bit Like Fish, Blame Transfer Protocol, and proofs that if it’s on the internet it … Continue reading Almost as reliable as wikipedia….
There are details to nit-pick, such as the fact that the electricity to run the players’ PCs seems to be double counted into both the cost of the avatar and the cost of the human player, but this calculation that Second Life avatars consume as much electricity as Brazilians is pretty interesting [via Clicked]. It’s an interesting ecological assessment of a new entertainment form, and a really interesting comparison of global resource consumption.