Star Gazing

For the next week or so, you can see our five closest planetary neighbors lined up across the night sky. The article calls it “a spectacular night show that won’t be back for another three decades”. The JPL astronomer says: “It’s semi-unique …. They’re all on the same side of the sun and stretched across the sky and that’s what is kind of pretty.” Why, he’s so enthusiastic, “he will gaze up when he walks his dog this week”. They couldn’t find a slightly more effusive astronomer to quote?

RoboOlympics

RobOlympics! Wooo! Sumo Robots! Fire Fighting Robots! Space Elevator Ribbon Climbing Robots! Combat Robots! It’s BattleBots meets the Mars Rover! It’s got flames, flying debris, and LEGO! It’s geek nirvana! Woooooooo!

Why Fewer CS Students?

Here’s another article about the drop in computer science program enrollment at the undergrad level, attributing the drop to offshoring of programming jobs. On the one hand, a 23 percent decrease in new majors over the past year is stunning, and clearly too large to be a fluke. But I think the recent focus on offshoring as the core of the problem is too limited. When I graduated from college about a decade ago, computer science programs were still relatively new and the boom was just starting. You could leave college (and a liberal arts college at that!) with a … Continue reading Why Fewer CS Students?

Dreaming Tetris

Almost everybody I know who got hooked on Tetris (including myself) admits to eventually having dreams featuring those falling, spinning blocks. So how cool is it that researchers are using this phenomenon to study the role of dreaming in learning? They found that not only did the dreaming improve performance, but that this was the case even for amnesiacs who didn’t remember having played the game the previous day, but how had dreamed about it at night. It’s also neat that they report everyone having the same basic dream: Curiously, thoughts about Tetris not associated with seeing falling pieces were … Continue reading Dreaming Tetris

Broken Interfaces

I just found This Is Broken, a weblog of broken interfaces and commercial products maintained by a customer experience expert. Interesting and entertaining, if you’re into usability.

Soda Cults

Oh, I know people in the Cult of Diet Coke. It’s become so common, I was surprised to see it’s only been around since 1982, though I do remember Tab (which definitely wasn’t a man’s drink the way Diet Coke can be). Maybe if a Diet Coke With Lime Cult started up, I might get on board….

High Pressure Sales

I “helped” a friend buy a car recently, and I was really impressed with how well they handled the whole process. I don’t do well in that setting in part because I have a hard time believing the stereotypes about car salesmen. So I found this investigative report on selling cars at Edmunds really interesting. They sent a writer in to work at two different car lots, one high-pressure and one of the “no haggle” style. The difference is shocking, even if things aren’t as low-pressure as they pretend at the no haggle places. Don’t miss the sidebar photos either … Continue reading High Pressure Sales

Stepwise Pittsburgh

There are lots of theme guides to Pittsburgh focusing on bridges, rivers, etc., and I’ve never given them much thought, but this review of The Steps of Pittsburgh actually caught my eye and I’m intrigued. Rivers, railroads, and many of the usual topics of theme guides are pretty easy to spot once you know they’re there, and frankly many cities have these features. But the staircases along the sidewalks and hills of the cities (over 700 of them – and yes, that’s more than San Francisco) are unusual and hidden, and from the images in the article lead to some … Continue reading Stepwise Pittsburgh

Curry-Shrimp-Noodle Casserole

I’ve found a new favorite comfort food, in line with my recent obsession with curry – although this is an entirely American dish with just some curry powder thrown in to save it from blandness: Baked Shrimp and Crab Curry. It’s tuna noodle casserole hidden under “exotic” spicing and slightly better seafood – one suspects it’s the white trash version of foreign food. But it’s yummy. I’ve made it with just shrimp, and you can cut down on the amount of butter so long as you leave enough for a decent roux base.

Bigger

You know what the world really needed? A movie about a 13-year old girl who turns into 30-year old after playing a game, finds herself in a marketing-type job, gets into wacky hijinks because she doesn’t understand the adult world and probably teaches the people around her to reclaim their playfulness and pulls together a winning project at work using the freshness of looking at the world through the eyes of a child. Oh wait, we already had it.