Month: December 2006

A Very Geeky New Years to You

By AMH

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

Math – yet again hard…

By AMH

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…

Everybody’s favorite post!

By AMH

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….

Almost as reliable as wikipedia….

By AMH

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….

Those fuelish avatars

By AMH

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.

Books to avoid

By AMH

B sends me a link to the opposite of all of those book recommender tools out there, the LibraryThing UnSuggester, which analyzes their database of people’s book collections and tells you what books you shouldn’t read if you like a particular book. More accurately, it tells you what books are least likely to be in the same collection with your selected book. I tried out two of my favorites from different genres, and while it was pretty accurate on its unsuggestions for Cryptonomicon, the list for Pride and Prejudice has a significant overlap with my collection, what with the Norvig … Continue reading Books to avoid

DCMA Exemptions

By AMH

I was talking with a colleague on Friday about the legality of backing up a video found online to an internal server as a safeguard for still being able to view the film in a class setting even if the network, or the film’s server, goes down when one is planning to use it. While it is not entirely the same situation, the first item on the Copyright Office’s list of exemptions from DCMA copying restrictions certainly suggests that doing so is not inconsistent with the Copyright Office’s interpretation of fair use: Audiovisual works included in the educational library of … Continue reading DCMA Exemptions

Do this and that and the other yourself….

By AMH

In the past week, some very different do-it-yourself projects have come across the MAKE: Blog: Building a crystal radio out of household items, Mak e a resistor man! (sooooo cute!), make an LED Popsicle stick picture frame, and a bit late from the holidays, Make a Pecan pie based Icosahdron, aka the pie-cosahedron.

Christmas Countdown

By AMH

Every year Matt over at X-Entertainment puts together a Advent Calendar based on the Playmobile toy advent calendar, plus he promises to post goodies in his weblog each day. If you haven’t seen this before, you may want to read the History of X-E’s Advent Calendar first, as this year’s story picks up with the same running cast of characters. If you have read along in the past, Knacks has a MySpace page!