Category Archives: Tech
A Day Early, a Dollar Short
NBC’s Today show breaks the story on internet trolling. I’m not kidding; I heard the teaser on Wednesday morning at the gym, so this wasn’t an April Fool’s day prank. Trolling: The Today Show Explores the Dark Side of the Internet
Um, Today? It’s your landline, corded phone ringing. I think it’s USENET from 1993 calling to say, “Nothing new here.” Now go work on that new story and tell us all about chatrooms, and work your way up to facebook. In a few years, you can “discover” Twitter.
Vatican Virtual Vacation
Where is the Table?
Backreaction: Experiments with GPS
The biggest mystery in the universe is clearly the male brain. What happens if you leave my husband alone with a GPS receiver? He’ll spend several hours measuring the position of a table. For what I’m concerned the table is on the patio. Besides this, I’m every product developers nightmare since instead of reading manuals or tutorials I randomly click or push buttons till I’ve figured out what they’re good for. That’s a good procedure to find out every single way to crash the system, but usually not particularly efficient to actually use the device or software. Stefan instead goes and reads the manual!
GPS receivers are the ultimate guy toy, since it’s an electronic gadget which pretty much guarantees you’ll never have to stop to ask for directions.
Another Virtual Vacation
Been there, seen almost none of it. I was jet-lagged and alone and only saw what I could see from the cab going from the airport to Gare de Lyon.
Seven Words Short
Ten-Word Wiki, is a wiki in which all the entries are ten words long, and is only three words long. (I checked)
laser:
Light Amplified by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.
Pew Pew Pew
Out of Work
The Jobs Of Yesteryear: Obsolete Occupations
No, these were not outsourced overseas. I remember milk delivery — we had an insulated box on the front porch, and got the delivery at about 4 AM a few times a week. The clinking of the bottles as the delivery man walked up to the house would wake me up now and then.
Beyond Googlbing
Geekgasm
Popular Science Puts Entire Scanned Archive Online, Free
You can’t go directly to an issue to browse, but once you have arrived somewhere by search, there are no restrictions on scrolling around. You’ll also find a properly hyperlinked table of contents in each magazine.
Ironic
Solder is a nice woody word, even though it contains tin. And for even more irony (and silvery), there is a new solder that contains iron and silver, and eliminates lead.
Magnetic solders are a leap towards green alternatives
By subjecting the solder to an alternating magnetic field, the solder can be selectively heated. This keeps surrounding materials at safe temperatures while melting only the solder itself.
…
[A]n external magnetic field can be used to remotely manipulate the solder, so it can be moved into hard-to-reach places, such as narrow vertical channels. This means that broken connections within devices can be “self-healed” by applying a magnetic field to melt the solder and attach the ends together.