December 2010
19 posts
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Being the Last Person on Earth
This is a holiday week for most people. This means the office is nearly empty, and it also means the city streets are nearly empty.
And sometimes- they’re completely empty. During my commute into the office, I hit these stretches of utter silence- no people, no cars, no dogs or birds, just me and seemingly vacant buildings. For a brief moment, it’s like being the last person on...
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Anna and Susanna Lister →
Anna and Susanna Lister were only about 15 and 13 when their father put them to work making scientific illustrations of his comprehensive database of all known shells. His Historiae Conchyliorum was one of the great achievements of natural science in the 17th century, and Charles Darwin would later cite the text during his own research on natural selection.
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A Good Night's Sleep
Going to bed and waking up refreshed is easy to take for granted. It’s not until you find yourself blearily going about your day, slightly confused and barely conscious, a zombie, that you really know what you’re missing.
For whatever reason, I’ve been in that state for over a week now. I look forward to some good quality sleep.
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Information and Energy →
Entropy is a fascinating thing. Back in the days of steam engines, scientists realized that the hot steam that drove the engines would always contain some energy that couldn’t be put to useful work. Steam engines (and all engines, machines and devices) have an inherent inefficiency.
Even worse- this unusable energy had a tendency to spread. If you have a box full of gas, eventually, every...
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The Bunnies of Okunoshima →
Once upon a time, Okunoshima was Japan’s secret stockpile of chemical weapons. Today, it is Japan’s secret stockpile of bunnies.
I think we can all agree that this is far more useful.
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Not doing much at all for Christmas
For some people, Christmas is a big to-do. I’ve been involved in those sorts of Christmases, and I have to say- nobody actually seems to be enjoying it. If you talk to them in the weeks before or after Christmas, they’re full of nothing but cheer and optimism, but when you talk to them close to the holiday, they’re nothing but bundles of stress.
Growing up, my memories of...
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Festivus
It started as an inside joke for one family, and eventually grew into a much bigger joke thanks to its appearance on Seinfeld. While the Solstice is the true winter holiday, celebrated in every culture, Festivus is a great compromise between that and the more fondly remembered Christmas.
The decorations are simple, but most important: it gives us all the one thing we really need to do. Air our...
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When it goes smooth
Today, I had a big server upgrade. I’m a programmer, not a server admin, but somehow, I was put in charge of the upgrade. I rehearsed the tasks repeatedly, and found all sorts of stumbling blocks, problems, and things I didn’t really understand.
We budgeted a 12 hour outage window, with the hope that it would be only six- the process started at 11AM, and we hoped to be done by 5PM.
...
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Approaching Albany, NY from 787N
Many people appreciate the spectacle of the Fort Pitt tunnel. Far fewer seem to share my thoughts on the best approach to the Albany skyline. In part, I’m one of the select few that really appreciates Empire Plaza as an architectural statement. It’s dramatic and austere.
The Empire Plaza exit off of 787N is part of this tangled mess of interchanges all piled up on each other. When...
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Approaching Pittsburgh through the Fort Pitt...
I love living in cities. I love skyscrapers and the sense of drama that’s held in a good city skyline.
Pittsburgh has one of those sorts of skylines. And it’s never better than when you come up from the South through the Fort Pitt tunnel. For those unfamiliar to the area, directly south of the city is Mount Washington. The side of this “mountain” facing the city is little...
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Dinosaurs and Superheroes →
Like peanut-butter and chocolate, these are two great tastes that taste great together.
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Rescue Geeks →
Young Katie was teased at school because she carried a Star Wars water bottle and “Star Wars is for boys”. Her mother was disappointed by this, and mentioned how sad it was on her blog. The Internet agreed, and the outpouring of support came in the form of notes from the actress that plays Amidala in the animated “Clone Wars” to piles of schwag from ThinkGeek.com.
“You realize how, if you want...
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The Insanity Virus →
Would you think that multiple sclerosis and schizophrenia are related diseases, caused by the same virus? I wouldn’t, but evidence is mounting that this is true. And even more than that- this virus doesn’t enter the body via infection. The virus implicated in the disease lives in all of us, nestled away in our DNA. In some cases, this latent DNA gets activated, and our body begins...
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Tool Use in Humans →
I couldn’t post this without the human capacity to use tools. Whether those tools are non-physical, like language, or mechanical, like discussed in the linked article, our tools define us. In fact, I would argue that the primary trait of “humaness” is our ability to plan ahead and use tools to control our environment.
And what’s fascinating is that scientists have found...
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Phoning it in a bit longer
Today’s awesomeness? Phoning it in a bit longer. Over the past few weeks I’ve been collecting a few terribly awesome links. In lieu of real content for my first week back from vacation, you’ll get a week’s worth of awesome (to me) links.
I did have a wonderfully relaxing vacation. The bad news is that I’ll be returning to an exceedingly busy office for the next...
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Tin Toys →
I always adore these Japanese robots. The article provides some fascinating background on their cultural history and relevance.