“The chocolate-making capabilities of Wonka’s heavily fortified compound have long been a source of speculation. Wonka, defying international calls for full disclosure, has maintained his silence regarding his factory’s suspected capacity to manufacture confections of mass deliciousness….’Without full inspections, there’s no earthly way of knowing which direction Wonka’s going. Not a speck of light is…
“Leonardo figured things out by looking at them, thinking about them and taking them apart. That compulsion to tinker has led many modern hackers to claim Leonardo retroactively as one of their own.” —Da Vinci: The Pith Behind the ManWired) Nice backgrounder for the Da Vinci exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Similar:AI crawlers…
“Since most blogging tools are both free and addictive, it’s no surprise that the sales cycle has been eliminated. Better yet, point and click blog designs mean that there’s minimal consulting – either customization or configuration – required to set up your blog. The result? Weblogs are spreading like wildfire – by some accounts, the…
“About one-fourth of university-based medical researchers receive funding from drug companies — ties that sometimes distort study results, according to a review done by two researchers with industry connections of their own.” —Review finds Pervasive Medical Research-Industry TiesAssociated Press) Ohmigosh ohmigosh oh…my…gosh! Scientific research isn’t completely objective? Scientists aren’t lofty supreme beings of pure intellect,…
“My mother used to say that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing; the Internet demonstrates this point beautifully. Oh sure, these days everyone is concerned about the proliferation of porn, but the medical information on the Net is also widespread, disturbing and… — for those prone to, shall we say, extreme concern…
Wired has published an article about the open source encyclopedia Wikipedia reaching its 100,000th article. This item first started appearing in weblogs last week. Once it’s made its way to Wired, it will be read by the editors of more mainstream publications, who may want to feature it in articles for the general public. (Blogdex…
“It might seem like a stretch to compare scientists to, say, African Americans and Latinos, who have historically been targets of often viciously stereotypical portrayals in film and on TV. But Weber thinks the media has a blind spot when it comes to scientists.” Jason Silverman —Film Scientists Not All Mad, BadWired) Similar:Prepare for the…
“Only cranks, mystics, revolutionaries and wealthy dilettantes wrote without some form of pecuniary support, whether patronage, salary, direct sales, residuals, or the penny-a-word piecework compensation offered by pulp-magazine editors…. The Internet changed all that.” —Independent Content Providerv-2 Organisation) Similar:Canon Australia video: 1 man; 6 backstories; 6 photographers; 6 photosCanon Australia wants to sell cameras. T…AestheticsThe…
“Hear me now: Jim Henson was Kermit. Steve Whitmire is a Henson impersonator. Admittedly, a damn talented one — his Ernie, in particular, nearly captures the affability and innocence of the original — but the equal of Henson? Step back from the brink, Dennis.” —I Appreciate The Muppets on a Much Deeper Level Than YouThe…
“The fact is that the world is divided between users of the Macintosh computer and the users of MS-DOS-compatible computers. I am firmly of the opinion that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant. Indeed, the Macintosh is counter-reformist and has been influenced by the “ratio studiorum” of the Jesuits. It is cheerful,…
If you’ve ever gotten a “CONFIDENTIAL” e-mail from a Nigerian official whose shift key seems to be stuck, you’ll appreciate this spoof. —Spoof of “Nigerian E-mail Scam”Palnatoke) Similar:Donald Trump Is a Broken Man (Assessment by Speechwriter for Reagan and both Bushes)Powerful assessment of Donald Trump, wri…CultureEvita in Zelionople CultureOur news is dominated by people in…
“The problem may be that they are simply bored with the conventional curriculum, says the study, titled Morphing Literacy: Boys Reshaping Their Literacy. The study found it is a myth that boys do not read. While they are less interested in fiction or traditional literature than girls are, they read more on the Internet and…
“Nurses quickly learned how to hack the system to save time. For example, if a patient’s bar code didn’t scan correctly on the first try, nurses often entered the seven-digit bar code number manually rather than rescanning it. “Nurses also felt that the computer system’s demands forced them to focus on pill-pushing. If meds weren’t…
Vocation“I want to be a Bohemian, Rachel.” “A what?”“A Bohemian, a hanger onner around the arts”“I thought you already were – all that cafe society poetry stuff”“Yes, but it’s kinda hard on your own – do you want to be one too?” “Erm, can’t I be a bum instead?”Elin Merriman —Fifty Word FictionAlistair Fitchett) Click…
“Three-dimensional tubes of living tissue have been printed using modified desktop printers filled with suspensions of cells instead of ink. The work is a first step towards printing complex tissues or even entire organs.” Charles Choi —Ink-jet Printing Creates Tubes of Living Tissue New Scientist) Similar:Dragging Myself to a New Skill Level with Blender 3DWorking…
“[B]eing innovative flies in the face of what almost all parents want for their children, most CEOs want for their companies, and heads of states want for their countries. And innovative people are a pain in the ass…. [S]ome things?the nature of higher education among them?will have to change in order to ensure a perpetual…
“Rightly or wrongly, record companies are detested by politicians (for corrupting youth), by webcasters (for demanding royalties), and by their customers (for inflating prices). Musicians and songwriters are famous for loathing the labels… Radio and MTV aren’t in the industry’s corner… And the electronics industry’s attitude toward the labels is summed up by an Apple…
“Doctors had never seen such injuries. It almost didn’t matter that he had a broken clavicle, pelvis, tailbone and ribs. They were stunned to learn of the injury to his neck that technically ripped off his head.” —Doctors Reattach Teen’s Head after Car WreckABC News) While this makes interesting reading, the article seems to be…
“This is all part of the Big Flip in publishing generally, where the old notion of ‘filter, then publish’ is giving way to ‘publish, then filter.’ There is no need for Slashdot’s or Kuro5hin’s owners to sort the good posts from the bad in advance, no need for Blogdex or Daypop to pressure people not…
“Wikipedia ( http://www.wikipedia.org ), a community-built multilingual encyclopedia, is announcing that the English edition of the project has reached a milestone of 100,000 articles in development…. Wikipedia is a public WikiWikiWeb, a website where anyone can edit any article at any time. Users build upon each other’s edits, and vandalized articles are quickly repaired by…