Dr. Michael Keren, a University of Calgary professor, has written a book where the thesis -- at least based on the published synopsis -- is that bloggers are a bunch of loner weenies (keep in mind I'm paraphrasing this a bit.) And, yup, he even manages… more »

Sometimes the geek in me cannot be restrained. This has to be one of the best USB hubs I've seen yet. more »

Someone did us the honour of posting the video of our dear coworker and sometime bet-loser doing his strangely-appropriate imitation of William Hung's "She Bangs". Scott, you're a good sport :) more »

A thought struck me when deep in good conversation with a friend of mine the other day that the seemingly strong association between right wing philosophy and fundamentalist Christianity is one of a particular match-up with philosophy. This is partly… more »

We just got what appears to be our first denial of service attack today. Alas, we feel insulted: a mere 3700 hits in half an hour from distributed IPs. More seriously, I have no idea why. This accomplished nothing. It's nowhere near enough to take out… more »

I had no idea that the data in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey was open to the public, but it is, and you can put your astronomy and database smarts together to help them find things, as well. Because of the way their program has been put together, it's… more »

It's being reviewed on Ars Technica, and it's out in a final release version. I find that spectacularly odd. I owned an Amiga; it took me through university, got me onto the Internet before most folks did, including the world wide web, and let me work… more »

There has been an interesting little saga going on over at Atheist in a Mini-van, regarding an incident where one of the bloggers' two young ones (Possum # 1) write a surprisingly eloquent essay in respond to a 'surprise essay' (much like a surprise… more »

I just encountered this little gem of a quote in the book, The New Physics : For The 21st Century on page 185: The word laser is an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, (Actually, most lasers are not operated as… more »

Now this is an unusual site. Not only is it chock-full of information about genetics, but they've picked a rather unusual means to present protein sequences to music. Every three DNA 'letters' codes for a particular amino acid, so they have put… more »

Ouch. (Via BoingBoing) more »

Apple recently released their new version of the Airport base station with 802.11 pre-N support. There's nothing particularly special but what has got a lot of people annoyed is that Apple has also been including 802.11 pre-N hardware in their revised… more »

Pat over at Red State Rabble just had to find something else someone said to make my blood boil! The joke that we have been making for the past many years is that every time we discover a fossil that fills in a missing link, we've just created two… more »

I must admit, after seeing the sort of commentary and reaction she generated with her extremely well-spoken remarks about evolutionary theory, Elizabeth Liddle has earned herself a new fan. Well, there's actually a line-up of fans now; I might just be… more »

I could be wrong, but I believe this is probably the first time "Star Trek" (as opposed to "Star Wars") has been referenced on the floor of the American House of Representatives. It's a sort of milestone I suppose. (Update 2007/01/25: My mistake; it… more »

Perusing the surprisingly interesting Freakonomics blog (I reviewed his book here), I came across his entry on the International Breast Milk Project, started by Jill Youse, who was producing way more breast milk than her baby could ever drink. With the… more »

You might have to be pretty darned science nerdy to sit and watch the entire presentation by Michael Strauss like I did. These are some fairly serious results back from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. more »

Another excellent column from Bruce Schneier on security, this time on passwords and the cracking mechanisms used to break them. I read through it feeling a little smug as none of the choice flaws he mentioned are ones I do. more »

How can I not link to this one...? more »

First link is to a demonstration of a tub of sulfur hexafluoride (transparent heavier than air gas) causing a silverfoil boat to float in mid-air. Second link is to unexpected behaviour of liquids under various conditions. (Via BoingBoing) more »

Looks like boneheaded copyright laws are back on the agenda here in Canada. (Via BoingBoing) more »

I'm not sure what to make of this one. Checking my logs, there are three posts being repeatedly hit in sequence by different IPs. Referrer searches All true wisdom begins with Cecil "Ready, Aye, Ready" I've looked at them and can't find anything… more »

Unless you've been living under a rock or intensely ignoring the internet and all other media over the last few days, you know about Apple's new iPhone. Time Magazine has a good write up on its genesis. David Pogue of the New York Times also has some… more »

I regret to announce that our female button quail, Amestris, has passed away: more »

Looking through my shelf of game titles, I found a game that I remember having immense troubles with on a particular level. That game was Netstorm. It's a quirky title - a meld of RTS and puzzle game. You have a priest who can build workshops and make… more »

Spellforce 2 is the sequel to the Spellforce game that I quite enjoyed. For those of you who have never played Spellforce games before, they are a combination of a party-based adventure game like Baldur's Gate, and a resource-and-building RTS game like… more »

Admittedly, this is a little harder than your average quiz on identifying various kinds of creationists, with the addition of odder categories like Omphalos Creationist and Vedic Creationist, but it pays to know your creationists. What would this be?… more »

BoingBoing has a post about a letter sent in the UK that arrived. In and of itself, that conclusion is perhaps not all that special, but it's the way that the letter was addressed which is rather more interesting... more »

This links to a pictorial representation of what 200 calories looks like when it's still food. (Via BoingBoing) more »

If you go to the main Wikipedia page, you will get a multitude of options of languages. One "language" that caught a coworker's eye was "Simple English". The guidelines are to use simple words, keeping low literacy and foreign speakers in mind, using… more »

There's a lot to this book, so I'm simply going to have to split the review of the book into a few pieces. There are a few main themes to this book: to provide some recent history of cosmology, to give some interesting astronomical observations, to… more »

Nifty bit of real-life stop motion animation. (Via BoingBoing) more »

Summary: SanDisk's iPod Nano killer. I decided to buy a standalone MP3 player after a recent 9 hour plane trip to the UK. While I normally use my Tungsten T3 with Aeroplayer I came to the conclusion that while it's great for short hops and bus trips,… more »

BAHAHAHAAA! I get the first post on this blog for 2007, and it's a DOOZY! I HAVE TWO LINES ON THE PEE STICK!!! more »