Via Ian's Messy Desk, an idea generator. As I watch the current market bubble deflate, I'm reminded of the heady days before the last bubble burst when this was probably all the business plan some dot coms actually had!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:45 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Via BoingBoing, a supercomputer has figured out how to unscramble a Rubik's Cube in 26 moves or less (one better than the previous record). How about those of us without supercomputers? Is there a SETI@Home equivalent for Rubik's Cubes?

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 12:21 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I've got a hand-cranked emergency radio. Now for our brave new century, a hand-cranked gadget that can play music files, videos and more! UK-only, though? What about us poor colonials?

(Via BoingBoing.)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:12 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The mirror-world version of another famous online encyclopedia.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:23 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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2001: A Space Odyssey is coming to Blu-Ray and HD DVD. Hear my lack of enthusiasm? I have no interest in Blu-Ray, HD DVD (or HD TV) until these folks sort out their standards issues. Not only do I not see the need for turning over my collection (and making the landfills swell), but I see no real need for these new standards. See me rushing to convert my TV to HD even with the oncoming deadline when the airwaves will go dark? Yawn. Time to read another book.

Strange, huh? You'd think I'd be interested in the nifty stuff. But the entire industry (music, film, television) has turned me off with its persecution of grandmother's and children, their cries to "close the analog hole", DRM, spyware, malware (Sony, anyone), crappy hardware, clueless movies and shows.

Yawn. Time to read anohter book.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:43 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Several depictions of M.C. Escher's famous waterfall illustration (including the original). Now you can buy your own and have much in the way of cube coolness!

Addendum: Balcony. Relativity. Waterfall. Ascending and Descending. Belvedere.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:50 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Tonight's post-powerwashing listening is a couple of selections by Luigi Boccherini. Not as well known as Bach, Vivaldi and the other Baroque powerhouses, he's got a couple of pieces that continue to blow me away. In particular Quintettto No. 4 In Re Maggiore, "Fandango", Per Corda E Chitarra and Quintettino In Do Maggiore La Musica Notturna Delle Strade Di Madrid, Op. 30, No. 6 (G. 324). The first has some wondrous work between guitar and violin. The second is based on the night music of Madrid and would be familiar to any fan of the film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, as the music that helped to close out that film.

Great stuff.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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(So what do you do after powerwashing the deck for 10 hours and developing one heck of a crick in the neck? Listen to Brian Eno, of course. Very loudly.)

It will shine and it will shudder
As I guide it with my rudder
On its metalled ways
It will cut the night before it
As it leaves the day that saw it
On its metalled ways
Nobody passes us in the deep quiet of the dark sky
Nobody sees us alone out here among the stars
In these metal ways
In these metal days.

Through a fault of our designing
We are lost among the windings
Of these metal ways
Back to silence back to minus
With the purple sky behind us
In these metal ways
Nobody hears us when we're alone in the blue future
No one receiving the radio's splintered waves
In these metal ways
In these metal days. more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:26 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Friends keep recommending the site of one James Lileks. I'll read it, go "huh" and move on. Just doesn't do anything for me. Go figure!

On the other hand...this is funny...too funny...

Other funny stuff here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Well, not quite. But here are a ton of links about one of the funniest SF (well, mostly)-related shows out there! MST3k! Everybody sing! more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:01 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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An aircraft carrier. It floats and has support vessels! I am in awe.

More here. How the heck does the guy transport it from his home to the lake/river?

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:51 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Got "tagged" by the fine folks at SF Signal. Remind me to start proofing their posts even more carefully. Heh.

Let's see...

-Start Copy-

It's very simple. When this is passed on to you, copy the whole thing, skim the list and put a * star beside those that you like. (Check out especially the * starred ones.)

Add the next number (1. 2. 3. 4. 5., etc.) and write your own blogging tip for other bloggers. Try to make your tip general.

After that, tag 10 other people. Link love some friends!

Just think- if 10 people start this, the 10 people pass it onto another 10 people, you have 100 links already!

1. Look, read, and learn. *****
-http://www.neonscent.com

2. Be, EXCELLENT to each other. ****
-http://www.bushmackel.com

3. Don't let money change ya! ***
-http://www.therandomforest.info

4. Always reply to your comments. ****
-http://chattiekat.com

5. Link liberally -- it keeps you and your friends afloat in the Sea of Technorati. **
-http://chipsquips.com

6. Don't give up - persistance is fertile. *
-http://www.velcro-city.co.uk

7. Give link credit where credit is due.
-http://www.sfsignal.com

8. Pay it forward.
-http://flyingsauce.livejournal.com/

Ten people? O.K.

Friends: Pete Young at Flying Sauce. Steve Hart at Stevenhartsite. Joe Zitt at The Year of Living Musically. Ron Fischer at Ronzobot.

Blogs that I read regularly: Rand Simberg at Transterrestrial Musings. Mark Whittington at Curmudgeon's Corner.

Authors: John Scalzi at Whatever. Paul McAuley at Earth and Other Unlikely Worlds. Paul Glister at Centauri Dreams. Walter Jon Williams at Angel Station. Tobias Buckell at...errr...Tobias Buckell. Ken MacLeod at The Early Days of a Better Nation.

Finally: The Diary of Samuel Pepys. The man who blogged well before the invention of the term.

Hey, that's more than ten. Well, I never said math was my strong point.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:05 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Hey, one of my all-time favorite shows is returning, sort of. Same premise, more or less the same crew, slightly different format and direct to DVD. Presenting Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Mark 2.0!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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(2006 continued...)

Some interesting stuff here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 01:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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(2006 continued...)

"Naturally, naturally," agreed Magnus Ridolph. "However, let us view the matter from a different aspect. Let us momentarily forget that we are friends, neighbors, almost business associates, each acting only through motives of the highest integrity. Let us assume that we are strangers, unmoral, predatory."

Blantham blew out his cheeks, eyed Magnus Ridolph doubtfully. "Far-fetched, of course. But go on."

(Jack Vance, The Many Worlds of Magnus Ridolph)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:18 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Here's a great site that gives you interactive maps of several Roman catacombs (despite the warning labels, the site works with Mozilla Firefox, at least for me). Ah, underground tombs...many an hour in my misbegotten youth was spent robbing tombs...on Tekumel, not in our sphere of reality!)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:55 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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(2006 continued...)

Douglas R. Hofstadter: Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern (An Interlocked Collection of Literary, Scientific, and Artistic Studies. more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 04:39 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Got this in the mail. The message header says that it was transmitted on Thursday, January 1, 1970 (retroactive internet?). I thought you all would be interested.

Spelling, punctation, etc., as it was in the original. more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:11 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Your financers buy you a horse.

You learn how to ride a horse and train the horse and breed it's offspring to take you to interesting places.

After a great trip on the third generation horse, your financers cut the travel budget and tell you to get into the trucking business so... more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:58 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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"It has spaceships, a bank heist, Interplanetary cannibal zombies, geishas, ruthless government operatives, and a hot psychic kung fu fighting chick, how could you possibly have been bored!"

(A fan's reaction to a non-fan's dislike of Serenity.) more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:47 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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