Amusing news
Jan. 26th, 2006 02:58 pm1. DWJ's Dalemark Family Tree http://suberic.net/dwj/pix/dalemark-folk.jpg
They're not as confusing as LMB's Vor, but I found it helpful to have this in mind. I liked the casuality of it :) They do have a lot of lianas (the accepted term for cross-linkage in family trees), people known by different names in different books, even hundreds of years later, marrying each other, inheriting names, etc. A good series.
2. Frying chips http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/01/09/strip_out_the_fans/
Fill a PC case with cooking oil. It's electrically non-conductive[1], so that's ok, and can absorb more heat than air, so you can, indeed must, dispense with fans. And it looks cool. Well, ok, it doesn't. It probably gives rise to jeers about greasy computer nerds.
[1] Yay, chemistry. That reminds me: I heard the Casimir effect (vacuum energy resonating between two plates draws them together) is non-negligible in noble gas van-der-walls forces (ie. inter-molecular forces when all the decent ones have gone away). Isn't quantum cool?
3. Mandatory condoms: http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/01/11/colombia.condoms.reut/
A columbian town proposed to require young men to always carry a condom. Well, I guess it makes sense. Like being required to carry a gun, sort of. And I don't suppose it would encourage any *more* sex, which seems like the obvious suggestion.
I did wonder why *men*? And what you do the next morning? Do you have to take the used one to the store to demonstrate your obeyinghood[1]?
[1] Acquiescence?
4. Genenged glowing pigs http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4605202.stm
OK, I think someone else linked to this one, but since my last links were the glowing bath ducks, I wanted to record the topping of that. As with the wormhole research I've been browsing, this is so obviously a case of "Dude! We could make this! Now, we need it to be useful or we won't get funding..."
They're not as confusing as LMB's Vor, but I found it helpful to have this in mind. I liked the casuality of it :) They do have a lot of lianas (the accepted term for cross-linkage in family trees), people known by different names in different books, even hundreds of years later, marrying each other, inheriting names, etc. A good series.
2. Frying chips http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/01/09/strip_out_the_fans/
Fill a PC case with cooking oil. It's electrically non-conductive[1], so that's ok, and can absorb more heat than air, so you can, indeed must, dispense with fans. And it looks cool. Well, ok, it doesn't. It probably gives rise to jeers about greasy computer nerds.
[1] Yay, chemistry. That reminds me: I heard the Casimir effect (vacuum energy resonating between two plates draws them together) is non-negligible in noble gas van-der-walls forces (ie. inter-molecular forces when all the decent ones have gone away). Isn't quantum cool?
3. Mandatory condoms: http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/01/11/colombia.condoms.reut/
A columbian town proposed to require young men to always carry a condom. Well, I guess it makes sense. Like being required to carry a gun, sort of. And I don't suppose it would encourage any *more* sex, which seems like the obvious suggestion.
I did wonder why *men*? And what you do the next morning? Do you have to take the used one to the store to demonstrate your obeyinghood[1]?
[1] Acquiescence?
4. Genenged glowing pigs http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4605202.stm
OK, I think someone else linked to this one, but since my last links were the glowing bath ducks, I wanted to record the topping of that. As with the wormhole research I've been browsing, this is so obviously a case of "Dude! We could make this! Now, we need it to be useful or we won't get funding..."