Saturday, December 13, 2003

In Archimedes' Puzzle, a New Eureka Moment. A historian of mathematics at Stanford appears to have solved the mystery of a treatise called the Stomachion, written 2,200 years ago by the Greek mathematician Archimedes. By Gina Kolata. [New York Times: Science] 10:03:38 PM    comment []

Two rants on Geneva's crappy WiFi, one fictional, one non- [bOing bOing] 7:59:39 PM    comment []

Harper's Magazine has an interesting taxonomy. (Scroll down.) [Scripting News] 5:09:57 PM    comment []

The Register: Flextronics demos open source chips. [Hack the Planet] 2:24:43 PM    comment []

cool tools. Kevin Kelly has a great new feed, available soon in book stores and free online at Brewster's Archive under a Creative Commons license. It is fantastic (in the best sense of the term). Spread it widely. [Lessig Blog] 2:20:34 PM    comment []

Columbia's Last Flight: The inside story of the investigation and the catastrophe it laid bare, by William Langewiesche, in The Atlantic. Discussion of a Jon Schwartz NYT PowerPoint story on Edward Tufte's site. Coverage of the shuttle here at A blog doesn't need a clever name. 10:45:47 AM    comment []

NASA's Satellites Watch World's Cities Grow. Researchers from Boston University used NASA's Landsat and other satellites to analyze the growth of 30 mid-sized world cities between 1990 and 2000. According to this NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center news release, the results are spectacular. The study showed that some of these cities grew by as much as 25 percent during these ten years. "Cities such as Johannesburg and Shanghai have grown extensively, and we need maps that reflect this," Schneider said. "These maps will not only be useful to scientists studying energy transfer, hydrology and climate interactions, but to social scientists trying to understand the land impacts of population and economic activity at a global scale." This overview contains more details and external references. It also includes impressive images from Landsat showing how Chengdu, in China, grew between 1990 and 2000. [Smart Mobs] 10:12:37 AM    comment []

Say it ain't so, Julie! I've been doing a lot of thinking, and I've come to conclusion that is, well, a little bit heartbreaking for me. I think it's time to officially pack up the Julie/Julia Project. This thing was always meant to last a year and no more. I knew that. What I didn't know, when I started, was how much I would come to rely upon the feedback and encouragement and just plain daily greatness of all of you who've so inexplicably agreed to go through this thing with me. I am sure that keeping the blog limping along past its useful life is no good to anyone involved, and the last thing I want to do is jump the shark; I know it's time to go. But that doesn't mean I'm necessarily happy about it. The good news is that there's also to be a party. Of course, most os us won't be able to attend. For those of you who can't make it, what with living in New Zealand or wherever and all, thank thank thank you, for everything. Please keep in touch. When I come crawling out of my hole with my (our) book in the spring of '05, I hope some of you are there to greet me. You betcha. While I understand the decision, I'll sure miss following along with the Project and your life. Hope you find a way not to be a stranger, Julie. 8:11:47 AM    comment []

Coffee, Tea or Freedom?. Impressed by the boom in Internet chat rooms in China, I conducted an experiment this week to test the limits of free speech. By Nicholas D. Kristof. [New York Times: Opinion] 8:06:03 AM    comment []

Christmas the Frederick Winslow Taylor Way. I plan a lot for Christmas. There are spreadsheets and graph paper involved in the process. One year I even made a Gantt chart. For me, the purpose of doing some planning for Christmas is to avoid being overwhelmed by the many things that I have to do. [Learning the Lessons of Nixon] 8:03:31 AM    comment []

Canadian Ruling on Web Music. Downloading copyrighted music from peer-to-peer networks is legal in Canada, although uploading files is not, Canadian copyright regulators said on Friday. By Cnet News.com. [New York Times: Technology] I blinked Michael Geist's comments and a link to the full decision yesterday. 7:53:57 AM    comment []

A Whodunit for the Digital Age. Suppressing a desire to read other people's e-mail? Play private eye, or voyeur, with a new e-book format that bases its plot on a string of e-mail missives, website visits and instant messages. By Kari L. Dean. [Wired News] 7:30:19 AM    comment []

Professor, Biotech Butt Heads. A teacher denied tenure at the University of California at Berkeley says he was turned down because the biotech industry didn't like his research into genetically modified corn. The school disagrees. By Kristen Philipkoski. [Wired News] 7:26:40 AM    comment []