Cloud computing mysteries, via your smartphone

- A short video from IBM about cloud computing and one of the people who invented cloud computing:

- Can hot water really freeze faster than cold water?  It seems illogical, but in some situations, hot water freezes faster:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/icy-hot/

- Five of the most bizarre unsolved mysteries.  Not sure how much truth there is in each one of these mysteries.  I am shocked the first one hasn't yet been made into a movie:

http://www.cracked.com/article_18459_the-5-creepiest-unsolved-crimes-nobody-can-explain.html

- A chart showing the differences between my beloved Nexus One smartphone and the iPhone 3GS:

http://www.ifixit.com/Misc/nexus_vs_iphone.html

- A few of my friends have asked me why I spend so much time writing about smartphones on my website. The line between desktop, laptop and smartphones is becoming more and more blurred.  Smartphones are really just smaller versions of computers, so I am naturally fascinated by them.

 I bought my Nexus One in January.  At the time, it was the most powerful smartphone on the market.  It is now late March, and at least two smartphones have passed it, technology-wise.  Here is an article with five smartphones to keep an eye on:

http://jkontherun.com/2010/03/24/top-5-superphones-to-watch/

The HCR bill causes Americans to Wilhelm scream!

- Apparently Iron Man 2 has the Wilhelm scream in it.  So did the original Iron Man movie.  Some of the greatest movies ever made have the Wilhelm scream in them.  What is the Wilhelm scream?  I just found out about it a few hours ago.  It's a running gag among the film/sound mixing community.  Follow this link to learn more:
http://www.damninteresting.com/the-wilhelm-scream


- It happened.  It happened, and you are just gonna have to deal with it.  The House of representatives passed the diabolical HCR bill, and the senate will also soon pass it.  The courts will likely not touch it, and in the future it will be almost impossible to repeal it.


The next time someone says to you, "elections don't matter", simply tell them about what happened on March 21st, 2010.  Except for illness/death to you or a family member, NOTHING should be more important to you than elections.  Elections have a profound influence on your life.  Football has no actual effect on your life.  The next Star Wars movie has no actual effect on your life. The belt you are wearing that clashes with your shoes, doesn't have a real effect on your life.  Politics has a real effect on your life.  The next time someone says to you, "all politicians are the same", let them know what the democrats included in the HCR bill and how Republicans would have wanted something completely different.  There are HUGE differences between democrats and republicans.  The two parties believe in very, very different things.  Not since the Civil War has this been more obvious.


Alas, there are some rays of sunshine.  The National Review offers a few glimmers of hope.  Read the article, but let me summarize: get Republicans back in control of congress.  A republican congress can smooth the edges of this health care fiasco, and more importantly, stop Obama from punishing the American people with more anti-freedom legislation:
http://article.nationalreview.com/428841/obamacare-isnt-inevitable/the-editors?page=1


- Visualizing the internet:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8562801.stm


-A few years ago I wrote about how to survive if you were suddenly flung 1,000 years into the past.  Take the following cheat-sheet along with you.  It should really help you impress the locals:
http://www.topatoco.com/graphics/qw-cheatsheet-print-zoom.jpg


- How robots think.  Long, and mildly sprinkled with techno-jargon, but a worthwhile read:
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/03/how-robots-think.ars

Even Captain Solo strapped to a jetpack can calculate pi

- Happy pi day! (March 14 --- 03/14)  Hard to believe there is a number that occurs in the natural world that is infinite and never repeats itself.  That's the nature of pi.  If it did repeat itself, it wouldn't be a true circle. Here is an article explaining how pi works, and two articles about how you can easily calculate pi.  Neither article requires a degree in mathematics.  If you know how to add or multiply fractions, you can follow along.  We did the Monte Carlo method in my super-computer programming class a few weeks ago:
http://www.howstuffworks.com/pi.htm


http://www.pcworld.com/article/191389/a_brief_history_of_pi.html


http://www.chem.unl.edu/zeng/joy/mclab/mcintro.html




- Want to buy a jetpack for 86 grand?  Now you can, and you don't need a pilot's license or even a driver's license to use one in the U.S.  This sounds like the most legitimate personal flying device so far, but some obvious questions pop into my mind after reading this article...
1. How INSANELY dangerous would it be to actually use this thing!?!?
2. How fast does it go, and how far can it go?  The article only says it can fly for 30 minutes.
3. Can devices like this really become the future of personal travel?  Could we ever properly organize mass-travel using these contraptions and could we ever achieve a safety level high enough for the general public to accept this form of transportation?
http://www.gizmag.com/first-commercially-available-jetpack/14423/




- Ten best ad-libbed moments in movies.  Sorry, but the best one isn't even on the list.  In the Empire Strikes Back, Leia says to Solo, "I love you." and Solo immediately shoots back, "I know."  Harrison Ford was suppose to respond with, "I love you too", but convinced Lucas at the last moment to let him change the line.
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/432108/10_classic_adlib_and_offscript_movie_moments.html

Tony Stark and Jack Donaghy ignore speeding cameras

- Arizona was the first state to install speeding cameras.  Arizona now leads the nation in speeding camera installations and Arizona has gone state-wide with its speeding cameras.  However, those cameras may get removed after November.  A ballot initiative will allow voters to get rid of the cameras.  I say good riddance!  Anyone who claims these cameras are more for public safety than to generate government revenue is a damn fool!  Speeding cameras = taxes.  It's the exact same principle:

http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/03/04/arizona-the-surveillance-state/#

- My favorite TV show 30 Rock, got picked up for another season, despite its horrendous ratings.  Shows like 30 Rock get renewed not for their overall ratings, but for the audiences they reach, and 30 Rock's core audience is a  gold mine for high-brow products:

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/44190

- The second trailer for Iron Man has hit the net.  Here is a link.  Slightly better than the first trailer.  I still don't know what to make of this movie.  Trying to keep my expectations low:

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/paramount/ironman/

Charts and graphs time!

- A chart, with accurate scaling, of the Mariana sea trench.  Make sure you click on the chart to zoom-in:
http://i.imgur.com/m3ZxZ.jpg




- Another big chart showing the demographics of World of Warcraft:
http://www.pixlmonster.com/gaga/wow/




- Microsoft takes off the gloves against Google.  Apple did the same thing (in an indirect way) just today:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10460829-265.html#




- A list of 100 very successful people who never earned a college degree.  It's not a truly homogeneous list:
http://www.youngentrepreneur.com/blog/100-top-entrepreneurs-who-succeeded-without-a-college-degree/

The first hard drive was not fueled by Bloom energy, but it was taller than William Wallace and Paul Ryan

- The first hard-drive.  You would have trouble fitting this into your garage:
http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/02/18/amazing-facts-and-figures-about-the-evolution-of-hard-disk-drives/




- The real history of William Wallace:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/scottishhistory/independence/features_independence_wallace.shtml




- Any time I read an article about a new energy technology that will revolutionize the world, red-flags immediately go off in my mind.  Here's the real scoop about the Bloom Box energy cells:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/green-tech/fuel-cells/fuel-cell-hype-and-hope#




- Continuing my series on future Republicans to keep an eye on, watch-out for Paul Ryan, congressman from Wisconsin.  Ryan has already announced that he will not run for president in 2012, but if Obama gets re-elected, I guarantee Ryan will run in 2016.  Pros and Cons...
Pros:
- Telegenic
- Former Jack Kemp staffer
- From a purple state
- Policy wonk
- Relatively young


Cons:
- He is a congressman, so he is not well-known
- Supports un-popular positions, like radically slashing medicare and medicaid (scares the jeepers out of senior citizens.)
- A deficit hawk, which seems to clash with his Jack Kemp, supply-side history.


More about Paul Ryan:
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1964754,00.html

Miracle on Ice, eye color and 3G speeds

- Ten things about the miracle on ice.  Let me spoil one of them...I don't care what you remember, you did not watch the hockey game live.  Only Canadians watched it live.  The game was shown on American TV one hour after the actual game had ended.  However, in 1980 there was no internet, no cell-phones and no email to quickly share information, so very few Americans knew their hockey team had won before they watched the game:
http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2010/02/21/10-things-about-the-miracle-on-ice/




- What color eyes would your children have?  The following website gives you the percentages:
http://museum.thetech.org/ugenetics/eyeCalc/eyecalculator.html




- 3G cell-phone performance tests of the four biggest service providers in 13 major cities:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/189592/atandt_roars_back_in_pcworlds_second_3g_wireless_performance_test.html

The 1939 World's Fair: No Twitter, Facebook, House or Fringe?

- How people predicted the future at the 1939's World Fair.  Some interesting insights:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/upgrade/4345790.html




- A website that dissects the medicine in the TV show House, the science in the TV show Fringe, and is devoted to comic books?  How did I not know about this website earlier?  Hat tip to my good friend Randy:
http://www.politedissent.com/




- Age analysis of users for all the major social networking sites:
http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/02/16/study-ages-of-social-network-users/




- As you may have noticed from the programs on the right side of this website, I enjoy using twitter.  I particularly enjoy reading it from my Nexus One Android smartphone while standing in line or waiting for something to finish.  The Android OS market is flooded with twitter applications.  I have tried them all and some day I may write a comparison of each one.  Right now I am using a twitter app called Touiteur.  It's the best one I have stumbled upon so far.  If you have an Android OS smartphone, give it a try and let me know what you think:
http://levelupstudio.com/touiteur

Skinny Friday and dont watch the Oscars, I have the winners right here...

- Happy Fat Tuesday!  Everyone knows about Fat Tuesday, but let me introduce you to a lesser known day of celebration: Skinny Friday.  Skinny Friday is always the Friday following Fat Tuesday.  Many years ago on Skinny Friday, the venerable and absent-minded Saint Swithins (the patron saint of leaving all your eggs in one basket) led the swizzle sticks off of all international flights.  A truly momentous occasion!  I will certainly be celebrating Skinny Friday a few days from now, will you?


Besides Skinny Friday and Fat Tuesday, much of the world knows Fat Tuesday by another name: Pancake day!  Yep, I am serious.  Do me a favor today, every time someone says the word "pancake" near you, I want you to quietly say "bing."  Here's more about pancake day.  What a great week!  Mardi Gras, Pancake day and Skinny Friday!
http://lifehacker.com/5472860/celebrate-pancake-day-with-great-recipes-and-easy-hacks




- My Academy award picks.  Don't bother sitting through 3+ hours of dangerous, ill-informed, liberal egomaniacs giving speeches about how great their lives are.  I have your Oscar winners right here:


Best Picture: The Hurt Locker.  Dear lord, please don't let James Cameron win.  Cameron makes movies for pre-teen morons who will see his movies over, and over, and over again.  Titanic is unwatchable (I have tried watching it on four different occasions.  I can't make it longer than 20 minutes without doubling-over in agony) and Avatar is even worse.


Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow.  See above.


Best Actor: Jeff Bridges.  I had no idea he has been nominated five times!


Best Actress: Sandra Bullock.  Weak nominees this year.  Bullock wins it because Streep has won it too many times and the rest of the nominees don't deserve it.


Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz.  Lock of the night.  I saw this movie with my brother and a friend.  While walking out of the theater I said to my brother "that guy just won an Oscar."  One of the best supporting roles I have ever seen.  Waltz is going to be a busy actor the next few years.


Best Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique


For a whole chart of Oscar predictions, follow this link:
http://moviecitynews.com/awards/2010/gurus/gurus_100202.html




- I bought my Nexus One Android phone about a month ago.  It is already obsolete!  The market is now flooded with smartphones as good or better than my precious Nexus One.  Well, not exactly, but if you follow technology it can feel like your brand-new devices are obsolete the moment you purchase them.  The next time you buy a new piece of technology, I want you to wait one week, then go to the following website and realize that your shiny new hardware has already gone the way of the dodo bird:
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/

The Buzz about Artificial Intelligence in New Vegas

- Fallout: New Vegas will get released this fall.  The Fallout games are one of the best computer roleplaying series I have ever played.  The Fallout world is set in an apocalyptic future, but this particular future is based upon how people viewed the future in the 1950s.  It gives the game a unique, eerie, nostalgic feel, even though the game is set a few hundred years from now.  Bethesda bought the rights to the Fallout single player franchise from Interplay a few years ago, (rumor has it that Interplay is developing an online multi-player Fallout) and created Fallout 3.  Bethesda's version ditched the top-down perspective and made the game into a first person perspective.  All three games are ULTRA-VIOLENT, especially the third game, but the violence really does enhance the overall mood of the games.  Fallout 3 was a very good game, but not quite as good as the first two games.  Fallout 3 was too short and lacked the sense of humor from the original two games.  The introductory cut-scenes to these games, whether they are made by Interplay or Bethesda, are a hoot to watch.  Here is the intro-cut scence for Fallout: New Vegas:







- A bunch of experts weigh in on when we will have human-level Artificial Intelligence:
http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/ai/how-long-till-human-level-ai




- Twelve smart and memorable quotes about technology:
http://exectweets.com/2010/02/10/12-smart-memorable-and-sometimes-funny-quotes-about-technology/




- Google released their attempt to conquer the social networking craze. It's called Google Buzz, and it seems more a threat to twitter than to Facebook.  Here is article explaining Google Buzz.  I have no idea at this point if I will use Google Buzz, but it's always fun to try new technology.  So far, I have been experimenting with Buzz more on my Nexus One Android phone than on my laptop:
http://lifehacker.com/5467841/google-buzz-explained




- Five stories to follow during the 2012 Winter Olympics:
http://www.wired.com/playbook/2010/02/stories-vancouver-olympics/