AC Power Frequency in Japan
Reading all of the awful news about the tragedy in Japan, I learned an engineering fact which surprised me. As you may know, the AC power systems in different countries operate at different frequencies,...
What's New Blog
Weather Spark
We’ve found a new tool we’re in love with. It’s called WeatherSpark. It’s the ultimate website for weather data. It has great interactive charts which will show you just about anything. Here’s a view...
Democritean Universes in Minecraft
I’m currently reading Daniel Dennett’s book Freedom Evolves. It’s about how free will is possible in deterministic universes. To discuss his ideas, he needs some play universes in which to stage thought experiments. One...
On the Other Hand, Mary Poppins has much Better Songs
One of the most interesting features of art is the way it can show you connections between things which seem unrelated. Ken Perlin recently went to see Sleep No More (which we really enjoyed...
Last Remnants
It rained a lot the last couple of days. The weatherman said: This rain will melt the last remnants of the snow. Last remnants… Doesn’t that sound nice? The snowdrops are coming up.
Minecraft Terrain Generation
Peter has been completely hooked on Minecraft for months now. He has lots of great stories to tell about managing a server, writing mods and all sorts of other things, but I haven’t been...
New Morgan Trike
I can’t say that many new cars really excite me these days. They’ve all become awfully similar to each other. Lots of silver jelly beans. But at the Geneva auto show, Morgan announced something...
3D Goldrush
All Things Considered had a very gushing story tonight about companies like Legend3D. These are companies which take movies and 3dify them. Basically this means that a person Photoshops each frame adds a bit...
Woodie Flowers
This month’s Technology Review has a nice profile of one of my favorites professors from when I was in college. Be sure to check out all of the pictures too. Woodie pretty much created...
Nickerbeans
Down by the dock here there are a bunch of these spikey pods hanging from the trees just on the landward side of the mangroves. We were curious what they are, so we did...
