Before I go and see what that banging on the roof is, I'll just post these:
Happy invoicing!
- Starting Over - Eleven scientists from various fields answer Richard Feynman's question "If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generations of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words?"
- The Economics of Death Star Planet Destruction - "What’s the economic calculus behind the Empire’s tactic of A) building a Death Star, B) intimidating planets into submission with the threat of destruction, and C) actually carrying through with said destruction if the planet doesn’t comply?" A range of detailed answers to Lee's question on the Overthinking It blog.
- Workers Leaving the Googleplex - "In September 2007 I was hired jointly by Transvideo Studios and Google, both headquartered in Mountain View California... The workers wearing yellow badges are not allowed any of the privileges that I was allowed – ride the Google bikes, take the Google luxury limo shuttles home, eat free gourmet Google meals, attend Authors@Google talks and receive free, signed copies of the author’s books, or set foot anywhere else on campus except for the building they work in. They also are not given backpacks, mobile devices, thumb drives, or any chance for social interaction with any other Google employees." Probably not a good idea for contractor Andrew Norman Wilson to start interviewing them on video then...
- Molecules with Silly or Unusual Names - "Believe it or not, some chemists do have a sense of humour, and this page is a testament to that. Here we'll show you some real molecules that have unusual, ridiculous or downright silly names." Paul May's list now runs over several pages, from Arsole to Selene Dione.
- 100 Years of Sex: Best Poster Of The Past Century - "Over the past 100 years, thousands of posters and advertisements have been created to warn or educate the public about STDs. Looking though today’s eyes, many older ones seem scandalous and politically inappropriate. Others are preachy, naive, sexy, scary, and everything in between. " The overall consensus seems to be that it's all women's fault:
- A talk with Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen - An interview with Allen on the publication of his memoirs. "Allen accuses Gates, along with Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, of trying to cheat him out of Microsoft shares while Allen was being treated for cancer in 1982. Allen said he overheard the two conspiring to dilute his shares by issuing options to themselves and others. (Ballmer went to Allen’s house later to apologise.)"
- Like Punk Never Happened - "Brian McCloskey's Smash Hits Archive." Brian is scanning his collection of Smash Hits and putting each issue online exactly thirty years after its date of publication.
- Photopic Sky Survey - Nick Risinger's amazingly detailed panorama of the night sky: "The Photopic Sky Survey is a 5,000 megapixel photograph of the entire night sky stitched together from 37,440 exposures... On a journey that covered 45,000 miles by air and 15,000 by land—the equivalent of nearly 2½ passes around the equator—I toured much of the American west and twice visited the western Cape of South Africa."
- LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug? - "When Kevin Herbert has a particularly intractable programming problem, or finds himself pondering a big career decision, he deploys a powerful mind expanding tool -- LSD-25." Good write-up of the 2006 LSD: Problem Child and Wonder Drug, an International Symposium on the Occasion of the 100th Birthday of Albert Hofmann.
- LP Cover Lover - More retro audio fun, this time in the form of a great collection of LP and single covers:
Happy invoicing!
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