AdamGlasgow.com » science & tech

You Know What’s Awesome?

Adam — Fri, 01 May 2009 19:31:13 +0000

Architecture. You know what’s even more awesome? Blowing it up. Legos wouldn’t be as fun if you didn’t get to destroy your creation afterwards, and I daresay that SimCity wouldn’t have been as popular if it didn’t include the option to have Godzilla ravage your perfect metropolis after you get bored of it.

You should definitely check out the link above, but here’s a pretty good montage of demolitions to whet your appetite. Could have used better music, and some of the editing is dumb, but there’s some great footage here.

This one just went down in Houston a few years ago. How did I not hear about this? Is there a mailing list I can sign up for to be notified of future local demolitions? I feel like I missed out.

I Couldn’t Sleep Until I Finished Making This.

Adam — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:21:45 +0000

explanation

Happy Darwin Day!

Adam — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 07:34:08 +0000

Today is Darwin’s 200th birthday (Lincoln’s too, actually). Unfortunately I won’t be attending any parties, but that’s not to say they don’t exist. No, this year I’m going to celebrate by making absolutely sure not to shave off any facial hair all day – a humble salute to a great scientist with an even greater beard.

Here Be Dragons

Adam — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 20:16:02 +0000

Some of the editing here is a little silly, but I thought this was a pretty great introduction to skepticism. Here’s hoping this show gets of the ground, I’d absolutely love to see it.

Solar System Visualizer

Adam — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:42:58 +0000

This is really cool. It would be even better if it was completely to scale (the distances are to scale, the sizes of the planets are not), although I guess there were practical reasons this wasn’t done. Also I don’t really get why Pluto is there. Didn’t these guys get the memo?

Still pretty awesome.

Lord British Goes to Space

Adam — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:51:46 +0000

The Soyuz TMA-13 capsule carrying American computer game millionaire Richard Garriott soared into a clear sky atop a Russian rocket as the latest paying space traveler’s family watched from a viewing platform. Also aboard were U.S. astronaut Michael Fincke and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov.

From CNN. Read more…

Happy Earth Overshoot Day! Yesterday!

Adam — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:08:25 +0000

What is Earth Overshoot Day?

September 23 this year marks an unfortunate milestone: the day humanity will have used all the resources nature will generate this year, according to Global Footprint Network data. Earth Overshoot Day marks the day when humanity beings living beyond its ecological means. Beyond that day, we move into the ecological equivalent of deficit spending, utilizing resources at a rate faster than what the planet can regenerate in a calendar year.

Globally, we now now require the equivalent of 1.4 planets to support our lifestyles. But of course, we only have one Earth. The result is that our supply of natural resources — like trees and fish — continues to shrink, while our waste, primarily carbon dioxide, accumulates.

Hooray!

New Laptop. 24 Hour Battery Life. Really?

Adam — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 23:01:11 +0000

HP has put together a laptop that, thanks to Intel solid-state hard drives (SSDs) and mercury-free LED monitors, can run for 24 hours without needing a recharge. Now, I seriously doubt that you’ll really be able to work on that computer for 24 hours without it needing to be recharged (Maybe if you’re doing nothing but word processing with Wi-Fi turned off and your monitor brightness all the way down. Maybe.), but even an 8 or 12 hour battery life is fantastic news for mobile computing. The first of these laptops are set to come out in October.

Now don’t get too excited yet, these things are going to be damn expensive. How expensive? Well, we don’t know quite yet, but taking into consideration that Intel is selling the SSDs to manufactures at a price of nearly $600 per drive (a traditional laptop hard drive of the same size can be publically purchased for about $60), along with this information from this BBC News article…

It is worth noting that the 24-hour figure can be reached only by purchasing the ultra-capacity battery and upgrading the base model of the 6930p to include the Illumi-Lite display and 80 gigabyte version of the SSD.

…there’s no telling how much these things are going to run. I’m scared. I’m also scared of what that battery is going to look like.

Regardless, it’s great news overall and (hopefully) it’s only a matter of time before this kind of technology will become standard. Hooray for laptops that you can actually work on for more than thirty minutes without being plugged into something!

Does Science Make God Obsolete?

Adam — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:38:57 +0000

The John Templeton Foundation published a great little pamphlet posing this question with essays from a handful of scientists, a mathematician, a philosopher and an archbishop. There are arguments going both ways, and it all makes for some pretty good reading. You can either request a physical copy of the pamphlet or you can not be a baby and just read them online. My personal favorites are probably Steven Pinker’s, Michael Shermer’s and Victor Stenger’s, but it’s all worth looking over.

You can read the essays here if you’d like.

Cognitive Surplus

Adam — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 02:34:16 +0000

Clay Shirky (author, professor) speaking at a conference about the effects of massive collaborative projects like wikipedia. A little long, but worth your time I think. I found it, like so many things, on Warren Ellis’ blog.

(embedded video not working, you’ll have to follow a link for now if you care to see it)

RIGHT HERE