Become a Programmer, Motherfucker. If you don't know how to code, then you can learn even if you think you can't. Thousands of people have learned programming from these fine books: Learn Python The Hard Way Learn Ruby The Hard Way Learn Code The Hard Way I'm also working on a whole series of programming education books at learncodethehardway.org. These are works in progress, and feedback is welcome. Learn C The Hard Way Learn SQL The Hard Way Graphics Programming Language Agnostic NerdDinner Walkthrough Assembly Language Bash Clojure Clojure Programming ColdFusion CFML In 100 Minutes Delphi / Pascal Django Djangobook.com Erlang Learn You Some Erlang For Great Good Flex Getting started with Adobe Flex (PDF) Forth Git Grails Getting Start with Grails Haskell Java JavaScript JavaScript (Node.js specific) Latex The Not So Short Introduction to LATEX (perfect for beginners) Linux Advanced Linux Programming Lisp Lua Maven Mercurial Nemerle Nemerle NoSQL Oberon Programming in Oberon (PDF) Objective-C The Objective-C Programming Language OCaml Oracle Server Oracle PL/SQL Vim.
Federal Way, Washington (98023) Conditions & Forecast. Boffins glue self-righting ROBO-VELOCIRAPTOR tail to car. High performance access to file storage Biologists at the University of California in Berkeley have stuck an intelligent robotic tail on a toy car in an attempt to make clumsy droids of the future more stable. Slow-motion videos of jumping lizards had the team of engineers and biologists scrambling to their drawing boards to come up with the manmade rump-connected balancing technology. Now Prof Robert J. Full, an expert in integrative biology, and his brainy bunch believe they have cracked how velociraptors must have run, jumped and used their tails. The researchers coaxed lab lizards to vault off a low platform while filming them in flight, and also encouraged the lizards to leap off slippery platforms, recording how the creatures relied on their tails to stabilise themselves.
Mechanical engineers working in collaboration with the biology boffins stuck a mechanical tail onto a toy car along with a small gyroscope. Fly my pretties, fly. Murphy's Law Calculator. Murphy's Law Calculator From a formula for * Sod's Law provided by British Gas: ((U+C+I) x (10-S))/20 x A x 1/(1-sin(F/10)) "anything that can go wrong, will go wrong! " Find out in advance whether you will be able to successfully repair your VCR, get to a meeting on time, impress your date, or be a success at any activity whatsoever ! Score: 7.999 Risk Factor: 64815.0 You have a 79% chance of screwing this up at least once ! Call in a professional ! You can minimize your risk by reducing the urgency (planning ahead) You can minimize your risk by having a backup plan (redundant circuitry, alternate route etc.)
British Gas commissioned Dr David Lewis, a chartered psychologist; Dr Keylan Leyser, an economist and business consultant; and Philip Obadya, a mathematician, to devise the formula. Murphy's Law Links: Note: Murphy's Law has long been known in the UK as "Sod's Law". The hard way: Our odd desire to do it ourselves - 06 January 2012. Read full article Continue reading page |1|2 From self-assembly furniture to cake mix, we value the things we make ourselves – however badly we do it WHEN instant cake mixes hit US shelves in the late 1940s, sales were disappointing.
Pioneering consumer psychologist Ernest Dichter went into the nation's kitchens to investigate. The story is an example of an odd phenomenon in modern consumer societies. The idea seems embedded in animal psyches. Things started to go awry for humans during the industrial revolution. He has dubbed this phenomenon the IKEA effect, in honour of an obscure start-up that harnessed it and went on to great things.
In a series of experiments they asked people to assemble IKEA boxes - a boring, banal task - or to engage in the more pleasurable activities of folding origami or building Lego sets. But is it really the act of creating something that increases our sense of its worth? New Scientist Not just a website! More From New Scientist Promoted Stories Recommended by. It’s In the Bag! Teenager Wins Science Fair, Solves Massive Environmental Problem | Discoblog. Technology. Can Anonymous Cripple Critical U.S. Infrastructure? - Security - Vulnerabilities and threats.
Homeland Security says Anonymous can cause DDoS attacks, but says chance of attack on scale of Stuxnet is slim. 10 Companies Driving Mobile Security (click image for larger view and for slideshow) Does the hacktivist collective known as Anonymous pose a threat to the nation's critical infrastructure security? According to a recent government report, the group may well be able to launch a distributed denial of service attack against critical infrastructure.
But the likelihood of Anonymous developing bespoke critical infrastructure attacks--on par with Stuxnet--is slim. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) study, "Assessment of Anonymous Threat to Control Systems," evaluated the group's potential to disrupt the critical infrastructure. A copy of the four-page report, marked as unclassified but "for official use only" and dated September 16, 2011, was published on Monday by the Public Intelligence website. [ The Feds are moving aggressively to bust hackers. More Insights. Why We Laugh. Embed This Quick Fact: <a href=" title="Why We Laugh"><img src=" alt="" title="Why We Laugh" border="0" /></a><br />Source: <a href=" title="Random Quick Facts">Random Quick Facts</a> Click Here for Sources and to Learn Why It’s Nearly Impossible to Tickle Yourself Contrary to popular belief, most laughter is not associated with humor, but rather stems from non-humor related social interactions.
This was discovered from a study covering over 2,000 cases of naturally occurring laughter, almost none of which stemmed from jokes or other such humor devices. Most cases were simple, short “ha ha’s” during somewhat normal conversations. Sapiosexual. Facts about Sleeping | YOUTH FRENZY. Sleeping is the best leisure activity of many of us.It is famous for sleep that it can even grab one on throns. If you want to know the importance of sleep, then ask that to a medical student. He will tell you that its most precious present from God. Sleep is the best known medicine on planet. The feeling one gets in a warm blanket with sleep in the head is matchless indeed. Scirus - for scientific information.
Aerogel. A block of aerogel in a person's hand Aerogel was first created by Samuel Stephens Kistler in 1931, as a result of a bet with Charles Learned over who could replace the liquid in "jellies" with gas without causing shrinkage.[3][4] IUPAC definition Gel comprised of a microporous solid in which the dispersed phase is a gas. Note 1: Microporous silica, microporous glass, and zeolites are common examples of aerogels. Note 2: Corrected from ref. [4], where the definition is a repetition of the incorrect definition of a gel followed by an inexplicit reference to the porosity of the structure. [6] Properties[edit] A flower is on a piece of aerogel which is suspended over a flame from a Bunsen burner.
Aerogels are good thermal insulators because they almost nullify two of the three methods of heat transfer (convection, conduction, and radiation). Owing to its hygroscopic nature, aerogel feels dry and acts as a strong desiccant. Knudsen effect[edit] Materials[edit] Silica[edit] Carbon[edit] Alumina[edit] Reuben Margolin’s Kinetic Wave Sculptures. Our Mechanics theme brought to mind San Francisco Bay Area kinetic sculptor Reuben Margolin, one of my all-time favorite artists. He makes mind-blowing, moving art based on tiny observations in nature. His collection of waves has the ability to quiet, soothe, and inspire awe in the viewer. Margolin combines math and simple materials (and insanely neat string and pulley systems) to recreate and amplify subtle effects that often go unnoticed in nature, like a tiny ripple or the movement of a caterpillar.
One of my favorite Make: television segments is this fascinating 10-minute profile of Margolin: Goli Mohammadi I’m senior editor at MAKE and have worked on MAKE magazine since the first issue. The maker movement provides me with endless inspiration, and I love shining light on the incredible makers in our community. Contact me at goli (at) makermedia (dot) com. Related. Geekologie - Gadgets, Gizmos, and Awesome. Michio Kaku | Professor of Theoretical Physics, CUNY.
Heads Up, Hoverboarders: Here Comes Quantum Levitation. Few motifs of science fiction cinema have been more appealing to us than the subtle defiance of gravity offered by futuristic hovercraft. So every once in a while we check in to see how humanity is progressing on that front, and whether the promise of hoverboards will be delivered by 2015 as evidenced in Back to the Future Part 2. We’re not quite there yet, but we’re definitely getting off the ground, so to speak. Get ready to hover your brain around the art of quantum levitation. That’s right, quantum. Normally that word indicates that it’s difficult to explain what’s going on. Because of its chemical properties, a superconductor (when brought to low enough temperatures using, say, liquid nitrogen) exhibits this effect, causing the energy from the magnet below to warp around the superconductive object in a way which “locks” it in space.
NASA has been interested in quantum levitation for quite a while, as it turns out. Connections: Cool Environmental News, Green Design and Eco-Living Tips From Around The Globe! Green Lifestyle, Eco Living Tips, Environmental Products, Sustainable Clothing and Eco-Fashion. VERY INTERESTING UNKNOWN FACTS. Pocket Boom Portable Vibration Speaker – Black | Review. Thanks to MobileFun for sending this out to me for review. Pros: - Small and compact - Uses a small vibration pad - Can turn literally anything into a speaker Cons: - 3.5mm jack could be longer - Requires AAA batteries - Sticky pad can lose stickiness over time There is no doubt that there are many portable speakers out there. There is a ridiculously huge amount of choice and it’s a very competitive market, in which it’s up to companies to come up with new ways to produce better sound from a small speaker.
Pocket Boom is a speaker taking an entirely different approach to how sound is produced. That pad can be stuck to things like a plastic box or a desk to produce sound. It’s great when stuck to a desk and actually produces quite good bass. In the box you get two extra sticky pads because over time the pads can lose their stickiness. One big problem I have with this is that it requires batteries.
You can use the speaker via USB however. One other gripe is the 3.5mm headphone jack. Overall. Data Center Knowledge » News and analysis about data centers, cloud computing, managed hosting and disaster recovery. Scientists create most powerful non-nuclear battery ever. The chemical xenon difluoride is normally a mild-mannered white powder, but when you crush it with the pressure of 1 million times our atmosphere, it turns into a super substance.
Due to some weird science, all the energy used to crush that stuff is stored inside its chemical bonds, making it a terrific energy storage device. In layman's terms, that would be a battery. Of course, it's not going to be easy to apply 1,000,000 atmospheres worth of pressure to this caustic and stinky powder that's normally used to etch circuits on silicon. To withstand that kind of pressure, you need a tiny 2-by-3-inch compartment lined with a couple of diamond anvils. The result? A little metallic-looking brick that amounts to the most powerful non-nuclear energy storage device ever created.
Either way, the scientists at Washington State's chemistry labs behind this discovery have a long way to go before this tech has a commercial application. Via iO9. 23 incredible new technologies you’ll see by 2021. Quantum Levitation Will Blow Your Mind. Let me preface this by dispelling any thought that you might have that I know anything about the quantum physics that makes all of this possible: I don’t know anything about the Quantum physics that makes this possible. But I do know something amazing when I see it. And this, my friends, kicks ass. This demonstration video, courtesy of the Tel-Aviv University and the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), has been making the viral rounds today.
In saying that, I mean that I’ve seen dozens of social media shares of the video and it has been sitting on the front page of Reddit all day. Once you see it, you’ll see why. The demonstration is in something called Quantum Levitation, a phenomenon that results from the fact that superconductors and magnets tend to not like each other. They start with a crystal “wafer” and coat it with a thin layer of a ceramic material called yttrium barium copper oxide. Superconductivity and magnetic field do not like each other. Yeah science! Slinky drop physics.