How genetics works.

Kottke observes, "As information visualizations go, you can't get much better than this."

Poorly named tech products. (Via GMSV.)

Tweet of the day:

"Asian-Americans Working Hard to Shatter Workaholic Stereotype" http://bit.ly/dd0WU1

(Via @soft.)

"Breakthrough in Electron Spin Control Brings Quantum Computers Closer to Reality"

Video of the day: The first sushi prepared in space. (Via Instapundit.)

"Should we be worried that our cars are controlled by software?"

"How to Spot Suspicious VoIP signals"

"16 Things Your Lawyer Won't Tell You". (Via @bakadesuyo.)

Update: @Qwertz0 stated on Twitter that "A lot of those entries are extremely misleading. #1 2 8 9 10 11 13 & 15"

"Dude, where's my bookshelf?"

Off topic: PajamasMedia has just published my latest health care OpEd, "Republicans: Beware the Trap of 'Limited' Reforms".

"Let's draw Feynman diagrams!"

"Amazing facts and figures about the evolution of hard disk drives"

"Limp wrists and tight fists: What your handshake says about you"

"How Google's Algorithm Rules the Web". (Via Howard Roerig.)

Creepy details about the school-district-spying-at-you-at-home-via-webcam scandal.

"LEGO Robot Solves Any Rubik's Cube In Less Than 12 Seconds". Includes video. (Via David Jilk.)

"The Surreal World of Chatroulette"

"Do deaf signers ever get words stuck on the 'tip of their fingers'?"

Short answer, "yes".

Off topic: PajamasMedia has just published my latest OpEd, "Government Grab of Retirement Accounts".

Naps can make you smarter.

Love in the digital age.

Andy Simmons on: "The iPad: What It Means For You, What it Means For Apple"

Some of his subpoints include:

The Name, and Why It Doesn't Matter
It's Not A Computer, and Why It's Not Supposed To Be
It Doesn’t Support Flash, Why It Doesn't Make Sense To, and Why You Shouldn't Care
What I Still Don't Get About the iPad

"ShadyURL: the URL Shortener that Makes Your Links Sketchy, Way Less Clickable". (Via @shlevy.)

Talent video of the day: "Una ragazza di Brasille fa il balletto di Thriller con le sue dita" which translates roughly to "A Brazilian girl does the Thriller dance with her fingers".

(Via "The Best Two Minutes You'll Ever Waste".)

"The first commercial 3D bio-printer for manufacturing human tissue and organs."

Glenn Reynolds notes that it's a New World:

So yesterday afternoon I wondered if my new camera had come from Amazon. Did I go out and check the garage? No, I clicked on Amazon, where it said "Delivered -- Garage." Then I went out to the garage... Yes, it's the 21st Century.

History video of the day: "A Brief History of Pretty Much Everything" (Via SamC.)

"That's, um, your sister? How ice-dancing siblings get around the ick factor".

As the article quotes one ice dancer: "Hey, you gotta act." (Via @WSJ.)

Opening locks with foil impressioning. Includes video. (Via Schneier.)

"School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home"

Invention of the day: A spokeless bicycle. (Via Neatorama.)

Robot genetics. (Via Neuroworld.)

"All the Smartphone OSes: A Beginners' Guide"

Steganography via VoIP

The Mariana Trench is really friggin' deep. (Via @bbspot.)

Ultracold chemistry.

"Insanely deep fractal zoom". Here's the YouTube version.

This kid should have gotten a high-five, not detention. (Via @Vix27.)

Airborne laser weapon update.

"Steve Jobs' 6 Sneakiest Statements"

How much legal force does the standard NFL copyright warning have?

"This telecast is copyrighted by the NFL for the private use of our audience. Any other use of this telecast or any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL's consent is prohibited."

"Physicists said Monday that they had whacked a tiny region of space with enough energy to briefly distort the laws of physics..."

Statistics on sex at MIT.

The chart of living group vs. anal sex frequencies was especially interesting.

I was there back in the 1980s whereas this survey data is from 2009. But the trends seem plausible... (Via bakadesuyo.)

John Scalzi: "Everything I Need to Know About Winter I Learned From SciFi Movies". (Via Instapundit.)

Could the TSA detect these disguised weapons? (Via @bbspot.)

Chicken sociology. (Via ALDaily.)

Wireless optical networks.

The Economist on "The uses and abuses of mathematical models".

My sense is that many people want to blame the models for problems caused by human misunderstanding (or misapplication) of mathematical models.

"Does the Myers-Briggs personality assessment really tell you anything?"

The death of the climate "hockey stick"? And a related story. (Via Transterrestrial Musings.)

There was snow on the ground in 49 of 50 US states yesterday (Fri Feb 12). Hawaii was the only state without snow.

Black hole simulator. (Via Radley Balko.)

"Should We Clone Neanderthals?" (Via Rand Simberg.)

"Could the iPad Save the Desktop Computer?

"Terrorists Prohibited from Using iTunes". More here.

The Drake Equation for the Multiverse

Argonne National Laboratory have developed a way to kill cancer cells by shaking them to death. Per their announcement:

"They use magnetic nanodiscs attached to cancer-seeking antibodies that attach to the cancer cells. A small magnetic field causes the discs to oscillate and damage the cancer cell, but not surrounding healthy cells."

Here's the video.

Great geeky "Enter" key doormat. (Via @BBspot.)

How gladiators died. (Via Diana.)

Why everyone is biased against you.

Video of the day: "Physical limits in technical 3- and 4 ball patterns juggling". (Via BBspot.)

15 Noteworthy Internet Firsts.

"Google Challenges You To a Game of Tron".

"Could you be frozen solid, then broken into a million pieces?"

Infographic of the day: "The State of the Internet". (Via GMSV.)

Teleporting energy.

Headline of the day: "One-armed man hunted for stealing single cufflink". (Via Instapundit.)

Self-stirring liquids.

"The 20 richest Americans in tech".

Newspaper correction of the day:

A story on Page 1 of Tuesday's Telegraph quoted a White House official explaining that a Q-and-A session with dozens of teenagers in Nashua High School North on Monday was "off the record." However, the explanation about the talk being "off the record" was, it turns out, also "off the record" and should not have been quoted.

(Via Radley Balko.)

"Google leaps language barrier with translator phone". (Via HotAir.)

Comic of the day: "Axecop" is a comic where the stories are invented by a 5-year old, then drawn by his 29-year old brother.

And don't miss "Ask Axecop", where the creator answers readers' questions!

"How much are your internal organs worth on the black market?"

More details here.

Off topic: The February 4, 2010 Boulder Daily Camera has published my latest OpEd, "Polis and Health Care Reform".

"The Best Connected Individuals Are Not the Most Influential Spreaders in Social Networks".

Bruce Schneier: "Anonymity and the Internet"

Rand Simberg explains why we shouldn't feel sorry for the Mars Spirit Rover.

Internet tip of the day: Don't surf porn at work when there's a live television news crew filming you a few feet away. (Via @porsupah.)

"Kindle, iPad, MacMillan, and the Death of a Business Model"

North Korean propaganda posters. (Via @radleybalko.)

"New Hearing Aid Uses Your Tooth To Transmit Sound". (Via Howard Roerig.)

"Spray-on liquid glass is about to revolutionize almost everything"

"SousVide Supreme Review: How To Cook From the Inside Out".

(I gave Diana one of these for her birthday, and she's been cooking some absolutely mouthwatering meals with it!)

"How to Fall 35,000 Feet -- And Survive". (Via Neatorama.)

"The Scale of the Universe: From yocto to yotta".

Click on the image to load the animation, then drag the blue slider at the bottom. (Via Erik A.)

"The Long Fail: A Brief History of Unsuccessful Tablet Computers"

Tablet comparison: "iPad vs. HP Slate vs. JooJoo vs. Android Tablets & More"