A history of the GUI.

Bendable concrete.

Lock picking sports.

"Why Google Scares Bill Gates"

What it's like to wake up after 10 years in a coma.

Why coffee works. (Via Linkfilter.)

"Wikipedia is a real-life Hitchhiker's Guide: huge, nerdy, and imprecise." (Via Cosmic Log.)

Invention of the day: The vacuum elevator. It really sucks...

Mathematical puzzle of the day: "Coins In A Row"

Suppose you have 50 coins -- a mixture of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters -- arranged in a line on a tabletop. You choose a coin from one of the ends and put it in your pocket. Your opponent then chooses a coin from one of the ends of the line of remaining coins. You and your opponent take turns removing a coin in this manner until your opponent takes the last one. The player with the larger amount of money wins.

Peter Winkler of Dartmouth College describes it as "the simplest game in the world." There are just two players. There's no chance involved. There's no hidden information; everyone sees what's going on. There are at most two options per move.

In this coin game, it's possible to prove that, starting with an even number of coins of any denomination, the first player can always guarantee getting at least as much as the other player.

If you want to check your solution, click here.

Game theoretic analysis on how to avoid being tortured. Tyler Cowen asks:

Let us say that you have been captured and threatened with torture. You are, for whatever reason, entirely willing to betray the information you hold. Your primary goal is to avoid pain, and perhaps you positively want to squeal. How should you present what you know? I see a few options:

1. Break down immediately, beg for mercy, humiliate yourself, and spill the beans. (If you talk right away, will they torture you anyway? And since no further good information can be offered why should they stop?)

2. Go in acting tough, really tough. At the first sign of serious pain, start crying and switch to strategy #1.

3. Wait until they apply their "best shot" torture, and then talk. They will feel they have done their job and stop.

4. First offer (or make up) compromising information to show your disloyalty to the cause your torturers are fighting. Your confession will then be more credible.

5. Say you don't know anything, try to fight the torture, but break down when you can't stand it any more. You can't fool them, so the best you can do is to actually "go through the wringer." You are stuck in the pooling equilibrium, and trying to deviate only makes you worse off.

And here's one interrogator's response.

"How lightsabers work"

Does acupuncture work?

Admin note: Posting will be light or non-existent for the rest of the week.

Chinese watermelon art. (Via GMSV.)

The Most Expensive Zip Codes of 2005. (Via BBspot.)

The difference between male and female brains. (Via Cosmic Log.)

Space tourism update.

Tabletop nuclear fusion device. Here's a related article.

"Open Source Radio: The world's first all-podcast radio station will be launched on May 16..."

"NASA will pay Rice University $11 million over the next four years to develop an experimental power cable made from carbon nanotubes."

The spy in the next cubicle.

Al Qaeda uses Windows: During a recent raid, the laptop computer of top-ranking Iraqi Al Qaeda terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was seized. The computer is expected to yield a "treasure trove" of information. According to the article,

On the hard drive was everything from information about Zarqawi's medical condition to pictures of himself, kept in a file labeled "My Pictures."

(Via GMSV.)

Serenity movie trailer. This is going to be awesome!...

How to make fire with a can of Coke and a chocolate bar.

Quiz of the day: Fake or Foto?

"Scientists say they can read a person's unconscious thoughts using a simple brain scan."

Music recommendation system for iTunes. (Via Technology Log.)

A new phase of ice?

Game of the day: Guess-the-Google. (Via GMSV.)

How readable is your blog? (Via Volokh and Bainbridge.)

Nothing goes into the space shuttle before George Aldrich smells it.

Beware DNS cache poisoning.

All The Simpsons music, free in MP3 format. (Via Linkfilter.)

TSA officials at Denver International Airport required two penguins to walk through airport security. Of course there are pictures. (Via Bruce Schneier.)

"The Offbeat Science of Collecting Animal Semen"

Spiral laser beam.

The Pope's e-mail address. I wonder how many viagra spams he's received already?... (Via Linkfilter.)

How To Survive a Zombie Attack

Invention of the day: "Mailboxes that fight back". (Via Boing Boing.)

Post-It Notes are 25 years old.

Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) will establish an online auction for people to buy and sell virtual-world goods with real-world money. As the article notes:

The move is surprising because SOE has been one of the fiercest and most vocal opponents of MMO [massive multiplayer online game] players who spend real money on virtual assets.

Like SOE, most MMO publishers ban the practice, making the traffic of virtual goods almost entirely illicit. Players are often cheated by shady traders who don't deliver as promised or who rescind payment after getting an item. As a result, SOE claims its customer service staff is constantly bogged down with angry players who have been defrauded.

But virtual goods may be worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and there's a lot of money to be made brokering the deals.

Computer rage survey. And some choice responses.

Top 11 Rejected Names for Pope Benedict XVI

What your iPod playlist says about you.

"Can the human eyeball be knocked out of the head?"

"Computer generates verifiable mathematics proof" of the Four Color Theorem. This should put the controversy over the 1976 computer-aided proof to rest.

"An iceberg that collided with Antarctica has broken a piece of the continent off, forcing maps of the bottom of the world to be redrawn..."

"It's not easy living on Dork Street"

iPod parties. The democratic way to find out if your playlists are cool or lame. (Via Linkfilter.)

Make your pick for Popapalooza 2005! I just hope it's not Duke... (Via GMSV.)

"U.S. Military's Elite Hacker Crew"

Cellphonies: More people are making fake phone calls from their cell phones, either to impress others or to get out of embarrassing situations. And of course, there are standard techniques and etiquette. (Via Techdirt.)

Can mobile phones succeed as iPod killers?

"A computer interface inspired by the futuristic system portrayed in the movie Minority Report, could soon help real military personnel deal with information overload."

Google satellite map of Area 51.

"A computer creates a test that it can't pass but most people can": The science and history behind the CAPTCHA Project.

The Secret of Popcorn's Popability

"U.S. scientists are on the verge of creating a laser weapon that could give American forces an awesome advantage on the battlefield, but would also raise tough questions for Pentagon war planners..." (Via Linkfilter.)

Google satellite maps show the darndest things.

Hacking the Papal Election. And information on the Vatican counter-surveillance techniques.

Everyone I know at work engages in a little desk skiving. In fact, I don't see how one could not...

"The Coming Chip Revolution": Nice overview of nanotubule-based chip technology.

Personal Luxury Submarine for sale.

The Phoenix 1000 is a 65-meter (213') personal luxury submarine. The initial design was originally executed for a client and now awaits a buyer. As proposed, the submarine would constitute the single largest private undersea vehicle ever built, and arguably, one of the most significant personal transportation devices of the century.

Only $78 million. (Via Linkfilter.)

Unintentionally Sexual Comic Book Covers. (Via Gravity Lens.)

The Roomba and the cats.

Ten Emerging Technologies. (Via Cosmic Log.)

"Some spouses are paying real money to in-game detectives, to snoop on the character or avatar used by their real world partner."

"iPod One": What songs are on President Bush's iPod?

What you say in your weblog can be used against you in a court of law.

The Sleeping Cat Pose Olympics. My favorite is probably "The Upright Radiator Hugathon" from this page. (Via Linkfilter.)

MIT graduate student writes "fake research paper generator". Student submits sample fake paper to Computer Science conference. Paper gets accepted. Now you too can try it for yourself.

GeekPress beats Noodlefood on intelligence.

Invention of the day: Robotic camel jockeys. No, really... And of course there's a picture.

"Star Trek Bit Players Cling On". (Via Fark.)

Invention of the day: Fully automated robotic parking garage.

The way it works is, a driver pulls in and drives onto a parking tray. The machinery does the rest.

"You get out of your car," said [developer Danny] Bivens. "It'll scan your car to make sure there's no dog in there or baby or husband."

The tray rises into the structure like an elevator and shifts the tray into an empty spot, returning with another tray.

"It slides them like an electronic Rubik's cube," said Bivens.

When the resident is ready for the car, a handheld device can be scanned in the elevator on the way down. The car will be waiting.

(Via Linkfilter.)

"Is it possible to be dyslexic in Chinese?"

"Best Buy Has Customer Arrested For Using $2 Bills." More information here. (Via Techdirt.)

Web browser forensics.

"A tiny robot swarm - fiction no longer"

The "Stealth Geek FAQ" has been updated. (Via Janna Fair.)

"The Alphabet According to Worf". (Via BBspot.)

"Underencrypted and Overexposed": Lessons from a sex-tech tragedy.

"How to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything Else)". Via Politech.

"How William Shatner Went From Has-Been to Icon in Seven Self-Aware Steps". (Via Gravity Lens.)

Early risers are mutants. I've always suspected as much... (Via BBspot.)

Sony has been granted a patent for a device that beams sensory information directly into the brain.

Stealth Geeks. (Via BBspot.)

Words and phrases that sound gross but aren't. (Via GMSV.)

The ultimate search engine: YaGoohoo!gle.

"Coworkers Judged by iTunes Playlists"

Search engines might know a lot more about you than you realize.

Brain scans can show if people trust you.

Test your browser's security. (Via Jeff Patterson of Gravity Lens.)

Moon dust is surprisingly dangerous.

Gel interfaces.

Miscellaneous life hacks.

Online raters for online daters.

"Can Justice Scalia Solve the Riddles Of the Internet?" (Via ALDaily.)

Mathematical proof, beauty, and computers.

Why read Instapundit when there's It'sAPundit? Heh. (Via Rand Simberg.)