"Why Twitter Doesn't Mean the End of Iranian Censorship"

Twitter on a Commodore 64. (Via BBspot.)

1994 Tom Brokaw NBC story on that newfangled "internet".

15 Time Travel Destinations.

(Via The Speculist, who has his own suggestions.)

"Spiderman Your Way Down During Hospital Fires"

High speed videos of bullets on impact. (Via Radley Balko.)

"You Can't Stop The Signal: Bowing to growing pressure from the troops, the U.S. Army has unblocked access to Facebook, Flickr, Delicious, Vimeo and Twitter at 81 bases in the United States."

"The long debate over adding ununbium to the periodic table of elements":

The periodic table added its 112th official element Wednesday, when scientists in Darmstadt, Germany, announced they had received official approval for ununbium from an international body of chemists. But the discovery of the new element wasn't news to anyone -- it was first announced back in 1996, when the Darmstadt scientists claimed to have created two atoms of the stuff in a 400-foot particle accelerator. It's just taken 13 years of formal reviews and appeals for their colleagues around the world to believe them...

Five discoveries made while dreaming. (Via Kottke.)

The Economist on the disruptive effect of netbooks on the computer industry.

"Boy Survives 30,000 mph Meteorite Impact"

The web back in 1996-1997.

As they note, back in 1996:

* Google.com didn't exist yet.
* In January 1996 there were only 100,000 websites, compared to more than 160 million in 2008.
* The web browser of choice was Netscape Navigator, followed by Microsoft Internet Explorer as a distant second (Microsoft launched IE 3 in 1996).
* Most people used dial-up Internet connections with mighty speeds ranging from 28.8Kbps to 33.6Kbps. Highly modern 56Kbps modems would arrive in 1997.
* People had only recently started to switch from 640×480 to 800×600 screen resolutions.

More posts on the history of the internet.

The irony of Apple's iPhone App Store success:

...Over the last year, though, the iPhone has attracted something that none of its rivals can match: a devoted following of developers who are building amazing programs for the device. There are now more than 50,000 applications available in the iPhone's built-in App Store, and Apple says that the pace at which developers are adding programs is accelerating. None of Apple's competitors comes close to these numbers. Android is in second place with 5,000 apps, and the Nokia and BlackBerry stores have just over 1,000 apps each. If you buy a Pre, brace yourself for a comically small number of add-ons—today you'll find just 18 apps in Palm's online store.

...There is, of course, an irony in Apple's success. For years, Apple fans claimed that the company made the best PCs in the world, hands down. Nevertheless, it was hard to argue with the fact that Windows PCs simply ran more programs. Now Apple is in the position once occupied by Microsoft. Over the next few years, Palm, Research in Motion, Nokia, Sony, and others are sure to create some transcendent mobile devices. But the hardware hardly matters anymore. How is anyone going to compete with all these amazing apps?

Hospital food from 11 different countries. (Via BBspot.)

Top Gun for robots.

Why ants survive in a microwave oven. (Via BBspot.)

The Seven Types of Bookstore Customers. (Via Marginal Revolution.)

My netbook plug: I've now been using my Asus Eee PC 1000 netbook for couple of weeks now, and I'm extremely pleased with it as a travel machine. It's perfect for mobile blogging (as I'm doing right now from a local coffee shop) -- because it's far more manageable for this purpose than my MacBook Pro with the 15" screen.

I have it currently running Eeebuntu 3.0 Standard (a Linux distro optimized for netbooks), which takes care of most of my internet-type applications (e-mail, websurfing, etc.) And for recreation, I have a few Windows and Mac games running off of Wine and Basilisk II, respectively.

It's definitely not suitable as a primary computer, at least not for me. But as a travel machine that I can just slip into my backpack, it's perfect.

I'd especially like to thank Gus Van Horn for planting the idea in my head.

The Learjet repo man. (Via Howard Roerig.)

Australian Navy submarine cooks may make more money ($160k) than some admirals.

It's all about retaining trained sailors. If good food helps, then the brass apparently believes it's worth the money.

New Math.

"Prisoners Run Gangs, Plan Escapes and Even Order Hits With Smuggled Cellphones"

"Universal 'Rubik’s Cube' Could Become Pentagon Shapeshifter"

iPhone 3G S update. And their new MacBook offerings.

Rapid Repair disassembles the Palm Pre.

Volkswagen's high-tech "transparent factory". (Via Howard Roerig.)

Moblin is making some waves as the hot new netbook Linux distro.

Others are talking about Android on netbooks.

I'm currently running the just-released Eeebuntu 3.0 (Standard) Linux distro on my Asus 1000 Eee PC 1000 (upgraded with a Runcore 64GB SSD), and it works like a dream.

DNA origami.

"Corrupted files" paper cheating scam.

Paul Haney, the voice of "Mission Control", has passed away at age 80.

"Kaguya's jaw-dropping Moon video". (Via Vik Rubenfeld.)

"17 Great Historical Moments Ruined by Modern Technology". (Via Transterrestrial Musings.)

Ultimate lock picker.

School lunches from around the world. (Via BBspot.)

Student attendance tracking with iPhones:

...[A]t Aoyama Gakuin University, in Tokyo,...students will be required to enter their ID number into an iPhone application at the beginning of class. The phone will pinpoint the students' location when they do, to ensure they are actually on campus.

(Via Instapundit.)

"Drowning Man Saved by Vacuum Cleaner Hose"

Cloaking made simpler.

"10 interesting open source software forks and why they happened"

Superconducting chips?

"Homeland Security's Medical Tricorder for Triage, Not Diagnosis"

Cool billboard. (Via Radley Balko.)

Faking amnesia may permanently distort your real memory. (Via Neuroworld.)

Cute little warbots. (Via Cosmic Log.)

"Software installation in Linux is difficult". Heh. (Via BBspot.)

"How to Use Pulsars for Interstellar Navigation"

"Simulating deja vu in the lab". (Via Marginal Revolution.)

"How Close Is A Terminator-Like World?" (Via SciTechDaily.)

"Could we move Mars or Venus into Earth's orbit and live there?"

"10 Strange Species Discovered Last Year"

"NASA List of books, movies, television shows, and music maintained on the International Space Station (ISS) for recreational/off-duty consumption".

Ariel Rabkin is glad that the US controls the internet.

The science news cycle. (Via IPList.)

Admin note: GeekPress will be on hiatus for the rest of the week due to external obligations.

"Why the Elevator Floor Is So Interesting"

"How IBM Plans to Win Jeopardy!"

Paleolithic pornography.

"Can You Die From Lack of Sleep?" (Via BBspot.)

How the internet preserves military morale.

"Businessman hunts down thief in his helicopter"

Klingon anti-virus.

"Joke review boosts T-shirt sales"

Admin note: GeekPress will be taking a brief Memorial Day holiday hiatus. We'll be back Tuesday, May 26!

"25 logos with hidden messages". (Via Neuroworld.)

Google's algorithm to "identify which of its 20,000 employees are most likely to quit." (Via Drudge).

Medical alerts with tattoos.

Desktop computing taken literally. (Via Instapundit.)

Is the GPS satellite system "close to breakdown"? (Via IPList.)

"High-Speed Cameras Reveal the World Inside Time"

"Japanese 'Origami Airplane' Enthusiast Breaks World Record for Longest Paper Plane Flight"

Ira Matetsky on how Wikipedia is run.

Winners of 2009 Best Visual illusion of the Year Contest. (Via BBspot.)

"Microbot controls swarm of bacteria":

...The solar panel-equipped device sizes up to about 300 x 300 microns, and using a sensor to detect nearby pH levels, it's been shown as capable of controlling a swarm of 3,000 bacteria using electromagnetic pulses.

"The math behind estimating seasonal flu deaths."

"The Spatial Distribution of the Seven Deadly Sins within Nevada and Nationwide." (Via Cool Infographics.)

"Can air injected into the bloodstream really kill you?"

"Illusion Cloak Makes One Object Look like Another"

How dangerous are Tasers?

Long exposure photograph shows Roomba coverage algorithm. (Via Boing Boing.)

Artificial sound for electric cars.

Stretchable displays.

"Can you really kill a man by gluing his anus shut?"

More on Wolfram's Alpha.

US Navy submarines are guarding the internet.

Parody iPhone ad.

Will Wolfram's Alpha save Google from anti-trust regulators?

Air Force version of Windows.

Update: Bruce Schneier points to this response from Microsoft claiming that there are factual errors in the story.

Admin note: Posting may be light the rest of this week and next week due to external obligations.

"How an Intern Stole NASA's Moon Rocks"

"Mission Impossible: The Code Even the CIA Can't Crack" (Via Howard Roerig.)

I want this swine flu mask.

Things our grandkids will never understand. (Via Tom Stone.)

Off topic: PajamasMedia.com has just published my latest OpEd on health care policy, "Health Care Reform vs. Universal Health Care".

"A Brief History of Geeks"

Spotting flu fevers with thermal imaging.

"How Google's book-scanner cleverly corrects for the curvature of an open book"

"The iPhone Prosperity"

Eating chocolate improves your mathematical ability.

Comedian Louis CK puts technological change in perspective.

"It's time to move beyond those squiggly letter tests"

People cannot distinguish dog food from pâté:

...In a double-blind test, subjects were presented with five unlabeled blended meat products, one of which was the prepared dog food. After ranking the samples on the basis of taste, subjects were challenged to identify which of the five was dog food. Although 72% of subjects ranked the dog food as the worst of the five samples in terms of taste (Newell and MacFarlane multiple comparison, P<0.05), subjects were not better than random at correctly identifying the dog food.

Here the link to the original paper.

(Via Neuroworld.)