Category Archives: Uncategorized

Engastration is catching on. You’ve heard of turducken, and you may have even tried it. It’s something that’s been coming up in conversation quite a bit lately, but I have yet to meet anyone who has actually cooked one. If you have successfully prepared recursive bird stuffings, and looking for a new challenge, try WholeContinue reading “Camlamben”

Engineers in South Africa have reduced condom application time by an order of magnitude, from 30-40 seconds down to only 3. The inventor declined comment on the source of his inspiration, as his wife apparently would never forgive him if he told the media. I did a bit of sleuthwork, and came up with nothing;Continue reading “Optimizing the condom”

Some of the research in biotechnology these days is starting to sound a little too much like Neil Stephenson to be taken seriously. Nature reports today that researchers at Berkeley have discovered methods for controlling gene expression with light. At current, heat and chemical methods are the only techniques used to operate gene expression. Meanwhile,Continue reading “Gene manipulation”

My current design obsession: muscle car thugs. Yes, that’s a 1975 SS 454 hemi El Camino, and real person from Worcester. And for those not in the know, the appliance of science is our weekly gig in cambridge.

Solar collectors may soon provide a cheaper alternative to costly laser surgury techniques. Costing only $1000 to build, these sun-powered prototypes transfer concentrated sunlight to the operating room via fiberoptic uplink. Of course with my luck my surgery would fall on a gloomy, overcast day. And it would be raining.

I broke down today and bought an analog weblog (also known as a “pocket notebook”). I’m just so bloody tired of losing the occasional ephemeral thought into the memetic ether. Now I have a cache.

Researchers at UCSB have recently found that cheater detection is an age-old cognitive system. Using a subject they call “R.M.” who has a cognitive disability to the part of his brain that decodes social and emotional signals, they found that this fellow performed much better in certain tests of honesty than others, showing that theContinue reading “Don’t call me a monkey, cheater”

Has anyone noticed that this site can take up to a minute to load? Or that blogdex is basically impossible to use between the hours of 10am and midnight EDT? Hmmm… coincidence? I think not. I’m tired of people telling me that my web services suck, so it’s top priority at the moment. Hopefully overstatedContinue reading “Time to restructure”

I’ve made my final return to home base after 1.5 months of New York mayhem and two weeks of vacationing. It feels extremely good to be back in familiar environs, interacting with so many people that I’ve lost contact with during my away time. But most importantly, I’m really looking forward to some level ofContinue reading “Cambridge return”