No Comments »nature is so fascinatingly complex - spider silk as strong as steel, limb regeneration in starfish, worms that live on our garbage and turn it into soil conditioner, slug mucous that can absorb 1500 times it’s weight in water! (biomimicry.org). by studying nature’s models and applying these models to some of our common problems we can probably come up with some nifty solutions which are both sustainable and non-toxic. like at my friend colin’s house on Hornby Island which has a (funny smelling) but water-free composting toilet.
oh, and yesterday Chemists Crack Secrets of Mussels’ Super Glue.
a mussel sticking to teflon
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Loading ...“is it easy? can i still email? does it have (spider) solitaire?”
the first questions my mom asked about switching to a Mac.
after some research on the hyperweb i came up with four demo apps –
Solitaire Plus! for Mac OS X
Eric’s Ultimate Solitaire
Spider Solitaire clone
Solitaire to Dawn X
my mom thought the app which most closely resembled the PC version of spider and is the easiest to use is Solitaire Plus! for MacOS X.
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...I used a Mac iBook for two weeks in July. I didn’t like it. I listed, among my reasons for switching back to Linux — no virtual desktops; very basic mail client; no possible modifications to look & feel (fonts, menus, etc); can’t put the Doc on the top of the screen; no useful ‘Split View’ like in Konqueror; no suitable, simple web programming tool equivalent to Quanta IDE (setup projects, connect directly to a server, configure the interface); and no highlight (copy)->middle-mouse-button-paste;
As a programming tool, it didn’t fit the bill. I definitely gave up too early and should have spent longer getting Konqueror and KMail running on OSX…but I didn’t.
Out of the blue, today on Wired is an article about Skinning Mac OSX using a tool called ShapeShifter designed by Unsanity. Turns out, Unsanity makes a bunch of cool tools. Tools to change the system (& other) fonts Silk ($10); configure menus Menu Master ($10); window-shading WindowShade X ($10); and more, some free too!
Subtotal: $30 USD
and Multiple Desktops?? Done. Virtual Desktop ($30) by Code Tek.
Subtotal: $60 USD
and some of the cool KDE/Konqueror features?? Still only in KDE/Konqueror.
oh yes, and the cost of OSX ($129).
Subtotal: $189 USD
———————————
Mac $189; Linux/KDE $0-39;
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Bill posted this quote yesterday.
“We live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups.
I ask, in my writing, What is real?
Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudorealities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms.
I do not distrust their motives. I distrust their power. It is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind.
I ought to know.
I do the same thing.”
(original posting here)
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Vancouver’s Cooperative Auto Network has a Car Cost Calculator to try and give an accurate estimate about the costs of owning/renting and driving a car.
My car costs from 1999-2001 –
~ $367.25 per year
My car coop costs –
~ $145.18 per year (i’ll check this against the real figures at home)
My estimates for daily, year round bike riding over 5 years
One time costs –
$1500 bike (good for 5-8 years)
$400 all weather biking gear
$90 for a good lock
$100 for a good helmet
$35 for a good rack
(paniers optional)
——
$2125.00
Recurring costs –
$50 yearly tune up done by a bike shop
$100 yearly on replacement parts (tubes, tires, chain lube)
——-
$750.00
5 years of daily bike riding…
~ $2875.00
or
~$575.00 per year
I suppose calculated like this it’s more expensive to own a bike. So in defense of biking I need to bring up the health benefits of cycling, the state fuel subsidies and the uncalculable cost of car pollution.
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A ratio of maximum webserver up-times (in days) between the Republican National Committee running Microsoft IIS on Windows 2000 (the little number); and the Democratic National Committee running Apache on Linux (the big number).
Read the article at Linux Journal.
I’ll compare this ratio with the final vote count…
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...I always thought that wearing my ball cap too much could encourage balding. Nope. According to Ask Men.com. I can wear my cap all for up to 17 hrs a day and let my scalp breathe for the other 7 hours.
So what does cause baldness? I could ask Seano, Google or better yet… Mad Sci.org — the ultra-resource for science questions. Mad Sci says it’s genetics. I say it’s a combination of genetics and environment, just look at Homer the nuclear technician.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...- Richard : Nice site design.
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