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R.I.P. John Wheeler
, theoretical physicist. Famous for the
Wheeler-Feynman equations and the term "
black hole," which he coined to describe a singular point mass, he has died at age 96. The NYT usually gives pretty good obituary but they outdid themselves this time.
posted to MetaFilter by ikkyu2
at 10:22 PM on April 13, 2008
(64 comments)
How far can the naked eye see?
About 7.5 billion light-years. On March 19th, a
Gamma Ray Burst was noticed by NASA's Swift satellite and given the name
GRB 080319B. It left an optical afterglow estimated at +5 apparent magnitude for 30 seconds, about that of an average star. (Sadly, no one was looking at the area with an optical telescope at that exact time.) Read the original Burst Alert, including the email address of the Burst Advocate,
here.
posted to MetaFilter by ikkyu2
at 4:14 PM on March 23, 2008
(37 comments)
Online communities to become more 'all-encompassing.'
If you join the SHC community on Sears.com, all web traffic to and from your computer thereafter will be copied and sent to a third party marketing research firm - including, for example, your secure sessions with your bank! The Sears.com proxy will send your logins and passwords along with a cleartext copy of all the supposedly secure data.
But wait, it gets better: you can only view the true TOS once the proxy has already been installed.
posted to MetaFilter by ikkyu2
at 6:52 PM on January 3, 2008
(71 comments)
Chromatron 1, 2, 3 and 4
just became freeware. In these little standalone puzzle games for PC and Mac, you align splitters, benders, and mirrors to direct colored laserbeams into like-colored targets. Enjoyably difficult, and an example of great game design.
posted to MetaFilter by ikkyu2
at 5:28 PM on November 28, 2007
(20 comments)
Trackulous - Track Anything.
There have to be ten dozen ways to
track your weight online. MeFi users track thteir social athletic accomplishments at
WeEndure and
Runner+. But what if we wanted to track (and graph) Javelinas Sighted, Cookies Tossed, Fights with Boyfriend, or any other user-defined numerical quantity over time? And what if we wanted to share our statistics with our friends? For that,
Trackulous - a simple, elegant, mobile-friendly web tool.
posted to MetaFilter by ikkyu2
at 11:54 AM on November 19, 2007
(19 comments)
SHOOT THINGS
- a retro-arcade-style shooter for Mac OS X.
The author's page describes how it was written in 3 weeks for a contest - it's entertained me for considerably longer than that.
posted to MetaFilter by ikkyu2
at 5:10 PM on April 22, 2007
(31 comments)
Get Hostile!
- Inspired by the well-beloved Avalon Hill board game
Acquire, Get Hostile! is a free, web-based board game that has already sucked up hours of my time. Check out the quick tutorial to get up to speed, then play against live opponents or AI's, forming corporations, buying stock, and doing hostile takeovers!
posted to MetaFilter by ikkyu2
at 9:34 PM on February 1, 2007
(11 comments)
The Motley Fool's new CAPS
stock-picking system keeps track of your stock picks and whether they outperformed or underperformed the market. Then everyone's picks are aggregated, weighted by the quality of their past records, to rank individual stocks.
Here's how it works. (more inside)
posted to MetaFilter by ikkyu2
at 5:49 PM on October 4, 2006
(13 comments)
Little
Citadels. "Dine, shop, live, work, and be entertained in a unique and alluring environment," says the
Time Warner Center website - all without ever stepping outside your gleaming Manhattan skyscraper. San Jose's
Santana Row, which at first glance seemed no more than a
Beverly Center you can live in, is now being compared favorably to urban European living. And
MGM-Mirage's new,
mysterious and costly ($7 billion!)
Project CityCenter brings the trend to Las Vegas - with gambling, of course. They're not
Arcosantis - and they don't, as yet, require an
Oath of Fealty - but by all accounts they're
thriving. What do they have in common? Wealthy tenants, megacorporate sponsors, and a shared desire to integrate efficient, conspicuous consumption into every aspect of civic life.
Paolo Soleri may have been right after all - maybe he just forgot to
account for the effects of capitalism.
posted to MetaFilter by ikkyu2
at 5:43 AM on August 28, 2006
(24 comments)
Is the U.S. Bankrupt?
[332Kb PDF] Laurence Kotlikoff, writing in this month's
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, says "yes" - to the tune of $66 trillion! [more inside]
posted to MetaFilter by ikkyu2
at 8:34 PM on July 16, 2006
(67 comments)
"Doctor, it hurts when I do that."
Doctors and patients agree - doctors are lousy when it comes to recognizing, diagnosing and treating pain. The AMA developed this free Continuing Medical Education tool (requires Flash) to help docs learn and understand how to deal with pain - but other folks, folks who are now in pain or might someday be in pain, might find it quite interesting as well. All docs in California have to complete this seminar or a similar one by the end of 2006 to get relicensed; the hope is that this will help the docs and the patients who have to deal with pain on a daily basis.
posted to MetaFilter by ikkyu2
at 10:32 PM on July 1, 2006
(24 comments)
