brainwagon

Neat paper: Holography without Photography, by Thad Walker. The author uses a simple C program to generate holograms which are then printed on overhead transparencies with a laser printer. I’ll have to try this.

Groklaw.net is reporting that Acacia Technologies has been filing litigation against websites for patent infringement on patents they received for a system for distributing video and audio over the Internet. I used pat2pdf to download the relevant patents: 5,132,992 5,253,275 5,550,863 6,002,720 6,144,702 The EFF have placed this patent on their list of ten most [...]

This seems to be just about the simplest homebuilt laser you can make: a TEA nitrogen laser. TEA stands for Transverse Electrical discharge at Atmospheric pressure. It requires no vacuum pumps or glasswork. Someday, my desire for mad science will lead me here…

For some reason, I find knots fascinating. What’s even more fascinating is how often books about knots show up on the bargain shelves at Borders, and yet every year or so a new, nicely photographed, full color book on knots makes appears to replace them. Bizarre. But if you want to learn about knots and [...]

I must admit, I’m a bit of a fluff movie-goer. I go to movies to be entertained, not to learn. When I wish to learn, I read books, news, or even the Internet. I don’t see many documentary or independent films. I’m also not an enormous Michael Moore fan. I find some of his work [...]