Pico's Picks

Carcassonne

2007-08-14T09:57:00.000-04:00

Carcassonne, a German style board game.

You can buy it as an actual table-top board game (via Amazon among others), play it on your Xbox, or try out this simplistic windows version:

http://www.eglebbk.dds.nl/program/cindex.html

Man vs Nature

2007-06-27T10:53:00.000-04:00

China's Weather-Changing Three Gorges Dam

The Great Dam of China, changing local weather patterns.

To Eat, or Not To Eat?

2007-06-27T09:46:00.000-04:00

Japan’s Tuna Crisis

I love tuna with my sushi. Almost every single time I have made a meal of sushi, I have included tuna as an element. It's still cheaper than many other alternative fishes... so is there a shortage or not? Do I as a consumer choose not to purchase something with the greater good in mind, the eventual scarcity of the product, even though the product's current price does not reflect its supposed scarcity?

Quite Interesting -- how bad is reality for us?

2007-06-25T13:25:00.000-04:00

The Total Perspective Vortex

"Groups of normal and eating disordered women were asked to rate the attractiveness of their own bodies. They were then photographed from the neck down, and panels of volunteers were brought in to view the photos and rate the women’s appearances objectively. The normal women, as it turned out, evaluated themselves much more positively than the panels did, while the self-ratings of the eating disordered women were in close agreement with the objective ratings. The eating disordered subjects, in other words, had a more realistic body image than the normal women."

...

"As one might imagine, these issues present some problems when it comes to treatment. How does one convince a depressed person that “everything is all right” when her life really does suck? How does one convince an obsessive-compulsive patient to stop religiously washing his hands when the truth of what gets left behind after “normal” washing should be enough to make any sane person cringe?"

ABC News

2007-06-25T12:09:00.000-04:00

Echinacea May Boost Immune System More Than Previously Thought

"We showed that patients who took echinacea could decrease the risk of developing a cold by 58 percent as well as decrease the duration of a cold by over a day and half," said Dr. Craig Coleman of the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy.

Charlie's Diary

2007-06-18T17:35:00.000-04:00

The High Frontier Redux

Why we're not going to colonize space any time soon.

Not a Very Good Idea

2007-06-18T17:05:00.000-04:00

A deadly rinse: The dangers of hydrofluoric acid
From Volume 23, Issue 1 - January 1999

A popular carwash ingredient, Hydrofluoric Acid:

"HF is not like other highly corrosive acids. Mix it with equal parts of water (as many overzealous operators do when cleaning bay walls), spill a little on your unprotected hand and you won't even feel any pain as it begins to burn through your skin, searching for the calcium in your bones.

Because of the fluorine's numbing effect, it could be a full day before you begin to notice that your soft tissue and bone are being eaten away by this toxic chemical that has two favorite sources of calcium - bones and concrete."

Running School

2007-06-14T08:29:00.000-04:00

Who, Me Take Running Class?

Well, no, actually not me. But many people do.

"Up until recently, athletic hobbyists might take tennis lessons or attend a swim clinic, but rarely considered learning how to run, an activity they have been doing since they were toddlers. A running injury would simply mean a switch to a less jarring sport.

That was before middling runners realized that form matters. Many recreational runners now solicit advice before they cinch their shorts and lace up their sneakers. For them, there are Web sites promoting injury-prevention techniques and bloggers raring to discuss the latest clinics. Joggers have helped to spike the sales of form-conscious books and DVDs from programs like ChiRunning and the Pose Method. And the number of retreats on Running Times magazine’s Web site has swelled to more than 100, up from 38 in 2000."

dailypress.com

2007-06-13T09:40:00.000-04:00

Is copper cable at the end of its line?

Now I know why the DSL at work has so much trouble...

"The condition to which it has deteriorated is no accident but a conscious business decision, since the examples we have given are not isolated problems, but hold true all over the commonwealth," testified Charles Buttiglieri, who runs the Communications Workers of America region that includes Virginia.

Teasmade: the gadget that refused to die

2007-06-13T09:14:00.000-04:00

This nifty gadget was a popular fixture in '70s England, and now it (reportedly) on its way back.

"The peculiarly British invention combined an alarm clock with a kettle, and promised owners they could wake up each morning to a fresh cup of tea without having to leave the comfort of their bed. At the height of their popularity, two million households had one."

Sign me up!

Add a Dimension to your Travel Pics

2007-06-11T10:47:00.000-04:00

Snapshots That Do More Than Bore Friends.

Through a technology called geotagging, users can add G.P.S. data to their pictures, which can then be plotted on a digital map. This not only allows users to see exactly where a photo was taken, but, when uploaded to an Internet map, users can also quickly browse a trove of photos that were taken nearby, providing a kind of scattershot collage of a place.

For example, people planning a trip to Cancún can use Google Earth, a free mapping software, to zoom in on Cancún’s crowded hotel zone and click on dozens of candid photographs, from the lounge chairs at the Fiesta Americana Grand Coral Beach hotel and the pool at the Omni Hotel & Villas, to snapshots of less-crowded beaches and the nearest mall.

New York Times

2007-06-08T08:36:00.000-04:00

City Traffic Pricing Wins U.S. and Spitzer’s Favor.

"... New York will become the first city in the United States to impose a broad system of congestion pricing, which was introduced in London in 2003 and has been credited with reducing traffic there."

Reducing traffic has always had a simple solution: make it more expensive to drive. With gasoline prices lowest in the US of anywhere I've been in the world we still complain about the cost. New York is taking steps to make the cost of gas or a used car a minor factor in the financial equation of "should I drive or not?"

Cat Cam

2007-06-07T09:10:00.000-04:00

A Guy and his Cat, and his Cat's Camera...

Mr Lee Cat Cam

Getting the most out of your tennis video

2007-06-05T17:50:00.000-04:00

Calculate serve speed from video.

A handy way to check on your serve speed without having to buy a radar gun.

Again: Google Maps Street View

2007-06-01T09:28:00.000-04:00

There is a lot of buzz about this new feature (blogged earlier here) in Google Maps. Many funny things have been caught by the cameras doing all the photography that makes it possible. So many, that Wired Magazine has a contest to find the funniest ones.

There are privacy complaints, and lots of discussion online about what it means to have the front of your house photographed and published online without your consent.

Apple Takes a Bite out of DRM

2007-06-01T09:26:00.000-04:00

128kb or 256kb?

Can you tell the difference between two encodings of your favorite music?

Do $400 earbuds perform better than $40 ones?

The Tamarack Mines Mystery

2007-05-31T17:07:00.000-04:00

Donald Simanek examines the mystery of diverging plumb bobs in great detail.

Palm Foleo

2007-05-30T18:20:00.001-04:00

Oh, I need one!

The Palm Foleo.

Gas Finder

2007-05-30T09:58:00.001-04:00

Richmond Gas Prices

Find, and map, the lowest gas prices in the area.

DNS is simple, yet complex

2007-05-30T09:51:00.000-04:00

DNS Complexity, by Paul Vixie

DNS is what makes the internet work, without you having to type in a whole bunch of numbers each time you want to visit a website.

Google Maps Street View

2007-05-30T09:19:00.000-04:00

Google Maps has added another feature. What's a week without a new feature, anyway?

Street level views in select location. (This is the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in NYC.)

Click and drag on the view, it's a full 360 degree mini-VR.

It's only available in the biggest of US cities right now, but it's pretty neat. I'm guessing that 100 years from now (if the data survives) it will be a neat way to look into the past, and see what 2007 looked like.

How the Pentagon Got Its Shape

2007-05-29T08:09:00.000-04:00

Washington Post Story about the origins of the Pentagon.

Great article about the war time workings of our government.

Evo 61NT

2007-05-28T09:15:00.000-04:00

Exploded Parts Diagram of my 2-stroke engine.

That's a big single sheet PDF showing all the leetle teensie parts in my engine.

Model Airplane Engine Repair

2007-05-27T22:58:00.000-04:00

How to Disassemble a Model Airplane Engine.

More accurately, a 2-stroke model airplane engine. A 4-stroke has more parts and is more complicated. It's a good thing a 2-stroke is simpler, because I just pulled one of mine out of a box, and it needs a really good cleaning before it will run again, and I'm no engine repair expert!

Soda turns off your DNA

2007-05-27T08:56:00.000-04:00

Sodium Benzoate, present in large amounts in various soda beverages, can turn off DNA. This, obviously, would be very bad for your health.

Media scare, overreaction to a small study, or another chemical soon to be banned from foods?

Weather

2007-05-27T08:44:00.000-04:00

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

The data available online is fantastic these days. So many weather models, so little time. But how creepy is it that the US government has a branch set up to "Administer" the weather?

Google Heads!

2007-05-26T14:33:00.000-04:00

Happy Fun Google Head Video

MySQL

2007-05-26T08:34:00.000-04:00

5 resons to use MySQL
8 reasons not to use MySQL

Federer vs Nadal

2007-05-26T08:15:00.000-04:00

http://tennis.about.com/od/tournaments/a/federernadalrg.htm

About.com's Tennis pro sometimes posts things that make sense. I've learned tons about the sport by reading his section of the website. Today's article may be the most insightful (to a tennis noob like me) I've ever read.

Find a Partner

2007-05-26T08:04:00.000-04:00

no, not a dating service, Find a Tennis Partner:

http://www.finder.usta.com/communitycenter/

http://www.tennismates.com/

Bird on a Wire

2007-05-25T13:39:00.000-04:00

High Power

What a cool job! Cool, at least, until you do it wrong for the first and last time.

Deuce

2007-05-25T13:36:00.000-04:00

DEUCE official website

An interesting bit of theater, posted only because I'm going to go see it, in June.

A Word A Day

2007-05-25T13:31:00.000-04:00

A Word A Day

Great educational and fun and most of all intelligent word of the day list.

JC the Musical

2007-05-25T13:25:00.000-04:00

Sick, wrong, funny, confusing, weird, disturbing, and hilarious...

Jesus Christ the Musical