We all know that fresh water is going to become more and more of an issue over the coming decades. Climate change and an ever-growing population will be placing ever more stress upon this most essential of resources, and so anything that helps to save water is, at least in my books, a Bloody Good […]
Design
Selfies with Photosynth
A few months ago, I downloaded Microsoft’s Photosynth app for my iPhone. Now, before you all start shouting ‘Booooo!’, I’d like to point out that Photosynth has been around for a while, and is a pretty cool and clever piece of tech. Also, the app is a joy to use. Another reason I’ve been playing […]
Incredible image of earthquakes since 1898
Following last night’s 50 second shaker here in New Zealand (magnitude 7, but luckily nice and deep), I figured this image was appropriate. New Zealand’s in there, but mostly covered by the nicely thick green line going straight through it. You can see Northland and a teensy bit of the bottom of the […]
DeSForM - The most inspiring thing I’ve seen in years
I am a very lucky girl. Last week, I managed to drag myself from my Lair of Sickness to attend the now-annual 2012 DeSForM (Design Semantics of Form and Meaning) conference. And what a treat it was, if nothing else remining me of how much I’d like to retrain in this space some day(a dream […]
So you think science is hogwash?
I think this piece almost perfectly sums up why I struggle not to become Quiet and Sarcastic* with anti-science people. You stare into your high definition plasma screen monitor, type into your cordless keyboard then hit enter which causes your computer to convert all that visual data into a binary signal that’s processed by […]
Competition(ish): it’s not computer magic, it’s computer science
A phrase oft-uttered, in anything from a restrained growl to an infuriated scream, by my partner. Who works with those strange computery things, and the networks connecting them, every day. A phrase he uttered once again today, while we were chatting through another of our favourite phrases ‘science, bitches!’* Which led us to a wonderful […]
Earth Now - near real-time, map-based climate data from JPL
Gosh, but this is gorgeous. Admittedly, I have a jones for data. And for maps, too*. And NASA/JPL** and their work. All of which means that Earth Now, a recently-released iPhone/iPod/iPad app from JPL, is my idea of phonepr0n. It shows, on an interactive model of earth, various overlays for various types of near-real […]
Quiet! I was talking!
Because there simply aren’t enough real problems which science could tackle, Japanese scientists have unleashed the newest weapon in the war for airspace in a conversation. Yes, ladies and gentlemen: allow me to introduce the SpeechJammer. In essence, a directional mic takes a recording of what the sinning conversationalist is saying, and the plays […]
TOSP Episode 21: February 21st 2012
[Original post on the Sciblogs The Official Sciblogs Podcast site] We’re back! And with a minimum of difficulties this week :) This week, Elf and aimee talk of a new soft motor, ROBOBEES, a teeeeeensy chameleon (squee!), hacking yoghurt, some very ancient art, ROBOBEES, investing in yourself, knitting needles and water bubbles and space, quantum […]
#webstock tweetage
Hooray for the internets! Most appropriately, during Jeremy Keith (@adactio)’s talk about, amongst other things, trying to keep and store as much data/information as we can, and not letting the internet forget as easily as it might, I’ve set up an archive of #webstock (webstock conference) tweets. It’s being updated every five minutes, and is […]