Thursday 27 December 2012

More miscellaneous stuff for you today!

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Kior ‘Biocrude’ Plant a Step toward Advanced Biofuels
A Kior plant in Mississippi will start shipping fuel made from wood chips as planned as it chases large-scale production.
Full story here.

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Oliver Sacks: place-blind, face-blind, nearly blind blind, prone to hallucinations. But the doctor is more than the sum of his disorders...more

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c.1910s: Beatrix Potter and her rabbits
via Retronaut by Chris Wild

A rabbit.
On a lead.
Now I have seen everything.
There’s another picture here

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The convergence of biological and computer viruses
via on TechRepublic by Michael Kassner
The difference between a biological virus and a computer virus is blurring.
Learn how a researcher infected himself with a computer virus.
Full story here.

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Once upon a time, fairy tales raised social consciousness. Then their revolutionary soul was subverted, commodified, extinguished. Blame Disney...more

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Mommy and Daddy fairy-wrens sing “food passwords” to teach their eggs to sing
via Boing Boing by Xeni Jardin
“Superb fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus) mothers sing to their unhatched eggs to teach the embryo inside a 'password' – a single unique note – which the nestlings must later incorporate into their begging calls if they want to get fed.”
Zoë Corbyn in Scientific American, on a very unusual example of avian communication.

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Cotton at the Levee: 1910
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave
Cotton at the Levee: 1910
Vicksburg, Mississippi, circa 1910
“Unloading cotton at the levee’
Sternwheel packet boat Mary Miller on the right
8x10 glass negative
View original post

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Totalitarianism: The term originated in Italy; the system was perfected in Eastern Europe. It wasn’t about efficiency, it was about remaking man for the future... more

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The Evolution of Computer Keyboards
via How-To Geek by Jason Fitzpatrick
IBM Model M keyboard
Decades after its introduction in the mid-’80s, IBM’s classic Model M remains a favourite for keyboard purists
Credit: BorgHunter.
While the basic shape of keyboards has remained largely unchanged over the last thirty years, the guts have undergone several transformations.
ComputerWorld delves into the history of the modern keyboard, including the heavy influence IBM’s extensive keyboard research on early keyboards.

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This Computer Slices, Dices, and Does it ‘All
via How-To Geek by Asian Angel

Sit back and enjoy [or cringe at] this entertaining retro computer ad as Rich DuLaney from the OS/2 Multimedia Presentation Manager/2 team jumps into “super salesman mode” to sell you the Ultimedia M57SLC computer for only $3,395!
It slices, It dices [via MUO]


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