Science for SEO: fun fact

Showing posts with label fun fact. Show all posts

January 30, 2009

TGIF - wicked!

Hi all, welcome to another TGIF post. I hope that you have had a chilled out week and that you have enjoyed working and got time to have a bit of fun, if your work isn't also your source of fun. This week I have been experiencing Sydney for the 1st time and mostly working unfortunately but I also made it to the beach and swam in the pool enough times to balance all that out :)

It was pointed out to me that this post is basically "what I wasted time on this week" - fair point.

Without further ado...

Stuff I liked this week:

The list of top 10 complaint letters courtesy of The Telegraph.

Levitated have some super cool pictures of abstract things which I really like (fractals and stuff).

The 100m long picture depicting people walking on Warschauer strasse railroad bridge - shot over 20 days.

Quotes:

"When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind". (Lord Kelvin) [but I don't agree :)]

"Should array indices start at 0 or 1? My compromise of 0.5 was rejected without, I thought, proper consideration". (S.Kelly-Bootle)

"It's hard enough to find an error in your code when you're looking for it; it's even harder when you've assumed your code is error-free".( S Mconnell)

"As a rule, software systems do not work well until they have been used, and have failed repeatedly, in real applications". (D. Parnas)

Facts:

Every second around 100 lightning bolts strike the Earth.

Every year lightning kills 1000 people.

If you could drive your car straight up you would arrive in space in just over an hour.

On the day that Alexander Graham Bell was buried the entire US telephone system was shut down for 1 minute in tribute.

The only letter not appearing on the Periodic Table is the letter “J”.

The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

Presenting the "Round orbita mouse" - it's all round, it's wireless, it spins around...

January 23, 2009

TGIF - weeeeeee

Welcome to yet another installment of TGIF, and I do hope that this post finds you well. It has been a long week for a lot of people I have spoken to, some of the adjectives used were "crappy", "boring", "stressful", "@!*%£^&!" and so on. Something must be up with the universe. I think me having a particularly relaxing time on idyllic islands in southern Thailand has put everything out of synch. Fear not, the balance will return very soon.

Without further ado...

Stuff I liked this week:

This cool site shows you how the brain works from top to bottom.

A list of 10 debunked scientific beliefs of the past.

I like Design 21, the Social Design network in partnership with UNESCO - excellent stuff.

My favourite thing this week was Steve Spalding's article called "Why I love the scientific method and so should you" on the "How to split an atom" site.

The scientific method is:

1 - Ask a Question

2 - Do Background Research

3 - Construct a Hypothesis

4 - Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment

5 - Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion

6 - Communicate Your Results

Oh look, there's my thesis plan all written up and ready (apart from the "further work" section) :)

Quotes:

Computer Science is a science of abstraction -creating the right model for a problem and devising the appropriate mechanizable techniques to solve it. (A.Aho and J. Ullman)

The Analytical Engine weaves Algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves. (The Countess of Lovelace on Babbage's Analytical Engine)

I, myself, have had many failures and I've learned that if you are not failing a lot, you are probably not being as creative as you could be -you aren't stretching your imagination. (J. Backus)

Optimism is an occupational hazard of programming: testing is the treatment. (K.Beck)

Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen. (E. Berard)

I particularly like:

Rules of Optimization:

Rule 1: Don't do it.

Rule 2 (for experts only): Don't do it yet.

(M.A Jackson)

Facts:

Macintosh invented the start menu in 1982 and the Recycle bin in 1984

Xerox invented desktop icons in 1981

John Atanasoff & Clifford Berry founded ABC Computer in 1942 thus becoming the 1st computer business.

John Presper Eckert & John W. Mauchly invented the UNIVAC computer which was able to pick presidential winners

Dan Bricklin & Bob Frankston invented the 1st Spreadsheet Software called VisiCalc in 1978 (it paid for itself within 2 weeks of its release)

This is a really cool video made in stop motion with paper - it's simply brilliant.

January 16, 2009

TGIF - yippie

Welcome to another installment of TGIF. I am assuming that those of you who have had a very cold week will not want to hear about how hot and sunny it is here in Thailand so I won't expand. I hope that you have all had a great week and that you picked up a few exciting projects along the way.

Without further ado...

I love Larissa Meek's 28 cakes for Geeks. Feel free to make me one and send it through. I love cake.

Check out some very cool videos called "“Accurate Scientific Visualizations of the T4 bacteriophage infection process and replication” - you'll have to go and look.

Quotes:

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation. (H. H. Munro)

The biggest difference between time and space is that you can't reuse time. (Merrick Furst)

Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. (Donald Knuth)

Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and when it is bad, it is better than nothing. (Dick Brandon)

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. (A. Clarke)

Facts:

A byte, in computer terms, means 8 bits. A nibble is half that: 4 bits. (Two nibbles make a byte)

While it took the radio 38 years, and the television a short 13 years, it took the World Wide Web only 4 years to reach 50 million users.

The Afghan capital Kabul has a cyber cafe

Wikipedia has a page devoted to toilet roll holders

The oldest surviving computer in the world is called CSIRAC and is located in Melbourne

Microsoft writes the code for autopilot systems in all major airplanes

And thank you to Steve for this nice little YouTube gem :)

January 09, 2009

TGIF - 2009 starts

Welcome to the 1st TGIF of 2009. I'm glad many of you have enjoyed this series during 2008 and I hope that you enjoy the 2009 collection. Hopefully the festive season was enormous fun for everyone and you are not feeling the January Blues too much. If you are I hope that this installment lightens your mood.

Heads-up: I'm off on a 2 week holiday to Thailand and Cambodia for a couple of weeks and then I will be in Sydney for a while. If you're in any of those places drop me line and we can meet up for some geek talk. I will still be blogging and available to you though!

Without further ado...

Quotes:

"The first time you do something it’s science. The second time is engineering. The third time is … just being a technician. I’m a scientist: once I do something, I want to do something else. (Clifford Stoll) - thanks to Alex.

"The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it." (Anon)

"He who is ashamed of asking is ashamed of learning." (Anon)

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science -the one that heralds new discoveries- is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny...". (I. Asimov)

Facts:

From the smallest microprocessor to the biggest mainframe, the average American depends on over 264 computers per day.

In the 1980s, an IBM computer wasn't considered 100 percent compatible unless it could run Microsoft Flight Simulator*

The average computer user blinks 7 times a minute, less than half the normal rate of 20.

By the year 2012 there will be approximately 17 billion devices connected to the Internet.

Cool links:

Computer parts art - pretty cool and imaginative!

A computer coffee machine no less

More computer case mods

The game "Window cleaner" looks super boring - why on earth did someone bother to invent and code it (this is not a joke part of the film)? And who would want a talking John Mcenroe robot for 5.5 million dollars? - Very very funny stuff!

December 19, 2008

TGIF - holidays!

Welcome to another installment of TGIF. I hope you are all well and that you are looking forward to the Christmas break. Many of you finish work today for at least 2 weeks so make sure you celebrate accordingly and enjoy a beverage of your choice and a couple of sweet treats too :)

Without further ado...

The Pedantic web:

“I see the the birth of artificial intelligence leading to increasingly snotty and patronizing personalities emerging via AI on the web to enhance our experience, just as they do in real life. At the moment it is difficult to imagine but over the next few years you are going to hear more and more about the Pedantic Web. It is a natural step in the evolution of the web towards Web 9.0 which we have named the Romantic Web. Eventually the web will contain and involve all of our relationships and connections, it will be our friend, our lover and our master.” (James Johnson - found on the no longer updated Science Faction blog)

Twitter -Taking it too far?

Facts:

A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

"The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog." uses every letter of the alphabet.

Thomas Edison (who invented the light bulb) was afraid of the dark.

Bill Gates house was partially designed using a Mac.

Atari sold 400000 VCS consoles in 1979.

The Atari 2600 only has 128 bytes of RAM.

Following on from our Atari facts, an Atari commercial from 1978 (the year I was born!):

December 12, 2008

TGIF - terrific!

Hello, and welcome to another edition of TGIF. This week has been cold, icy and snowing for a lot of us, but lets not forget all those living on the other side of the world enjoying a hot and sunny summer season. Amongst other things I spent my time filling in customs forms and so forth so I can send my things on to Sydney, where I'll be for a while as from late Feb. I am not sad to escape winter!

Without further ado:

Facts:

Do not believe in miracles. Rely on them.

Inside every large program is a small program struggling to get out.

The solution to a problem changes the problem.

It works better if you plug it in.

Given any problem containing N equations, there will be N+1 unknown.

Quotes:

“If people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done.” (L.Wittgenstein)

“Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.” (M.Kapor)

“Yes, we have a dress code. You have to dress.” (S.McNealy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems)

“Computer viruses are an urban legend.” (P.Norton, 1988)

Error messages from Hex ("A Heath Robinson/Rube Goldberg-esque, magic-powered computer"):

Mr. Jelly! Mr. Jelly! Error at Address Number 6, Treacle Mine Road.

+++ Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot +++

+++Whoops! Here comes the cheese! +++

*Blip* *Blip* *Blip* End of Cheese Error

The coolest coolest computer program ever: Do you want one? I really do.

October 24, 2008

TGIF - at long last.

Welcome...you survived yet another week, and you're now on the home run...the weekend hits soon.

As every friday here at SFS, we'll treat ourselves to some fun stuff - here goes:

The huge printing presses of a major Chicago newspaper began malfunctioning on the Saturday before Christmas, putting all the revenue for advertising that was to appear in the Sunday paper in jeopardy. None of the technicians could track down the problem. Finally, a frantic call was made to the retired printer who had worked with these presses for over 40 years. "We'll pay anything; just come in and fix them," he was told.

When he arrived, he walked around for a few minutes, surveying the presses; then he approached one of the control panels and opened it. He removed a dime from his pocket, turned a screw 1/4 of a turn, and said, "The presses will now work correctly." After being profusely thanked, he was told to submit a bill for his work.

The bill arrived a few days later, for $10,000.00! Not wanting to pay such a huge amount for so little work, the printer was told to please itemize his charges, with the hope that he would reduce the amount once he had to identify his services. The revised bill arrived: $1.00 for turning the screw; $9,999.00 for knowing which screw to turn.

Commentary: most debugging problems are fixed easily; identifying the location of the problem is hard.

It is...it drives me mad. Luckily I have some clever friends to help out :)

Our usual...this brings to mind the mess that is Vista:

"If you can't make it good, at least make it look good".

....aw...Bill....

October 10, 2008

TGIF - fun facts

Welcome to Friday - to finish the week, here are interesting some facts from computing.

The QWERTY keyboard layout is 129 years old.
Macquariums are aquariums made from old macintosh computers.
Bill gates & Paul Allen started a company called Traf-O-Data to monitor traffic flow.
David Bradley wrote the code for [Ctr]+[Alt]+[Delete] key sequence.
Tetris has sold over 40 million copies worldwide, since it began in 1982
The first hard drive available for the Apple had a capacity of 5 megabytes.

And also:

In 1945 a computer at Harvard malfunctioned and Grace Hopper, who was working on the computer, investigated, found a moth in one of the circuits and removed it. Ever since, when something goes wrong with a computer, it is said to have a bug in it.

And you can play Tetris free here.