"We cannont solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."

Albert Einstein

Say No to Twilight, Say Yes to (free) classics!

August 30, 2010

Books, Cool thing of the Week

4 comments

Instead of reading mediocre to bad fiction in your spare time, how about some classics? For free?

I might be defining my opinion about Twilight by this entry, but, really, what happened to reading good literature? After leaving high school where many of us had required reading, how many continue to pay tribute to the oldies (English majors not included)? There are plenty of classics in similar genres to what is available today.

Many classics have been freely available for while, since works enter the public domain after copyright expires. Project Gutenberg has been making available public domain books since 1971 and is the largest collection of free ebooks around. It is a pretty huge collection, and a great source of reading material especially if you own an ebook reader.

Something new on the rise, however, is Read Print, which is a website that also puts out books, but in more modern Web format complete with Facebook, Twitter, and extensive chat capabilities (Meebo, Facebook, AIM, MySpace IM, Google Talk). It was recently named one of TIME’s 50 best websites. I would still use Gutenberg for getting ebooks to read on my Sony Reader, but being able to read online is an attractive function of Read Print.

It would be interesting to try to have a virtual book club meeting through Read Print. It would be quite easy to communicate and the readers would not have to be worried about buying the same edition of a book to keep track of page numbers. It would be possible to even try to schedule our reading sessions to be synchronous so that we can chat as we read. That might be more distracting than helpful, but it would more closely emulate watching a TV show or a movie together.

Check out the Read Print collection. You can browse for books by title or by author, here are a few:

Rosa the Gecko shedding her skin

April 14, 2010

Cool thing of the Week, Miscellaneous

5 comments

Sorry for the long hiatus! I just started a new job and it has been quite hectic this past month or so.

To make up for that, here is a cool video of one of the geckos in a tank on my desk at work:

I posted a while back about gecko tape that imitates the pads of geckos that allow them to stick to any surface. Rosa is a leopard gecko, which is one of a few species that does not have these types of pads on their feet.

As a result, she can’t climb the walls of her tank! But I think this lack of climbing ability makes her and her sister Tiny easier to handle and hold.

Piezoelectricity in mini form and gecko tape

March 2, 2010

Cool thing of the Week

2 comments

Here are some articles a friend sent to me recently (thanks Katie!).

I posted earlier about piezoelectricity being used in dance clubs and subway turnstiles, but here is an article about a smaller version that could be used in cell phones.


The second article is about gecko tape. Geckos have a really fascinating ability to climb on the pads of their feet using Van der Waals interactions between the tiny setae (each with a diameter of 5 micrometers) on the pads of the toes and the surface of the thing it is sticking to. The article says that tape and adhesive technology being developed now that imitates the gecko’s abilities may be available on the market in 3-5 years!

TED Talk: Jamie Oliver’s wish to teach every kid about food

February 21, 2010

Cool thing of the Week, Society

2 comments

I watched this TED talk by Jamie Oliver last week and it was quite interesting. I was shocked to see the segment on the children in the classroom he visited in West Virginia. They could not identify vegetables. One child mistook tomatoes for potatoes!

Jamie’s wish is to create a network of organizations and community initiatives to teach kids about food, parents how to cook, and generally get people to eat healthier in the fight against obesity.



For more posts about food, click here.

Pepsi Refresh Projects that I would vote for

February 2, 2010

Cool thing of the Week, Society

2 comments

Yesterday was the first day that voting has been open for Pepsi’s Refresh projects. They are giving out grants each month to proposals that get the most votes.

Here are some that I think are worth voting for:

If I were to submit a project idea, I think I would do something in the Education or Food & Shelter category. I intended to try to put together an idea to submit for this, but ended up not having the time to do it.

I have a few ideas about student activism. Any suggestions?

Flourescent coral makes for really cool living scientific art

January 29, 2010

Cool thing of the Week, Science, Society

7 comments

If I were ever to have a video as a desktop background, one of these would probably be it! (But I probably never would because it would use up too much electricity to keep it going.) Take a look:


‘Preener’ from MORPHOLOGIC on Vimeo.



‘Corynactis viridis’ from MORPHOLOGIC on Vimeo.



These videos are from Morphologic, a science/art initiative based in Miami and led by a marine biologist, Colin Foord. and a designer, Jared McKay.


Thanks to Deep Sea News (who found it on Boing Boing)!

← Older entries