From Technology Review, a summary of an interesting study on how the brain works to identify words: In the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in late June, 42 undergraduates followed instructions to click a mouse on one of two pictures on a computer monitor. Some
Rocky Balboa. The Jamaican bobsled team. Ross Perot. We can’t help but love our scrappy, endearing underdogs. OK, maybe not Ross Perot. But definitely the Gizmondo. With a gaming market utterly dominated by the Sony PSP and the Nintendo DS, the odds of an independent console making it are slim at be
Even gadget-heads like us occasionally get tired of fiddling with dials, knobs, and buttons to get our devices working right. Sometimes, in the sleepy, alcohol-infused predawn hours, we just want to snap a picture of our new Reno friends without having to worry about whether we’ve picked the right w
This was a really fun story to work on: Mobile magazine’s list of the top 50 portable video games of all time. Read it in the August issue, or online. “Don’t know much about history? It’s probably because you spent your time dodging little red blips on a handheld football game instead of reading pag
James Howard Kunstler takes a sober, pessimistic look at what happens when cheap oil goes away — in Rolling Stone, of all places. America is in a special predicament due to a set of unfortunate choices we made as a society in the twentieth century. Perhaps the worst was to let our towns and cities [
I got a new cell phone today — the amazingly badass black Razr. Since Cingular follows the usual cell phone industry practice of offering the worst deals to their loyal customers, I didn’t renew my contract with them — we found a new-customer deal that was far, far better. As a result, I’ve got a […
How to make chai in a typical office. Short version: Put teabag and sugar in a mug, fill mug halfway with water, microwave on high for 45 seconds. Let it steep for a minute, then add milk until the cup is 3/4 full and microwave another 15 seconds. The author says spiced chai is for […]
WMMT in Whitesburg, Kentucky, broadcasts a good mix of country, bluegrass, and old-time banjo music from the heart of Appalachia. They’ve got a live Internet stream you can listen to right now. And they’re looking for money to replace decrepit transmitters and repeaters, so they can stay on the air.
Say you’re a Dadaist poet, but you’re tired of slicing up ribbons of newspaper to make your random poetry. You might stop by this web page where the computer can do the cut-ups for you, based on any text of your choosing. There are lots of variants on the cut- up machine, as well as […]