Yep, today has been scientifically proven to be the unhappiest day of the year. So cheer up! It’s all uphill from here. Into a stiff breeze. On ice. On a bicycle.
Category: Blog
Here’s something I wish I had put in the new book:
The Proteus “spider-like go-fast boat.”
Mining the Earth’s heat
We don’t hear a lot about geothermal energy in discussions of alternative, environmentally friendly energy sources, but maybe that’s about to change: A comprehensive new MIT-led study of the potential for geothermal energy within the United States has found that mining the huge amounts of heat that reside as stored thermal energy in the Earth’s …
Belated Photo of the Recent Past: Hopkins Dining Parlour
The cosy interior of the Hopkins Dining Parlour, located in a restored century-old house in downtown Moose Jaw. More photos here.
Hamoukar heads the list…
…of top search terms bringing people to edwardwillett.com over the last week or so. I suspect that’s because this ancient city was back in the news with new archaeological finds being announced. Here are the current leaders, with links to where they take you on the site: 75 hamoukar 39 time perception 28 curling rock …
Aliens…
…or lit-up Coke bottles on a kite? Whatever, people are reporting mysterious lights in the skies over Arkansas. (For the record, I went to university in Arkansas…but, alas, never saw any mysterious lights. And I’m the sort of guy who’d really love to see something like that. People like me never see these things.)
Your pocket change isn’t spying on you after all
Turns out that report about tiny transmitters in Canadian coins wasn’t true. Guess I can take the tinfoil out of my pockets now and put it back on my head where it belongs.
Scuba-scuba-doo!
Had I known of this personal submarine before I wrote my new novel set on a water planet, I might have used something like it in the story. Then again, now that I’ve gotten a good look at it…maybe not. (Via Gizmodo.)
Storing an entire image on a single photon
It gets into that whole wave/particle quantum thing: a team led by associate professor John Howell at the University of Rochester passed a single photon through a stencil bearing the letters UR. But since a photon is both a particle and a wave, as a wave, it passed through the entire stencil and thus captured …
Why talking on a cellphone while driving is stupid:
Neural Bottleneck Found That Thwarts Multi-tasking. A couple of excerpts: “While we are driving, we are bombarded with visual information. We might also be talking to passengers or talking on the phone,” Marois said. “Our new research offers neurological evidence that the brain cannot effectively do two things at once. People think if they are …
Now that I’m a house owner…
…stories like this get my attention: Homeowners could see their electric bills reduced considerably with Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s integrated heat pump. It says they hope to have a commercial manufacturer by 2008.
Photo of the Day: Potash Mine
The Mosaic Potash Belle Plaine solution-process potash mine at (where else) Belle Plaine, Saskatchewan, on a January morning. More photos here.
My latest live walk and vlog
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