Wozniak on efficient housing

http://www.ecnmag.com/article.aspx?id=146610&menuid=&adcode=section=effzone

with a discussion (in which he participates!) on /.:

http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/07/08/14/2210203.shtml

steampunk monocycle

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/14/steampunk_monocycle_.html

Dude. That is one cool-looking machine.

music search via humming

http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18511/

Not new in essential concept, although the idea of doing nearest-neighbor searches on the hums themselves is interesting. I'll have to check this out.

climate change and scientific heresies

http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge220.html#anderson

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dysonf07/dysonf07_index.html

I personally don't have very much of an opinion about global warming. If pressed, I will assume that it's happening and if left unchecked that its consequences may be disastrous...but I haven't done anything like the kind of meta-analysis that would be necessary in order for me to have an _informed_ opinion.

(For the record, I assume it's happening at least in part because the consequences of that assumption should lead us, in large part, to take actions that I consider to be a good idea anyway, e.g., slowing our consumption of nonrenewable resources and increased efficiency in a variety of contexts.)

Anyway, these are two essays on somewhat-opposed sides of the debate. Dyson's essay is particularly interesting because he spends a fair bit of it talking about the value of scientific heretics and heresies. He may have fallen a bit in love with being a gadfly, but I think that his basic point is sound. Worth reading, and quite readable.

what? the fsck?

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/15/conception_day_conte.html

I can understand, for historical reasons, why Russia is concerned about their falling birthrate. (Being next door to a traditional enemy--China--that is having population problems in the opposite direction can do that to you.)

And I'm amused by the idea of the local government providing a special half-day off to boink, perchance to conceive.

But if this really catches on...one wonders what the short-term consequences might be, in terms of various resources, of most of an area's births falling within, say, a couple of weeks.