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category archive listing Category Archives: Random

Sydney Spring Cycle 2009 GPS Track

I ran InstaMapper for the duration of the ride on my iPhone, resulting in the following track:

GPS tracking powered by InstaMapper.com
Direct link to track.

The Mammalian Diving Reflex

From Wikipedia:
“The mammalian diving reflex optimizes respiration which allows mammals to stay underwater for a long time. It is exhibited strongly in aquatic mammals (seals, otters, dolphins, etc.), but exists in a weaker version in other mammals, including humans. Diving birds, such as penguins, have a similar diving reflex. Every animal’s diving reflex is triggered [...]

List of tallest structures in the world

Another fascinating article on Wikipedia:
“This is a list of tallest structures in the world, past and present of any type. Most of the tallest structures are television broadcasting masts, followed by a mix of the taller tower-type structures (like the CN Tower) and the taller high rise buildings (like the Sears Tower). Scattered among these [...]

Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN)

I never knew how ISDN actually worked, apart from the fact it sent digital signals over the the POTS’ copper wires. Wikipedia has a good article about it.
At the moment I am taking two distance education courses (Convex Optimisation and Statistical Machine Learning) which include video delivery through a Polycom video conferencing system. I assumed [...]

Be Your Own Weather Person

The Bureau of Meterology uploads the latest measurements from its radar stations from across our big brown land onto their website every 10 minutes, often with multiple resolutions. I find it most useful for two reasons:

If it is overcast outside, this will definitively confirm the possibility of rain.
If it is not overcast outside, you can [...]

Listen to iTunes shared libraries outside your LAN

How about, say, on your WAN?
You can for free with Simplify.

This Spartan Life

In the spirit of Red vs. Blue, and so much other machinima , comes This Spartan Life: a real talk show with real guests (Bob Stein and Peggy Ahwesh first episode) in a computer-generated environment. It’s set in the virtual world of Halo (of course).
From the website: “Damian Lacedaemion is not your average talk show [...]

Stalker is finally released

“Stalker – Shadow of Chernobyl” available March 2007.
I discovered this revelation on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuAkR3FQ0c4
Quite a surprise considering I thought it had disappeared into the blackhole around which Duke Nukem Forever is orbiting (passing the event horizon?) I remember seeing a preview video for an earlier version of Stalker about six years ago! Apparently the open-endedness of narrative [...]

thebroken Episode 4

They’re back: Kevin and double_d hack the XBox360 (this is hardcore) and jam cell phones.
http://revision3.com/thebroken/ep4

Project Orion

A very interesting look into a chapter of nuclear propulsion that held such promise for space travel.
From Wikipedia: “Orion offered both high thrust and high specific impulse — the holy grail of spacecraft propulsion.”