Sunday, June 6, 2004

American Science Surplus Via Rich Burridge and Sun Microsystems American Science Surplus Rules!. Our American Science Surplus order arrived last night. I love these guys. They sell some of the most interesting, reasonably priced stuff that it has ever been my pleasure to buy. From craft supplies, to toys for kids and grownups. From kits to tools. You name it they probably have sold it at some time. This last order included some candle making supplies, a DIY Kaleidoscope kit, a wasp catcher for the garden and a bag of wooden parts. The last one is always fun because you never know exactly what you are going to get and craft-wise it leads to some interesting creations. [Rich Burridge's Weblog] 9:38:31 PM

Shanghai Nice Nite Tonight in Shanghai .... A beautiful nite on the Huang Pu River tonight ... [Jim Grisanzio] 9:13:25 PM

Low Power FM Drama in Washington McCain Tries to Restore LPFM. Yesterday Sen. McCain made good on an earlier promise to submit a bill to restore LPFM to the FCC's original 2000 standards. The bill cites the FCC's Mitre report, which soundly falsified the NAB's contention that LPFM poses an interference threat to full-power stations, as justification for reversing Congress' evisceration of LPFM back in 2000, which required LPFM stations to obey the same spacing requirements as full-power stations, operating with as much as 100 times more power. If passed, this bill would probably allow for thousands more stations to go on the air, especially in urban areas--including the top 50 largest radio markets--where there are no frequencies available for full-power stations. (Read the rest of this post at mediageek) [unmediated] 9:10:09 PM

Thinking Differently Thinking Differently. I heard Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist and one of the co-founders of "string field theory," on the radio the other nite. Amazing. I could listen to this guy for hours. He makes physics fun and easy to understand. He makes you think, too. About absolutely everything. Kaku is busy trying to finish Einstein's dream of a "theory of everything, an equation perhaps only an inch long that would unify all four fundamental forces of the universe." That would be quite a formula, eh? During this interview, Kaku talked about all kinds of stuff, but what really excited me was his chat about Einstein's brain, which lives on -- albeit in several pieces -- at Princeton University. Contrary to popular belief, Einstein's brain isn't very much different from our brains. The areas that handle abstract though are well developed, of course, but not much else, according to Kaku. This gives us mere mortals hope, I'd say. :) Also, and perhaps even more exciting, is Kaku's strong belief that "geniuses are made, not born." That one floored me because I've always wanted to believe that, but pretty much everyone has told me the opposite. I can ignore them now. Kaku was clearly not saying that you can't be born a genius; instead, he was simply saying that it's not absolutely necessary. That's a wonderfully liberating thought. Einstein, after all, was not a child prodigy. He was a slow learner in his early years, actually. Then at age 12 or so, something profound changed. Kaku credits Einstein's dramatic intellectual growth to many factors, including this rather ordinary looking list: focus, imagination, access to a mentor, abstract thinking, the ability to ask questions nobody else asks, and the ability to think in pictures. That last point was key. Apparently, Einstein was able to hold childlike images in his head for long periods of time, which led to his passionate belief that even complex theories should be easily explained to, well, a child. So, although Einstein was really smart, Kaku seemed to be pointing out that what really made Einstein special was that he thought about things very differently from his colleagues at the time. This is such good news for us "normal" people because if Kaku is correct it means we can model Einstein's thought processes in the hopes of improving our own thinking in whatever way we choose. Science. Business. Family. Community. Whatever. I'm finding out that it's how you think that is as important as what you think. I'm looking forward to reading Kaku's new book, Beyond Einstein. [Jim Grisanzio] 8:20:04 PM

From Sun Microsystems - Bloggers Getting started. Just planning to beat the rush on Monday.... My primary blog is at GeoffArnold.Com; I'll have to see how I balance the use of the two blogs. [Sun Bloggers] 8:06:38 PM

New at The Cartoonist: The Short Story of the Week. Short Story of the week [1]. New at The Cartoonist: the short story of the week. From now on I'm going to publish one of my short stories every Sunday. Here's the first one. [The Cartoonist] 7:30:20 PM

Bloggers at Belgo Central Happy Bloggers. When bloggers meet in London, they naturally meet at Belgo Central for nice Belgian food and beer. Like last night, when Plep, Mr Bali Hai (who travelled all the way from the US to join in), Konstantin, Annie Mole (who brought her book) and yours truly got together to discuss new blogging strategies. Not. We met just to have some fun. Which we had. [The Cartoonist] 7:27:02 PM