Your Links
Here are some excellent links that you guys sent in last week.From DQ reader Chris Gwynn, a link to a classic essay by Ken Thompson called "Reflections on Trusting Trust." Here's Chris's description:
Thompson was being awarded the ACM Turing Award for inventing UNIX (among other things). The recipient delivers a lecture after receiving the prize, and Thompson's was a little unusual.
If you've ever wondered where viruses/worms/whatever come from, and why they're hard to avoid, it's worth reading. It should be understandable by non-technical people. Keep in mind that this was in 1984, before PC computer viruses and the Morris worm.
Here's the link:
http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/.
Then, from Randy Graham, a link to a Popular Science article about colored soap bubbles. It's titled "The 11-Year Quest to Create Disappearing Colored Bubbles," and it's a fascinating article. It sounds like a trivial subject, but the process of invention was remarkable and the possible uses for temporary die are just staggering. Here's the link:
http://tinyurl.com/ca9ga.
From DQ reaer Matthew O'Brien, a link to an amazing article titled "The Physics of Goo." It seems that a professor has actually conducted experiments with thickening water, and it won him the Ig Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
That "Ig" in front is important.
Here's the link:
http://www.collisiondetection.net/mt/archives/000983.html.
Finally, from Michael Martin, a link to a story about an Everest expedition that will be wearing the same kind of clothing worn by George Mallory in 1924 during his ill-fated attempt on the summit. Crazy? Yes, but some interesting reasons as to why they're doing it. Here's the link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4470522.stm.
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