Monday, March 05, 2007

Monday Links

They're piling up, so here's a slew. I should add "for you," but I'll refrain.

We were at a restaurant Saturday night and there was an Ogden Nash poem in the bathroom.
I don't mind eels
except for meals
and the way they feels

It's hard to beat that. Anyway, on with the links.

Matt Sakey has a blistering edition of Culture Clash this month, and you can read it here.

John Catania sent me a link to some fantastic hand art. Didn't know hand art existed? Neither did I, but the results are spectacular (check out the elephant). See them here.

There was an interesting article in the New York Times magazine yesterday about talent. It's titled "How to Grow a Super Athlete," but it's really about what "talent" is and how our brains learn. It's an excellent read, and you can find it here.

DQ reader Rick H. has been blogging for the last ten months, and you can find Ten Jack Ten here. He writes on a wide variety of subjects and is both thoughtful and clever.

Sirius sent me a link to a story about self assembling 3-dimensional modes. Here's an excerpt:
The trick is to pre-treat a gel disc half the size of a beer coaster with a monomer solution "blueprint" that selectively shrinks when heated. The technique, which cleverly demonstrates the link between 2D and 3D geometry, could be used by engineers to create self-assembling prototypes...

Very interesting, and you can read about it here.

Also from Sirius, a link to an announcement by the University of Wisconsin that after nearly a century, mathematicians now have an understanding of the mock theta fuctions referred to by Srinivasa Ramanujan in a letter written on his deathbed in 1920. Read about it here.

William Barnes sent me a link to some more classic NASA artwork from the 1970's envisioning space colonies. Some of the images are quite beautiful , and you can see them here.

Edwin Garcia sent me a link to a video about the FLIP (Floating Instrument Platform) marine research vessel. It's the only ship in the world that can operate in a horizontal or vertical position. It's a remarkable piece of engineering, and you can watch it happen here.

Site Meter