simonff

Всяческая писанина.

Про Маляра
Глюк. Лунная Дорожка.
Dotelf - an alternative history Slashdot
Древнеримский рекламный ролик.
Enigma technical support - WWII humor
Подраzh_anие - дракон и рыцарь.
Waterworld - это мне приснилось.
Суета вокруг Принцессы - и это тоже.
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"Вредные вопросы" в ru_history.

Основатель религиозной попсы.

Эпоха Александра I в России и всякая всячина про Европу

Злобный человек.

Русские войска в Средиземье... эээ, Средиземноморье.

Граница Иберии и Албании

Армения, крестоносцы и католические соборы

Another greenhouse gas map. This one shows total emissions for the Kyoto signatories for 1990-2006.

For Memorial Day, one of our engineers created a map layer of US casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan as a tribute to their memory.



See CNN article.

A man filed a case in a Southern California district court and laid right to the ownership of a stack of American companies by using Chinese divination system the I Ching.

Vinod Khosla gave a presentation at Google today - here's a very similar previous version, very word-spartan and idea-heavy.

He's a cofounder of Sun, and now a venture capitalist. I liked his approach - look at total costs, think far ahead, concentrate on China/India, look for really disruptive technologies, build new efficient stock and do not spend time on pennywise feel-good tiny actions. Some of ideas he's financing: carbon sequestration by pouring concrete, high-yield non-food biofuels, improving internal combustion efficiency, making green prefabricated homes.

Bill Keller, New York Times executive editor, is the son of George Keller, former chairman of Chevron, which used to be Standard Oil before a merger with Gulf Oil.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the NYT coverage of global warming issues.

Как известно, только хороший кофе мужского рода. Если это отвратительная бурда, то оно среднего рода.

Отсюда неизбежно следует, что кофе, которую еще не попробовали, должна быть женского рода.

A typical civilized blogosphere holy war.. A reader bashes a book, and another defends it.

Except that the reader is John Wright, author of a very imaginative... no, VERY imaginative (trust me) trilogy The Golden Age, while the defender is John Crowley, the author of the said book. As additional spicing on the cake, Wright is a technophile-turned-Catholic, while Crowley is a self-proclaimed good Gnostic exposing bad Gnostics, where bad Gnostics are those hoping for a God to save them.

However, in my eyes Wright's position is weak, as he's trying to justify it by exposing holes in Buffyverse. :) Now we need Joss to join the discussion, I suppose.

(via petro_gulak)

Super-high-res aerial maps of London (not Google's :).

You can easily see individual people (from above, so no faces).

Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

Full screen recommended.

(via vladimirpotapov)

Афоризм пришел в голову: Представьте себе, что вы родились в стране, языка которой вы не знаете...

I was trying to write a post about why I'm not doing much in LJ, but Tim O'Reilly is, of course, better at explaining my philosophy. See his presentation from the recent Emerging Technologies conference.

Coworker: I'll respond prEsently.
Me: I'd rather you did not respond in presEntly.
Coworker: Hah, yes. I'd rather do it in Writely.. Too bad "rightly" is not a word.
Me: And rightly so.

Conservatives need to keep their definitions as simple as possible, owing to the incredibly large number of things of which they are afraid.

Загадочная русская душа наконец-то измерена в игре-эксперименте с жителями Курской области.

Выводы:
"Больше всего нас поразили два обстоятельства: почти полное отсутствие воздействия наказания на склонность к сотрудничеству и в то же время крайне резко выраженная склонность к наказанию. Исходя из экспериментов, проведенных нами в западных странах, мы, конечно, ожидали определенного наказания тех, кто вносил слишком мало или совсем ничего, но мы не могли даже представить себе, что участники будут наказывать - и к тому же крайне решительно - тех людей, которые вносили столько же или даже больше, чем они сами".

How Obama's administration and Rush Limbaugh are joining forces to fight the Republican party.

Who needs silly conspiracy theories when you have Machiavelli Emanuel et al? "“The television cameras just can’t stay away from Limbaugh,” Carville said Tuesday, a day when cable news played images of Limbaugh seemingly on a loop. “Our strategy depends on him keeping talking, and I think we’re going to succeed.”"

Now the Limbaugh brouhaha begins to make sense. I was wondering why recently Obama decided to respond on the air, specifically invoking Limbaugh's name. I guess all that Harvard education and community organizing do have certain applications in the real world.

By weeding out weak Democrats, the Republicans fell into the antibiotic trap - a few Democrats have survived. And evolved.

Tardigrades have been known to withstand the following extremes while in this state:

* Temperature — tardigrades can survive being heated for a few minutes to 151 °C, or being chilled for days at –200 °C, or for a few minutes at –272 °C. (absolute zero is −273.15 °C).
* Pressure — they can withstand the extremely low pressure of a vacuum and also very high pressures, more than 1200 times atmospheric pressure. It has recently been demonstrated that tardigrades can survive the vacuum of open space and solar radiation combined for at least 10 days. Recent research has notched up another feat of endurance: they can withstand 6,000 atmospheres, which is nearly six times the pressure of water in the deepest ocean trench.
* Dehydration — tardigrades have been shown to survive nearly one decade in a dry state.
* Radiation — as shown by Raul M. May from the University of Paris, tardigrades can withstand 5,700 grays or 570,000 rads of x-ray radiation. (Ten to twenty grays or 1,000–2,000 rads could be fatal to a human). The only explanation thus far for this ability is that their lowered water state provides fewer reactants for the ionizing radiation.

Unfortunately, they are just 0.1-1.5 mm long, or I'd choose them for reincarnation.

Интервью с Орешкиным про политику и экономику России - на удивление адекватное.

"Когда, по вашему мнению, произойдет смена правительства и премьер-министра, или мы обречены на развал экономики окончательно?

Если произойдет, то в течение года. Может, полугода. Но на развал экономики в той или иной степени мы все равно обречены. Даже если правительство с понедельника начнет принимать исключительно точные и правильные решения, потребуется время, чтобы они принесли плоды. Плюс негативный внешний фон. Не буду повторять общие места, что думать надо было раньше и т.п. Власть, особенно у нас в России, так устроена, что покуда рогом в стенку не упрется, не остановится. "

Я давно не видел, чтобы в российской прессе люди помнили про time lag, например.