The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

Peter, Paul and Mary.  Wow!

In the Early Morning Rain (1966)

Peter, Paul and Mary.  I don't approve of all the lyrics, but this is one of my favorites.

Cloud Computing Trends to Watch in 2012

from Data Center Knowledge.

Haskell Authors

Simon Peyton-Jones and John Hughes interviewed at Channel 9.

The interview looks amateur but it gets more and more interesting as it progresses.  Try to ignore the picture taking extravaganza that goes on in the background at one point.

Amazon Builds World's Fastest Nonexistant Supercomputer

by Carl Metz at Wired.

Comet Lovejoy C/2011 W3

Amazing pictures from the ISS.

Sky and Telescope.

Wikipedia.

Top 10 Data Center Stories

for 2011 from Datacenter Knowledge.

Earth's Rotation Measured!

Actually it's easier to think of this in terms of the wandering of the poles being measured.  Story at Physorg.com.

Happy Winter Solstice!

At 0:30 EST last night  (5:30 UTC).

Thu 2011-12-22 00:30:00 -0500
Thu 2011-12-22 05:30:00 +0000

These times are rounded to the minute, the seconds aren't really zeroes.

Android vs. iPhone

Which looks better?  This article in Business Insider says these 11 screen shots prove that “Android apps are uglier Than iOS apps.”  I looked at them and I just don't see it.  The Android apps don't look worse to me and I generally don't see what the captions of the various images assert.

I do see that the iOS apps look more consistent in some ways.

To me, many of the Android apps look cleaner.  In one example the iOS app has a search box at top (taking up a lot of space) but I know Android has a search button  that works in all apps (that I've experienced and that have search), so you don't need a search box always on screen.

In another case, the iOS app has letter-of-alphabet dividers for a list but I know on Android if you grab such a list and scroll a little tab appears.  That tab has the current letter of the alphabet and you can quickly move it to the letter you're interested in, the list will scroll quickly as you move through the alphabet.

Dawn Approaches Vesta

“Unveiling [a] spectacular alien world.” by Ken Kremer at Universe Today.

Building the Universe Inside a Supercomputer

by Ian O'Neill at Discovery News.

In an arXiv preprint publication submitted on Dec. 8, Juhan Kim and colleagues from the Korea Institute for Advanced Study in Seoul have completed the largest simulation of the universe ever attempted.

The simulation calculates the evolution of 374 billion cold dark matter particles in a box some 10 gigaparsecs across—this represents approximately two thirds the size of the observable Universe. This virtual universe is 8,800 times larger than the previous record holder.

Images of Jupiter and Moons

Here are 10 sets of remarkable images of Jupiter's moons, provided by observers in recent months. Many of them resolve surface details. (South is up in all images. Click on the thumbnail images below for full size versions.) From britastro.org.

Higgs vs. Hype

A mini guide from MSNBC.

Higgs Boson

Five one-page explanations.  Well done!


“In 1993, the UK Science Minister, William Waldegrave, challenged physicists to produce an answer that would fit on one page to the question ‘What is the Higgs boson, and why do we want to find it?’”

Tweetdeck

Well, there goes the destruction of Tweetdeck by Twitter.  Thanks.

WW2 Tweets from 1939

This is Outstanding! @RealTimeWWII - Livetweeting the Second World War, as it happens on this date and time in 1939, and for 6 years to come.

Meet the Internet's Newest Boy Genius

by @gigaom.

Third Rock Radio

from NASA?

BrowserID

An interesting authentication scheme.  This looks pretty good.  It's based simply on your email address.

At Mozilla

Browserid.org.

On Security Now.  (YouTube)

Nano-Optic Technology for Enhanced Security

“Nanotech Security [has] created an atoms-thick display that can be read by humans or machines and that shines with the brightness of a typical LED despite using nothing but reflected light.” via @FastCompany.

NOtES exploits an obscure area of physics to accomplish its bright and sharp display, known as plasmonics. Light waves interact with the array of nano-scale holes on a NOtES display—which are typically 100–200 nanometers in diameter—in a way that creates what are called “surface plasmons.” In the words of the company, this means light “[collects] on the films surface and creates higher than expected optical outputs by creating an electromagnetic field, called surface plasmonic resonance.”

Caught Up

Okay, I think that catches me up on some reading I'd saved up to repost.

Game On!

The beta episode of a new show on gaming at Twit.tv.

Will Cultural Pushback Kill Private Clouds

at GigaOM.

Video Editing in Youtube

from GigaOM.

Car, Table, Counter or TakHomaSak

by Roger Ebert.  A must-read tribute to Steak 'n Shake.

Graphics Rendering on Android

True facts from Diane Hackborn.

Zero Email

Finally, a company implements a no email policy!  For a long time, I've thought email should go!

Observations on Ten Years of Blogging

by @GigaOM.

Engulfed Cathedral

by Claude Debussy is one of my favorite pieces of music.

This electronic version performed by Isao Tomita on Snowflakes Are Dancing (1974) was used in the first planetarium show I ever did.  The show was a live lecture for some 50 minutes (too long, but these were the old days of longer attention spans) and the show (created by Mike Hood) ended in a beautiful sun rise with this music.   We only used the piece up to the 3m35s mark or so, fading it out there.

Piano

Wind ensemble arrangement

CarrierIQ

Interview in The @Verge by Sean Hollister is a good attempt to begin sorting out what's going on here.  This story is still developing.

It was discussed on This Week in Tech 330.

Lance Ulanoff at Mashable.

The 99 Most Essential Christmas Masterpieces (Amazon Exclusive)

In the 100 Christmas Albums for $5 at Amazon's MP3 Store.  Recommended!