Will's Thoughtstream

Six Degrees of Wikipedia

2008-05-30T04:10:53Z

I liked this article about computing the degrees of separation between Wikipedia articles. Perhaps my favorite part was the graph showing how the author drive up the processor temperature for his CS department server by 20 degrees Celsius for an entire week:

Lighting Buildings with Prism Windows

2008-05-30T04:05:49Z

A cool article on how Japanese companies are reinventing Victorian age technology to light building interiors via indirect window using prisms mounted in windows.

Kings lomatia - the 43,000 year old shrubbery

2008-05-12T04:15:53Z

The story of the 43,000 year old, self-cloning, sterile , triploid Audstralian shrubbery:

Why is it endangered? L. tasmanica is endangered because it only occurs naturally in one small area in the world. The total wild plant population is around 500 individuals all restricted to one disease and fire prone area. Kings lomatia (Lomatia tasmanica) occurs as a single population in Tasmania's remote southwest within the Wilderness World Heritage Area.

It is a Tasmanian endemic, first recorded by miner and naturalist, Deny King in 1937 at New Harbour but this population seems to have since disappeared. During the 1960's Deny sent specimens of the plant to the Tasmanian Herbarium to be identified and so it became known to science. Its common name "Kings lomatia" is in honour of the man who discovered it.

Why are these plants unable to sexually reproduce? Although this plant does produce flowers it has never produced fruit or seed. The reason for this is that the plant is a triploid. This means it has three sets of chromosomes instead of the normal two. This renders the plant sterile. Other Tasmanian species, L. tinctoria and L. polymorpha are diploid (two sets of chromosomes), as are other species of the genus and the subfamily to which it belongs.

The only way it can reproduce itself is by vegetative means. It simply clones itself. When it gets old and falls down, it puts out new suckers and grows up again. It is still theoretically the same plant.

In fact latest research has shown that Kings lomatia is all one single clone. There is no genetic diversity within the population. This means that all the individual Kings lomatia plants are genetically identical.

The oldest plant clone in the world! Amazingly, this plant clone has been around for at least 43,600 years. At Melaleuca Inlet some Pleistocene fossils of Lomatia leaves were found that appear to be L. tasmanica. Radio-carbon dating gave a minimum age of 43,600 years for the layer in which the leaf fossil was found.

Fireside Chat: Google and Tim Ferriss

2008-04-27T03:45:54Z

One hour video of a chat with Tim Ferris of Four Hour Work Week fame and Google:

It covered tons of topics never discussed on the blog before: proposed improvements to Gmail (please!), the real original book title, using telephone vs. e-mail, principles and case studies, metrics (including exercise), analysis vs. intuition, the declining dollar and personal outsourcing & geoarbitrage, and much more.

Rich Burridge's Blog : 1001 Books to Read Before You Die

2008-04-27T03:14:23Z

I've always thought it is quite impressive enough when someone can compile a list of their top ten or top one hundred books. But Rich Burridge has put together a 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list. Wow!

Happy Earth Day: Canada Declares BPA Toxic

2008-04-23T04:10:42Z

As reported by the New York Times, Canada officially declared bisphenol-a (BPA) toxic, leading the way to ban polycarbonate baby bottles:

The Canadian government moved Friday to ban polycarbonate infant bottles, the most popular variety on the market, after it officially declared one of their chemical ingredients toxic. The action, by the departments of health and environment, is the first taken by any government against bisphenol-a, or BPA, a widely used chemical that mimics a human hormone. It has induced long-term changes in animals exposed to it through tests.

Oatmeal & Applesauce Sugarless Cookies Recipe

2008-04-22T04:37:55Z

This recipe for oatmeal applesauce cookies was pretty boring to my adult palette, but my kids were just fine with it, and it's a good substitute for packaged snack foods: portable and convenient. From cooks.com.

OATMEAL & APPLESAUCE COOKIES - SUGARLESS

Ingredients

1/2 c. flour
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. allspice
1/2 c. quick oatmeal
1/2 c. unsweetened applesauce
1/4 c. cooking oil
1 med. egg
1 tsp. vanilla

Directions
Mix flour, cinnamon, soda, salt, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, oatmeal and raisins. Add applesauce, oil, egg, vanilla and mix just to moisten. Drop on greased sheets. Bake at 375 degrees for about 12 minutes. Best served slightly warm.

I left out the allspice and cloves (just didn't have them), and they were fine without them.

Greenland lake disappears under the ice

2008-04-20T14:41:30Z

This report via Ars Technica about glacial lake draining is amazing:

A report in today's Science describes how researchers recorded the drainage of one such lake in Greenland. The lake was roughly 5.6 km², but drained completely in less than an hour and a half. The lake's contents rapidly made their way down to the bottom of the ice sheet, 980 m below the surface. During this period, the average drainage rate was 8700 m³/s. For reference, the average flow rate for Niagara Falls is only 5700 m³/s.

Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone « FreeRangeKids

2008-04-14T05:10:05Z

Free Range Kids is a great site about restoring freedom and independence to kids so that they can develop skills and confidence. A recent post about letting her 9 year old ride the subway alone starts:

I left my 9-year-old at Bloomingdale's (the original one) a couple weeks ago. Last seen, he was in first floor handbags as I sashayed out the door. Was I worried? Yes, a tinge. But it didn't strike me as that daring, either. Isn't New York as safe now as it was in 1963? It's not like we're living in downtown Baghdad.

Anyway, for weeks my boy had been begging for me to please leave him somewhere, anywhere, and let him try to figure out how to get home on his own. So on that sunny Sunday I gave him a subway map, a MetroCard, a $20 bill, and several quarters, just in case he had to make a call.

Growing up in Brooklyn, NY, I fondly remember wandering a distance of several miles at around the same age with my cousin Douglas.

12 tips for eating right inexpensively

2008-04-13T21:46:19Z

Robyn has 12 tips for eating right inexpensively that are especially handy for those that may want to eat organic but need to keep food costs down. Here's a couple of examples from her blog:

Quit buying vitamin supplements (see my Nutrition Manifesto Myth #4) and apply that cost savings to whole plant foods.
Quit buying chips, soda, and packaged cookies and candy. Quit buying meat. Quit buying fast food. These things are costing you more than you may realize.
Instead, buy grains and legumes, which are higher in protein than people expect, inexpensive, and they keep in storage for years. Try serving grains/legumes most nights a week instead of meat.

Follow the link for more great ideas.

Dave Gray's Principles of Visual Langauge Video

2008-04-11T13:51:31Z

Dave Gray has a great video on the basic elements of visual language: Forms, fields, and flows. He also has a new website where he is consolidating his thoughts on visual thinking in preparation for a new book.

William Hertling's Support 2.0 Blog

2008-04-09T21:53:39Z

I've started a new blog focused exclusively on Support 2.0: the use of social media for technical support of products. I hope you'll take a look and share some comments.

Thanks, Will

GeekDad Salutes 11-Year-Old Network Administrator | Geekdad from Wired.com

2008-04-07T04:50:31Z

From GeekDad, an 11-year-old takes on network administration duties for his school:

Jon Penn, a sixth grader at a small private school in Sherwood, Ark., is Exhibit A. When Victory Baptist School's previous network admin jumped ship, 11-year-old Jon decided to help out his mother, the school librarian who suddenly found herself responsible for computer support, by taking the reins.

Jon set to removing viruses from the antiquated machines and installed a firewall and filtering software as a stopgap measure while he looked forward to instituting centralized system management. Along the way he became what may well be the nation's youngest IT guy, and what's very obviously any geek parent's dream come true.

Randy Pausch reprising his "Last Lecture"

2008-04-04T23:08:53Z

This video will make you cry: Randy Pausch's Last Lecture.

GeekDad Wayback Machine: Places to Take Your Kids in Portland | Geekdad from Wired.com

2008-04-02T04:29:06Z

GeekDad has a good list of places to take little geeklets in Portland, Oregon. Although most of the suggestions will be well known to natives, there were a few really good ideas I hadn't seen before. Here's a couple of direct quotes from the article:

Side trip (from OMSI): The Portland bridges. From OMSI it is a quick walk to the downtown bridges and more than once I've been offered tours of the towers and inner workings just for showing interest.
Willamette Locks at Oregon City: River engineering is a big part of the economy in the region (for good and ill) and the Willamette Locks are a great, close in, example of how the rivers are operated for commerce. My kids got to operate the locks under the supervision of the lock master - smiles from ear to ear. Make sure the locks are in operation before visiting. The Army Corps of Engineers operates the locks only when they have the budget to do so. If your kids like this trip consider a visit to Bonneville.
Arrival of the Jayhawks: A few times a year the Coast Guard Jayhawk rescue helicopters come up from Air Station Astoria to do a SAR demonstration. They always do a demonstration at the June Rose Festival Fleet Week but my favorite place to get up close and personal is the occasional open houses at Coast Guard Sector Portland. The demonstration is within about 100 feet of dock and you get a great view. At either of these events you can tour the USCGC Bluebell, our local buoy tender. (I'm a Coast Guard Auxiliarist so I have a bias on this one). Photos here.
Evergreen Aviation Museum : Home of the Spruce Goose. If the kids are interested aviation this is trip you must take. They have wonderful collection of aircraft from the beginning of flight to WWII war birds to an SR-71 all under the longest wingspan of any aircraft ever built, Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose.