BeautyandBoost.com
Music
‘cool’ Archives
This text and the one beside it are equal
People tend to have the misconception that making an anagram gets harder the longer the sentence is - the opposite is true. The longer a sentence gets, the more possibilities there are for making small re-arrangements in the anagram to fit the original text. See this famous anagram: To be or not to be: that is the question, whether tis nobler [...]
Guyot Designs Squishy Bowls
Cool Tools reviewed these cool food-grade silicone bowls and cups from Guyot Designs. For weight- and space-conscious backpackers or car campers, the squishy bowls offer an alternative to old-school non-collapsible aluminum/stainless steel/titanium bowls. And while these food-grade silicone bowls won't stand up to direct fire, they are oven safe [...]
HOWTO: Reproduce a key from a distant, angled photo
Sneakey is a project from Benjamin Laxton, Kai Wang, and Stefan Savage at the UCSD vision lab that has shown that it is possible to duplicate keys from photos taken at a distance and/or an angle. They've published a paper and are offering to release their code if there is "sufficient interest." The access control provided by a physical lock is [...]
Zombie shooting range targets
Law Enforcement Targets does a handsome line of shooting range zombie targets, including several in inexplicable Nazi uniforms. Good practice, I suppose, for the forthcoming Nazi zombie uprising... (more...)
HOWTO: Create antique style lighting
If you've ever been to a bar or restaurant with antique style lighting, you know how it can really give a space an interesting look. Back in March, GQ Magazine had a quick one-pager about these Edison-era lights with some tips on how to build them yourself. It is really easy. Here's a quick overview of how to build a simple, vintage style [...]
The Masonic Myth, by Jay Kinney. A no B.S. history of Freemasonry
I became interested in the Masons after reading Robert Anton Wilson's books. I also thought Masonic pocket watches were cool looking. When I told my friend's father that the Masons intrigued me, he revealed that he was a member and invited me to join ("To be one, ask one"). A lot of histories of Freemasonry have been written over the years. I [...]
Which way does water drain on the equator?
Someone should go out to the Atlantic Ocean where the equator crosses the prime meridian and build a concrete platform and call it "Zero Land" and have rides and funnel cakes. just sayin.
The Paper Fix binds your papers without staples
Not a fan of paper clips? Wish your stapler had an infinite supply of staples? The Paper Fix is a stapler-substitute that binds paper together using just the paper itself. (more...)
New book on conspiracies and Shermer’s skeptical take on the topic
In Scientific American, skeptic Michael Shermer presents his take on why people believe in conspiracies, even the most unlikely ones. Shermer raves about a new book on the subject by Arthur Goldwag, titled "Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, The Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Black Helicopters, The New World [...]
(1) Open a Linux terminal, (2) Enter “cal 9 1752″, (3) wtf?
Wikipedia can explain it. Britain and the British Empire (including the eastern part of what is now the United States) adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752 by which time it was necessary to correct by 11 days. Wednesday, 2 September 1752 was followed by Thursday, 14 September 1752 to account for 29 February 1700 (Julian). Claims that rioters [...]
Inumbr Creates Temporary Disposable Phone Numbers
If you ever need to hand out your phone number in a public forum or, say, give your number to a stranger on Craigslist, you rarely want to give away your real number. Free service inumbr generates free, auto-expiring phone numbers. I've used inumbr twice before when it was called Craigsnumber and simply numbr, but it's been renamed yet again, [...]
HOW WE DECIDE: Mind-blowing neuroscience of decision-making
Jonah Lehrer's How We Decide is the latest in a series of popular neuroscience books (Brain Rules, Stumbling on Happiness, Mind Wide Open, The Brain that Changes Itself) to (literally) blow my mind. Lehrer, author of the celebrated Proust Was a Neuroscientist, lays out the current state of the neuroscientific research into decision-making with [...]
…and I thought I was good at Super Mario World
I just got a headache from watching this... (more...)
The Math Book: From Pythagoras to the 57th Dimension, 250 Milestones in the History of Mathematics
Mathematics, as presented by Clifford Pickover, is a palace filled with awe-inspiring curiosities. His Math Book: From Pythagoras to the 57th Dimension, 250 Milestones in the History of Mathematics is a 500-page, full-color tour of mathematical highlights from 150 Million B.C. to 2007. (more...)
Open-source hardware design for a 67 TB array for $7867
Online backup startup BackBlaze, disgusted with the outrageously overpriced offerings from EMC, Sun, and the like, has released an open-source hardware design showing you how to build a 4U, RAID-capable rack-mounted, Linux-based server using commodity parts that contains 67 terabytes at a material cost of $7,867. It's open-source hardware! Their [...]
The File Menu
The File menu has been around since the dawn of user interfaces. But do you know what? It has overstayed its welcome. The File menu has been abused in far too many applications. A File menu should deal with files. That’s it. Open a file, save a file, print a file, quit editing the file. Some, no.. most applications have been using the File [...]
Coin-tosses aren’t fair
Many statistics examples start with "assuming a fair coin-toss..." But it turns out that coin-tosses aren't fair; depending on your toss, there's a small-to-alarming bias in the result. 1. If the coin is tossed and caught, it has about a 51% chance of landing on the same face it was launched. (If it starts out as heads, there's a 51% chance it [...]
Daft Punk to score Tron sequel
French electronica duo Daft Punk has been signed to write the original music score for Tron 2.0, Walt Disney's upcoming sequel to the groundbreaking 1982 animation cult hit which was scored by electronic music icon Wendy Carlos. Daft Punk's members Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter have been involved in various films before, but [...]
Not your normal road on Google Street View
Google van's keeping up with the race cars too. Yee-ha! Drive it like it's a rental, StreetView guy. Here's more about the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca racing track. (more...)
