How much does the Internet weigh?
How heavy is information? Most of us know that computers represent all types of information—e-mails, documents, video clips, Web pages, everything—as streams of binary digits, 1s and 0s. These digits are mathematical entities, but they are also tangible ones: They are embodied and manipulated as voltages in electronic circuits. Therefore, every bit of data must have some mass, albeit minuscule. This prompted DISCOVER to ask the question: How much would all the data sent through the Internet on an average day weigh?
link (via Andrew Sullivan)
Worth reading not just to see the math but also for its elegant conclusion.
DOJ
For more than 15 years, clean-cut, square-jawed Tom Heffelfinger was the embodiment of a tough Republican prosecutor. Named U.S. attorney for Minnesota in 1991, he won a series of high-profile white-collar crime and gun and explosives cases. By the time Heffelfinger resigned last year, his office had collected a string of awards and commendations from the Justice Department.
So it came as a surprise — and something of a mystery — when he turned up on a list of U.S. attorneys who had been targeted for firing.
Part of the reason, government documents and other evidence suggest, is that he tried to protect voting rights for Native Americans.
At a time when GOP activists wanted U.S. attorneys to concentrate on pursuing voter fraud cases, Heffelfinger’s office was expressing deep concern about the effect of a state directive that could have the effect of discouraging Indians in Minnesota from casting ballots.
Quick, Cindy, Think of a Title
A London performance of the “Lord of the Rings” musical ended abruptly with actors dressed as Hobbits, elves and dwarfs rushing to help a screaming cast member whose leg was trapped in set machinery.
LEGO Artist
Thinking of having a baby? You may need this.
Hieronymus Bosch Action Figures
(mr)
Evil
Book-A-Minute Classics
I love the great classic works of literature—when I can find time to read them! Some of those books have pages filled with words and they just go on and on without pictures to give some relief. Here’s a no-frills site that offers concise, condensed versions of all your favorites. The layout is kind of ugly, but the content will help you catch up on the most significant books published in the last several hundred years.
And there’s a separate page for sci-fi/fantasy…
From the Comments
Daryl Scroggins:
Sheila: It’s great to hear that your grandfather worked with Wallace Stevens. Have you read Peter Brazeau’s Parts of a World: Wallace Stevens Remembered? It’s an oral biography that appeared back in the 80s–North Point Press. Anyway it’s great, and there is an interesting connection noted in it that relates to your practice of shooting coins: did you know that the model for “Mercury” on the mercury dime was Stevens’s wife? The book is full of 1st person accounts of people who knew Stevens, including many people who had no idea that he had anything going but the insurance job.About shooting coins: I have fond memories of sitting on the roof of my friend Chuck’s house when I was 12, shooting green plastic soldiers set up in a sand pile below. We made all the right sound effects and were only stopped by parents when we started to employ lighter fluid in alarming ways. My .177 Benjamin pump would make wonderful dents in the green guys that looked like the blast holes made by Arnold’s shotgun in the Terminator II liquid-metal-cop.
Women in Art
Are these words important? You be deciduous!
Mr. Kottke linked to the new book 100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know with the sneer, “Alternate title: 100 mostly useless words.”
Here’s the complete list.
PhotoCluster
Didn’t he once play bass for Blind Faith?
The Bean
UFOs In Spanish
It has not received much notice in the North, but the following video has made news South of the Border. This footage was taken in Lima, Peru in the last week.
The Air Car
The world’s first commercial compressed air-powered vehicle is rolling towards the production line. The Air Car, developed by ex-Formula One engineer Guy Nègre, will be built by India’s largest automaker, Tata Motors.
The Air Car uses compressed air to push its engine’s pistons. It is anticipated that approximately 6000 Air Cars will be cruising the streets of India by 2008. If the manufacturers have no surprises up their exhaust pipes the car will be practical and reasonably priced. The CityCat model will clock out at 68 mph with a driving range of 125 miles.
Refueling is simple and will only take a few minutes. That is, if you live nearby a gas station with custom air compressor units. The cost of a fill up is approximately $2.00. If a driver doesn’t have access to a compressor station, they will be able to plug into the electrical grid and use the car’s built-in compressor to refill the tank in about 4 hours.
The compressed air technology is basically just a way of storing electrical energy without the need for costly, heavy, and occasionally toxic batteries. So, in a sense, this is an electric car. It just doesn’t have an electric motor.
Website Ads
When people use search engines to reach your site, they’re looking for something. Chances are, your site probably doesn’t have what they are looking for, but with context-sensitive ads like Google’s Adsense, they’ll likely see ads for things related to their search terms. Imagine that — ads that actually make a page more valuable to readers, not just the site owners. Random people searching for information are much more likely to click on those related text ads if the ads help them find what they are looking for. Compare that to a regular visitor that comes to your site dozens of times a week: How often are they going to click on any ads? How quickly will they learn to visually filter out the ads entirely from the experience? Superfans develop banner blindness extremely quickly.
Cluster Bomb: India
I doubt any of this is stuff that anyone—but especially people who’ve actually met me in person—would find startling, but maybe youse guys will be amused by these:
I didn’t believe in moonlight—didn’t think you could see jack shit by the light of the moon, assumed it was a figure of speech—until I was well into high school, in a very dark cornfield, and actually experienced it.
Read more
Maltese Snack Alert
In the event you’re tracking snack trends, here is the latest from Our Man in the Mediterranean:
Consumer Flash!: Next time you’re in Italy (or Malta), buy yourself a package of GS brand “Biscotti con Mais” (cookies with corn). The main ingredient is “farina di frumento” (flour of whatever-the-heck-frumento-is), but 21% is corn flour! And boy, do they make for good snacking!
WWJD?
If there is even one planet somewhere in the universe with intelligent life on it, what does that mean for fundamentalist Christianity? (More specifically, to a fundamentalist Christian?) What sort of mental gymnastics would they need to apply to rationalize its existence in terms of salvation, judgment, redemption, biblical truth? Would Christ have visited them too? Would they have their own Christ? I wonder what their Christ would say about ours? If they had no Christ, would they, the lot of them, be deprived of Christ’s salvation and subject to eternal damnation? When this happens, when we discover this intelligent life elsewhere, what will Jesus do?
Attic Owl
Twenty-five hundred or so years ago, the owl you see here settled near Athens. This week ‘Flocker Alek Lindus spotted it in her neighborhood over on the island of Samos.
Cluster Bomb: Daryl Scroggins
I never did a “meet the flockers,” so I hope you will forgive the length here. I never went to high school. Dropped out of the 8th grade, ran away from home and toured the western states on my motorcycle (got a GED in the Air Force; later went to college and graduate school at UTD, and now teach creative writing and American literature at a university). Have had many jobs, including one working for a meat packing company as a grinder and a driver. I knew I wanted to be a writer when I was nine and never lost my love for it. I haven’t done much shooting recently, but I used to do a lot of it. I was always lucky on my first shot. Once, under a full moon on a country road, I fired my pistol at a coke bottle on a fence post fifty yards away and hit it. When my drunk friends scoffed, I did it again. The second shot was lucky too, but they bought it. I would love to have a traditional Japanese house, with the walls that open onto porches. I would get up every morning and shoot several dozen arrows at a target without caring how many times I hit the mark. One of the most beautiful things I ever saw: stopped my motorcycle beside the road at two a.m. in Gila Bend, Arizona, and understood why the Milky Way is called that. I could sit all day and look at gravel, picking out the little fossil snails and odd bits with holes going through them. At the movies, I am the one who needs the box of tissue most readily. I also have a mean streak that is entirely directed toward people who seek to harm those they regard as weaker than themselves (hence, perhaps, my years of teaching martial arts). Aside from the normal urge to run from or oppose danger, and a desire to not be a source of sorrow for others, I am not particularly afraid of death and don’t want the “eternal life” many seem to count on. If I could only take the works of three writers with me to a life on a deserted island, they would be: Shakespeare; Wallace Stevens; Cormac McCarthy. Cindy made me want to be a good person, and anything good about me came to me from her. Once, about twenty years ago, I was very sick with cancer. As I was about to be put under for a major surgery, I pondered the fact that I very well might not wake again. Cindy was in my thoughts then, in the middle of a billowing sense of the many days I had been granted, and the major feeling that flooded through me at that moment was gratitude.
Home Decorating Trends I Don’t Get
Once, in a veterinarian’s office, I got acquainted with the ‘office cat’, and the vet told me that he had that cat because a client brought it in to be put down. She’d redecorated, and the cat no longer matched the furniture. Honestly.
The Naked Turtle
An 18-year-old waitress and part-time jazz singer is in line for a multi-million dollar record deal after performing for George Clooney at the Cannes film festival.
Victoria Hart, whose day job involves working for tips at the little-known Naked Turtle restaurant in London, was flown to Cannes earlier this month after a friend-of-a-friend put her name forward to sing at a charity event.
Her performance in front of Hollywood stars including Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Clooney, who described her as “simply lovely,” won her international acclaim and now major record labels EMI and Universal are battling to sign her.
“We’re getting very close — a deal is not far away at all,” Hart’s agent Lynne Pearson told Reuters from her home in Switzerland.
Cluster Bomb: John Buaas
I’m not entirely sure how my post led to all this, but I’ll play along anyway.
I’m pretty boring, as you’ll see from what follows.
I did not graduate with my senior class in high school but ended up earning a PhD in English. I don’t recommend doing things that way, by the way. After two beers, that’ll be me, sitting over in the corner, singing to myself. I make pretty good guacamole and pozole. If mariachis are around, I will sing. Loudly (and pretty well, if I say so myself). When I lived in Mobile, we were next-door neighbors with Jeff Sessions until he became a U.S. senator (he’s a very nice man, but I cannot abide his politics). I once qualified to appear on Jeopardy! but was never called for that season. When I was in high school, I won Austin’s UIL Ready-Writing competition and placed 3rd in the regional competition. When my wife gets an unwanted song stuck in her head, I’ll sing “You Give Love a Bad Name” to her. She isn’t appreciative. My car (a 1993 Corolla) has almost 280,000 miles on it yet has never had a tune-up–and still gets well over 30 mpg. I have seen Vertigo over 30 times and written 3 lengthy blog posts about it.
That’s about it.
See? Boring.
Cluster Bomb: Michael Grant Smith
I can’t swim. I don’t even like to be fully submerged. Do not take this to mean that I’m afraid to shower—heck, I’m afraid not to. In twenty minutes or less, I can make something delicious using whatever you have in your kitchen, a nice frying pan, and a pot with a cover. This is not an offer or a challenge, though. I cried a little at the ending of Tim Burton’s Big Fish the first time I saw it. The first half of my professional life was about audio systems and mixing sound. They were my hobby, my art, and my career. The second half of my life (which just started a few years ago) is about discovering other things that I like to do and I’m good at. I hope I find some. I can play the shit out of an electric bass but don’t often get the urge to do so lately. Maybe it’ll come back—the urge, not the shit. I always thought Rudi Bakhtiar was really, really hot. I wanted to believe everything she said on CNN Headline News. Actually, I didn’t even care if the sound was turned down. I think she’s at Fox now and I don’t think my love is strong enough. No, I did not create that link about her.