Relevant to my Interests: December to January

Some things from the last two months I really liked but never got around to talking about. I promise to only do round-ups every couple months.

• Video: History of the Internet – ReadWriteWeb
  • http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/video_history_of_the_internet.php
  • If you’ve ever wondered how the Internet was born, but can’t be bothered reading a whole book on the subject, check out this short animated documentary from Milah Bilgil. Entitled History of the internet, it does a great job explaining time-sharing, file-sharing, arpanet and internet. The video uses a new type of info-graphic called PICOL icons, which will soon be made available for free on picol.org. PICOL stands for Pictorial Communication Language – it’s a project that aims to create “a standard and reduced sign system for electronic communicatio.”  PICOL is free to use and open to alter.
• Ptak Science Books: Things that Are Just Simply Wrong: War Gases and Babies; Protective Suits for Children and Babies, 1943
  • http://longstreet.typepad.com/thesciencebookstore/2009/01/things-that-are-just-simply-wrong-war-gases-and-babies-protective-suits-for-children-and-babies-1943.html
  • Like pornography and art, things that are just plain wrong are instantly recognizable.  And this, my dear reader, is a fine example of that thinking. Anti-Gas Protective Helmet for Babies, Manual of Instructions was prepared for the Office of the Director of Civil Air Raid Precautions of Ottawa, Canada, and published in 1943.
• Gallery – Visions of the ice caps before climate change – Image 1 – New Scientist
  • http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/dn16381-polar-paintings/
  • The first polar paintings were made by explorers with some artistic training. These and many others are on display at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, in To the Ends of the Earth: Painting the Polar Landscape.
• Nuclear apocalypse and the Letter of Last Resort. – By Ron Rosenbaum – Slate Magazine
  • http://www.slate.com/id/2208219
  • In the case of the Letter of Last Resort, the reference turns out to be factual: At this very moment, miles beneath the surface of the ocean, there is a British nuclear submarine carrying powerful ICBMs (nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles). In the control room of the sub, the Daily Mail reports, “there is a safe attached to a control room floor. Inside that, there is an inner safe. And inside that sits a letter. It is addressed to the submarine commander and it is from the Prime Minister. In that letter, Gordon Brown conveys the most awesome decision of his political career … and none of us is ever likely to know what he decided.”
• Yochai Benkler on the new open-source economics | Video on TED.com
  • http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/yochai_benkler_on_the_new_open_source_economics.html
  • Yochai Benkler explains how collaborative projects like Wikipedia and Linux represent the next stage of human organization.
• Philip Zimbardo shows how people become monsters … or heroes | Video on TED.com
  • http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil.html
  • Philip Zimbardo knows how easy it is for nice people to turn bad. In this talk, he shares insights and graphic unseen photos from the Abu Ghraib trials. Then he talks about the flip side: how easy it is to be a hero, and how we can rise to the challenge.
• English Russia ” Abandoned Russian Polar Nuclear Lighthouses
  • http://englishrussia.com/?p=2198
  • After reviewing different ideas on how to make them work for a years without service and any external power supply, Soviet engineers decided to implement atomic energy to power up those structures. So, special lightweight small atomic reactors were produced in limited series to be delivered to the Polar Circle lands and to be installed on the lighthouses. Those small reactors could work in the independent mode for years and didn’t require any human interference, so it was very handy in the situation like this. It was a kind of robot-lighthouse which counted itself the time of the year and the length of the daylight, turned on its lights when it was needed and sent radio signals to near by ships to warn them on their journey. It all looks like ran out the sci-fi book pages, but so they were.
• Browse Medicine and Madison Avenue
  • http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/mma/browse
  • A database of over 600 advertisements and historical documents dated between 1911 and 1958, relating to the creation and influence of health-related advertising.
• Benjamin Wallace on the price of happiness | Video on TED.com
  • http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/benjamin_wallace_on_the_price_of_happiness.html
  • Can happiness be bought? To find out, author Benjamin Wallace sampled the world’s most expensive products, including a bottle of 1947 Chateau Cheval Blanc, 8 ounces of Kobe beef and the fabled (notorious) Kopi Luwak coffee. His critique may surprise you.
• Vancouver Aquarium – Beluga Cam
  • http://www.vanaqua.org/belugacam/index.html