With math skills in America rapidly dwindling (the number of people I meet who can’t figure a 20% gratuity in their head is frightening) its nice to see that someone still appreciates the beuty of numbers.

Math is the intersection of art and reality and those who study its finer points (i.e. those parts of math not related to money, enginieeering or computer programming) still find ways to have fun.  This is such a list. 

Significant numbers – Significance of numbers. Not to be confused with the concept of "significant figures," this page lists the significance of numbers 0 through 1000. See! "2 is the only even prime." Hear! "24 is the largest number divisible by all numbers less than its square root." Thrill! "3367 is the smallest number which can be written as the difference of 2 cubes in 3 ways." Whoa!

(Via Metafilter)

There are certain events that help geeks in their early to mid 30s bond.  It could be the fact that we all grew up in the heyday of the coin arcade or the fact that we all cut our teeth on dial-in BBS systems.

But what really pulls all of us together is that we all remember Princess Leia wearing next to nothing and chained at the feet of the repugnant Jabba.  We all saw this and we all saw it at a time when our hormones were gettting ready to explode.  Most of us let it go at some point.  We discovered the Internet and its easy pr0n access.  We moved on and spent some time in the real world with real girls. 

 But apparently one man never let go of the dream.  One man with a mission.  To find Leia and rescue her.  Well he’s done it and the results are both titilating and scary.  Erotic and sad all at the same time.  Perhaps I’ve let to much of my own experience color the perception, so I’ll let you decide for yourself.  Friends, I give you Leia’s Metal Bikini!

 Ladies and gentlemen, I give you example #1,234,745 why open source works.  A router is after all a simple computer.  If Linksys were to allow geeks around the world to get at the operating system, the sky’s the limit.  Viola!  the WRT54G.

Upgrade the Linksys WRT54G with open source firmware –

The Linksys WRT54G is a fairly typical WiFi router, able to connect your home network and work seamlessly with a broadband connection. But what makes the $60 router unique is the fact that its firmware is based on Linux. A couple of years ago, Linksys — under pressure from the open source community — released the firmware under the GPL, and since then, developers have taken it apart and put it back together again, adding new features, including the ability to run the WRT54G as a VPN or VoIP server, a RADIUS server, or even as a full-fledged (albeit very low-end) computer. WiFi Planet has a good rundown of the options available to WRT54G hackers, along with lots of warranty-voiding tips; the site estimates that by upgrading the firmware, you can turn the WRT54G into the equivalent of a $600 workhorse. Of course, all of this raises the question of what’s really in all of those $600 routers powered by proprietary firmware. The answer, we assume, is pretty much the same guts as a $60 unit, and $540 of trademarked, patented, intellectual property. Thank goodness for open source!

(Via Engadget)

 Its high time we had some new voices in politics.  And while celebrities jumping into elections is sometimes a bad thing (see The Govenator) Franken has always impressed me as intelligent and passionate about his beliefs.  If nothing else, he can bring an outsiders attitude to a political structure that has become remarkably stagnant.

Comedian Al Franken gets serious about politics (Reuters) –

Reuters – He pioneered mock television news 30 years ago and wrote a satirical book about becoming the 44th president of the United States.

(Via Yahoo! Oddly Enough)

 A local radio station does something like this every few months.  They start off with a baseball card or some such and barter it up to something on the order of a used car.  I love non-cash based economics

Trading a paperclip for a house – Cory Doctorow: Kyle sez, "I started with one red paperclip back in July and I am making a chain of trades for bigger or better objects until I get a house. Right now I’m up to a 1000 Watt generator." Link (Thanks, Kyle!)

(Via Boing Boing)

 A wonderful little distraction for today.  I am especially happy because the first item is the Oracle of Bacon.  You may ask why this is so:

Tamarin2087 is married to

Dawnuh who is the sister of

Anne who is married to

Brett who helped write the oracle and has met

Kevin Bacon

 Yes my own seperation from Mr. Bacon is 4 steps.  Life is funny sometimes.  Anyway, the rest of the list is equally entertaining.

100 Greatest Internet Moments – 100 Greatest Internet Moments

(Via Metafilter)

Normally I don’t look at Macs.  Don’t care, can’t be bothered.  I spend my time instead wandering the DIY section of the local geek shops wondering which motherboard I would want if I could afford to build a new machine right now.

Well, last night I wandered into the Mac section of Microcenter and got a little smitten.  I hadn’t seen a Mac Mini in person before and I really had no concept of how, well, how mini it really is.  For $500 Apple offers a workable little workstation that takes up about the same space on my desk as the DLink wifi router does now.  Then I spied the 12" Powerbook for about a grand and I was struck by a rather startling thought for one so used to dismissing Apple.

"For around $1500 I could have a new PC and laptop that would last me comfortably for the next five years." 

It was so shocking that I had to immediately return to the Wintel section of the store and breathe deeply.  That way lies madness. Soon I would be sporting white iPod earbuds and picketing in Redmond.  

 Normalcy quickly returned but I’m still a little haunted by it this morning.  I am ready to ditch Windows.  A Linux box with Firefox, Thunderbird, Open Office, NVU, GIMP, an IM client and some MP3 ripping and playback software would get me through about 95% of everything I ever do on a computer. 

But still those shiny, reliable Macs lurk in the back of my brain.  The learning curve would be shorter than with Linux and even though the up front money is more, I am convinced the total cost of ownership would be less than with a comprable Windows rig.

Well, I guess if I ever have $1500 laying around I’ll really have to worry about it. 

 This article is a good example of why raising a daughter terrifies me.   My daughter is 9 and is still content to wear mismatched sockas and hand-me-down jeans.  She is down to earth enought that I have a reasonable hope that this aatitude may continue into her teens.  But logic tells me to beware.  That maybe in a couple of years she will try to leave the house with a thing sticking above her pants.  At that point I will become the stereotypical dad and have her shipped to a convent in the south of France where they keep males away with rubber bullets and attack dogs.

The Road to Profit, Paved With Panties (Los Angeles Times) – Los Angeles Times – It seems like a license to print money: Stitch together tiny pieces of fabric, pitch it to women as apparel that makes them sexy, mark it up to as much as $80, then watch the cash roll in.

(Via Yahoo! Top Stories)

 Jason has remarked before about what stunningly good writing can come out of Websnark if you take the time to read.  Today’s entry is such a beast.  Apparently, someone designated today "blog while drunk" day and with keyboard and vodka in hand, we find a story that hits so close to home for me that I need to call Eric Burns and ask for my mental scrapbook back.

Video games, male geek bonding and knowing who your best friends are.  

Read the websnark for the whole story. 

Eric Burns: NaDruWriNi: Webcomics, Video Games and Frank –

(From Penny Arcade! Click on the thumbnail for full sized cool headed discussion of a popular video game franchise!)

A few moments ago, I started drinking. Overnight, my bottle of General John Stark Vodka has sat in my deep freezer, getting to a frighteningly cold temperature, which is how Vodka can be. It’s cold enough that it caused condensation on the outside of the glass I poured it into, and that condensation then froze. Two ounces to start. I have no idea how much I’ll actually drink tonight, as it doesn’t take much to get me plowed.

Two ounces of vodka, distilled from apples, with the face of my comic strip character attractively plastered on the outside of the bottle. I’ve had about half, and I just broke a sweat and felt my vision shake. Off to the side, I have a glass column of water I drink as a chaser. This is how you drink vodka, you see. You drink of the vodka, and then you drink water as a chaser. That’s what the Russians say. And by God, they know vodka. So you have to believe them.

My face just jumped about twenty degrees and I’m sweating more. It is safe to say I’m now drunk. Since the surgery, drunk comes fast, you see. I have an extremely efficient digestive system. My altered stomach dumps alcohol straight into the lower intestines and from there it goes straight into the bloodstream. BOOM!

Let’s talk fucking webcomics shall we!

Only that’s a lie. We’re going to talk video games.

Only that too is a lie, but you’ll see what we mean.

……

(Via Websnark)

 Um.  Wow.  Kids, this is why it pays to take physics.  Explaining what happens to the poor crab sounds like something my high school physics teacher Jim "The Wolf" Sly would have used as a test question.  The man once asked us how big the circle of remains would be if we dropped a 2000 pound cow off of a 1000 foot cliff which ended at sea level.

Crab vs. Pipe – Holy Crab! We’re several thousand feet down, where the pressure is about 3300 psi. The pressure inside that pipe? About zero. The crab? A goner.

(Via Metafilter)