Best use of the term wiffle ball in a scientific context

The award goes to: the United States Navy, for their Fusion Tender.

The technology refers to Inertial Electrostatic Confinement, a technique which Robert Bussard* used in experiments with the original wiffle ball. Bussard died in 2007, but you can see that his work continues, in part in The Emc2 Fusion Development Corporation. I presume that they will be bidders in the naval tender.

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This entry was written by Alex, posted on 31/10/2008 at 11:08, filed under Found on the Web and tagged , , , , . Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

This is the end, my only friend.

There may be a problem with the money

I am usually resistant to the notion that times are permanently changed. There seems to be a real trend towards making things sound as bad or as good as possible, and to feel that each new event is totally unprecedented. It’s in the interest of a large swathe of people to believe that. The media, both in terms of the traditional broadcasters and the internet echo chamber need to generate hype as hard as they can, and are interested in presenting things in that fashion.

At the same time, I have to admit that a 2,500+ drop in the Dow over the last month makes me a little worried. I know that stock prices have little direct economic impact on a non-investor such as me, but at the same time I also feel that it does have some barometric value.

(found on VentureBeat)
I particularly find the notes about advertising and mobile interesting. They are often claimed to be immune or shelters, but I think that if there is a real drop in consumer spending, that will have an impact. Even oil is down, there’s a 12% drop year-on-year for Brent Crude for September. It seems like there is a retrenching throughout the global economy, and the Valley is far from immune

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This entry was written by Alex, posted on 10/10/2008 at 09:32, filed under Uncategorized and tagged , , , . Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Random Links

Why German Tanks are like iPhones, by Charles Arthur. Turns out you can guess the annual production based on a simple formula and a spread of sequential serial numbers. Interesting how information can leak out to a determined study.

Engadget point out an ‘error’ by Vodafone marketing. This could cause some serious stir. On the other hand, they also report that they are ‘in love’ with the Storm’s keyboards. Could be an interesting phone.

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This entry was written by Alex, posted on 08/10/2008 at 12:51, filed under Uncategorized. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.