Author Archives: Pace Arko

Space Colonization

I’ve commented on this before but Bush’s recent big promises for piloted missions to the moon and mars prompts me to comment again. This is going to take so long, cost so much money and yield so little permanency, that … Continue reading

Posted in Science and Engineering | 2 Comments

The new year brings in the same depressing lack of progress

On Monday I just got back from a vacation down in Oregon–watched a lot of cable television while down there. I noticed that channels seem to be subdividing into het male and het female. Or something like that. For example, … Continue reading

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First Post of the New Year

Let’s have a show of hands. How many of you out there think that “Spirit” and “Opportunity” are incredibly stupid names for the rovers now photographing and crawling around Mars? The first one sounds like a glee club from high … Continue reading

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Excel games, the definition of noise, CSS selectors and screen captures

Some cat from Japan has worked out how to get Excel’s grid of cells to play Pac-man and Space Invaders. Apparently a group of artists and technicians over in the UK are exploring the difference between noise and information. I … Continue reading

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Smalley Speaks, Roman Geeks and Safari Peeks

In nanotech news, Drexler and Smalley throw down some fearsome science as they debate the validity of mechanosynthesis. In my opinion, Drexler won it. Christie’s actions off an ancient Roman twenty sider. Let’s see–they had pewter for figs, they could … Continue reading

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Hilbert, hacking novelty items and hardcover books

This is just wrong Umberto Eco talks the future of books in a world of pervasive information technology. A nice outline of David Hilbert (Of Hilbert’s Hotel fame) 23 problems in mathematics showing their status as solved or unsolved.

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More shop talk.

Continuing in a similar light as yesterday’s post, Mr. Pilgrim points me to more Webbish jiggery-pokery. As I sort of explained in the previous post, I was once a humble web technician at The Company that Shall Not Be Named. … Continue reading

Posted in Webmastering | Comments Off on More shop talk.

Forcing FrontPage to generate valid markup

Again this is mostly for my own benefit. Years ago, when I worked at the Company That Shall Not Be Named, I started using FrontPage simply because I didn’t know any better. Go ahead, laugh! We all had to start … Continue reading

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Pre-thanksgiving rant

I never liked Thanksgiving food. I mean I’ll eat it, but I don’t like it. The trouble with t-day is that it’s too close to c-day, the official Cadillac of all holidays. If I need to reduce my karmic debt … Continue reading

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The future is here, not exactly what you expected, huh?

So I read this post over at the Speculist that talks about the failed dreams of futurists–namely flying cars, jet packs, airships and so on. At first I decided to reply directly to the post but the post grew so … Continue reading

Posted in The Future | Comments Off on The future is here, not exactly what you expected, huh?