Category Archives: Science and Engineering

Back online!

Posted on June 10, 2011 by Pace Arko

Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, I present to you the return of the mighty, mighty Farlops Industries. The ponderous and sluggish engines of thought have been stilled for more than two years now but, no more! Let’s see … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal, Webmastering | 7 Comments

What Does a Wormhole Look Like?

Posted on September 13, 2008 by Pace Arko

In science fiction movies, games and television, I’ve seen lots of attempts to depict spatial wormholes and “portals to other universes.” In nearly every case they get the geometry wrong. It doesn’t look like this nor does it look like … Continue reading →

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There is no forbidden knowledge

Posted on September 5, 2008 by Pace Arko

So I read today that scientists at the Large Hadron Collider have received death threats. The LHC death threats are example of ignorance out of control. The risk from the LHC is minimal. How do we know that for certain? … Continue reading →

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Burning Down Hilbert's Hotel

Posted on July 10, 2008 by Pace Arko

There’s an idea that’s been plaguing me for a number of years since I read Max Tegmark’s article in Scientific American. What if there are infinitely many universes that have existed for all eternity? Doesn’t that imply that everything is … Continue reading →

Posted in Science and Engineering, Science Fiction | 2 Comments

All humans are vermin in the eyes of Morbo!

Posted on April 3, 2008 by Pace Arko

I can find no rational reason for aliens to invade the Earth. If they need energy, water, metals or radioactives there are plenty in space to mined or harvested without dealing with pesky natives. If some super-civilization needed all the … Continue reading →

Posted in Science and Engineering, The Future | 1 Comment

Science articles I've read over the last month

Posted on December 12, 2007 by Pace Arko

Since at least Arthur C. Clarke’s Against the Fall of Night the idea of mind taping has been knocking around in science fiction for decades. Some examples are William Gibson’s Dixie Flatline and Frederik Pohl’s heechee prayer fans. A particularly … Continue reading →

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A week with the Gutsy Gibbon

Posted on October 28, 2007 by Pace Arko

So I upgraded to Ubuntu 7.1 last weekend. Things went very smoothly. Prior to this, System76 sent out some upgrades for their hardware drivers, perhaps in anticipation of everyone migrating to 7.1. There was really only one hitch. My screen … Continue reading →

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Defenestrating Keyboards

Posted on August 18, 2007 by Pace Arko

Actually, that’s not strictly accurate. I don’t want to throw a keyboard out of a window. I want to remove the Microsoft branding from my Linux laptop keyboard. I don’t think it’s really spite. Microsoft makes a decent enough set … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer Support | 4 Comments

One Week with Fiesty Fawn

Posted on August 11, 2007 by Pace Arko

So I’ve had my new Darter Ultra laptop for about a week. I’ve noticed many improvements in speed for many tasks–still image rendering, page loading, conversion of file formats, copying large files and so on. I’m very pleased. A very … Continue reading →

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Web stuff link roundup

Posted on July 26, 2007 by Pace Arko

This is another one of these lab-notebook, thinking-out-loud entries. So it’s been a while since I had a rant about Web standards. I think this is for a few reasons: It looked to me that we standardistas had won and … Continue reading →

Posted in Webmastering | Comments Off on Web stuff link roundup