Wiki Mind Map --UI for Wikipedia

I’ve found Wikipedia.org to be an extremely useful research tool. However, I’ve found something even better:

http://www.wikimindmap.org/

This site will create a “mind map” of a Wikipedia topic. The value of this map is that it provides a visual representation of the topics that are adjacently related to your primary search phrase. This reduces the amount of time it takes to find what you were actually looking for. It also increases the chance you will notice a related and relevant topic that you were not anticipating.

The Earth is Expanding

The following video makes a case for the idea that the diameter of the Earth is expanding. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjgidAICoQI&mode=related&search . What's not mentined in the video, is the observed evidence that supports such a theory--the slowing of the Earth's rotational rate, which is observed to be decelerating at about 2 milliseconds per day per century --

http://geology.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://maia.usno.navy.mil/eo/leapsec.html

The deceleration of the Earth's rotational speed is caused by the conversation of angular momentum--mass stays the same, diameter increases, so rotational velocity must decrease.

Given how much the diameter has increased from dinosaur days, the cross-sectional area of the Earth as viewed from the sun would have increased significantly. This increase in thermal flux would result in an increase in the temperature of the Earth, all things being equal. This change in thermal flux over time may help explain a lot of open ended questions about the history of the Earth's climate.

Sun/Opteron 4x cheaper than Bluegene

Simon Bullen's Weblog : Weblog
Nice comparison of supercomputing performance. Sun is 4x more cost effective than IBM's bluegene, plus you have ongoing savings in the maintenance. It looks like the difference is driven by the difference in number of processors, which could be attributed to the parallel intensity of the test program. However, it does raise some interesting questions about the economics of grid computing.

MSFT sticks a fork in OpenOffice

Jensen Harris: An Office User Interface Blog : Licensing the 2007 Microsoft Office User Interface: "There's only one limitation: if you are building a program which directly competes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, or Access (the Microsoft applications with the new UI), you can't obtain the royalty-free license."

I wonder if the DOJ will take issue with this? So much for Office embracing open standards.

Ballmer on Novell, Linux and patents

Ballmer on Novell, Linux and patents: "Linux comes from the community -- the fact that that product uses our patented intellectual property is a problem for our shareholders."

EETimes.com - UMC claims silicon frequency record of 192 GHz

EETimes.com - UMC claims silicon frequency record of 192 GHz
Most folks don't appreciate the advances of Moore's Law beyond the increase in their computer's performance. However, this recent achievement of a 192 GHz chip funded by Darpa dollars has the promise of advancing sensing technology at a very fundamental level. The key intuition is that sensors detect electromagnetic radiation--x-rays, ultraviolet, visible light, infrared, and microwaves are all examples. The higher the frequency, the shorter the wavelenght. The shorter the wavelength, the smaller the thing you can resolve, or sense. Thus, faster chips let you see smaller things. At 192 GHZ, this chip should provide a new level of sensing functionality and new applications that were previously impossible to do.

US Troops In Iran Now

Democracy Now! | Seymour Hersh: U.S. Conducting Covert Operations in Iran For Possible Military Strike
I almost lost a bet this year--a bet that I was hoping that I'd loose. In late 2003, I made a bet with a few friends that we'd have US troops in Iran before the end of 2005. When we got back from New Years, It looked like I owed folks lunch. However, given the above link, it looks like I might be in the money....We will have to wait a little while longer for confirmation, but it looks like Pentagon troops are already in Iran scoping out targets.