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Notice: GeekPress is back up and running, thanks to Paul! It's still a not-so-serious tech news blog, but the format is significantly looser. Diana, having given up programming for philosophy, has her own philosophical blog NoodleFood. More of her work can be found at DianaHsieh.com.

 

Star Wars Episode 2 Plot Summary

3:04:39 am mst / 26 December 2000 found by paul / filed in culture / source Geeknik 136 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails

Geeknik pointed us towards this page which purports to have the plot summary for the upcoming Star Wars Episode 2 movie.

The most interesting part will be to see if Lucas can plausibly explain how Anakin becomes seduced by the Dark Side. (And for those of us who've always preferred Star Trek to Star Wars, take a look at this classic essay by David Brin comparing and contrasting the two universes.)

Warping Bill Gates

4:45:28 am mst / 26 December 2000 found by diana / filed in humor / source Misc 108 hits / 1 comment / 0 e-mails

Warp the face of Bill Gates into something really weird in this classic Java applet.

I had totally forgotten about this applet until a friend forwarded a version using the faces of Bush and Gore.

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Theoretical Analysis of a Dripping Faucet

12:55:06 pm mst / 26 December 2000 found by paul / filed in science / source Nature 19 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails

Purdue physicists have taken a detailed look at the physics of dripping faucets. At low flow rates, the droplets come at regular intervals, but as the flow rate increases, the dripping becomes chaotic before it becomes a continuous jet. By starting from first principles with the Navier-Stokes equations and doing some serious computer modelling, they've generated the first detailed analysis of this phenomenon. In layman's terms, the behaviour is caused by a shift in the balance between two opposing forces -- surface tension holding the fluid back and the increasing flow driving it forward.

Although this sounds like one of those "silly science" items, it could have applications in fields like ink jet printing or nanofabrication, where the dynamics of droplet breakup are important. The original PDF paper is available here.

Webcam surveillance cuts crime in half

7:53:41 pm mst / 26 December 2000 found by paul / filed in internet / source The Times 31 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails

Wireless webcam surveillance of the street corners of a bad neighborhood in the English city of Hull has caused a nearly 50% decrease in street crimes. Because of the cameras, there are far fewer gangs hanging out, and elderly people are now starting to come out at night.

I expect this will come to the United States soon, especially if this experience can be duplicated elsewhere. Of course, privacy advocates will raise legitimate concerns about the effects of this kind of constant surveillance, but I don't think most people will mind too much as long as it only occurs in public places. The real question will be whether this webcam information will be restricted to law enforcement agents only or whether everyone will have access to it -- for a variety of reasons, the latter is far preferable to the former. These issues are discussed in greater depth in David Brin's excellent book, The Transparent Society.

"Nobody shoots like Mike"

10:37:16 pm mst / 26 December 2000 found by paul / filed in internet / source CNet 28 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails

After Michael McDermott (allegedly) went postal and killed 7 of his coworkers in a shooting spree in Wakefield, Massachusetts, several curious websurfers decided to take a look at the website Michaelmcdermott.com. The site belonged to a photographer who coincidentally had the same name, and it featured his business slogan "Nobody shoots like Mike". After receiving hundreds of e-mails, he quickly changed the front page to remove the slogan.

I wonder how long it will take for the usual tasteless jokes to start circulating around the internet?...