One Guy and a Dream

I never really considered how hard it is to draw a circle until a professor in grad school challenged us to try. This is impressive:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAhfZUZiwSE

(via marginalrevolution)

I don’t want to ruin it, just watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsEbf-o83fc

The IBM Watson team took the time to answer some questions from the reddit community. I always think it is interesting learning about new technology:

blog.reddit — whats new on reddit: IBM Watson Research Team Answers Your Questions.

(via roy)

[Note: I may be legally required to say this now. I work for Nuance who has a business partnership with IBM, and this team specifically. Does anyone know the (relatively) new disclosure laws for blogs about things like this?]

According to CIA Director Panetta, “The CIA wants the American people and the world to understand its mission and its vital role in keeping our country safe.” Part of this initiative is to update a Flickr photostream, including many pictures of spy gadgets from the past:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciagov/

They also have a Youtube channel, though I haven’t checked it out:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ciagov

(via slashdot)

This is a long one, but worth the time:

Paul Haggis Vs. the Church of Scientology : The New Yorker.

(via many sources)

I think that most of you know about this already, but Scribner started up a blog that is worth your time and questions:

donkeys & beetles.

This is a well done “learn to type faster” flash game. Type the words that appear on the screen, and watch them explode:

Z-Type.

(via kottke)

A short history of rockets, used as an example of a more interesting phenomenon of path dependence:

Space stasis: What the strange persistence of rockets can teach us about innovation. – By Neal Stephenson – Slate Magazine.

(via kottke)

Apparently people are not good at moving in a straight line without a frame of reference:

A Mystery: Why Can’t We Walk Straight? on Vimeo on Vimeo

via kottke.

The Washington Post has an interactive graph up tracking the weight of people in various countries over the past 30 years:

Weight of the world: Change in the world’s BMI since 1980 | The Washington Post.

(via kottke)