Suppose a man gives up his youth to the struggle for some coveted degree, some honour or award of the scholarly life. It is very possible that when he obtains that for which he has struggled, he may find that the joy of possession is not so great as the joy of the strife. It is part of the discipline of life that we should be educated by disillusion; we press onward to some shining summit, only to find that it is but a bastion thrown out by a greater mountain, which we did not see, and that the real summit lies far beyond us still. But are we the worse for the struggle? No; we are manifestly the better, for by whatever illusion we have been led onward, it is at least clear that without the illusion we should not have stood as high as we do.
— William James Dawson, The Making of Manhood, 1894
(via The Art of Manliness)
Crayons Under the Spectrophotometer
Can you say nerdy? I'm just a sucker for things combining physics and design, I guess.
Windows 8 trumps iPad? Don't know if this is proof, but it's clever.
Political Shift in California Trips Brown →
10 months after his return here, a time when Mr. Brown might have hoped to move beyond struggling with the budget crisis that has dragged down this state, his associates say he appears bewildered and stunned by how much Sacramento has changed since he first served.
I'm sure I've missed some legislation or something, but I can't name a single thing Brown (or California) has done politically since I moved here, other than closing a portion of the state parks.
Gamers Unlock Protein Mystery That Baffled AIDS Researchers For Years →
In just three weeks, gamers deciphered the structure of a key protein in the development of AIDS that has stumped scientists for years. According to a study published Sunday in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, the findings could present a significant breakthrough for AIDS and HIV research.Update: Ars Technica also has a good article.
Not exactly sure what I'm supposed to think about this, Marco. Also, Instapaper's down?!?!?
Notifications →
Right now I'd be happy with a way to keep calendar alerts from buzzing on my laptop, iPhone, and iPad all at the same time even though all three devices are sitting next to one another on my desk.
Seconded. And I don't even own an iPad.
Song of Solomon Pick Up Lines
Touchscreen Keylogger Created Using Accelerometer Movement During Typing →
Hao Chen, Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, has discovered that the movement of a device while typing on a touchscreen can be translated into which keys are being pressed with a high degree of accuracy.
A 71.5% accuracy on its first test run, to be precise.
Looks like CloudFlare, named a "tech pioneer" for its website load-handling software has failed to keep macgasm.net up after being linked to by Daring Fireball. No points for them.