Yehudi Menuhin plays Brahms Hungarian Dance No. 5 in G minor.

Yehudi Menuhin plays Brahms Hungarian Dance No. 5

Devoted to testing, reviewing & rating LED flashlights (torches) & other illumination products plus discrete LEDs & lasers.

The Led Museum

A fervent following is eagerly awaiting the final season of an HBO drama.

No, this story isn't a year old.

While the final hurrah of "The Sopranos" had the weight of a genuine cultural event, the last season of "The Wire" is a more cultish affair.

The longest-running dramatic series on HBO, "The Wire" will enter its fifth and final season Jan. 6.

In certain circles, this is already cause for nail-biting anticipation.

Count mine bitten.

Gritty 'Wire' wrapping up final season

The goal of the GNU PDF project is to develop and provide a free, high-quality, complete and portable set of libraries and programs to manage the PDF file format, and associated technologies.

GNUpdf

In pursuit of evidence that life arose on Earth more than once, scientists are searching for microbes that are radically different from all known organisms.

In this image, artist Adam Questell has imagined an alien cell that carries its genetic material in twin nuclei.

See also, Darwin's Surprise in the latest issue of The New Yorker.

Are Aliens Among Us? | Scientific American

Click through to browse some great photos.

National Geographic International Photography Contest

So the other day I asked: If “good design” is more important than ever, then why is (the basically hideous) MySpace so popular?

MySpace aesthetics revisited

This article explores the practice of "beeping" or "missed calling" between mobile phone users, or calling a number and hanging up before the mobile's owner can pick up the call. Most beeps are requests to call back immediately, but they can also send a pre-negotiated instrumental message such as "pick me up now" or a relational sign, such as "I'm thinking of you." The practice itself is old, with roots in landline behaviors, but it has grown tremendously, particularly in the developing world. Based on interviews with small business owners and university students in Rwanda, the article identifies three kinds of beeps (callback, pre-negotiated instrumental, and relational) and the norms governing their use. It then assesses the significance of the practice using adaptive structuration theory. In concluding, the article contrasts beeping with SMS/text messaging, discusses its implications for increasing access to telecommunications services, and suggests paths for future research.

The Rules of Beeping

Only yesterday, it seems, teenagers stayed in touch outside of school on the telephone or at the mall. Now they log in to a growing number of social networks. Until lately, derivatives and hedge funds were marginal players in the financial marketplace. Now they shape market movements on a daily basis. These examples make a fundamental lesson clear: Embrace your edges or fall quickly behind.

Embrace the Edge—or Perish

An officer working on Future Combat Systems comes out against robotic soldiers:

Although we have made extraordinary advances in technology over the years, it is unlikely that any robotic or artificial intelligence could ever replicate the ability of a trained fighting man in combat.

This reminds me of those quotes about heavier-than-air flight and 640 KB of random access memory.

But can you imagine the outcry when a team of robotic police respond to a swatting prank?

Who decides: Man or machine?