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"Charles Babbage is cited as the father of modern computing - although perhaps "uncle" would be more accurate, since his designs never actually saw completion and computing is based on totally different principles. But his idea of a "difference engine," a hand-cranked device that could solve mathematical problems, is essentially the first instance of a computer in human history. numbersUnfortunately, the device, designed to tackle the huge amount of calculation involved in tracking the British navy, was never completed. After 10 years of tinkering, the project was aborted and the prototype melted down. But Babbage's plans and a few pieces of the Difference Engine remained, and just recently someone decided they'd finish what he started. Now there is a complete and working Difference Engine at the Computer History Museum down in Mountain View. It was put together by Doron Swade, a former curator at London's Science Museum, and a team he assembled over the last two decades. There is another working Difference Engine being kept at that museum, and this one will only remain in Mountain View for a year before it heads out to Seattle to enter a "private collection." I'm guessing Ballmer's (actually, Nathan Myhrvold, former MS CTO. Close, though). So go see it while you can, startup guys! There's more info at NPR, where you can, as always, have it narrated to you. I love that. I'm going to make some coffee and listen to it again. Update: A commenter at NPR notes that the Harvard Mark I was a functioning difference engine, but relied on electricity rather than clockwork. It was completed in 1944."

Where do you Twine a bookmark that doesn't fit into any particular category, or Twine, but is still an interesting diversion from the everyday web experience? Why here of course, in Trawling the 'Net! Trawling for you landlubbers, is a salty fisherman's term for running your boat real slow with a bunch of lines out at different lengths and depths, with different kinds of bait in hopes of attracting tonight's next meal. It's also a good excuse to drink beer, So go ahead, post randomness! There's only Two rules--if you can Twine an item to more than two other places, then most likely it doesn't belong here. And--this is not a political forum. Please keep this feed focused on the frivolous, interesting, and fun. Failing to follow these two simple rules will be cause for immediate expulsion from this Twine. So go ahead, post randomness!"

"Timeline paintings Ward Shelley paints these wonderfully intricate timelines of different things...his life, Frank Zappa's career, and the history of the avant garde. Ward Shelley"

"Video: A new way to unfold the Earth's surface produces a new kind of map A new technique for unpeeling the Earth's skin and displaying it on a flat surface provides a fresh perspective on geography, making it possible to create maps that string out the continents for easy comparison, or lump together the world's oceans into one huge mass of water surrounded by coastlines. See a gallery of the new maps "Myriahedral projection" was developed by Jack van Wijk, a computer scientist at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. "The basic idea is surprisingly simple," says van Wijk. His algorithms divide the globe's surface into small polygons that are unfolded into a flat map, just as a cube can be unfolded into six squares. Cartographers have tried this trick before; van Wijk's innovation is to up the number of polygons from just a few to thousands. He has coined the word "myriahedral" to describe it, a combination of "myriad" with "polyhedron", the name for polygonal 3D shapes. Warping reality The mathematical impossibility of flattening the surface of a sphere has long troubled mapmakers. "Consider peeling an orange and trying to flatten it out," says van Wijk. "The surface has to distort or crack." Some solutions distort the size of the continents while roughly preserving their shape - the familiar Mercator projection, for instance, makes Europe and North America disproportionately large compared with Africa. Others, like the Peters projection, keep landmasses at the correct relative sizes, at the expense of warping their shapes. An ideal map would combine the best properties of both, but that is only possible by inserting gaps into the Earth's surface, resulting in a map with confusing interruptions. Van Wijk's method makes it possible to direct those cuts in a way that minimises such confusion. Maps of significance When generating a map he assigns a "weighting" to each edge on the polyhedron to signal its importance, influencing the pl

"Loud, persistent ringing in the ears, known as tinnitus, can be vexing for its millions of sufferers. This perceived noise can be symptomatic of many different ills-from earwax to aging-but the most common cause is from noise-induced hearing loss, such as extended exposure to construction or loud music, and treating many of its underlying neural causes has proven difficult. But many people with tinnitus might soon be able to find refuge in the very indulgence that often started the ringing in the first place: music. "

Thanks for this post, fish man, (wow! I'm really liking diigo!!); as I experience tinnitus, and, I've only had it for a year or so, music DOES help, because, like so many other audio phenomenon, it distracts the mind from 'listening' to the tinnitus sound (frequency, in my case) and, thus, I don't really hear it, if I'm not paying attention to it - a wonderful ailment, really, because, if you don't pay attention to it, you really don't have it!!

(agreed!!!) and I too have been dealing with the incessant ringing just quite recently. (I think it's because of my cold) but it is worrysome, as there does not seem to be any real cure. perhaps it has something to do with playing a brass instrument too loudly?

"It was 1993 and I had just decided to drop out of college. I was a graphic design major in a great art school but decided I want to start my second company. Knowing this would mark the conclusion of my studies there I set out to create my final project. I would write a short story, design and produce it in print. I put out an edition of 300 and gave it to my friends and people who inspired me like author William Gibson. Cut to November, 2009, when I returned from sitting on a panel at the second Realtime CrunchUp. I had urged the audience and participants that when thinking about the realtime web we should not consider the challenge through the lens of how consumers behave today. I argued that the future potential of the realtime web is not in the misnomer "realtime search," as the consumption of this signal will predominantly be in what I call ambient streams. These are streams of information bubbling up in realtime, which seek us out, surround us, and inform us. They are like a fireplace bathing us in ambient infoheat. I believe that users will not go to a page and type in a search in a search box. Rather the information will appear to them in an ambient way on a range of devices and through different experiences. A few days after I got back from the CrunchUp, I was organizing some old documents when I stumbled on I Was Just Dead< , a cyberpunk short story I wrote 16 years ago. A story about a world of augmented reality. A world where at birth a chip is embedded in people's brains creating a reality where they no longer discern what is "real" and what is augmented in their surroundings (Hear the audio-book or download the free eBook below). It was strange to hear my former self calling out about the importance of augmented reality from across the span of almost two decades of experiences in the digital world, half of which were spent solving the problem of how to filter the massive realtime stream."

"Nathan Shedroff spoke to Vicky Teinaki about the difference between businesspeople and designers, his upcoming foray into sci-fi, and what designers wanting to get involved in sustainability can do. Shedroff is a leading author in experience design and the increasing value of design. His book subjects have included experience design (the 2001 experience-in-itself-book Experience Design 1), design thinking (Making Meaning, 2006) and sustainable design (Design is the Problem, 2009). He is currently the head of the Design MBA Strategy at the California Institute of Arts (CCA)."

@ knarfoo and @T--remind you of anything???

Over the past couple of years, cybercriminals have increasingly focused on finding ways to inject malicious code into legitimate websites. Typically they've done this by embedding code in an editable part of a page and using this code to serve up harmful content from another part of the Web. But this activity can be difficult to spot because websites also increasingly pull in legitimate content, such as ads, videos, or snippets of code, from outside sites.

"Let's Go Grocery Shopping at a Chinese Wal-Mart! 1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (No Ratings Yet) Loading ... Loading ... 欢迎光临沃尔码! With the rising popularity of Coffee, Western music, Buicks, and dozens of Wal-Marts opening around China, America just might be catching up in the culture war. Now the land of the Dragon can enjoy marginal quality products at awesome prices too! Fortunately, the products they sell are just slightly different than the ones we get over here. Like tasty, tasty alligator: tn3"

@Jack--this is on Nova TONITE!!

A former US Navy intelligence officer who served in Afghanistan won the USA Memory Championship here Saturday for the second year in a row, besting his three fellow finalists in memorizing two decks of cards.

gives a new meaning to getting the 'high score'