PacDemon.org

Some Links

marshall — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 01:17:47 +0000

It’s been a busy year and I’m a bad blogger. So, here a few links that have been sucking up resources in Firefox lately:

30 Books Everyone Should Read Before They’re 30 - I think I’ve caught about half of these.
America in Color from 1939-1943 – Some really great photos from an era not often portrayed in color.
Freakonomics Blog – I just read and thoroughly enjoyed Freakonomics.

Happy Ada Lovelace Day

marshall — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 14:30:58 +0000

Ada Lovelace. 1815 - 1852

It’s March 24th – Ada Lovelace Day. She was one of the first computer programmers and helped shape the way we think of computers. For more info, go here.

To find out what’s going on in this century, visit the ACM’s Women in Computing site.

Next year I’ll try to get this posted sooner and participate in more of the festivities.

Update:

Here’s some coverage from Wired.

O’Reilly DRM-Free Ebooks

marshall — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:00:01 +0000

If you like their dead-tree products, you’ll love these: http://oreilly.com/ebooks. Watch for daily specials.

Bill Gates speaks about energy, CO2

marshall — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:52:41 +0000

I’ve been a critic of Microsoft’s products and business practices over the years, but I have always admired how Bill and Melinda Gates decided to use their money. In this TED talk, Gates describes his vision for the future of energy and carbon emissions:

http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates.html

Thorium’s Hammer

marshall — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:32:28 +0000

In 2000, a NASA engineer dug up a report about “fluid fuel reactors” from the 1950’s. He started this blog dedicated to Thorium-based fluid reactors. Some of the benefits include:

Thorium reactors produce minimal waste
Thorium waste only needs to be stored for a few hundred years (as opposed to hundreds of thousands of years for traditional Uranium waste)
Thorium is plentiful in nature
Byproducts of Thorium reactors cannot be used to produce nuclear weapons

There are, of course, some concerns. Critics are not convinced that Thorium fuel can be safely stored for extended periods. Some nuclear engineers have called the Thorium reactor system “chaotic” because it does not use control rods and cooling towers like traditional nuclear reactors.

This technology looks like a promising step towards clean, safe nuclear energy. Read more here: http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com/

Source: Wired #18.01 (January, 2010)

Welcome to the new PacDemon.org

marshall — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:50:36 +0000

PacDemon.org has been up for over ten years but has been neglected for most of that time. Hopefully that trend will change.

I’ll be adding content whenever possible. Look for info on baby stuff, guitars, astronomy, and various other interests. I’ll also be working on the theme for this site. Since I couldn’t find an acceptable free theme, I decided to create my own. I know it will take a while but it will be worth it to get the look and feel exactly right. Once the theme is completed I will make it available for free here and on wordpress.org.

Well, I guess it’s time to get to work…