Peacock Spider

Jumping spiders are the most adorable.

Narration by Jürgen Otto

Magazine Babbage's Difference Engine built entirely in Lego

(via Wired)

http://cdni.wired.co.uk/620x413/a_c/5504_WiredUK_Hero_lego_04_620x413.jpg

This working computer uses bits -- of Lego. Andrew Carol created a version of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine, built entirely from plastic building blocks. Babbage planned it in the 1840s but never realised it. Carol started six years ago and drew on his 15 years' experience as a software engineer at Apple: "I would work on one adder unit, modifying it until I could get as many of the bugs out as possible," says the Cupertino-based 47-year-old. "When you get one working, you can use it everywhere in the engine." The finished iteration uses about 2,000 Lego parts but the crank-operated computer is not as powerful as Babbage's would have been. "His would have been accurately made of brass. Mine's made out of a children's plastic toy."

Apple engineer re-creates 2,000-year-old Greek computer. With Legos.

(via The Raw Feed)

"An uber-egghead named Andrew Carol, who works as a software engineer at Apple, has re-created the amazing Antikythera Mechanism using Legos. Ancient Greeks created the device in 100 B.C. to predict astronomical events. This is incredible."

The sound of π

here.

Why we have to get rid of pi for the sake of good math

(via io9)
"...

I believe you've mentioned that tau reveals connections that pi does not. Could you provide an example of this?

The canonical example involves radian angle measure. For example, a right angle is a quarter turn of a circle, and its measure is tau over four, or one-quarter tau. Using pi, the same angle is pi over two, or one-half pi, which obscures the natural relationship between angle measure and the circle constant. As discussed in The Tau Manifesto, using tau also helps reveal the relationship between complex exponentiation and rotations in the complex plane. The geometric meaning of Euler's identity, for instance, is much clearer when written in terms of tau.

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And what about counterexamples where pi seems more useful? For instance, the area of a circle formula (A = πr^2) seems far more elegant with pi than with tau.

The formula for circular area is actually The Tau Manifesto's coup de grâce. You need to read the manifesto to get the full impact of the argument, but the short version is that the area of a circle has a natural factor of a half that disappears when using pi.

Incidentally, all counterexamples I know of are addressed in The Tau Manifesto. When they hear about the basic idea of tau, some people (without reading The Tau Manifesto) object that "tau ruins Euler's identity" or "the formula for circular area is better with pi". When questions about software are answered in the software's documentation, computer programmers are notorious for responding with "RTFM", which stands for "Read The *ahem* Fine Manual". In this vein, I urge potential correspondents to Read The Fine Manifesto before voicing their objections.

..."

Chicken-driven steadicam

Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UytSNlHw8J8

(Thanks to Thomas Sullivan).

Reference: http://www.acoollink.com/chickens-steady-head/

Japanese method of multiplying via vertices