Ticketing

BMC Remedy is the de-facto Ticketing solution out there, and if you ever had to install it, you would understand the choice of picture.  It's massively bloated, costs millions if done completely, takes months or years to install, and if you don't spend even more time thoroughly customizing it, no one will be able to use it.  (or only swear when they need to.)

As an alternate, check out the great open source ticketing system Best Practical's RT: Request Tracker.  Its Perl based, very-very easy to customize and easy to add automation to it (very good api).  If that seems like too much work, check out Asana, a completely hosted and very easy to use online ticketing solution.  (all you need to do is log in and start using it.)

Photo Tour of Google Datacenter

Google Photo Tour of the Google Data centers.  (link this under datacenter porn.)

Size of the Solar System

BBC has a nice diagram visualizing the size of the solar system.

 

Learning Programming for Free

More links to come, but here are some good ones to start:

• Code Academy: Learn Java, Ruby, PHP and Python
• Python Tutor: Learn Python
• Lua language helps kids create software:  Programming for Kids!  
• Physically, there's CoderDojo for kids! Read about it.
• Scratch:  coding for kids
• CodeSpells: First-person video game to teach kids coding

Warp Drive

Back in Jan 2000, SciAm had an article titled "Negative Energy, Wormholes and Warp Drive" where they described the method of creating a ring of negative energy that could potentially pull space together and allow you to "travel faster then the spread of light".

Slashdot was nice enough to point out that

recent calculations showed that if the shape of the ring encircling the spacecraft was adjusted into more of a rounded donut, as opposed to a flat ring the warp drive could be powered by the energy of a mass as small as 500 kg

Gizmag also has a Oct 2012 article: Warp drive looks more promising than ever in recent NASA studies.

3-D Wall Display Thingy

Not sure exactly how to describe it...Hack a Day points out this very cool computer controlled walls whose blocks can flex in and out on servos.  (actually they are Styrofoam blocks mounted against the walls that move, but the effect is very cool.)


2012 Yeosu EXPO HYUNDAI MOTOR GROUP - Hyper-Matrix

Decode the Political Lies: DecodeDC

From OnTheMedia (Aug24, 2012):

NPR Congressional Correspondent Andrea Seabrook left NPR recently, citing frustration with the daily grind of covering politicians who "lie" to her face, all day, every day. Seabrook is starting a new project called DecodeDC, where she hopes she can blog and podcast her way to some deeper truths about Washington. Bob does an exit interview with Seabrook to discuss why political reporting is broken, and what might be done to fix it.

Slightly off topic, Marketplaces Tess Vigeland points out Super PAC App, which will listen to the adds you hear on TV or radio, and tell you if they are lying, and where the money comes from to produce it.  

Nikola Tesla rocked and Thomas Edison was a douche

Matthew Inman from The Oatmeal wrote a great comic outlining Why Nichola Tesla was the greatest geek who ever lived.

As pointed out in NPR, this caught the eyes of Jane Alcorn, the president of the nonprofit group The Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe who is trying to save Tesla's laboratory and turn it into the only museum dedicated to Tesla. She asked Inman for help with great success. 

Now The Oatmeal is running Operation Let's Build a Goddamn Tesla Museum, where they asked for (and got) $850k to be used to purchase Tesla's lab.  It was a HUGE success and  now they are looking for more money to actually build the Museum from individuals and businesses.

Sunday Drive Through SF

As pointed out in SFGate, Ken Block manages to get some quality time on the streets of San Francisco. (very fine bit of driving)

More about Coffee

Not only is it better for you then MtDew, but it's also more interesting, thanks to The Oatmeal!  Note that you can even get a poster for above your coffee machine!