Category Archives: Fun

The Up-Goer Five Research Challenge

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Dan Gezelter

I thought this was silly at first, but after struggling to do it for my own research, I now think it can be a profound exercise that scientists should attempt before writing their NSF broader impact statements. Here’s the challenge: … Continue reading →

Posted in education, Fun, Science | 2 Comments

Open source fonts

Posted on September 6, 2012 by Dan Gezelter

Adobe released an open source font today called Source Sans Pro.   It looks super clean and nearly perfect for user interfaces.  Right now it comes in six weights, but a monowidth version is coming soon.  (I’m most excited about … Continue reading →

Posted in Fun, Software | 1 Comment

Cool Radiohead interactive video

Posted on July 14, 2008 by Dan Gezelter

So, I like Radiohead. A lot. Kid A has been in permanent rotation in my music collection for a couple of years now. But their new video for House of Cards is something else entirely. It was generated from 3-D … Continue reading →

Posted in Fun | 1 Comment

Heat Capacity of Water

Posted on June 27, 2007 by Dan Gezelter

It is no secret to my students, family and friends that I’m now completely obsessed by the odd properties of water, including the anomalously high heat capacity. Here’s a neat parlor trick involving this water anomaly that is masterfully explained … Continue reading →

Posted in education, Fun, Science | 2 Comments

Medium Large is back! Woo hoo!

Posted on June 8, 2007 by Dan Gezelter

The fantastic web comic, Medium Large, drawn by Francesco Marciuliano, is back on the web after a long hiatus. At least the first strip, the introduction of Teenage Girl President, has reappeared. For the past six months, without ML, my … Continue reading →

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Scratch! Open source programming for kids

Posted on May 16, 2007 by Dan Gezelter

I spent about 2 hours last night playing around with a new programming language called Scratch, which was designed for kids. You snap together programs from logical building blocks that you can drag over from a programming palette. There’s also … Continue reading →

Posted in education, Fun, Software | 9 Comments

Biochemistry with the Stars!

Posted on April 14, 2007 by Dan Gezelter

I know it isn’t, but boy do I wish this was true: via the always wonderful Pharyngula

Posted in Fun | 1 Comment

OpenScience Music

Posted on December 15, 2006 by Dan Gezelter

Jonathan Coulton‘s music is about as close as one can get to the perfect accompaniment to the OpenScience project. He’s got songs like Code Monkey about the lives and times of coders, and he’s got the best song about fractals … Continue reading →

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I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by Google

Posted on September 27, 2006 by Dan Gezelter

Here’s an amazing rant / short story from Bruce Sterling called “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by Google”. Any story that obliquely references to Steve Jobs and The Smiths can’t be bad…

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Terrorist states of matter

Posted on August 15, 2006 by Dan Gezelter

Very funny graphic borrowed from Cosmic Variance: So we live in a world where an entire state of matter is considered a national security risk. What I want to know is if Homeland security has considered the implications of the … Continue reading →

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