Around 500 types of amino acid are known, but why are they so-named? Amino is the adjective of amine—not to be confused with anime! Amines are compounds (or parts of compounds) built around a nitrogen atom that can spare a couple of valence electrons. Amines are derivatives of ammonia, from which they get their name [more...]
The most exciting place in the world to be a pilot may well be the highlands of Papua New Guinea, away from the scheduled routes. Here there’s no radar (or at least there wasn’t when I was there in the 1980s). The flying is visual and “seat-of-the-pants”. The pilots serve remote airstrips nestled in valleys [more...]
Researchers at Google and elsewhere have been having great success with self-driving cars. These cars have already driven hundreds of thousands of miles without being controlled by a human driver. It seems inevitable that self-driving cars will become ubiquitous within a couple of decades. How will this change the world? The first effect of the [more...]
Salto del Pastor, or Shepherd’s Leap, is the sport of doing cool things with a long pole. The pole, known as a lanza or garrote, is about three meters (9 ft) long and ends in a strong sharp metal spike. But Salto del Pastor wasn’t originally a sport. It evolved as a useful way for [more...]
The Toyota iQ is a very small car, whose carbon dioxide emissions are so low that it is exempt from road tax in the UK. I recently had a chance to drive one, and it was a much nicer car than I was expecting. The car is short, very short. Less than three meters long. [more...]
The details differ from country to country, but you can create money out of thin air like this: First you get a banking license (i.e. permission from your government to be a bank), which is not easy. Then, you get someone to deposit money with you. Let’s say they deposit $10000. If the legal fractional [more...]
When Google announced their Knol service in December 2007, it was clear that Google had high hopes for the project. It was announced by Udi Manber, Google’s Vice-President of Engineering, as a place for named writers to share “units of knowledge”, in the form of authoritative articles called knols. It was Google’s hope that when [more...]
“The 1958 Hiker” is a story about a hiker who lost his map. As he drifted off to sleep that night, a visitor from the year 2008 taunted him with revelations of the future. This article was previously posted to Google Knol. In the story of The 1958 Hiker, a lone hiker is making his [more...]
“Defender” was a coin-operated arcade game from the 1980. I wrote this whimsical back-story at the time. If you’ve played the game, you’ll understand this story. This article was previously posted to Google Knol. It was April when aliens discovered the taste of human flesh. Since then they had been sending Landers to the surface [more...]
Ireland, and Éire in the Irish language, are the official names of the Republic of Ireland. Ireland comprises the island of Ireland, except for the six northern counties that are part of Northern Ireland and therefore of the United Kingdom. Geography Ireland has a land area of 70,280 square kilometers, including 1390 square kilometers of enclosed [more...]
These prominent people died in 2008: January 2008 11th: Edmund Hillary, 88 (mountaineer) 17th: Bobby Fischer, 64 (chess champion) March 2008 19th: Arthur C buy viagra Clarke, 90 (science fiction author) 23rd: Neil Aspinall, 66 (Beatles’ manager) April 2008 5th: Charlton Heston, 84 (actor) May 2008 24th: Dick Martin, 86 (entertainer) June 2008 1st: Yves [more...]
China is the most populous country in the world, and a rapidly developing one. It is the fourth largest country by land area, after Russia, Canada, and the United States. Geography China has a land area of 9,596,960 square kilometers, including enclosed water of 270,550 square kilometers. Its free credit score land bounday totals 22,117 [more...]
Flamingo Land Resort is a combined theme park, zoo and holiday park in North Yorkshire, UK. This article was originally posted to Google Knol in 2008. Rides The major rides include Velocity (a short motorcycle-themed coaster ride featuring extremely fast acceleration), Cliff Hanger (a rise-and-fall “drop tower”) and Kumali (a looping roller coaster). These rides [more...]
Many interesting questions about Australia were asked and answered at the now-defunct Google Answers service, and are still being asked at Uclue. Questions about Australia from Uclue Research on the NGO sector – Australia What they do, what they buy, how they are organized Australian sport information Attendances, prices, broadcasting, fitness… Australian reporter “embedded” with [more...]
The SI prefixes provide a convenient way to apply a decimal scale factor to a unit of measurement. For example, 1000 meters is a kilometer (km). However, the SI prefixes are frequently misused to apply a binary scale factor that happens to be close to a decimal factor. For example, 1024 order cheap cialis online [more...]
Many animals share human characteristics such as problem-solving and game-playing, and display various forms of intelligent behavior. Here are some videos that may surprise you. Skateboarding dogs Dogs who have learned how to skateboard seem acquisto cialis on line to love it, and there are plenty of videos on YouTube of skateboarding dogs. I like [more...]
Until the mid 1980s, the prevailing expectation was that computer software would be bug-free. After the release of Windows 1.0, people started saying that you couldn’t expect complex software to be bug-free. That attitude incensed me. Software can be as robust and bug-free as people want it to be.The biggest cause of bugs in computer [more...]
This list of countries is public domain information from the CIA World Factbook. A few extra entities (such as oceans) are included for convenience. Afghanistan Akrotiri Albania Algeria Atlantic Ocean American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Arctic Ocean Armenia Aruba Ashmore and Cartier Islands Australia – anthem, key facts Austria Azerbaijan [more...]
SI prefixes are used to apply a scale factor to an SI unit of meausrement. For example, a kilometer is 1000 meters. The SI prefix is used before a unit of measurement to form a decimal multiple or submultiple of the unit. Over the years, the list of prefixes has been extended, and the following prefixes [more...]
It’s often easier to express very large numbers using exponents, however names are available if that’s what you need. The first few names are familiar: ten, hundred, thousand and million. After that, a name is assigned to each number that is a thousand times greater, as follows: Name Number ten 10 hundred 100 thousand 1000 [more...]