Running the Numbers

An interesting set of pictures by Chris Jordan that shows the sizes of various U.S. consumptions.

New Smartpen And Paper To Help Teach Blind College Students

A new smartpen and paper technology that works with touch and records classroom audio aims to bring these subjects to life for blind students.

The History of the Earth in a Toilet Paper Roll

The earth is over 5 billion years old. Life first originated in the oceans 3.4 billion years ago. The dinosaurs died out 65 million years in the past. Human recorded history stretches back 10,000 years in time.

These numbers are too large to visualize, and difficult to compare. Here's an easy way to put time in perspective, and actually visualize different eras in the earth's history. You'll need a roll of toilet paper, a long hallway, and some sticky notes.

Click here for more information.

Statistics Calculators

These statistics calculators are free to be used by anyone in the research community at large.

Notable Properties of Specific Numbers

An interesting website for certain numbers.

Art Exhibit Features RFID Math Problems

There's an awesome exhibit right now at the Mori Art Museum titled "Roppongi Crossing 2007: Future Beats in Japanese Art." It introduces some of the most important classic futurist artists from Japan as well as up-and-coming ones.

Pictured here is Math Gates. Designed by two professors—one math prof from Kyoto University and one new media expert from Tokyo National University—it's an interactive installation in which visitors carry RFID cards with math problems on them. The goal is to reach a pre-determined number—kinda like in the license plate number game. The idea behind it is to gain a better understanding of a computer's logic circuits. After all, humans aren't that different from machines, and machines are made by humans.

The exhibit runs through Jan 14, 2008.

Click here for original link.

Secret Websites, Coded Messages: The New World of Immersive Games

Interesting story on how the music group Nine Inch Nails encoded a few hidden messages in one of their tours and albums.

To play it on the Wired site, select all text in each section (two sections) up to the input boxes of that section (or do the entire page at once) and paste it into Microsoft Word. Remove all formatting that has Font Color equal to Automatic and only the colored text remains. What the sentences mean and which ones to use, with punctuation, should become obvious.