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Biotech

A Microbe's-Eye View of Beer 177

Posted by timothy from the little-tiny-goggles dept.
fjordboy writes "After a hard days work and a couple of beers, don't we all really wonder what our draft would look like under thousands of times magnification? Maybe not, but after nine years of work and five million dollars, Michael Davidson of Florida State University has created a website of microscopic proportions that will satiate anyone's curiosity. His site, MolecularExpressions.com has galleries full of images of ordinary materials under extraordinary magnification. The list of materials includes beers from around the world, popular cocktails, snoopy and many more. The site has a wealth of images that are well worth a look. CNN has a brief description of the site and the work that went into it, but feel free to skip that and just gaze at an Irish favorite." Some pretty new galleries since the last time we mentioned it.
Science

Making Antibubbles in Beer from Belgium 204

Posted by Hemos from the useful-stuff-beer dept.
An anonymous reader writes "About.com reports on "Antibubbles in beer from Belgium". Scientists in Belgium have studied the movement of antibubbles (the exact opposite of regular bubbles) in Flemish beer. They found that the beer was very similar, but not the same as, dishwater. You can also learn how to make antibubbles in your kitchen from soapy water."
Books

Anatman, Pumpkin Seed, Algorithm 124

Posted by timothy from the not-your-ordinary-next-door-neighbor dept.
Dylan Harris writes "I love writing software, and I enjoy reading other people's source -- how they've expressed instructions, the subtle differences when two good programmers use the same language for the same task. Then there's the pleasure of working through a new computer language: how its structure, its form, changes the way a problem is approached, a solution is expressed. Strange as it may seem, I get the same pleasure from reading poetry, but more so. Seeing a poem written in an old familiar form, say a sonnet, is like meeting someone else's code in a language I know. New poems in new forms are new programs in new languages; exciting ideas renewed, refreshed, expressed in different ways." Read on for Dylan's review of a collection from Loss Pequeno Glazier which combines these worlds of expression.
Java

GUI Designer For Eclipse 68

Posted by timothy from the wheel-non-reinvention dept.
Flu writes "Finally, a free (as in speech and beer) and official GUI designer has been released for Eclipse! Just a few days before the Eclipse 3.0 M5 build was released, a complete plugin for creating GUI's was released as well, as one of the Eclipse tools projects. Check it all out on the official site for the Visual Editor Project. At last, the (probably) best free IDE for Java (and C) contains a GUI editor! Personally, I intend to put up an IBM logo to worship next to my desk, as a thank you for the Eclipse! :-)"
Hardware

Need... More... Power... 437

Posted by michael from the brownout dept.
MikeDawg writes "After dealing with the headache of never having enough electrical outlets, not having a cable TV coaxial, not having a telephone hookup in the right places of my apartment, I found this article at CNN. It is nice to see that college dorm rooms are getting filled with outlets to provide students with enough hook-ups with for all their electronics. My question to you (renters/dorm-room dwellers) is does your dorm room or apartment have enough outlets, whether it be electrical, cable, telephone, or anything else you may need? What do you do in a situation like this? Do you load up each socket with a 10+ port power strip (or battery backup as it may be) and pray that you don't knock-out the circuit everytime you start burning a CD?"
Businesses

In Search of Stupidity 282

Posted by timothy from the don't-look-far dept.
Alex Moskalyuk writes "There are dozens of titles on 'corporate excellence.' Management types like them. They teach the best practices from known companies and let you know how ABC Inc. or XYZ Corp. became such a glorious business as it is. In Search of Excellence (ISBN: 0446385077) is one of them, deserving the title of 'management bible' from its publishers. Apart from the minor detail that some of the data in the book was faked. At times like these, where do you turn for a good management advice?" Read on for Alex's review of an alternative text, Merrill R. Chapman's In Search of Stupidity.
Software

Free (as in beer) Windows Flowcharting? 71

Posted by Cliff from the diagrams-of-geometric-shapes dept.
bhtooefr asks: "I need a flowcharting program for use in one of my programming classes at Central Ohio Technical College, and I can't afford to spend much money. The instructor recommended that I use Microsoft Visio, but it's way past my budget (and I can't obtain it for free). I've tried a free trial app (SmartDraw), but I didn't like the UI at all. Kivio won't do the job, because the free version is only for KDE, and Kivio MP isn't free. However, if there's a Kivio port to Windows that is free, I'd be rather interested. Any ideas here?"
Programming

Free Sound Samples? 79

Posted by Cliff from the if-the-rappers-can-do-it dept.
TwistedSquare asks: "I like to write small games from time to time, and have often wondered about adding sounds. Searching around on the internet, I can find loads of GPL sound libraries but no sound effects/samples that are both royalty-free and free (as in beer). Can anyone suggest how I could find such effects and does anyone else find it odd the contrast between the amount of GPL software and non-GPL-type items in areas such as sound effects?"
First Person Shooters (Games)

Legends FPS Adds Freeware Linux Version 25

Posted by simoniker from the more-decent-beerlike-gaming dept.
jmahler writes "The Legends Development Team is proud to announce the availability of our Linux client and server downloads for Legends. Legends is a fast-paced, FPS-style multiplayer game. The game is designed to take advantage of the beautiful environments in the Torque Gaming Engine while still offering the breakneck pace and variety of gameplay styles available from classics such as Quake and Tribes. Our game has been made for gamers, by gamers, and will always remain free (as in beer), supported, and improved as long as there is interest in it." There's also a Windows version of this still-in-development Beta on their download page, and the Tribes-style gameplay looks intriguing ("jetpack use" through large, often open-air multiplayer maps.)
Music

Beer-Coated CDs are Optical Biocomputers 298

Posted by CowboyNeal from the fancy-liquor-spills dept.
commodoresloat writes "A DJ and scientist in Melbourne whose research is in the area of communication through biological cells, serendipitously created an 'optical biocomputer' when he spilled beer on his CDs and left them over night. The resulting fungus that formed distorted the sound of the CDs in interesting and meaningful ways. Here's some of his research, and some media samples which include mp3s of the distorted music." Yes, the term biocomputer is used in the loosest sense.
Technology

Cybersyn And Early Uniminds 339

Posted by Hemos from the i-can-see-your-house-from-up-here dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Guardian Website is running a story on Cybersyn. An experimental computer network based on cybernetic principles that was used by Chile's revolutionary government between 1971 and 1973 to provide a real-time, decentralized form of economic analysis in the nationalized sector of the Chilean economy. The network has been described as Chile's Internet. There is a photo of the control room which looks something like the deck of the Starship Enterprise. The whole thing was the brainchild of Stafford Beer, a sort of British Buckminster Fuller. All very Orwellian and Big Brother, the whole experiment was brought to an end by the CIA sponsored coup d'etat on the September 11th, 1973."
Television

TV "Broadcasting" Over Wireless Networks? 66

Posted by Cliff from the lower-barriers-to-entry dept.
nuggetman asks: "This year we're starting an in-high-school TV network. What we would like to do is be able to broadcast from anywhere in the building using our wireless 802.11b network. In doing some tests at home, I discovered 802.11b has enough bandwidth to allow me to send live video at VHS quality (320x240 29.97fps) w/ FM quality audio when using Windows Media encoder on the sending end, and Windows Media Player at full screen on the receiving end. When applied in school, the receiving computer would simply output the full screen display to a TV signal. Are there any other free (as beer) solutions that would let us do this, other than WMP?"
It's funny. Laugh.

Distro Taste Test - Linux and Beer 229

Posted by michael from the mad-max dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Those Aussies are mad!!! Linux is an international phenomenon, drawing in developers and users from all over the globe. This diversity is reflected in the enormous number of flavours (or distributions) it is available in. This cornucopia of names reminds me of nothing so much as the world of beer. I thought it would be entertaining to look for parallels between some notable distros and the beers of the world."
Linux Business

OpenLindows.com: Wherefore Art Thou? 256

Posted by timothy from the apt-get-transparent dept.
Joe Barr writes "I ran across a curious website recently: OpenLindows.com. The name alone intrigued me. It gave rise to speculation about a weird mix of free-as-in-beer and free-as-in-speech alternative to the $99/year Click-N-Run software subscription offered by LindowsOS, the most Windows-like/proprietary Linux distribution out there. This is a report on what I found, and perhaps even more importantly, what I didn't."
It's funny. Laugh.

Beer Added To The Food Pyramid 393

Posted by CmdrTaco from the appropriate-for-a-sunday-morning dept.
Alehound writes " Beer Is Food: The US Government labeled beer(alcohol) as a drug, BeerAdvocate.com begs to differ as they inform their reader that beer can be a part of your diet in a healthy way. Beer does a body good? So the "Beer Gut" is a myth? So why the hell do I have a gut? And yes these guys do drink beer for breakfast." It's only 10 in the morning, I'm dumping out the half pot of coffee left, and cracking open a Boddingtons! Do it!
Toys

Another Beer Please 333

Posted by michael from the brooklyn-lager dept.
jmichaelg writes "What do you get when you combine a glass, a PIC computer, two capacitors, a coil and a zener Diode? A wireless beer glass that signals your waiter when you need a refill. The circuit is an RFID transponder that measures the fluid level in a glass and transmits a globally unique ID coupled to the fluid level reading when queried by an antenna hidden in your table. The query provides enough power to drive the circuit so no batteries are needed. A technical paper describes the circuitry in the table and the glass." This hit the news over a year ago, but we didn't have the technical details.
Entertainment

Occupying Your Freetime on a Business Trip? 73

Posted by Cliff from the social-butterfly-in-new-surroundings dept.
Eric asks: "I just learned that my employer is sending me on a project abroad, in a medium size city for 3 months, starting early August. This will be a 12-hour flight from home and I have friends just an 8-hour drive from there. This is not the first time I am being sent on a remote location, but it used to be short trips (one week, typically), so I didn't have time to get really bored. What do you do while on a long business trip? how do you meet people when you cannot use your network of friends and don't have months to waste on building a new network?"
Businesses

Getting Back Into Shape While At The Office? 1488

Posted by timothy from the woody-allen-in-bananas dept.
rhuntley12 writes "Personally, I sit at a computer desk for 10 hours a day with very little actual work. I've also started to get a little belly and out of shape. I know it's real bad in my office, especially with all the beer I consume. What do you do to stay in shape? Any secrets? Recently I've started to do sit ups, push ups, and running up and down the stairs. I get a lot of odd looks, and would prefer something that doesn't make the whole office stare at me. I've looked through some websites with equipment, but it's all serious equipment I can't/won't lug into work. Any suggestions?"

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