Computer Lifespans
Feb 5th
Let’s face it, we’ve all done it. You just slap some electrical tape on and call it “Fixed”. This is a tale of when a computer should truely be put out of its misery… case in point: 
I know it’s suffering, but I can’t for the life of me put it out of it’s misery. It was my first lappy, and it still works (Atleast when it has a HDD in it), just cause it is beaten to death well-loved should it be punished?
Head and shoulders above his feet: Controversy about Napoleon’s height
Jan 26th
Napoleon is famous for a handful of things. One of them being his height (or lack thereof). It has generally been accepted that Napoleon was short, but his actual height remains somewhat of a mystery. Partially due to the French revolution, units of measurements were consistently changing. It’s an issue of where he was measured, when and with what.
His autopsy put him at five-feet two-inches, French. The British reported him at five-feet, seven-inches, British. The measurements are both equivalent to one and seven-tenths of a meter, or just over five and a half feet. That’s not exceptionally tall, but it’s not that short either. It’s roughly the average height for a man of that time, and is only slightly short by our standard today.
This leads to one big question. Why would a man of average height be assumed so tiny in retrospect? In modern depictions, he’s sometimes as short as four feet (about 1.22 meters), and is almost never taller than five feet (1.524 meters). Using the median height (of 1.327 meters), there is a difference of about three hundred seventy-three tenths of a meter (about one foot, three inches) . It might not seem like a lot, but it makes a world of difference if you’re the short one!
For a start, the British press always depicted him as being short. It’s rather interesting that the image of a short man could prevail over an actual measurement. He’s popularly and incorrectly accepted as short. The British press isn’t exactly the only one to blame. Napoleon always surrounded himself with large body guards. Not so much because he was short, but because larger guards are scarier. He earned the nickname le petit caporal, however it refereed to his relationship with his solders, and not his height.
Many historians like to cite the confusing change change in measurements (which were not globally standard) at time time for the confusion. Supposedly, is Autopsy was done in India (he died on the island of Saint Helena in the Atlantic ocean, why they would bother going to India is far beyond me). Due to the fact that the British were colonizing India at the time (or trying) there is retroactively debate about what sort of a ruler he may have been measured with.
Logically, it would be French (as he would normally be taken to a French colony, if anywhere). Although, many British officers witnessed the autopsy, so it’s also possibly a British ruler was used. To confuse matters still, sometimes an “Indian Measurement” was used, which as I understand it, was an out-dated British ruler.
However, when measuring the leader, a country does not make mistakes. The French reported him at Five-feet and Two-inches, French. The French would not incorrectly report teh height of a leader. Some historians will go so far as to say that the French lied, even after his death to make him seem taller.
While it is possible (how many people do you think had ever seen him up close?) that they may have lied, and believed he was taller, this would not explain the retroactive myth. This would, in fact, create a contrary myth that he was actually something closer to his correct height.
Hospitals and Nurses
Jan 23rd
Some nurses are so sweet. You know they were destined to be nurses. They are passionate about what they do and incredibly nice to the family and patient. Some nurses however, are complete jackasses. It is clear that they have either lost their passion or never were nice. When both the family and patient want the nurse to go away, we have a problem. If I hated my job or was so rude to patients, I would quit. Seriously. Find a new line of work. Usually passion and love for a particular line of work lead you to a career path… Did these nurses just accidentally fall into place? Seriously. WTF. If you can’t be nice to the patient and or family, GTFO and find yourself a job where you don’t have to interact with them…
Also, just because one is in the hospital does not mean that they have no dignity or pride left. I think nurses and health care personnel should be more aware of the patients and how they are being treated and make sure that they are also being treated with dignity and respect.
Inefficiency in the way we use energy, a rant by Posiden
Jan 21st
Today, the topic came up during a discussion with a friend, why is it hard to build Ion drives or other slightly futuristic devices the require more power. The main answer to such a question is inefficiency. Our current system of transporting and creating electrical energy is massively inefficient. Think of it this way, to power this server the energy transfer goes somewhat like this: fuel->heat->kinetic(steam turbines)->transmission->server. Now every step of the way energy is being lost. Now think if we had a way to go directly from heat to the transmission. Even better still imagine if we could improve the transmission lines as well, the entire world would benefit. The way I see it if we improve the power systems, (this includes batteries, power lines, power plants, etc) we can go beyond just thinking up the idea of an ion drive. We could actually build it. Same with some of the other concepts that are waiting on a method of getting large amounts of power. The world of tomorrow could be created sooner if these core technologies were improved first.
Selig s; s.PrintUsage();
Jan 17th
Hey, I’m Selig, I will likly be posting about code stuff, or just random shit really, depends on how my ADD is acting up at the- Ohhhhhh….
Yo.
Jan 17th
Hello! My name is Alex and I go by purrdeta on the internet.
What is there to say about me you may ask? Well, I am a gay geek! Which is always an interesting combination. I enjoy technology, servers, video games, and other random crap. In regards to video games, I own both an xbox 360 and a Nintendo Wii. In regards to servers, I own the one that this website runs on. On it there is an IRC server, Jabber server, Mail server and more! Let me know at purrdeta@darkdna.net if you are interested in hosting a website on the server and we can discuss whether that will be possible or not. The IRC server and Jabber server are open and public and you can join them whenever you wish 
Anyway, I have no idea what to write about and I am sure it will be fairly random but since we all are collaborating on this I am sure it will be discussed before being posted
Y HELLO DER.
Jan 17th
So, hi. I’m Damon, or fishmonger.
I’m going to focus on History and Language, but I might delve into Retro Tech, and there’s a pretty good chance I’mma review things no one else has ever heard of. I bet you’re wondering what makes me qualified to blog on such topics (if you weren’t, the cheque’s in the mail).
Going in reverse order, just to demonstrate how whimsical I am…
• Retro Tech is something I’ve always been interested in. No matter how “advanced” computer get, I can’t stop but wonder if somehow, some way technology has passed from doing tasks to convince people, to just being a plethora of needless features. That’s not, of course, to say that I don’t have fun with shiny new things that have no real practical value. I also (just today) installed Windows 3.1 on my laptop. I’m running it on top of FreeDOS. Why? Because DOS (there’s more than just MS-DOS, you know!) is a very good OS.
• Language is, again, one of my interests. I construct languages as a hobby. I get all sweaty when I figure out a nice verb conjugation system. I’m prone to exclaiming things that make no sense, just because I figured out how to express something in a new way. Language is the primary medium of human expression. Language formed, it is said, out of man’s need to complain. There’s something marvelous about human expression– it’s why the truly great artists are truly great. They managed to say something without words. The rest of us are just stuck with words, I guess.
• “History” is the word I am starting this sentence with. When you take a good look at history, you realize that somehow, nothing as changed. People still want the same things, and the same feelings still exist. A classless society still has people who want to feel special. Governments still aren’t prefect. So much is different, and so much is still exactly the same.
ohai!
Jan 17th
So I guess i am going to be the proactive one and actually start using this blog. Anway:
Hi, I’m Posiden (aka: Ross) as far as i know I will be writing articles on politics/science/science. I will probably also do some reviews. I have my personal blog which also tracks the status of helixoide.com. I’m an avid linux user and enjoy programming in java. I only have one major project right now and that is SLserv.
Anyway thats it for me, I guess I will let the other introduce themselves