I’m a big fan of bookmarklets, javascript programs that reside in bookmarks that you can dump in your Links toolbar in IE. For example, I can’t live without the Search Google bookmarklet, and I’m posting to Blogger via the Blog This! bookmarklet.
But !lineDrawis one of the coolest bookmarklets ever. Click on it once, and it turns your browser window into a whiteboard of sorts — lets you draw on the web page. Click it again, and it clears the drawing. I can imagine great educational and demo uses for this. [link via Dithered]
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At O’Reilly’s Emerging Technology Conference (which I really wish I could have attended), the Creative Commons was announced. It is an organization to facilitate the sharing of creative works. Kind of a Sourceforge for creative works.
This is a brainchild of Stanford’s Internet law wunderkind, Lawrence Lessig who has given several talks on the matter.
It will be interesting to see what is deposited in this commons.
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I misread this News.com article, Microsoft ploy to block Sun exposed. For a moment I thought they meant that Microsoft was going to try to black out the sun (you know, Sol, the star up in the sky that our planet revolves around) a la Mr. Burns in The Simpsons.
I can only pray that this is some clever News.com editor sneaking in a subtle double entendre and not an indication that I watch way too much television.
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Apparently a professor at the University of Minnesota is using comic books to teach physics. Like, how strong is Spiderman’s web? How much does the Flash need to eat to run around the globe? (Actually, I believe this was actually once addressed in Flash comics. I know that, according to the comics, the Flash has a “field” around him that prevents friction from getting in the way and slowing him down.)
This reminds me of a great essay written in the sixties by the science fiction author, Larry Niven, titled “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex (which of course is on the Web — god, I love Google) that illustrates why Superman would basically kill Lois Lane — or any regular woman — if he ever actually had sex with her. My favorite quote:
Ejaculation of semen is entirely involuntary in the human male, and in all other forms of terrestrial life. It would be unreasonable to assume otherwise for a kryptonian. But with kryptonian muscles behind it, Kal-El’s semen would emerge with the muzzle velocity of a machine gun bullet. (One can imagine that the Kent home in Smallville was riddled with holes during Superboy’s puberty. And why did Lana Lang never notice that?)
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