Nothing and Some More

Teaser: canclaux: 30.1.06: de retour cette semaine...

Teaser existe toujours ou presque.

Mon premier FAI c'était PacWan (bon techniquement c'était CM17 mais cela ne compte pas !!! )

The fastest man alive: Kazushige Goto, can make supercomputers run faster and more efficiently and he can do it better than compilers. And you can download the code on his homepage

Podcasts stink but you can get mp3 lectures of various US Universities:

First of all, Stanford uses iTunes and does not have much, according to one /. comment: only 39 lectures( I don't use iTunes so I can't check).

Other resources: webcast.berkeley has being putting lectures on the web since 2001, with video in real format and recently with mp3. UW of Madison is also experimenting with podcasting (try the Stories of Southwestern Wisconsin: Walnut Shells, Black Powder Shells, really interesting); and of course the MIT with its OpenCourseWare has some interesting contents.

Any equivalent elsewhere in the world, not in english? I don't know where to look. ( there is the category Learning & Instruction > Education but nothing in non english)

BBC: British not that big on Evolution

Over 2,000 participants took part in the survey, and were asked what best described their view of the origin and development of life:

• 22% chose creationism
• 17% opted for intelligent design
• 48% selected evolution theory
• and the rest did not know.

Daniel C. Dennett has a new book out Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon so there are a few interviews: The Nonbeliever

I take it you are not a churchgoer.
No, not really. Sometimes I go to church for the music.

The Chronicle of Higher Education: Common-Sense Religion

In Marjoe, the 1972 documentary about the bogus evangelist Marjoe Gortner, we see poor people emptying their wallets and purses into the collection plate, their eyes glistening with tears of joy, thrilled to be getting "salvation" from the charismatic phony. The question that has been troubling me ever since I first saw the film is: Who is committing the more reprehensible act — Gortner, who lies to people to get their money, or the filmmakers who expose the lies (with Gortner's enthusiastic complicity), thereby robbing the good folk of the meaning they thought they had found for their lives?

And his dangerous idea of the year There aren't enough minds to house the population explosion of memes

EETimes Nanocircuits self-build from DNA: and Thomas H. LaBean and Chris Dwyer wrote D N A on a nanocircuit as a demo.

Does Porn sells ?? Wicked Weasel Pty Ltd is an Australian company engaged in the manufacture and distribution of high quality risque swimwear and underwear for women. On its online shop, you can "Browse by fabric: See Through".

Some Pirelli Calendar images: I am still an Eva fan (via Reddit NSFW which has more and more porn and less and less erotica... oh well. I read The Hun Yellow Pages for the joke)

The official version The Pirelli Calendar has this year edition.

Adriana Lima was in the 2005 edition. (via Victoria's Secret)

RAND 50 books about the future (the list is in PDF unfortunately) (via BoingBoing)You can also check the RAND profile on Wikipedia

I've converted the list to two Amazon Lists: 49 books about the future

The Onion A.V. Club interviews Stephen Colbert

Truthiness is tearing apart our country, and I don't mean the argument over who came up with the word. I don't know whether it's a new thing, but it's certainly a current thing, in that it doesn't seem to matter what facts are. It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything.

LeMonde: La Chine et l'Inde supplantent l'Europe

l'Asie a supplanté l'Europe. C'est fait. Cela s'est opéré finalement très vite, dix ans, quinze ans. Mais voilà, ça y est : l'Europe est passée au second plan. Elle est encore grande, grosse, mais elle ne compte plus guère. Le monde était hier dominé par les Etats-Unis et par l'Europe, il l'est aujourd'hui par les Etats-Unis, par la Chine et l'Inde.[...]
La Chine et l'Inde ne se contentent pas de fabriquer de T-shirts et des tôles d'acier de bas de gamme. A l'intérieur, elles accroissent rapidement leurs dépenses de recherche-développement et la formation d'ingénieurs. A l'extérieur, elles commencent à partir à l'assaut des groupes occidentaux pour acquérir des technologies, comme c'est le cas pour Mittal.
L'Europe, elle, réduit les crédits communautaires et les pays membres n'osent pas moderniser les universités et les organismes administratifs rouillés par peur des syndicats. On réalise peu, en France en particulier, l'ampleur de cette course mondiale à la recherche. Il ne suffira pas d'augmenter (un jour) les crédits, tout le monde le fait ! C'est comme d'avoir le Bac, il faut autre chose.
Cette autre chose s'appelle le talent humain.

LeMonde: Des détenus réclament le rétablissement de la peine de mort face au désespoir des longues peines

"Assez d'hypocrisie ! Dès lors qu'on nous voue en réalité à une perpétuité réelle, sans aucune perspective effective de libération à l'issue de notre peine de sûreté, nous préférons encore en finir une bonne fois pour toutes que de nous voir crever à petit feu"