Public holiday tomorrow, and then on the 17th is the constitution day, so some sunny days of relaxing and reloading after two hectic weeks.
architecture days: "Walk through the campus of The Illinois Institute of Technology, home to the world's largest group of buildings designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe" - rather poor site, but then again the main point is to get people out there and walking around on organized tours to see historical/special/famous building, in LA, Chicago and NY.
Burn it
Once upon a time a "real" laser was something to be seen in large industrial complexes and factories - but now you can bring one home and cut out your own stuff, using the "VersaLaser"
Maybe something for my rather craft-addicted darling? But starting (!) at 8000 usd ... maybe not.
Flying through time
On Friday tour natinal broadcaster started a rather interesting BBC series called "Wild Europe" [norwegian] - going back through the ages and showing how Europe came to be what and where it is today. Can't seem to find it on the BBC site - but they have two similar projects, looking at the Natural history of Britain and the Americas. Typical example of the web really adding value by having tons of related in-depth information. Such as maps of the super-continents, such as Pangaea, the third one, during the age of the dinosaurs.
Do the math, stupid
First there was CSI. Then it spun all around the country - more "international" in Miami, darker and grimmer in NY, but still best in Vegas. Then along came Numbers[official] - or Numb3rs[wiki] as the visual cue is. It is on in Sweden, and I caught part of the virus episode the other day (obviously the second one, as it premiered on the 29th of april). Nice mix of crime and science. Using logic and modelling to find the patterns. Neat. Maybe something to watch, as I'm tuning out of CSI NY - really didn't catch me in terms of "interesting" main-characters. (And for some neat math background - have a look at these curves or the whole picture or the overview)
So, to close off for now - solve the puzzle: if a gallon of gas on average costs $2.11, a hybrid goes for a $3000 premium in price, but gets 20 mpg more ("2005 EPA-estimated 60 city/51 highway/55 combined mpg") - how much should you drive to even it out in terms of pure direct gasoline costs? Or how many years if you drive 15k miles/year (that's some 40 miles each way each working day). Never mind tax rebates, or the fact that gas some places go up to $5...
