Brainstream

Camera Talk

Am a pretty happy Canon Rebel owner but loved this article about the camera wars between Canon and Nikon over the years. After reading the article, scrappy Canon reminds me a bit of Samsung in copying a great product and then innovating quickly to become a strong competitor. One eye-opening factoid: Nikon made the optics / bomb sights in the Japanese planes that bombed Pearl Harbor.

Antibiotics

So, climate change is a bit disturbing but not nearly disturbing as the possibility of having no effective antibiotics. This recent article in The Huffington Post talks about the “catastrophic effect” that antibiotic resistance could have on medicine:

“There are an increasing number of infections for which there are virtually no therapeutic options, and we desperately need new discovery, research and development,” she said.

Ice Roads

I was recently discussing the fact that people drove snowmobiles and cars on Sunset Lake when I was growing up and that the lake ice was plenty thick to support such weight. The discussion led to talking about some “roads” in Alaska that actually traverse frozen lakes and rivers in the winter. Turns out, there is a whole cable TV show on the History Channel about this called “Ice Road Truckers”. Fascinating to me is that there is now a fully paved Alaska Highway which might be an interesting driving experience.

Knobfeel

One of the more humorous websites I’ve stumbled across lately is this guy’s blog called “Knobfeel” which simply reviews a device’s “knobfeel”. This video is a good example:

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10-Year Hoodie Update

Sooo, that little 10-Year Hoodie project I backed at Kickstarter appears to have met its goal and then some. Flint & Tinder achieved its initial goal of $50,000 in the first day and with 31 days to go, people have pledged over $625,000! The company has also listened to feedback and opened up more sizes, now from XS all the way to XXXL.

Flint & Tinder recently posted a great “thank you” video which totally sums up my reasons for backing the company on this.

According to the video, to fulfill the current orders, they need to buy enough fabric to cover 180 football fields. I imagine they will have to hire quite a few Americans to get these orders out. Go USA!