ideonexus

interweaving ideas

  • Prehistoric North Carolina

    Fossil-hunters once pulled only bones out of the dirt. Then they started pulling up whole skeletons as one big rock, using X-rays and MRIs to catch images of the organs of dinosaurs in the rock. Then they started examining pollen particles accompanying the fossilized bones. I wonder what important evidence we are destroying today, when…

  • Hewlett Packard Product Support Angst

    I wrote this post several weeks ago, but witheld posting it until there was a conclusion: I’m going to rationalize this post as being related to information technology, and therefore something I can legitimately blog. I simply don’t have any other recourse for the incredible frustrations I am feeling towards HP’s Product support for the…

  • Hyper-Rummy

    Here’s a variation on an old favorite of a card game. Try playing Rummy, but in addition to pairs and straights, try throwing in other number sets. Hyper-Rummy My (A) Fibbonnacci Set Loosing to (B) Pi, (C) Even Numbers, and (D) Primes. 1 – Ace 11 – Jack 12 – Queen 13 – King Set…

  • My Personal Experience with Triassic Triops

    From my personal observations of my Triassic Triops: 03/14 Add distilled water to the tank. Added nutrient pack, which is like a tea bag. Nutrient pack floats. Accidentally popped it trying to get it to submerge. Particulate, sticks and twigs, are floating in water. 03/17 Added eggs. Eggs clump together on water’s surface. Triops Eggs…

  • Subsidizing the Oil Industry Destroys Innovation

    Exxon CEO, Lee Raymond In 2004 and 2005 the Congress passed $7.6 billion in tax breaks for the Oil Industry, which had no effect on lowering oil prices or finding new sources of oil. Congress has recently rescinded $14 billion in tax breaks. This is causing a great deal of disconcertion with those who inaccurately…

  • An Endangered Cephalopod

    Can you spot the rare and magnificent endangered species in the photo below? Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus Photo by TGAW The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus is not officially on the endangered species list; however, this extremely rare and biologically unique cephalopod inhabits a very small area in the coniferous Olympic rainforests west of Seattle, an…

  • Neil Shubin’s “Your Inner Fish”

    “The best road maps to human bodies lie in the bodies of other animals.” – Neil Shubin Your Inner Fish There’s a fascination to tearing apart an old house, tracing its history through what you find hidden behind the plaster. Electrical wires and pipes will run up to the attic and across, instead of taking…

  • ideonexus Now Powered by WordPress.org

    Spent yesterday setting up a wordpress.org blog and transferring everything I’ve written on wordpress.com over to it, AND IT WAS SO EASY!!! It’s about an afternoon’s worth of work. WordPress.com lets you export all your blog content to an XML file, which you have to cut down to several 2MB XML files and upload one…

  • North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences: Underground

    Hiddenite crystal with card Mr. William Earl Hidden, July 24, 1905 This antique was my favorite object on display in the Museum’s “Underground” exhibit. A card from William Hidden (1853-1918), a mineralogist sent to North Carolina by Thomas Edison to look for platinum, and for whom the gem is named. See the complete flickr set…

  • 29-MAR-2008 @ 2000 Local: Earth Hour 2008

    Earth at Night Image by NASA Tonight at 8:00 pm is Earth Hour 2008, brainchild of Australia’s World Wildlife Fund. The idea is to turn off all your lights between the hours of 8 and 9 pm your local time. People all over the world are taking part, and even cities are shutting down lights…

  • Quoted in ABC Science

    I’m quoted in Fran Malloy’s ABC Science article Internet connectivity about social networking and it’s effects on culture: “A genuine science community is emerging online,” says science blogger Ryan Somma author of ‘ideonexus’. He argues that social networking also increases scientists’ accessibility to the public and accelerates the dissemination of new research. This is a…

  • Numerical Tic-Tac-Toe

    Here’s a cool spin on a game you probably haven’t played since you solved it in elementary school. You and another player take turns naming numbers one through nine. Each number may only be used once. The player who collects any three numbers that add up to 15 wins. If all numbers are used up…