Silicon Valley/Beta's - How Not To Run a Start-up

On Boing-Boing, there's a review of a series starting in the 'States called Silicon Valley, a comedy about a programmer who develops a new compression algorithm and, instead of selling out for gazzilions, takes some seed money and tries to run his own start-up. All very Microserf's:

However, this is not the first time programmers have been on the small screen in a comedy. A few months ago, Amazon created Beta's:

I'd normally just cringe and move on (they're not as good as The IT Crowd by the looks of things)

but the other day I expanded my Douglas Coupland collection with jPod and The Gum Thief. jPod was also made into a TV series, sadly unavailable.

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Electro-magnetic Induction

Via Boing-Boing, I found this rather cool way of explaining electro-magnetic induction (the way electric motors work) using high temperature super-conductors and a moebius strip of magnets.

Nikola Tesla and Eric Laithwaite would be proud!

Gravity Light Project

I've just been over to Boing Boing and there's an article on a gravity powered LED light. Intrigued, I had a look:

It's a variation on the wind-up radio, but this time using a weight and gravity to do the work. I especially like the way the current can be tapped to charge up batteries and power other things. A good design!

...and I bet you didn't know that LED lights don't attract mosquitoes.