Bag of Beans

Matthias Wandel built this clever adder that uses marbles. It is quite pleasant to watch it in action…check out the video.

It had occurred to me that perhaps with an insane amount of perseverance, it might be possible to build a whole computer that runs on marbles. My second marble machine was however much less based on logic - more on just making lots of noise.

But a few months ago, I had an idea as to how the divide by two mechanisms from my first marble machine could be cascaded together to actually function as a sort of adder or counter. Once I had that idea, I knew I had to try it at some point, and recently, I finally got around to building my marble binary adding machine.

The core of the invention is a modification of the divide by two flipflop to retain the marble that falls off the right side, and retain it until the flipflop is flipped to the left by the next marble. See small diagram above right. The retention of this extra marble allows the state of the marble accumulator to be dumped. The adder would just as well add without it, but the number would have to be read off by the angle of the rockers, rather than have the device dump the count out. Really, if such an adder were integrated into a hypothetical marble computer, reading out the result as a series of marbles would be an essential element.

• Link (via MAKE: Blog)
• There a few more amazing marble machines on the site here.

Related:

• The Computer/Domino Connection

Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet
by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon
Touchstone, 1998

In Where Wizards Stay Up Late, Hafner and Lyon take us all the way back to the earliest days of computer networking. We are introduced to all of the central figures that were responsible for building the precursors to the internet we know today. In contrast with the rapid growth we see now, the early days seem glacial. The equipment was primitive and had to be custom built. No one had any idea initially how they could connect disparate computers together and make them talk to one another. The fact that the protocols that they eventually came up with are still in use on the internet today, and have managed to survive its explosive growth, is a testament to the genius and vision of these pioneers. The authors have managed to capture not only the tough technical hurdles that needed to be overcome, but also the motivations and the leaps of insight of the people involved during this historic time. This is an enjoyable book that moves at a fairly brisk pace, but I wouldn’t have minded seeing a little more of the technical details.

Rating: 8/10

Links:

• Amazon.ca
• LibraryThing

Related:

• Book: The Computer: An Illustrated History

This is a great list of some excellent science fiction authors of this decade.

We are blessed so far this decade with an amazing crop of new science fiction novelists.

Writing in a variety of styles, this crew is arguably more insightful, more interesting, higher intensity, and bolder than many (but not all!) of their predecessors — and in my view revitalizing the genre at a time when more new technologies that will radically reshape all our lives are incubating and percolating than ever before.

So, taking nothing away from authors like David Brin who have long been established and continue to produce top-notch work, here are my nominations for the top 10 new science fiction novelists of — more or less — the decade, plus one bonus.

And, they’re not all British.

• Link (via Digg)

Hard science-fiction author Charles Stross has laid out his argument for why space colonization is basically impossible.

And I don’t want to spend much time talking about the unspoken ideological underpinnings of the urge to space colonization, other than to point out that they’re there, that the case for space colonization isn’t usually presented as an economic enterprise so much as a quasi-religious one. “We can’t afford to keep all our eggs in one basket” isn’t so much a justification as an appeal to sentimentality, for in the hypothetical case of a planet-trashing catastrophe, we (who currently inhabit the surface of the Earth) are dead anyway. The future extinction of the human species cannot affect you if you are already dead: strictly speaking, it should be of no personal concern.

Historically, crossing oceans and setting up farmsteads on new lands conveniently stripped of indigenous inhabitants by disease has been a cost-effective proposition. But the scale factor involved in space travel is strongly counter-intuitive.

• Link (via Slashdot)

Amusing banner ad from Microsoft.

• Link (via Compiler - Wired Blogs)

• Link [xkcd.com]

Adventures From the Technology Underground: Catapults, Pulsejets, Rail Guns, Flamethrowers, Tesla Coils, Air Cannons, and the Garage Warriors Who Love Them
William Gurstelle
Three Rivers Press, 2006

This is a wildly entertaining book filled with colorful characters and powerful, dangerous machines. Gurstelle takes us on a tour of what he calls the Technology Underground with concise run-downs of many awesome devices and the science behind them. Driven by creativity and passion, the builders like to push the boundaries with inventions that have little practical purpose other than to entertain and excite. With any complex and frighteningly powerful contraption, things don’t always work as planned, and this just makes their stories even more amazing. Those who have felt the DIY maker’s urge will enjoy the profiles of these extreme tinkerers. At just over 200 pages this is a short, fun read.

Rating: 8/10

Links:

• Amazon.ca
• LibraryThing

Rather than just sending back a memory dump, how would you like to be able to physically punish the developer that’s causing you so much anguish?

• Link (via Compiler - Wired Blogs)

The Computer: An Illustrated History
Mark Frauenfelder
Carlton Books, 2005

This is computer pr0n at its finest. This large, beautiful coffee-table book chronicles the evolution of the computer through hundreds of photographs. Following the earliest counting devices, hulking mainframes, personal computers and game consoles, the book documents the seminal figures who shaped the industry and the complex machines they created. It’s a delight simply flipping through all of the pictures and reading about the genius and vision behind these fascinating devices. The historic photos and the evocative writing both really draw you into the book and make you feel like you are reliving the golden age of computing. The Computer is a wonderfully nostalgic book that belongs on any computer geek’s shelf.

Rating: 9/10

Links:

• Amazon.ca
• LibraryThing

This is absolutely baffling. Check it out!

Technically the mechanism at work here is known as “motion binding”. When the edges of the diamond are covered by occluders with the same colour as the background (here, white) there is no information on the vertices of the square. Now the ends of the line become a property of the line and there is insufficient information to detect the circular movement.

The reappearance of the diamond (with occluders invisible) on eccentric viewing is probably caused by blurring the distracting line ends.

• Link (via MAKE: Blog)

Will this settle the debate once and for all? Probably not, but an amusing read nonetheless.

All hope is not lost though. An important issue regarding social norms is whether they are created to increase welfare. Are they society’s response to market failures? One such norm is tipping for service quality. Azar (2003) has shown that the norm of tipping increases social welfare. In this paper, we show conclusively that the social norm of leaving the toilet seat down after use decreases welfare and by doing that we hope to convince the reader that social norms are not always welfare enhancing. Hence, there is a case for scientifically examining social norms and educating the masses about the fallacy of following social norms blindly.

• Link (via Slashdot)

If you are interested in HDR imaging, give this open source tool a try. It helps you create and tone map HDR images from bracketed exposures of a scene.

• Link
• There is also a Qtpfsgui Flickr group where you can find example images and the tone mapping parameters that were used.

Related:

• HDR photos with the GIMP
• Modern HDR photography, a how-to or Saturday morning relaxation