We watched the Secrets of Parthenon on PBS’s NOVA last night. According to the show, it took the ancient Greeks mere 8 years to build Parthenon, but the restoration project has been going on for the last 30 years! And most of the restoration is to fix the damages done by the previous restoration projects in the early 20th century. Granted, it’s probably more difficult to piece together a broken things than to build from scratch, but some of the things that Greeks were able to achieve 2,500 years ago with “primitive” tools were just mind-blowing. It made me feel how today’s technology and gadgetry are so insignificant compared to the fundamental knowledge and deep understanding of the people of classical antiquity. The pure love of knowledge and passion drove them to their great accomplishments, while most of the modern developments are driven by capitalism. With renewed respect for the ancient civilizations, I just regret not paying more attentions in history classes :-)
This “vampire energy loss” represents between 5 and 8 percent of a single family home’s total electricity use per year, according to the Department of Energy. On average, that’s the equivalent of one month’s electricity bill. Taken across the United States, this adds up to at least 68 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually; that’s the equivalent output of 37 typical electricity-generating power plants, costing consumers more than $7 billion. This wasted energy sends more than 97 billion pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; on a global scale, standby energy accounts for 1 percent of the world’s carbon emissions
Unplug those appliances when you’re not using them, yo.
If you are using MSN/Live Messenger, be careful of this site msnliststatus.com (DO NOT CLICK) that is going around which purportedly will tell you which of your messenger contacts has you blocked. As interesting as it may sound, in a counter-intelligence sort of way, this is just a ploy to steal your MSN username and password. Apparently, some of Migi’s circles are affected by this, hehe.
Which reminds me that now is a good time to change all my password on all my accounts…
I blogged about the Six-World Sci-Fi before. Supposedly, six-word stories started out when someone challenged Hemingway in a bar, to write a six-word story. His answer: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” So sad…
Background: Apple iPod Touch was a crippled version of iPhone to begin with — no Mail, Maps, Stock, Weather and Notepad apps. Yesterday in Macworld, Jobs announced that they will make these 5 apps available for iPod Touch users, but charge them $20 for them. I believe they should have been included from the beginning. There was no technical reason to not have them on iPod Touch. In fact, jailbroken version of iPod Touch can run those apps just fine (except it was illegal to do so). I see their pattern of screwing the early adopters of technology, as they did with iPhone and MacBook Air.
In his new book, he recommends we Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. and food that our great-grandparents used to eat. Also, he recommends that people shop for food on the walls of market and avoid the center areas where most processed food are located.
I previously blogged about an excellent article he wrote for NY Times Magazine here
We watched the Secrets of Parthenon on PBS’s NOVA last night. According to the show, it took the ancient Greeks mere 8 years to build Parthenon, but the restoration project has been going on for the last 30 years! And most of the restoration is to fix the damages done by the previous restoration projects in the early 20th century. Granted, it’s probably more difficult to piece together a broken things than to build from scratch, but some of the things that Greeks were able to achieve 2,500 years ago with “primitive” tools were just mind-blowing. It made me feel how today’s technology and gadgetry are so insignificant compared to the fundamental knowledge and deep understanding of the people of classical antiquity. The pure love of knowledge and passion drove them to their great accomplishments, while most of the modern developments are driven by capitalism. With renewed respect for the ancient civilizations, I just regret not paying more attentions in history classes :-)
At Last, a $20,000 Cup of Coffee - New York Times
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