For our wonderful new work system, I'm having to learn more than the barest smattering of SQL I know. Any advice on some good books or website resources?

Posted by: Ted at 07:11 AM | category: SciTech
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Diamonds, that is. Terribly terribly not-precious anymore if these guys are right.

Thanks to Across the Atlantic for the pointer. Can you tell who the romantic is between the two of us?

Posted by: Ted at 07:18 AM | category: SciTech
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As promised, here's another bit about the mysterious workings of technology. Once again, I found this on the newsgroup Rec.Models.Rockets.

I have found most electronic devices are powered by smoke contained in small black chips.

In fact, once the smoke is released from one of these black chips, the electronic device will stop working.

Next lesson: Gravity doesn't suck.

Posted by: Ted at 04:33 AM | category: SciTech
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From Michael M-B on the Rec.Models.Rockets newsgroup:

What is a Dark Sucker?

Many years ago Thomas Edison was experimenting with a method to remove the darkness from a room. By applying a electric current to a wire in a vacuum, he noticed the darkness in the room had vanished. Where had the darkness gone. He noticed around the wire a area of extreme Non-Darkness. He surmised that in fact, the wire had absorbed all the darkness from the room and concentrated it about the wire. When he removed the current from the wire the darkness returned to the room. Hence the invention of the Dark sucker!

Nowdays we have many types of dark suckers. Even portable Dark Suckers called flashed darksuckers, which remove the dark from a concentrated area a short distance away.

With every brilliant theory, there are those who disagree. In the world of Dark Suckers, these heretics believe that darksuckers are in fact not sucking the dark away but emitting photons (or light). Now all of us in the scientific world know this is falacy. The easy way to prove it to these heretics is the Sun.

The Sun's gravity in fact sucks all of the dark from surrounding space. Therefore making it not dark ( very bloody not dark in fact). And the dark is sucked so violently that heat is generated in place of the removed dark. Even Einstein knew this.

So next time you walk into a dark room and turn the switch watch how fast the Dark is Sucked from the room!

Next Lesson: Electricty is smoke.

Posted by: Ted at 09:26 PM | category: SciTech
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Math Secrets of M&M's Revealed.

M&M sweets pack together more densely than perfect spheres when randomly jumbled in a container, scientists say.

Redefines the term "sugar orgy", eh?

Thanks to The Group Captain at Across the Atlantic for this.

Posted by: Ted at 08:23 PM | category: SciTech
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At work my friend Kyle and I were in one of those wonderful conversations that hop from subject to subject, and eventually we got to talking about amphibious cars. Kudos to Kyle for finding that link.

Apparently, the idea is making a comeback. British company Gibbs is now offering the Aquada, which will do an impressive 100mph on land and 30mph in the water.

Or you can just go the do-it-yourselfer route.

Posted by: Ted at 10:25 AM | category: SciTech
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Gaston Julia

Google good. Fractals pretty. Math bad.

Posted by: Ted at 09:17 AM | category: SciTech
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