Back from Sacramento, the Ole filter makes a pass...

Just in time for the next installment of The Hobbit, Google have created an interactive map of Middle Earth.  Excellent! 

Economist: Obama Sinking.  Obama never did accomplish much, and the media are increasingly taking note. 

Dave Winer: the government develops software differently.  Certainly compared to startups. 

How interesting: Sudden progress on prime number problem has mathematicians buzzing.  Are there an infinite number of primes spaced a given distance apart?  Yes.  Can we prove it?  Not yet. 

For $99, you can build your own computer in twenty minutes.  Kano's cool kit, based on the awesome Raspberry Pi.  If I was a kid, I would have loved to have one of these.  Then again I am, and I do :) 

Boo.  Winamp is officially dead.  Of course, it has been unofficially dead for fourteen years, ever since AOL bought them.  So weird that big companies kill small companies by buying them. 

Historical footnote.  Winamp is the first software I can remember which featured "skins".  I remember creating some myself, just because I could :)

Gentlemen, start your printers: Smithsonian releases 3D models of artifacts.  "Some of the first 3D scans include the Wright brothers' first airplane, Amelia Earhart's flight suit, casts of President Abraham Lincoln's face during the Civil War and a Revolutionary War gunboat."  How cool is that?  You can learn more about the project on the Smithsonian X 3D website. 

The fastest DNA sequencer, on USB.  Excellent, I want one.  And I'm sure someday soon I will probably have one.... 

FuturePundit: the transition to a DNA-data-rich environment.  "“Once you make the transition from a data poor to data rich environment, everything changes.” We are living thru that transition."  Yep, although the promise of Precision Medicine has yet to be realized, we're almost there.

And another: plan to live to be 100 years old?  With the diagnostic capabilities enabled by genetic information, living to be 100 years old is no longer an unrealistic goal.

The amazing Engadget turns ten!  "If you're reading this, you're an early adopter."  Not only that, I was an early adopter of Engadget.  (Can't believe how many references I've made to them!) 

From Amsterdam-based Robert Embricq: Coolest table ever?  Perhaps ... amid heavy competition.  Looks like something which could be 3D-printed :) 

Way cool: the secret life of a Manhattan doorman.  (This site, narrative.ly, seems to have a lot of cool stuff...  no RSS feed unfortunately so requires exploration.) 

Of course they are: Virgin Galactic now accepting Bitcoin for future flights into space. 

Steampunk on wheels: The Morgan Aero-Coupe.  "It looks like a car designed in the 1930s to be built in 2013."  Yes. 

Not from the Onion: Vancouver bans doorknobs.  Seriously, the role of government is completely out of control here. 

Book note: in preparation for Hunger Games II (Catching Fire), I reread the book.  Not as interesting as the first one (the concepts were all out of the bag already), but still a solid read...  looking forward to the movie!