oranchak.com

“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and
blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails.
You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at
night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only
love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or
know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only
one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what
wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust,
never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never
dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a
lot of things there are to learn.”
— T.H. White, “The Once and Future King”

• Mr. Rogers asks, “Maybe you could show me how to breakdance.”
  (tags: video comedy)

• GECCO2008: Great list of programs that produce evolutionary art (descriptions)
  (tags: eneticalgorithms art science)
• GECCO2008: Picbreeder
  A very cool online community-driven evolutionary art application. Check out the highest-rated images here: http://picbreeder.org/imagedisplay.php?type=RANK
  (tags: geneticalgorithms art)
• Scholarpedia
  It’s like Wikipedia, but peer-reviewed for higher quality in scholarly domains.
  (tags: encyclopedia wiki reference science)

• GECCO2008: Evolutionary art – Can a genetic program paint a portrait of Darwin’s head?
  This was a paper at last year’s GECCO conference. An interesting attempt to teach a computer to paint a portrait of Darwin.
  (tags: geneticalgorithms science art)
• GECCO2008: NEvAr: Neuro Evolutionary Art
  “The ultimate goal of the project is to build an Artificial Artist (a computer application able to generate artworks autonomously). NEvAr is an Evolutionary Art tool, a program that evolves a set of images, based on the aesthetic preferences of the user.”
  (tags: geneticalgorithms art science)
• GECCO2008: Great list of programs that produce evolutionary art
  (tags: geneticalgorithms art science)
• GECCO2008: Robocode Home
  Human competitors write small Java programs to simulate tank behaviors. The programs are run against each other to find out which one is best. Several researchers have evolved these programs instead of writing them by hand.
  (tags: geneticalgorithms game java)

• Dropbox – Home – Secure backup, sync and sharing made easy.
  Fancy web-based file management. Awesome syncing and sharing features – watch the little video on the front page.
  (tags: tech web storage)
• HubbleSite – recent image of a star cluster
  SHINY! (If you are brave, get the supermassive high-resolution 30MB JPG here: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2008/25/image/c/warn/)
  (tags: space science hubble)

• jwz – but the lease said no pets
  Best building mod ever.
  (tags: funny)
• Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle
  Barack Obama wants you to see this crazy web site.
  (tags: funny)
• Viewzi — What are you looking for?
  A brand new search engine. Very interesting and visual ways of browsing search results from multiple sources. I like the “3D Photo Cloud View” and the “Video x3 View”.
  (tags: search visualization tech)
• The Paper Version of the Web at Deeplinking
  Real hand-drawn sketches of early user interface concepts for famous sites such as Twitter, Flickr, and Vimeo. An interesting glimpse of the UI design process!
  (tags: design ui web tech)

• MyGallons.com – Hedge your gas expenses
  Interesting idea – you prepay a gas card at today’s locked-in gas prices. When gas prices climb in the future, you can still buy gas at the cheaper locked-in price.
  (tags: fuel money travel)
• Universe Sandbox – An Interactive Space Simulator | created by Dan Dixon
  “Smash planets together, introduce rogue stars, and build new worlds from spinning discs of debris. Fire a moon into a planet or destroy everything you’ve created with a super massive black hole.” Sounds fun! “I AM GOD HERE!!”
  (tags: space science software)
• In Conversation – 26 June 2008 – The late great physicist Richard Feynman – interview transcript + audio
  “Scientists are accused of lessening the beauty of nature by explaining it in terms of science.Not so, according to the late physicist Richard Feynman,who says knowing about the inner structure of flowers adds to the excitement, mystery & awe of nature.”
  (tags: audio science)
• Opportunity Mars Rover – Panorama of Cape Verde
  Awesome panorama taken recently by the still-functioning Opportunity rover on Mars. I am still amazed that both rovers are still alive and well. HUGE 6.9M panorama image here: http://is.gd/OYq
  (tags: space science)