http://www.jmcrane.com Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:33:28 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en This interesting phenomenon is the product of boiling melted candle wax over a campfire upon which water is poured. Since the boiling point of wax is significantly higher than that of water (paraffin wax has a BP above 400 C), the poured water instantly boils off, rapidly expanding in the ... http://www.jmcrane.com/weblog/2008/07/15/candle-wax-explosion/ As I found out by reading the below article, the price of crude oil today is not made according to any traditional relation of supply to demand, but instead is controlled by an elaborate financial market system as well as by the four major Anglo-American oil companies. A previous Senate ... http://www.jmcrane.com/weblog/2008/06/10/the-pitfalls-of-oil-futures/ There is a real rocket man, though this one is powered by four jet engines attached to a self-made composite wing. Calling himself Fusion Man, Yves Rossy demonstrated his flight through the Swiss Alps controlling himself with only his body. You can see the amazing video below, and another one ... http://www.jmcrane.com/weblog/2008/05/16/rocket-man/ For a little insight as to why Google has the top search engine around, one needs look no further than the linear algebra that lies just below the surface. With a concept called PageRank, they rank pages based on the number of links to them, in a democracy of the ... http://www.jmcrane.com/weblog/2008/05/06/the-25b-eigenvector/ Developed for wrote memorization tasks, such as learning a new language, SuperMemo is a program based on the idea that there is an optimal time for reviewing what you've learned. Review too soon, and you are wasting your time; too late, and you are relearning it. This is the so-called ... http://www.jmcrane.com/weblog/2008/04/22/supermemo-remember-everything/