May 2008 Archives

Similicio.us is a site that uses info from del.icio.us to find similar websites; the program answers the question: "people who tagged this site [on del.icio.us] also tagged what other sites"

So, people who visit the DartmouthIndependent.com are also visit:

freedartmouth.blogspot.com	similar
dartreview.com	similar
dfp.dartmouth.edu	similar
dartlog.net	similar
thedartmouth.com	similar

Eventually they are hoping the technology will be good enough to recommend similar articles, rather than similar websites; until then, this is still pretty cool.

USAF is looking to update General Atomic's Reaper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MQ-9_Reaper).

 http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/05/air-force-wants.html

The development and increased use of UAVs is probably (one of) the most important technological trend of the first decade of this century.  And, unlike a battleship or a phraselator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phraselator) it can be used just easily in Great War and Counterinsurgency contexts.

Researchers are trying to use meta-materials to create cool, new technologies; among them, "invisibility cloaks."

Wikipedia describes metamaterials thus:

A metamaterial (or meta material) is a material which gains its properties from its structure rather than directly from its composition. To distinguish metamaterials from other composite materials, the metamaterial label is usually used for a material which has unusual properties. The term was coined in 1999 by Rodger M. Walser of the University of Texas at Austin. He defined metamaterials as:^[1]

Macroscopic composites having a manmade, three-dimensional, periodic cellular architecture designed to produce an optimized combination, not available in nature, of two or more responses to specific excitation.

Among electromagnetics researchers, the term is often used, quite narrowly, for materials which exhibit negative refraction [invisibilitiy].

The first metamaterials were developed by W.E. Kock in the late 1940s with metal-lens antennas^[2] and metallic delay lenses^[3]."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_refractive_index#Negative_refractive_index

For description of the military's use of meta materials to create invisibility cloaks, see:

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/05/invisible-drone.html
http://noahshachtman.com/archives/002747.html

A few days ago, a Dartmouth serial entrepeneur took the time to speak with me, a pathetic, lowly undergraduate.  I'm not sure if he meant to have his comments published, so all I will say is that he is the CEO of a portfolio company of one of the VC firms that funded Google: (in paraphrase)

Q: When should I start a start-up?
A: Consider the drag co-efficient of a race car.  For each of the following, add one point: a spouse, each kid, a mortgage, every 5 years out of college, etc.  The right time to start a start up is when you have a co-efficient of 1-2, i.e. you have some life experience.  After you get a co-efficient of 4 or more, it becomes increasingly unlikely that you will do anything risky.