Exasperated Calculator: Star Trek & Economics
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Pushing the limit
[An IL76 tries to take off from Canberra airport](http://the-riotact.com/?p=6802). This has *got* to be safer than it looks. Because it looks like this plane takes off by the skin of its teeth.
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TV Review: The Palace
[The Palace](http://www.itv.com/Drama/contemporary/ThePalace/default.html), a new series from ITV in the UK. The setup is pretty simple: *The West Wing* meets *The Queen*. That’s a difficult premise to live up to – one of the best TV series of all time, and one of the best films of recent years. Inevitably, it doesn’t live up all the…
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Coming Soon: Fools Gold
[An obsessive treasure hunter and his ex-wife hunt for Spanish riches](http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/foolsgold/trailer1/). This looks like a very very silly film. Maybe sometime when I don’t want my brain on.
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At least it’ll be easy to move
[A table, stool, wardrobe, bed and bookcase that fit into a small crate](http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/02/12/casulo-complete-furn.html). Watch the video – this is a very nice bit of design.
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Caffeine productivity
[How to maximise your use of caffeine](http://scienceblogs.com/developingintelligence/2008/02/optimally_wired_a_caffeine_use.php). Hmmm, I could go for a coffee about now…
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Where’s the Lego Shrubbery?
[Lego Monty Python](http://gizmodo.com/355912/lego-monty-python-beats-lego-star-wars-with-a-stick). Personally I’d love to get a Black Knight minifig. (And if you haven’t seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail, none of this will be the slightest bit funny).
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Race Fish
[A Racetrack shaped goldfish bowl](http://gizmodo.com/356239/racetrack-fishbowl-for-goldfish-daredevils). I’m not sure how well the fish could handle the hairpin turn, to be honest.
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NaNoWriMo for short attention spans
Last year I tried to complete [NaNoWriMo](http://www.nanowrimo.org), the National Novel Writing Month. I did better than the year before, but still fell well short of the goal of 50,000 words written in the month. It’s hard to commit to something for as long as a month – life tends to intervene, and once it does…
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Inside the A380
[A panoramic view of inside the A380’s cockpit](http://www.gillesvidal.com/blogpano/cockpit1.htm). Takes a little while to load. Really nicely done webpage. But somehow I find the interior a bit underwhelming – can’t we make something that looks a bit more high tech than this? Maybe we should get Apple to design these things.
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Small things
[A Ford truck that comes with RFID tags for all your tools and a tracker](http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/06/ford-truck-with-rfid.html). Your truck tells you when you’ve left something behind. Really clever. Can someone do the same thing for a laptop, so I can stop leaving USB sticks behind?