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Bibiochaise and Bibiopouf come from Italian designers nobody & co eschew the reading light, notebook storage and pencil sharpener for straight-up shelves, storing “5 metres of books”. I’m not sure how they measure books, but it’s a cool, artful way to store your books, show off your collection, and always have them within arms reach. For other cool book-stashing chairs: the Bookinist

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…and I feel odd saying that, but let me explain.

“A 75-year-old woman from Karlstad in central Sweden has been given a scorching 40 Gbps internet connection — the fastest residential connection anywhere in the world. Sigbritt Löthberg is the mother of Swedish internet guru Peter Löthberg, who is using his mother to prove that fiber networks can deliver a cost-effective, ultra-fast connection. Sigbritt, who has never owned a computer before, can now watch 1,500 HDTV channels simultaneously or download a whole high definition DVD in two seconds. Apparently ‘the hardest part of the whole project was installing Windows on Sigbritt’s PC.’”

The secret behind Sigbritt’s ultra-fast connection is a new modulation technique which allows data to be transferred directly between two routers up to 2,000 kilometres apart, with no intermediary transponders.

According to Karlstad Stadsnät the distance is, in theory, unlimited - there is no data loss as long as the fibre is in place.

Hmm… Wonder if she needs help… You know, she might not know what to do with all that bandwidth, so… Just in case, I’ll just throw it out there and say that I personally love Sweden and will fix your computer for free, Mrs. Löthberg. Ma’am.

So I was hanging out with my close personal friend Albert the other day, and we discovered the world’s most beautiful equation. I snapped a picture so you could revel in our genius.

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The “Retroencabulator” is a long-standing joke among engineers, however the company mentioned in the youtube video exists, and I’ve personally had the torture of watching product demo videos for products that are just as technobabblish.

The original machine had a base-plate of prefabulated amulite, surrounded by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two spurving bearings were in direct line with the pentametric fan, the latter consisted simply of six hydrocoptic marzelvanes, so fitted to the ambifacient lunar vaneshaft that side fumbling was effectively prevented. The main winding was of the normal lotus-o-delta type placed in panendermic semiboloid solts in the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a non-reversible termic pipe to the differential girdlespring on the ‘up’ end of the grammeter.

Technobabblish. My first coined word of the day.

Read more at http://www.encabulate.com

or Wikipedia’s explanation of the joke.

You can’t just go around spouting things like… “the World is full of stupid people”, without proof.

I mean, we live in a technological age, right? Surrounded by libraries, television, and Internet we are inundated by more resources and information than has ever been at our grasp in any previous generation.

But are we smarter? More Scientifically savvy? Research says otherwise.

I was reading this fascinating study in the NYTimes today. Here are some excerpts from that article:

While scientific literacy has doubled over the past two decades, only 20 to 25 percent of Americans are “scientifically savvy and alert.”Most of the rest “don’t have a clue.” At a time when science permeates debates on everything from global warming to stem cell research, he said, people’s inability to understand basic scientific concepts undermines their ability to take part in the democratic process.

American adults in general do not understand what molecules are (other than that they are really small). Fewer than a third can identify DNA as a key to heredity. Only about 10 percent know what radiation is. One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth, an idea science had abandoned by the 17th century.

An obscure Ohio law, enacted in 1953, states that no person shall be arrested on the Fourth of July. The law also states that no one shall be arrested on a Sunday, or on their way to or from their designated place of worship. Although the Ohio Senate introduced a bill to repeal this law in 1998, it failed to pass and the law remains in effect to this day. According to the Ohio Revised Code section 2331.13, there are some exceptions to the rule. Treason, the commission of a felony, or breach of the peace still constitute grounds for arrest on these days.

Though there is no legal definition for breach of the peace in Ohio law, some government officials have compared this directly to the definition of disorderly conduct.

Section 2917.11 of the Ohio code defines disorderly conduct as recklessly causing the inconvenience, annoyance or alarm to another person by doing any of the following: Fighting, threatening, unreasonable noises or gestures, insulting, taunting, and a variety of other things a citizen is not allowed to do while intoxicated, first of which is drive a car.

Section 2331.13 of this 1953 law further states that whoever arrests a person in violation of the Sunday, Fourth of July, or church provisions shall pay the person arrested $100, to be recovered by civil action.

Man, if only I would have found out about this loophole earlier. “In local news, a Cincinnati man was found pillaging neighboring villages today singing his rendition of ‘Can’t Touch This’. For more on this breaking story, we take you live to…”