Top Reads
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Get a Text When Your Sump Pump Fails
A lot of sump pump systems have a backup pump and an alarm that goes off in the case of failure, but that alarm is only good if you're home to hear it. With a little ingenuity though, you can hack your to send you a text if the water level starts getting too high. Felix Rusu at LowPowerLab created this project for peace of mind when he was on vacation. He shares the code and a complete walkthrough on his site, but basically it uses a sonar rangefinder to monitor the depth of the water below his basement, and a Raspberry Pi to hook the system up to his…
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Revenge, ego, and the corruption of Wikipedia
In the wee hours of the morning of January 27, 2013, a Wikipedia editor named “Qworty” made a series of 14 separate edits to the Wikipedia page for the late writer Barry Hannah, a well-regarded…
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First Australians
A finger across the throat and a glance seaward. That’s the signal. The two men grip their spears, hand-carved from stringybark trees, and walk barefoot over the red soil to the water’s edge. Then into the aluminum dinghy, engine…
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Crack Rock City
Hallie Bateman for The Morning News One afternoon, my friend Corine called to see if I felt like taking a walk. Corine was a Dutch photographer who’d been living in Detroit for nearly 10…
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Daniel Dennett's seven tools for thinking
Daniel Dennett: 'Often the word "surely" is as good as a blinking light locating a weak point in the argument.' Photograph: Peter Yang/August 1 USE YOUR MISTAKESWe have all heard the forlorn refrain:…
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Dirty Medicine - Fortune Features
By Katherine Eban 1. The Assignment FORTUNE -- On the morning of Aug. 18, 2004, Dinesh Thakur hurried to a hastily arranged meeting with his boss at the gleaming offices of Ranbaxy Laboratories in…
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Nintendo 3DS Circle Pad Pro review: just like the…
Nintendo seems to have a knack for repeat performances. Nintendo DS? Quickly supplanted by the DS Lite -- and the DSi didn't last too long either before it was succeeded by the DSi XL. Even the 3DS…
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The heartbreaking saga of Zhu Ling
By Kevin Morris on May 16, 2013 In a grainy, black-and-white video of her final performance, Zhu Ling sweeps across the stage in a black skirt and white blouse before taking a seat behind a guqin,…
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Caterpillar's Doug Oberhelman: Manufacturing's…
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-16/caterpillars-doug-oberhelman-manufacturings-mouthpiece Caterpillar’s (CAT) D 11 bulldozer, which costs about $2 million, is the size of a small studio…
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How Exercise Affects Your Body (and How to Pick…
We all know that exercise is good for you, but when you understand why, it makes getting off the couch and into the gym a lot easier. Here’s an explanation of what happens when you work out,…
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Leaked Memo Shows Barnes & Noble Bringing Web…
An upcoming update will bring a web browser, email and update store app to Barnes & Noble’s super affordable Nook Simple Touch line of eReaders, which will begin rolling out June 1 according to a…
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Drinking And Driving And Dying
October 20, 1987Jerry Jerome Brown Jr. comes along at a strange time in history: a time when humans willingly enter cages of glass and steel that move in such great numbers at such terrific speed that a subtle turn of the steering wheel can easily…
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Laptop U
Gregory Nagy, a professor of classical Greek literature at Harvard, is a gentle academic of the sort who, asked about the future, will begin speaking of Homer and the battles of the distant past. At…
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The Lethality of Loneliness
Sometime in the late ’50s, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann sat down to write an essay about a subject that had been mostly overlooked by other psychoanalysts up to that point. Even Freud had only…
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Rajat Gupta’s Lust for Zeros
Rajat Gupta, who was indicted in the largest insider trading case in United States history. Late one Friday morning, Rajat Gupta was rushing through security at
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Washington State Magazine
Jaak Panksepp set out to find the biology of emotions. He found the biology of animal consciousness. Last July, an international group of scientists with “neuro” in their titles…
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Government pleads with Labour to save gay…
David Cameron has been accused by the Conservative Grassroots group of showing ‘utter contempt’ for party activists. Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images Downing Street issued a stark warning that…
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Five Best Android Phones: 2013 Edition
There are so many Android phones on the market that choosing the best one can mean a ton of research, price-checking, and waiting to see what's coming out in the next few weeks or months. Some are…
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Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity
[ 0 ] So, have a seat. Put your feet up. This may take some time. Can I get you some tea? Earl Grey? You got it. Okay. How do I want to do this? He did so much. It's hard to just dive in. You know? You pick a spot to go from, but soon you have…
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The Myth of Nazi “Efficiency”
Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy investigate a planet that has turned into Nazi Germany by another name. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) In the classic Star Trek episode “Patterns of…