Rotundus.com

Return of the Vacuum Tube

Doesn't really seem like it involves an actual vacuum. Would be interesting if they're able to get it working at an industrial scale, given that they mention the thing being capable of 10x the speed of transistors.

NEXT Legacy Technologies

An alternative to the normal hydraulic fracturingprocess : "NEXT requires 40 litres of water per fracture — or about 1,200 litres for 30 fracs — while current methods require up to 11 million litres for a similar well." Claims that injected compounds are non-toxic and that "this system doesn’t use pressure"

Honour student who works two jobs to support her siblings after her parents split up and left town is put in JAIL for missing school due to exhaustion

From Texas. No doubt throwing her in jail will solve a whole lot of problems.

A schism over fair trade

"Fair Trade USA last year quit the international Fairtrade Labelling Organizations, or FLO, an international federation of fair trade groups, to pursue a vision that Rice calls “Fair Trade for All.” He and his allies want to broaden the definition of Fair Trade, which when it comes to coffee now requires importers to buy from grower-owned co-operatives. The “Fair Trade for All” permits buying from collections of small farmers and even coffee estates, or plantations, that are deemed to be worker-friendly." This seems to be upsetting a lot of the rest of the fair trade folks, although I'm not sure that this is a bad thing. Remember that in some countries "fair trade" seems to bring lower profits and higher poverty for those small farmers due to a lack of infrastructure - something that larger business units would be less likely to suffer from.

From Australian TV about a year or so ago:

Monkey markets in everything, game theory edition

Apparently you can charge people a couple hundred dollars per month to get a monkey to pee at your house.

Fukushima’s doses tallied

"Studies indicate minimal health risks from radiation in the aftermath of Japan’s nuclear disaster." In other news, the UK seems to be pushing for more nuclear power though France and Germany both seem to be backing away.

The 10 most painful stings on the planet, by the self-sacrificing man who tried 150 different varieties in the name of science

This sounds like a good candidate for worst-job-ever!

The Ketchup Bottle of the Future!

A use for nano-engineering. Some folks from MIT have "invented a bottle coating, LiquiGlide, which takes solid form but is 'lubricated' like a liquid. Put it inside a ketchup bottle, one researcher says, and the ketchup 'just floats right onto the sandwich.'" (video at the link).

A Letter from Mark Zuckerberg

A faux-letter written by comedian Andy Borowitz from shortly before Facebook's IPO: "those bad dot-com stocks were all speculation and hype, and weren’t based on real businesses. Facebook, on the other hand, is based on a solid foundation of angry birds and imaginary sheep." I've been reading a fair number of articles suggesting that Facebook's somewhat failing IPO markets the start of the burst of the second tech bubble.

Apparently presidential runoff elections will be held there in mid June.

In one corner stands Mohamed Morsi, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, who, in step with the Brotherhood-dominated parliament, would move the country closer to becoming an Islamic republic. ... In the other corner stands Ahmed Shafik, a leading member of the Hosni Mubarak regime. A former chief of the air force, General (retired) Shafik is best known for being an efficient minister of civil aviation and Mr. Mubarak's pick to be prime minister in the dying days of the regime. He would try to put the brakes on the Islamist trend.

If I had to guess what would happen I'd probably suggest that the Muslim Brotherhood guy will win - although I'm not particularly enthusiastic about that result. The article gives some suggestion as to why this Shafik guy even managed to get this far in the race:

If anyone epitomized the old regime, it was Gen. Shafik, and he was unapologetic about it, using that status to his advantage. He was the standard bearer for the old regime and a lifeline for the country's Christians who worried about the consequences for them if the country became an Islamic state. As a result, the Christian community voted as one for him, accounting for a large portion of his vote.

The Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper reported Saturday that Tarek al-Zomor, a member of the Shura council of the Salafist Gamaa Islamiya organization, called on Christians to apologize if it is proven they voted collectively for Gen. Shafik.?? ??Mr. al-Zomor said that church instructions directing Christians to vote for Gen. Shafik were a “grave mistake.”?? (This is rather brazen considering it was the Gamaa Islamiya that terrorized Christian communities in the 1990s and only recently renounced violence.)

And, BTW, how enthusiastic do Egyptians seem to be about this whole democracy thing?

the largest single group of eligible voters is those who did not vote at all: 56.7 per cent of registered Egyptians did not cast a ballot in this, an historic first presidential election!