Bits and Pieces

Someone Briefly Bought the Google.com Domain for $12

Paul Sawers | October 1, 2015
http://venturebeat.com/2015/10/01/someone-bought-the-google-com-domain-this-week-for-12/ It is difficult for startups and entrepreneurs to procure a .com domain name that isn’t a ludicrous combination of words and numbers, so when former Googler Sanmay Ved managed to buy a pronounceable six-letter word on a .com, he was delighted. But the domain he bought was no ordinary URL — it was Google.com.

Library of Congress Celebrates First Handwritten Bible Commissioned by a Benedictine Monastery in Centuries
Allison Meier | September 30, 2015
http://hyperallergic.com/239857/library-of-congress-celebrates-first-handwritten-bible-commissioned-by-a-benedictine-monastery-in-centuries/ While the pomp around Pope Francis’s United States tour recedes, the Library of Congress is marking one lasting legacy with a rare bible given in honor of his visit. As of this past Saturday, the Apostles Edition of the Saint John’s Bible is on view in honor of its donation to the library’s collection of precious sacred manuscripts.

Scientists Are Developing an Invisibility Cloak for Solar Panels
Andrew Tarantola | October 1, 2015
http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/01/scientists-are-developing-an-invisibility-cloak-for-solar-panels/ Current solar panel technology has enough trouble as it is converting sunlight into useable current, what with their paltry 20 percent average efficiencies. And it certainly doesn't help matters that up to a tenth of every solar panel's active collection areas are obscured from the sun by electrical leads called "contact fingers." But researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have developed a novel workaround: they're wrapping the finger contacts in little invisibility cloaks.

A Cross-Country Mission To Track Down Carnegie Libraries
Sam Weller | September 21, 2015 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-weller/carnegie-libraries-road-trip_b_8160776.html
[...]From 1883 to 1929, Andrew Carnegie, the controversial American businessman and philanthropist, funded the construction of 1,689 libraries in towns and cities across the United States. Carnegie's legacy is checkered due to cutthroat labor practices as a businessman and an anti-union history. But his dedication to libraries is untarnished. He was, at the apex of his career in the late 1800s, the richest man in the world worth an estimated $500 million. He gave $60 million away to build libraries across the nation.