Basically, Google Spreadsheets has a new function: you can type “importHtml” and auto-import a table of data from any URL — for example,

That’ll flow in all the data from here — and from Google spreadsheets you can export the data to a million formats, create auto-visualizations, etc. Click over to the article for full awesomeness.

(By the way, I’m thinking about going easy on the blogging for awhile, so I might not be posting as much; I’m trying to focus more on music.)

A vactrain is an exotic, as-yet-unbuilt proposal for future high-speed railroad transportation. This would entail building maglev lines through evacuated (air-less) tunnels.

Theoretically, vactrain tunnels could be built deep enough to pass under oceans, thus permitting very rapid intercontinental travel. Vactrains could also use gravity to assist their acceleration. If such trains went as fast as predicted, the trip between London and New York would take less than an hour, effectively supplanting aircraft as the world’s fastest mode of public transportation.

By the way, if you’re wondering what the coolest-looking maglev in the world is, it’s this:

Via SJ.

A couple days ago, I interviewed Kiwi’s developer, Timothy Ritchey. Here are some highlights.

On Being a Geek

“I started programming BASIC on a TRS-80 Color Computer when I was 10 or 11, so I’ve always been into computers.

I’ve been an Internet addict for as long as the Internet has been around. I remember using Mosaic on a NeXT machine up at the Argonne Labs in Chicago for the first time, and was just blown away.

Wikipedia has kind of been one of those consistent utilities in the background — like google — for so long that I can’t remember it not being there.”

On Kiwi’s development

“I’m not at all done with Kiwi. I’m working on adding international language preference support, and I hope to get that out this week as 1.0.2, and then I’m going to be rolling out new features, and other improvements over the next few months.

I love any user feedback, and respond to every email that comes into support@redromelogic.com with critiques or suggestions.”

On being an indy programmer

“It is very fulfilling to see something that you have created from scratch come to life on the screen.

There is also a real puzzle aspect to debugging that I find enjoyable. There is a great high when you finally squash a really hard bug.”

Also, today’s featured image is pretty amazing.

It’s a dungeness crab, and also a perfect example of the fractal geometry of nature. (Well, not quite perfect. This is better.)

See also.

What if you could create a poster out of any wikipedia article and the text cascaded down in a logarithmic pattern — the same waves-out-to-the-horizon effect as when you look at the ocean. Like this:

Here’s the software. Unfortunately, I suck at programming, so you have to run it through XCode. And you also have to have Adobe Illustrator and BBEdit installed.

1. Unzip the files
2. Double click on WikipediaPrint.xcodeproj. (XCode comes with macs but you may have to install it.)
3. Click on “build and go” in the toolbar.

Now you’re running the program. Type the name of anything into the search box, and click the button at the bottom. Here’s a quick and slightly disorganized video tutorial: