By Scott Knaster, Google Code
Blog EditorWalking to my office today, I saw a
bunch of kids wearing "GSOC" t-shirts. That reminded me that the 7th annual
Google
Summer of Code is going on now. Google Summer of Code helps students spend part of
their vacation writing code for open source projects, in return for a ton of experience and a
nice stipend. Plus, GSOC participants can use the work they do to get college credit.
Students, it’s something to think about for next year. Keep an eye on
the site as GSOC 2011 progresses and,
eventually, next year’s info is announced.
While students ponder the
limits of their summer, physicists at the University of Maryland recently
ran a simulation of
one possible scenario for the end of time, also called the
Big Crunch. In this scenario, the
universe collapses on itself and becomes a black hole. Here’s a spoiler: one scientist said,
“the end of time looks very hot”. (See
this Wikipedia
page for other big ideas about what might happen when time ends, and there are these
possibilities from
Douglas
Adams and
Neil
Gaiman.)
And finally, because Fridaygram loves wacky nature
stories, here’s one about a
rain forest
vine with a
dish-shaped
structure that produces an “echo beacon”, reflecting back sonic calls from bats to
help them find the plant. The bats get nectar and the vines get pollinated. Awesome.
What do black holes and chirpy vines have to do with writing code?
Not much. Fridaygram posts are just for fun. They're designed for your Friday afternoon and
weekend enjoyment. Each Fridaygram item must pass only one test: it has to be interesting to
us nerds.
