techniQal support

Although this is not part of the normal fare found on this site, it is extremely interesting. This site mentioned on boingboing.net has some incredible translations of Newtons’ original chymistry(Alchemy) manuscripts. This is doubly interesting to me, since I am currently finishing up the Baroque Cycle 3 book series by Neal Stephenson. This series of books features Isaac Newton as one of the protagonists, and really gives some neat insight into science in the early 1700′s. The entire series is worth a read. But back to the online manuscripts, which contain some really interesting notes regarding the experiments Newton did. The Laboratory Notebook contains some really interesting/odd items including:

• Optical experiments where Newton probed the back of his eye with a bodkin(blunt needle) to see what the optical effect would be
• Descriptions of using urine to create phosphorus
• Using urine extract as a remedy for sinus congestion

The list goes on and on. The really cool thing, is that each transcribed page has been scanned, so you can see an image of the original text.
Check it out here: The Chymistry of Isaac Newton

I ran into this great article over on Digg .
This is one of the best design tutorials I have seen that really covers building a true Ajax web app,and how to implement it. The example uses php and and the Dojo library, so those are obvious pre-reqs. I think this would be helpful for any newbie ajax developer trying to get their feet wet, while at the same time enforcing good coding practices. This particular tutorial starts out with a basic site design, but promises future modules such as a user forum . Check it out at http://snyke.net/blog/2006/02/05/ajax-design-patterns/