July 2011
4 posts
Chile earthquake
Ouch!
We often forget how dangerous professional road cycling is. These images are a grueling reminder.
(Source: Cyclist crashes into barbed wire fence after being hit by car in Tour de France | msnbc.com PhotoBlog .)
“Hoogerland wept as he stood atop the podium to receive the King of the Mountains’ polka dot jersey thanks to the points he had pocketed on the climbs throughout the...
Creationism
(Via Doonesbury on creationism | hypertext.net .)
Honesty
“A Canadian Army crewman stands inside a CH-47 Chinook helicopter flying over Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan, July 5, 2011.”
(Via Canadian Army Crewman Inside a Helicopter Over Afghanistan | PhotoBlog msnbc.com.)
Google+
Source: xkcd
June 2011
6 posts
Steps to tame e-mail
Chris Anderson published a list of 10 principles that if people adhere can make our inboxes more manageable.
David Pogue just added 5 more.
Farm animal's abuse
Warning: the following video is very disturbing.
Video Depicts Pig Cruelty at Iowa Pork Farms from TIME on Vimeo.
(Via Undercover Video Gives the Dirt on Pigs in Factory Farms | TIME NewsFeed.)
Higher Reserves Proposed for ‘Too Big to Fail’...
“The chief oversight group of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision proposed that the world’s largest and most complex banks would need to hold a reserve of high-quality capital of between 1 and 2.5 percent of their assets to cope with any unforeseen losses. That would be on top of their proposed minimum capital levels for all banks, currently set at 7 percent of assets.
...
The threat of suicide
”(…)
What these Greeks don’t realize is that the way they are holding Europe hostage is by threatening suicide.
To begin with, the biggest holders of Greek debt are Greek banks. If Greek banks fail, every Greek with a checking or savings account loses. Worse still, international faith in Greek businesses would be lost.
Many of the gains from economic integration...
Another social network is born
at least this one doesn’t try to take your data hostage:
More on Google Takeout here.
Conan O'Brien's graduation speech at Dartmouth...
(Via The Best of Conan O’Brien’s Bleak Wisdom for Graduates | The Atlantic Wire.)
May 2011
17 posts
It's not easy to beat the market - part III
“Samir Barai, a hedge fund manager who graduated from Harvard in 1999, pleaded guilty to to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud, one count of securities fraud, one count of wire fraud, and one count of obstruction of justice.
Barai is the second Harvard MBA to plead guilty in the biggest insider trading case since the 1980s when junk bond king Michael...
A matter of manners
“But the clips above and below, filmed in X-ray and visible light, challenge assertions that canines drink by scooping up fluid with a backward-curled tongue. Instead, dogs pull up a column of liquid and chomp it — just like cats do.
“It only looks like dogs scoop with back of their tongue. They drink the same way as cats, just sloppier,” said evolutionary biologist Alfred Crompton...
It's not easy to beat the market - part II
“Donald L. Johnson had a privileged role at the Nasdaq Stock Market.
When companies that trade on Nasdaq wanted to understand how impending news would affect their share prices, they would consult with Mr. Johnson, who was a senior executive on the exchange’s so-called market intelligence desk.
Over a three-year period, Mr. Johnson took that secret corporate information and,...
Is the mobile phone your new wallet?
More info here and here.
The height of the Portuguese debt
Chess jam
Bobby Fischer 1972
World Chess Championship 1972, Game 6
“Bobby Fischer bests Boris Spassky with an aggressive queenside attack. Spassky joined the audience in applauding Fischer’s win and called it the best game of the match.”
More info here.
(Via Chess Games Translated To Music | Slashdot.org .)
Stress testing
More info here and here.
(Via What Happens When You Slam On the Brakes in a 747?
| Wired.com .)
It's not easy to beat the market...
“Billionaire hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam has been found guilty on all 14 charges of insider trading, conspiracy and securities fraud. The government says the former head of Galleon Group netted over $63 million in gains on trades based on inside information.
Rajaratnam, who is expected to appeal, faces up to 19.5 years in prison. Sentencing is schedule for July 29.”
...
Wonders of modern medicine - ii
(Via The boy with the backwards leg | kottke.org .)
Wonders of modern medicine - i
“Rob Summers stunned doctors at the University of Louisville when, for the first time in five years, he stood on his own two feet. Paralyzed from the waist down after being hit by a car at age 20, the former Oregon State baseball player may one day step back into the batters box thanks to an electrical stimulator attached to his spine.”
Paralyzed Man Stands Thanks to...
Am I religious after all?
A friend of mine sent me this:
“I searched high and low for answers. The Bishop of Buckingham - who reads his Bible on an ipad - explained to me the similarities between Apple and a religion.
And when a team of neuroscientists with an MRI scanner took a look inside the brain of an Apple fanatic it seemed the bishop was on to something.
The results suggested that Apple was...
Interesting data cleaning tool
Wrangler Demo Video from Stanford Visualization Group on Vimeo.
The cool part is that it records the cleaning process and then you have the option to export the script as python code.
Try it here.
Paul Allen on Gates, Microsoft
Paul Allen on Gates, Microsoft
Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Unplugged
Is it a vendetta?
(Via Paul Allen on Gates, Microsoft | 60 Minutes - CBS News.)
Empty headed cat
“According to the owners, the cat had been missing for two days and when they opened their front door the cat came in,” Santa Cruz County Animal Services Manager Todd Stosuy told Reuters.
Read the full story here.
(Via Me-Oww!!! Cat comes home with an arrow through the head | PHOTOBlog Msnbc.com.)
Do we have free will?
Or are we controlled by parasites?
“Recent claims go so far as to argue for a role of T. gondii in shaping distinct cultural habits, depending on the rate of infection in the population. A prospective study tracking the road safety in Czech recruits during their 18 months of compulsory military draft found a rate of accidents six times higher in affected drivers. Are the young men with...
Fascinating, the more we learn the less we know...
”(…) if physicists at Stanford and Purdue are correct in their findings, the whole theory of constant radioactive decay rates could be thrown out the door.
(…)
In the meantime, it remains to be seen how these findings will affect the use of radioactive decay in technological applications. For example, if radioactive decay isn’t constant, then adjustments will have...
What's high school for?
“Perhaps we could endeavor to teach our future the following:
(…)
The benefit of postponing short-term satisfaction in exchange for long-term success.
(…)
The power of being able to lead groups of peers without receiving clear delegated authority.
An understanding of the extraordinary power of the scientific method, in just about any situation or endeavor.
How...
April 2011
2 posts
Living with cats
If you are a cat ‘owner’ (as in a member of his/her staff) you know that this is not fiction…
Simon’s Cat: Cat man do
Simon’s Cat: Let me in!
Simon’s Cat: TV dinner
You can find more videos here.
Beautiful...
(Via Winy Mass on the Balancing Barn | Swissmiss.)
March 2011
3 posts
Radiation dosage chart
(Via Radiation dosage chart | Information is beatiful.)
Nuclear fears revisited
“A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down. The disaster exposed a familiar legacy of poor design and corner-cutting. Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation.
(…)
Yes, I...
100 years of a wrong image
This image of an atom celebrates this march 100 years. We now know that it doesn’t represent an atom but it is the one that everyone relates to.
“Now it looks something like a composite of quarks surrounded by clouds of uncertainty. More accurate. Much harder to draw.”
(Via A Nucleated Century | NYTimes.com.)
Unreasonable fears
“For every person killed by nuclear power generation, 4,000 die due to coal, adjusted for the same amount of power produced…”
(Via The triumph of coal marketing | Set Godin’s Blog .)
Beautiful nonsense
(Via Choice of Language and its Consequences | Kieran Healy .)
What Pi sounds like
(Via Slashdot.)
A heat map visualization of the Japan's Tsunami
“An energy map provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows the intensity of the tsunami caused by the magnitude 8.9 earthquake which struck Japan on March 11, 2011.”
(Via The Big Picture | The Boston Globe .)
The NY Times has a good visual description on how shifting plates caused the tsunami in Japan.
February 2011
4 posts
Physics from Hell: How Dante’s Inferno Inspired...
For more info: Measuring hell. Was modern physics born in the Inferno?
(Via Openculture Blog.)
Salad is good for you
“One year-old gorilla Uzuri eats a salad at the zoo in Duisburg, Germany on Feb. 18.”
(Via msnbc.com | PHOTOBLOG .)
Playing the NY subway
Conductor: www.mta.me from Alexander Chen on Vimeo.
“Conductor, as its maker Alexander Chen dubs it, is a visualization built on New York’s publicly available subway schedule API. It shows the progress of the Big Apple’s underground carriers throughout the day and garnishes the experience with a delightful musical trick every time two lines cross. You can see it on video...
Google Art Project
Image: The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David, 1748–1825
“It started when a small group of us who were passionate about art got together to think about how we might use our technology to help museums make their art more accessible—not just to regular museum-goers or those fortunate to have great galleries on their doorsteps, but to a whole new set of people who might otherwise...
January 2011
14 posts
Why Can't We Walk Straight?
A Mystery: Why Can’t We Walk Straight? from NPR on Vimeo.
“Try as you might, you can’t walk in a straight line without a visible guide point, like the Sun or a star. You might think you’re walking straight, but as NPR’s Robert Krulwich reports, a map of your route would reveal you are doomed to walk in circles.”
(Via A Mystery: Why Can’t We Walk...
A new look at old technologies
(Via Kieran Healy Blog.)
Happy faces
(Via PHOTOBlog | msnbc.com.)
New Year's resolution
Meir Statman:
“I resolve to know the difference between foresight and hindsight. I will compel myself to remember that my hindsight about 2010 does not endow me with foresight about 2011.
I resolve to remind myself that I’ve seen my investment losses only in hindsight and make peace with them. I will realize my losses quickly, accept the sting of regret and enjoy the tax...
Playing the DJIA
“Stock trades determine the songwriting in this audiovisual presentation, translating the ups and downs of 2010 into musical notes. Using a five-note scale spanning three octaves, pitch is determined by the daily closing numbers of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The variance in volume mirrors the trading volume changes throughout the year. The notes are clustered in series of five,...
Stock futures extend fall on Jobs announcement
“Apple’s shares traded in Frankfurt (AAPL.F) fell 7.5 percent by 1438 GMT, while futures for the S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 0.3 and 0.9 percent, respectively.”
The US markets are closed as today is the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
Let’s hope he gets well soon.
(Via Stock futures extend fall on Jobs announcement | Reuters.com.)
Image source:...
A dog takes its loyalty to the grave in Brazil
“A dog, “Leao”, sits for a second consecutive day, next to the grave of her owner, Cristina Maria Cesario Santana, who died in the week’s catastrophic landslides in Brazil, at the cemetery in Teresopolis, near Rio de Janiero, on Jan. 15. Brazilians braced for more rain Saturday, fearing further landslides after walls of muddy water tore through towns and claimed some...
The relative size of Brasil
(Via Bigthink.)
The relative size of Africa
(Via Big Think.)