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Music

Spring Awakening - Don’t do sadness / Blue wind (youtube, spotify)

Sigur Rós - Glósóli (youtube, spotify)

Arcade Fire - Reflektor (youtube, spotify)

Ayreon - (youtube, spotify)

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Voting by mail? This spreadsheet contains links for each state to information and registering to vote by mail and where to drop off your ballot in person.

Leonidas of Rhodes held the record for most Olympic gold medals for 2159 years, during which approximately 161 Olympic games were held. He had four medals in each of the stadion (200 meter race), diaulos (400 meter race), and hoplitodromos (400 meter race with helmet and shield). The only person to exceed Leonidas’s record is Michael Phelps, who beat it in 2008 and now has 23 Olympic gold medals.

The Catholic Diocese of Orlando is not the largest Catholic diocese in the world, but may be the largest in the universe. “Bishop Borders explained that according to the 1917 Code of Canon Law (in effect at that time), any newly discovered territory was placed under the jurisdiction of the diocese from which the expedition that discovered that territory originated. […] Since Cape Canaveral, launching site for the Apollo moon missions, was in Brevard County and part of the Diocese of Orlando, then in addition to being bishop of 13 counties, he was also bishop of the moon.”

The Iverson bracket is very handy notation that allows for formal algebraic manipulation of propositions within an equation. It is defined by:

This notation is cleaner than and generalizes the indicator function and the Kronecker delta .

“33% certainty? What tipped you off? Was it the 16 black kings, or the 12 knights on the board?”

As a rare example of proper planning and foresight, the Canadian town of Lemieux was abandoned in 1991 as soil testing revealed it was built atop unstable Leda clay, which can liquify when saturated with water. Indeed, two years later, heavy rains led to a large landslide just outside of the city. The soil testing was prompted by a deadly Leda clay landslide that consumed the Canadian town of Saint-Jean-Vianney in 1971. As a less impressive example of foresight, the Saint-Jean-Vianney landslide was presaged for several weeks by cracks in the streets, houses sinking as much as six inches into the soil, and inexplicable thumping and the sound of running water coming from underground.

Weston, Illinois was a small village embroiled in a legal fight with the county to incorporate, which failed in 1964. The village tried again to incorporate by seeking support from the US Atomic Energy Comission, which led to it choosing in 1966 to be removed to make space for the Fermilab facilities.

The Veneto regional council, located in Venice, flooded for the first time in its history 2 minutes after voting to reject measures to counter climate change.

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