Blog Archive 2011

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f4/US_military_personnel_and_expenditures.png US military expenditures stayed at almost zero in peacetime until after world war two, and they’ve never really gone quite back to zero again since.

2011 July 31

originally shared via google talk

A star destroyer calmly in the sky above San Francisco

2011 July 19

originally shared via google talk

http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=302 Chopin and Liszt

2011 July 19

originally shared via google talk

Wikipedia

2011 July 17

originally shared via google talk

http://ilovecharts.tumblr.com/post/5668738758/i-have-a-soft-spot-for-this-chart-silly-stuff Number of people with colors for names in DC Council/Mayor

“An honest examination of the sky forced him to displace the center of the spiral pattern away from us by more than half the galactic radius in the direction of Cygnus, and his drawing gives the impression of a man struggling with the truth and losing.” http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1995PASP..107.1133T&db_key=AST&page_ind=0&plate_select=NO&data_type=GIF&type=SCREEN_GIF&classic=YES This is an article about the 1920 debate on the existence of other galaxies

2011 July 08

originally shared via google talk

Fraction of links on the web in a particular language that point to another language. More info here: http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2011/07/languages-of-world-wide-web.html .

2011 July 07

originally shared via google talk

http://robotandghost.com/nggallery/page-18/image/32/

“Zimmer wheel”

2011 July 05

originally shared via google talk

http://cowbirdsinlove.com/53 The adventures of Gongsun Long, episode 2: Gongsun Long in love

2011 July 02

originally shared via google talk

2011 June 30

originally shared via google talk

http://ilovecharts.tumblr.com/BenGreenman “Ben Greenman’s Museum of Silly Charts”

2011 June 27

originally shared via google talk

NYT A very interesting glimpse at the powers behind the New York legislature and the role that the compassion of a single individual can have.

2011 June 24

originally shared via google talk

Wikipedia

2011 June 16

originally posted on facebook

Two of the most useful resources for functional programming are this vaguely titled website and “Purely Functional Data Structures” by Chris Okasaki, which may be the best computer science book I’ve read. Especially the latter is well worth a look if you have a strong interest in functional programming.

http://okmij.org/ftp/

2011 June 13

originally shared via google talk

“The expression ‘catch fire’ is intended as a joke; the CPU does not usually catch fire.”

2011 June 12

originally shared via google talk

“Although the new calendar was much simpler than the pre-Julian calendar, the pontifices apparently misunderstood the algorithm for leap years. They added a leap day every three years, instead of every four years. According to Macrobius, the error was the result of counting inclusively, so that the four-year cycle was considered as including both the first and fourth years; perhaps the earliest recorded example of a fence post error.”

2011 June 11

originally shared via google talk

NYT (courtesy of Marena)

2011 June 09

originally shared via google talk

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jun/03/fish-stocks-information-beautiful#zoomed-picture

2011 June 07

originally shared via google talk

“Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography.” Wikipedia

2011 June 05

originally shared via google talk

Wikipedia

2011 June 03

originally shared via google talk

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3139 a linguist’s love song

2011 June 03

originally shared via google talk

Wikipedia (courtesy of Paul)

2011 May 24

originally shared via google talk

NYT (courtesy of Eric) “Getting smart on aid”, about supporting education through deworming rather than building more schools.

2011 May 23

originally shared via google talk

http://www.theonion.com/articles/budget-mixup-provides-nations-schools-with-enough,20350/ “Budget mix-up provides nation’s schools with enough money to properly educate students”

2011 May 20

originally shared via google talk

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2903 “A peeve for the ages”, a discussion of how a grammatical form arose in English

2011 May 12

originally shared via google talk

Wikipedia

2011 May 01

originally shared via google talk

http://satwcomic.com/drama-bear

2011 April 30

originally shared via google talk

Wikipedia I’m surprised there isn’t a Wikipedia category for “Telescopes with the word ‘Large’ in the name”.

2011 April 28

originally shared via google talk

“it took six months to persuade suspicious taqueria owners to switch to a salsa with lower magnetic permittivity” http://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda-weehawken_burrito_tunnel.htm (courtesy of Paul)

2011 April 25

originally shared via google talk

Wikipedia

2011 April 23

originally shared via google talk

2011 April 22

originally shared via google talk

http://www.theonion.com/articles/mitt-romney-haunted-by-past-of-trying-to-help-unin,20097/

2011 April 17

originally shared via google talk

If CFCs had not been banned: Wikipedia There would be no ozone left by 2060 if CFCs had not been banned. This would lead to very roughly 50000 to 100000 additional deaths per year due to skin cancers.

2011 April 14

originally shared via google talk

“I think Douglas owes cancer sufferers an apology (While the offense is not great, I think he should apologize to them first, because they might not be around that long.) […] Douglas, after apologizing to me, I think you should apologize to the integers. It might take a while (but at least they’re countable).”

2011 April 11

originally shared via google talk

NYT Comparison of countries by a number of different measures.

2011 April 09

originally shared via google talk

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2208 Can pi be written as a fraction?

2011 March 29

originally shared via google talk

http://www.npl.washington.edu/eotwash/results/alamshbig.gif I find it very disturbing that a line on this graph is labelled “two extra dimensions”. (This graph summarizes current experimental results about how far gravity could deviate from a perfect inverse-square law.)

2011 March 25

originally shared via google talk

Wikipedia

2011 March 15

originally shared via google talk

Wikipedia

2011 March 13

originally shared via google talk

YouTube liquefication caused by vibration / earthquake

2011 March 13

originally shared via google talk

earthquake prediction: YouTube video of the Japanese earthquake from within an apartment, showing 30 seconds of advanced warning before the earthquake began

2011 March 10

originally shared via google talk

“Wikipedia’s article on ‘Safe Sex’ includes a curious comment that ‘microwave-safe’ wrap may be ineffective as a barrier for virus-sized particles when engaging in oral sex. This is probably incorrect, as there is no structural difference relevant to protection from STDs. In either case, do not place your partner in the microwave.” http://www.scn.org/~bk269/plastics.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12492872

NYT The second article is about the role that Al Jazeera played in the Tunisian revolution.

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