Wish I'd seen this last week:
 

1898 = 1912 - 14

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futility,_or_the_Wreck_of_the_Titan[/url]

Ah yes, an instance where Cracked.com served me admirably.

[url]http://www.cracked.com/article_18421_6-insane-coincidences-you-wont-believe-actually-happened.html[/url]

[url]http://vimeo.com/40477489[/url]

Awesome. There's a lot I would give to get one of those.

[QUOTE=Dubslow;296934][URL]http://vimeo.com/40477489[/URL]

Awesome. There's a lot I would give to get one of those.[/QUOTE]
When I get flat tire on my car I stop on the side of the road and change the wheel...
:smile:

Where will your mood take you today?
 

[url]http://search.slashdot.org/story/12/04/21/2222249/microsoft-patent-hints-at-search-results-tailored-to-users-mood-intelligence[/url]

[URL]http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/actress-marilu-henners-rare-super-memory-recalls-every-014832184--abc-news-celebrities.html[/URL]

Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) for today
 

[url]http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120425.html[/url]

Somewhat US centric, but still interesting
 

New free app to let travelers file complaints with the TSA "on the fly" -- pardon the pun.

[quote]The agencies agreed to allow the app to use the agencies' system for submitting the complaints.[/quote]

[quote]"My hope is that this app will exponentially increase the number of complaints filed with the TSA, flood the system so they get that this is a problem. For too long the Transportation Security Administration has been able to tell Congress this is not an issue, nobody's complaining," Singh said.[/quote]

[url]http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/mobile-app-helps-report-1428651.html[/url]

Happy 235th Birthday to Carl Gauss!
 

[quote=Wikipedia]Known for: [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_topics_named_after_Carl_Friedrich_Gauss"]See full list[/URL][/quote]
[SIZE="1"][COLOR="LemonChiffon"].[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[quote=Wikipedia]Gauss also made important contributions to number theory with his 1801 book Disquisitiones Arithmeticae (Latin, Arithmetical Investigations), which, among things, introduced the symbol ≡ for congruence and used it in a clean presentation of modular arithmetic, had the first two proofs of the law of quadratic reciprocity, developed the theories of binary and ternary quadratic forms, stated the class number problem for them, and showed that a regular heptadecagon (17-sided polygon) can be constructed with straightedge and compass.


Title page of Gauss's Disquisitiones Arithmeticae
In that same year, Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi discovered the dwarf planet Ceres. Piazzi had only been able to track Ceres for a few months, following it for three degrees across the night sky. Then it disappeared temporarily behind the glare of the Sun. Several months later, when Ceres should have reappeared, Piazzi could not locate it: the mathematical tools of the time were not able to extrapolate a position from such a scant amount of data—three degrees represent less than 1% of the total orbit.
Gauss, who was 23 at the time, heard about the problem and tackled it. After three months of intense work, he predicted a position for Ceres in December 1801—just about a year after its first sighting—and this turned out to be accurate within a half-degree when it was rediscovered by Franz Xaver von Zach on 31 December in Gotha, and one day later by Heinrich Olbers in Bremen.
Gauss's method involved determining a conic section in space, given one focus (the sun) and the conic's intersection with three given lines (lines of sight from the earth, which is itself moving on an ellipse, to the planet) and given the time it takes the planet to traverse the arcs determined by these lines (from which the lengths of the arcs can be calculated by Kepler's Second Law). This problem leads to an equation of the eighth degree, of which one solution, the Earth's orbit, is known. The solution sought is then separated from the remaining six based on physical conditions. In this work Gauss used comprehensive approximation methods which he created for that purpose.[9]
One such method was the fast Fourier transform. While this method is traditionally attributed to a 1965 paper by J. W. Cooley and J. W. Tukey, Gauss developed it as a trigonometric interpolation method. His paper, Theoria Interpolationis Methodo Nova Tractata, was only published posthumously in Volume 3 of his collected works. This paper predates the first presentation by Joseph Fourier on the subject in 1807.[10][/quote]

@Dubslow: :tu: Nice found! (I had no idea when he was born!) kudos!
Apropos of dates, we are now home suffering [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workers%27_Day#Thailand"]the holiday[/URL], so we are going to bother you all today (maybe, some other planes are on the line too).

[url]http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2012/04/30/man-sues-bmw-after-motorcycle-seat-allegedly-causes-2-year-erection/[/url]

[url]http://mashable.com/2012/04/30/toylet/[/url]

What is this I don't even...

[QUOTE=ixfd64;298068][url]http://mashable.com/2012/04/30/toylet/[/url]

What is this I don't even...[/QUOTE]
And 'twas a girl who wrote the article... :huh:
How is that decided? Did she volunteer? :confused:

[QUOTE=ixfd64;298068][URL]http://mashable.com/2012/04/30/toylet/[/URL]

What is this I don't even...[/QUOTE]
Haha, that reminds be of the children's games, who pee higher, or so....:smile:
How do you actually... change the game? In our company we produce touch-terminals for industrial use, and we have business relations with many Japanese guys (vendors and customers). When they come to talk business, you usually babble around about many different subjects. We had "coffee-side" discussions about their [URL="http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=japanese+high+tech+toilet+seat&ei=UTF-8&fr=moz35"]"professional" toilets[/URL], with LCD and many different sensors, which can warm the seat for you, can offer you the latest news, even can help you learn Japanese (yes, the market is in general big hotels crowded by foreigners), or measure your blood pressure when you sit, and even can call your doctor if they detect some "irregularities" in your health. The biggest problem, as they said (the people, not the toilet :D), is the fact that the people going in the toilet are reticent to touch the things around. Touch-terminals in the toilet? No way! You don't know what "finger" the person before you used to touch the screen. So, if you could invent a kind of human interface which would be so reliable like a keyboard, or mouse, or touchscreen, but does not involve effectively the "touching", you would be millionaire. Billionaire. But to use your... flow for it? Why didn't I think about it? :smile:

[QUOTE=LaurV;298103]Haha, that reminds be of the children's games, who pee higher, or so....:smile:
How do you actually... change the game? In our company we produce touch-terminals for industrial use, and we have business relations with many Japanese guys (vendors and customers). When they come to talk business, you usually babble around about many different subjects. We had "coffee-side" discussions about their [URL="http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=japanese+high+tech+toilet+seat&ei=UTF-8&fr=moz35"]"professional" toilets[/URL], with LCD and many different sensors, which can warm the seat for you, can offer you the latest news, even can help you learn Japanese (yes, the market is in general big hotels crowded by foreigners), or measure your blood pressure when you sit, and even can call your doctor if they detect some "irregularities" in your health. The biggest problem, as they said (the people, not the toilet :D), is the fact that the people going in the toilet are reticent to touch the things around. Touch-terminals in the toilet? No way! You don't know what "finger" the person before you used to touch the screen. So, if you could invent a kind of human interface which would be so reliable like a keyboard, or mouse, or touchscreen, but does not involve effectively the "touching", you would be millionaire. Billionaire. But to use your... flow for it? Why didn't I think about it? :smile:[/QUOTE]

With items like this, you have need of that extra water so you can last the whole game.

[QUOTE=bcp19;298104]With items like this, you have need of that extra water so you can last the whole game.[/QUOTE]
Actually, I got dragged asside, the initial question wanted to be, (because they show different games there) if you can change the game, or you have to go to the one running your prefered game, and you have (eventually) to queue, because everyone likes the same game (blowing the skirt of the girl?) and in this time all the other 5-6 urinals stay empty :smile:

But well, if you put the problem like that, it makes no sens to ask if they can run Prime95...

Problem: How much water should I need to find M48th?

[QUOTE=LaurV;298103]So, if you could invent a kind of human interface which would be so reliable like a keyboard, or mouse, or touchscreen, but does not involve effectively the "touching", you would be millionaire. [/QUOTE]Foot pedals, like to control a Bobcat :cat: skid-steer loader.

Compton kids learn to fly after school
 

[url]http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/01/compton-kids-learn-to-fly-after-school/[/url]
[quote]Compton, California (CNN) – On a sunny afternoon at Compton Airport, 9-year-old Jose Pineda runs across the tarmac and makes a beeline for a single-engine Cessna.[/quote]

[quote]"The kids come here with all kinds of situations. They're 8-year-olds who have witnessed a murder," he says. "There are demographics and situations that can overwhelm a kid and put them in a position where they have no control, and they wind up part of the criminal justice system. This gives them an out."

To earn flight time, the students must finish their homework, help each other with their studies, and do chores around the airport such as wash airplanes and sweep the hangar.

It's a $500,000 per year program, which is funded by grants, donations and the goodwill of others. Like many nonprofits that were hit by the economic downturn, Petgrave's program is struggling.

"Because of the recent hardships that some of our funding sources have gone through, we've been waiting for four months of reimbursements. We just don't have the cash-flow," he says.

The reality is heartbreaking.

"We got an eviction notice from the landlord, if we don’t get caught up with the $12,000 worth of back rent. An eviction notice. We got a demand letter from one of the financing companies for the aircraft. We have some serious challenges," Petgrave says.

One Saturday in March, the electric company turned off the power after Petgrave couldn't pay the bill.

"The kids made do the best way they could. They did their lessons outside by the aircraft. We used natural lighting to provide the stuff they needed to do the lesson. It's disheartening to me that a program this effective has to struggle," he says.

Petgrave uses his personal money and his family's funds to supplement the program and keep it going. That same month, he lost his home.[/quote]
[quote]Petgrave is still looking for his dream champion. "It's the person who wants to come down and donate some time; it's the person who wants to upgrade our website to capture the money better. There's so many ways people can help. They just don't know. That's the problem."[/quote]
[quote]To contribute to Tomorrow’s Aeronautical Museum, visit their website at [url]http://www.tamuseum.org[/url][/quote]

I don't have enough money to pay for my own flying time/license, much less donate to such a worthy cause, hence the post here. (I liked to say I'd get my pilot's license before my driver's license, but of course my dad was only willing to pay for one and not the other.)

[URL="http://www.rr.com/news/topic/article/rr/55255142/68347731/NJ_mom_denies_daughters_burns_from_tanning_booth?cmpid=RRWMHero"]5 year old in tanning salon[/URL]

That mom looks absolutely scary. The first thing I thought when I saw her face was that I was looking at a non-human primate.

Finally, sharks with frickin' laser beams
 

[url]http://m.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/05/wicked-lasers-shark/[/url]

For those of you with English as your native language:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

[QUOTE=rogue;298293]For those of you with English as your native language:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.[/QUOTE]

Works perfectly! It seems a mediocre command of the langue is enough as I am not a native english speaker.

[url]http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/03/us-boeing-wings-idUSBRE8411NK20120503[/url]

[QUOTE=rogue;298293]For those of you with English as your native language:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.[/QUOTE]I presume this applies to some other languages. Does it apply to all languages that are written with letters and words?

[QUOTE=cheesehead;298321]I presume this applies to some other languages. Does it apply to all languages that are written with letters and words?[/QUOTE]
Presumably. There's nothing special about English as a language.

[QUOTE=rogue;298293]For those of you with English as your native language:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.[/QUOTE]

The double ch threw me off a bit though... normally you'd have either according to research or according to a researcher

[QUOTE=bcp19;298329]The double ch threw me off a bit though... normally you'd have either according to research or according to a researcher[/QUOTE]
Just goes to show you how our brain works... I read it as "According to research" because that's the way it's usually written.

[QUOTE=Dubslow;298338]Just goes to show you how our brain works... I read it as "According to research" because that's the way it's usually written.[/QUOTE]
I read it as "According to a ?...cheese??...rechsearch???...Hmm, researcher works..."

Old news, I am also not native speaker, and all my colleagues (mainly germans and thais, and in the past also chinese and also romanians) had no problem to read and understand everything. We had that discussion/conception long ago in the past about "average chinese pupil" (that is student in the mid-school) being more intelligent then the "average western pupil", because of their "pictographic" writing system (learning thousands of those thingies instead of 26 letters, from the very early life). Few times we discussed with language specialists, biologist and even a brain surgeon about this and all of them seems to dismount this conception, based on the idea that every man/women, no matter his/her nation (that includes westerners, russians, bla bla) is in fact learning "words" and not letters. This is how your brain works and you can do nothing about. You learn and recognize the word, and not its components, same way as you recognize a car, a computer, a lamp, etc, and not its components. The reverse is considered a disease. (See first season of "Prison Break" movie, haha, wonderful movie, but do not waste your time to see the other seasons, they are totally garbage compared with the first).

God does not exist. There I said it. Now what?
 

[url]http://www.examiner.com/article/atheist-arrested-sent-to-jail-for-posting-god-doesn-t-exist-on-facebook[/url]

[COLOR=White].[/COLOR]

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;298713][COLOR=White].[/COLOR][/QUOTE]Did you shoot those?
I have seen a squirrel make a fool of a cat:cat: that was chasing it around a carpeted room.:kitten:

[QUOTE]Did you shoot those?[/QUOTE]No, we don't think they have rabies or anything like that.

:max:

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;298739]No, we don't think they have rabies or anything like that.[/QUOTE]Where you the photographer or was one of your tribe the photog?

[QUOTE]Where you the photographer or was one of your tribe the photog?[/QUOTE]No, we just received the sequence of photographs in an email. We checked Snopes to see if they might be fake but there was no mention of them. The photographs look pretty real to us.

We have added squirrels to our list of animals to not piss off.

:choppa:

If you ignore the music, the video is pretty cool.

[youtube]c58evspEf7A[/youtube]

Leading paragraph from [URL="http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-religion-analytical-thinking-20120427,0,5374010.story"]Thinking can undermine religious faith[/URL]:

[quote]Scientists have revealed one of the reasons why some folks are less religious than others: They think more analytically, rather than going with their gut. And thinking analytically can cause religious belief to wane — for skeptics and true believers alike.[/quote]

[URL="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fla-mayor-fights-nuisance-signs-with-computer-program-that-hounds-companies-with-robocalls/2012/05/10/gIQAqaziFU_story.html"]Good use for robocalls[/URL]

[quote]
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — The cheap signs smashed into lawns and along the corners of busy intersections are hard to miss. “We Buy Junk Cars!” ‘’Cash for Your House!” ‘’Computer Repair.” The eyesores have vexed Hollywood Mayor Peter Bober for the past few years as he wastes valuable resources plucking up the signs only to watch them pop up in even greater numbers.

While stopped at a red light a few months ago, Bober studied the unsightly signs and came to a realization that would help him fight their proliferation: The criminals had left their calling cards in the form of business phone numbers.

Hollywood, Fla. is fighting snipes signs along the city’s intersections with a computer program that hounds companies with robocalls. The companies can be fined between $75 and $250, depending on the number of violations.

“These people want us to call them, so let’s call them so much their head spins,” said Bober, who bought a $300 software program in March that makes robocalls to the businesses. The volume of calls has reached as high as 20 calls each to 90 businesses in a day.

The signs are eye-catching and cheaper than a billboard, and businesses place them mostly along the sidewalks and medians of high-traffic intersections where there are no homeowners to complain. Companies can blanket an area with signs for a few hundred dollars and have been emboldened to continue because there have been virtually no consequences.

To city officials, the signs are costly litter that require city workers to pick them up. Posting them is also a crime, a relatively minor offense that carries fines of up to $250 in Hollywood.

Bober and the company that sold Hollywood its software say they’ve gotten calls from other communities asking about using the software to fight the signs. A county in north Florida also uses the software to fight signs along picturesque beachfront roads.

Officials in Hollywood had struggled with how to discipline the companies because they are sometimes based in another state where they don’t have jurisdiction.

In 2009 Bober held a citywide contest, offering $500 of non-public funds to whoever collected the most signs. The signs were gone overnight, with the winning resident collecting nearly 500 signs.

But over time, the city was again littered with signs.

“For two years I’ve kind of pondered what to do,” the mayor said.

The robocalls, which leave pre-recorded messages, have been so successful that city officials say they’ve seen a 90 percent reduction of signs in some areas.

“This is a message from the City of Hollywood Police Department,” the message says, going on to say signs were placed illegally and alerting companies they will receive these phone calls until the signs are removed and the owners address the code violation.

The company that makes the calling software, Voicent, says New York City uses it to send emergency transit alerts and that the Federal Emergency Management has incorporated the robocalls in its Gulf Coast hurricane-warning system. Churches and political campaigns also use the software.

Jerry Scharf, marketing director of the California based software company Voicent, said Wednesday that 1,000 communities in the U.S. and Canada have downloaded the program. It couldn’t immediately be verified how many are using it to fight the nuisance signs.[/quote]

Now if only those behind robocalls on politics would be forced to give real numbers on caller id...

Humans are really terrible interfaces
 

[url]https://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/051112-researcher-runs-ip-network-over-259231.html[/url]

How the Professor Who Fooled Wikipedia Got Caught by Reddit
 

[url]http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/how-the-professor-who-fooled-wikipedia-got-caught-by-reddit/257134/[/url][QUOTE]Last January, as he prepared to offer the class again, Kelly put the Internet on notice. He posted his syllabus and announced that his new, larger class was likely to create two separate hoaxes. He told members of the public to "consider yourself warned--twice."[/QUOTE]

Whelp, I was duped by that Abraham Lincoln article. In my defense, having lived in Illinois all my life, Abe Lincoln is cool enough to have done something like that.
:razz:

Major update to Google Search
 

[url]http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/05/introducing-knowledge-graph-things-not.html[/url]
[QUOTE]The Knowledge Graph enables you to search for things, people or places that Google knows about—landmarks, celebrities, cities, sports teams, buildings, geographical features, movies, celestial objects, works of art and more—and instantly get information that’s relevant to your query. This is a critical first step towards building the next generation of search, which taps into the collective intelligence of the web and understands the world a bit more like people do.
Google’s Knowledge Graph isn’t just rooted in public sources such as Freebase, Wikipedia and the CIA World Factbook. It’s also augmented at a much larger scale—because we’re focused on comprehensive breadth and depth. It currently contains more than 500 million objects, as well as more than 3.5 billion facts about and relationships between these different objects. And it’s tuned based on what people search for, and what we find out on the web.[/QUOTE][QUOTE]We hope this added intelligence will give you a more complete picture of your interest, provide smarter search results, and pique your curiosity on new topics. We’re proud of our first baby step—the Knowledge Graph—which will enable us to make search more intelligent, moving us closer to the "Star Trek computer" that I've always dreamt of building. Enjoy your lifelong journey of discovery, made easier by Google Search, so you can spend less time searching and more time doing what you love.[/QUOTE]

Here's something I found below the search bar on Google's homepage:

[url]http://www.google.com/green/storyofsend/[/url]

(There's not really anything to quote.)

[QUOTE=Dubslow;299679]Here's something I found below the search bar on Google's homepage:

[url]http://www.google.com/green/storyofsend/[/url]

(There's not really anything to quote.)[/QUOTE]It's so cute, quirky and entertaining while at the same time blatantly promoting their corporate presence. It reminds me of the Disneyland ride "[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Thru_Inner_Space"]Adventure thru inner space[/URL]: Journey into the Microscope" by Monsanto.

added:
Here is the blog entry on your link: [URL="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/follow-emails-journey-with-story-of.html"]Follow an email’s journey with Story of Send[/URL].
[QUOTE]We’ve included videos and photos throughout the journey so you can explore certain areas more deeply. For example, if you’re curious what data center servers look like, we’ve included some photos. Or you can watch a video to learn about how we purchase clean energy from wind farms near our data centers. And because technology doesn’t always have to be serious, you might find a vampire or two lurking around or uncover other surprises on the journey. [/QUOTE]

Just pretent it doesn't happen and maybe it will go away by itself
 

[url]http://www.geekosystem.com/jailbreak-is-a-cuss/[/url]

[url]http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/BlueWaters/pdfs/bw-newsletter-1201.pdf[/url]

[quote]The Blue WaTers project team had
several challenging months last year,
but what a comeback. Blue Waters
is now firmly back on track.
The Blue Waters system that our
new partner, Cray Inc., will install in
the National Petascale Computing
Facility will be a CPU-GPU hybrid
computing system. With its massive
computing capability; large, fast
memory subsystem; improved interconnect; and large, fast IO subsystem, it will bring sustained-petaflop
performance to a broad range of science and engineering applications
in fields like climate change, the spread of epidemics, earthquakes,
fundamental chemistry and physics, and materials science. And, with
its equally impressive GPU capability, it will serve as a bridge to the
technologies on which future supercomputers will be based.
Cray has already delivered the first forty-eight (48) computational racks
of Blue Waters. This initial system, a Cray XE6 system, is the Phase 1
Early Science System and will be made available to a select number of
the NSF-approved Science Teams next month. By mid 2012, the entire
set of Cray XE6 nodes and the racks for the XK nodes will be in place.
The Kepler GPU units will be installed in the XK racks in the fall of 2012.[/quote]
[code]Blue Waters Stats
Cray XE6 cabinets:     244
Cray XK6 cabinets:     32
Total cabinets, including storage & server cabinets:   >300
Compute nodes:   >25,000
Usable Storage Bandwidth:   >1 TB/s
Aggregate System Memory:   >1.5 Petabytes
Memory per core:     4 GB
Interconnect Topology:     3D Torus
Number of disks:   >17,000
Number of memory DIMMS:   >190,000
Usable storage:   >25 Petabytes
Peak performance:   >[U]11.5 Petaflops[/U]
Number of AMD processors:   >49,000
Number of AMD x86 cores:   >380,000
Number of NVIDIA GPUs:   >3,000
External network bandwidth:     100 Gb/s scaling to 300
Integrated near line environment:     scaling to 500 PBs
Bandwidth to near-line storage:     100 GB/s[/code]
That will put it at least in the top 2, and may or may not be 1st when it finally comes on line. My CS class this past semester was a block south of the building this is in :D

an interesting video
[url]http://vimeo.com/42340098[/url]

[url]http://www.elliott.org/blog/5-things-the-tsa-doesnt-want-you-to-see/[/url]

Email I got half an hour ago:
[quote]Illini-Alert: Hazardous materials released at Institute for Genomic Biology. Escape area if safe to do so. Otherwise seek shelter.[/quote]

0_o

[QUOTE=Dubslow;300588]Email I got half an hour ago:
[QUOTE]Illini-Alert: Hazardous materials released at Institute for Genomic Biology. Escape area if safe to do so. Otherwise seek shelter.[/QUOTE]

0_o[/QUOTE][URL="http://illinoishomepage.net/fulltext/?nxd_id=375822"]U of I: Hazardous Material Released at Institute for Genomic Biology[/URL][QUOTE]WCIA 3 News has a crew on the scene. .
Our crews have spoken to Robin Kaeler, spokesperson for the University of Illinois. Kaeler says a shelf collapsed and chemicals combined injuring one person.
The Urbana Fire Department is handling the situation.
We will bring you more details as they become available.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=only_human;300591][URL="http://illinoishomepage.net/fulltext/?nxd_id=375822"]U of I: Hazardous Material Released at Institute for Genomic Biology[/URL][/QUOTE]

7 minutes ago:

[quote](Illini Alert) The Hazardous Materials Spill at IGB, 1206 W Gregory Dr has been contained within the building. The area outside of IGB is safe.[/quote]

[QUOTE=only_human;300591][URL="http://illinoishomepage.net/fulltext/?nxd_id=375822"]U of I: Hazardous Material Released at Institute for Genomic Biology[/URL][/QUOTE]

[url]http://www.dailyillini.com/index.php/article/2012/05/hazardous_spill_at_igb_injures_individual[/url]

The U.S. Census Bureau said several years ago that it does not officially define "Baby Boom", but it uses titles such as "Selected Characteristics of Baby Boomers 42 to 60 Years Old in 2006" ([url]http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/age/[/url]) which amount to defining Baby Boomers as those born in the years 1946-1964.

Next July 4, the U.S. will be 236 years old. The oldest Baby Boomers turn 66 this year, which is more than one-fourth the age of the United States; the youngest turn 48, which is more than one-fifth the age of the United States.

[url]http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/100-incredible-views-out-of-airplane-windows/[/url]

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpemba_effect[/url]

How do you say Mpemba? I know it has nothing to do with the wiki post's science, but I'm curious.

[QUOTE=jasong;301615]How do you say Mpemba? I know it has nothing to do with the wiki post's science, but I'm curious.[/QUOTE]

[url]http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100426192600AAgSjOf[/url]

Both answers are kinda dubious because of their poor spelling.
I'll give you another one (and before you get excited, I'll tell you - it's a joke):
"You click yout tongue between M and p."
Or another one:
"Bemba"

Another piece of trivia: [SPOILER]my last name is spelled Mpatalov in Greek. In Greek, [FONT=Times New Roman]β[/FONT] is actually a V sound; to make up a proper B you need Mp.[/SPOILER]

[QUOTE=Batalov;301624]
Or another one:
"Bemba"

Another piece of trivia: [SPOILER]my last name is spelled Mpatalov in Greek. In Greek, [FONT=Times New Roman]β[/FONT] is actually a V sound; to make up a proper B you need Mp.[/SPOILER][/QUOTE]
Then is "Bemva" :razz:

[url]http://store.hbo.com/detail.php?p=373634[/url]

[url]http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/the-dingo-took-her-baby/[/url]

[url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18370797[/url]

[URL="http://medicaldaily.com/news/20120604/10149/genius-insanity-schizophrenia-bipolar-disorder.htm"]Connection between genius and insanity[/URL]

Some people are very talented
 

[url]http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/06/remarkably-detailed-paper-craft-models-by-papero/[/url]

[url]http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/06/new-carved-book-landscapes-by-guy-laramee/[/url]

[url]http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/06/remarkable-portraits-made-with-a-single-sewing-thread-wrapped-through-nails-by-kumi-yamashita/[/url]

Gaaahhhh! Resident TSA-Hater incoming!
 

[url]http://www.aviationpros.com/blog/10715053/hide-and-seek?cmpid=email_AVVDB120607003&utm_source=FBO+E-Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=AVVDB120607003[/url]

[URL="http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=1"]Gunnerkrigg Court[/URL], a web comic.

We would attach this image, but…

[URL]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8230728/earth.jpg[/URL]

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;302651]We would attach this image, but…

[URL]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8230728/earth.jpg[/URL][/QUOTE]

11Kx11K pixels... wow. Also, that's a [i]lot[/i] of desert.

[url]http://duolingo.com/[/url]

no time to explain!
[youtube]BQ9YtJC-Kd8[/youtube]

This used to be a PS in the Music thread...
 

...but it really does deserve its own post; I suspect many people don't read the music thread, and so would have missed this.


[URL="http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/725402/google-glass-price-and-release-window-revealed/"]DA FUTURE[/URL]

[url]http://shine.yahoo.com/shine-food/only-way-cook-corn-cob-202600680.html[/url]

[QUOTE=Dubslow;303545]...but it really does deserve its own post; I suspect many people don't read the music thread, and so would have missed this.


[URL="http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/725402/google-glass-price-and-release-window-revealed/"]DA FUTURE[/URL][/QUOTE]Does it come with a security chain to deter snatch-and-run theft?

[QUOTE=Dubslow;303545]...but it really does deserve its own post; I suspect many people don't read the music thread, and so would have missed this.


[URL="http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/725402/google-glass-price-and-release-window-revealed/"]DA FUTURE[/URL][/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=cheesehead;303575]Does it come with a security chain to deter snatch-and-run theft?[/QUOTE]
Not to mention a long list of health and safety warnings about using it.
Anyway, the parodists of the film in Dubslow's link have already had a field day here. Just click on the video links on the page below:
[URL]http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2012/04/06/kijken-geinige-parodieen-op-googles-smartphone-van-de-toekomst/[/URL]
:rofl:

Eventual doom (but in a good way) of the homegrown tomato?
 

[URL="http://news.yahoo.com/genetic-switch-spice-supermarket-tomato-180249651--finance.html;_ylt=Ata2b4PxRlpw72tqcNhdFC3yWed_;_ylu=X3oDMTQ2M3N0Zzc3BG1pdANBcnRpY2xlIFNlY3Rpb24gU2NpZW5jZQRwa2cDYmQwMGFlZGUtNWZiYS0zOWI4LWIxZjItOTcyNDA5NzRjMGM3BHBvcwMzBHNlYwN0b3Bfc3RvcnlfY29rZQR2ZXIDYjJmNTY0ODEtYzE0Yi0xMWUxLWJlZjktMzRmMjVlYjc1ZTkz;_ylg=X3oDMTNhamx1bXBhBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDNDk2MzRhMjktNGViZS0zZmM1LTk1ZGItYmEyYmFjOGM2ZGM4BHBzdGNhdANzY2llbmNlfHNwYWNlLWFzdHJvbm9teQRwdANzdG9yeXBhZ2U-;_ylv=3"]http://news.yahoo.com/genetic-switch-spice-supermarket-tomato-180249651--finance.html[/URL]

Who says time waits for no one...
 

[url]http://ca.news.yahoo.com/leap-second-saturday-cause-61-second-minute-094403144.html[/url]

[QUOTE=petrw1;303662][url]http://ca.news.yahoo.com/leap-second-saturday-cause-61-second-minute-094403144.html[/url][/quote][URL="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/time-technology-and-leaping-seconds.html"]Time, technology and leaping seconds (Google Official Blog)[/URL][QUOTE]How could we make sure everything at Google stays running as if nothing happened, when all our server clocks suddenly see the same second happening twice? Also, how could we make this solution scale? Would we need to audit every line of code that cares about the time? (That’s a lot of code!)

The solution we came up with came to be known as the “leap smear.” We modified our internal NTP servers to gradually add a couple of milliseconds to every update, varying over a time window before the moment when the leap second actually happens. This meant that when it became time to add an extra second at midnight, our clocks had already taken this into account, by skewing the time over the course of the day. All of our servers were then able to continue as normal with the new year, blissfully unaware that a leap second had just occurred. We plan to use this “leap smear” technique again in the future, when new leap seconds are announced by the IERS.[/QUOTE][QUOTE]The solution to this challenge drove a lot of thinking to develop better ways to implement locking and consistency, and synchronizing units of work between servers across the world. It also meant we thought more about the precision of our time systems, which have a knock-on effect on our ability to minimize resource wastage and run greener data centers by reducing the amount of time we must spend waiting for responses and rarely doing excess work.[/QUOTE]

[url]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9359579/Worlds-hardest-sudoku-can-you-crack-it.html[/url]

Rumors abound about a July 4th CERN Higgs "update"
 

[url]http://blog.vixra.org/[/url]

(Presented in reverse chronological order, start with a Ctrl+F on "June 22, 2012" and work your way up)

[url]http://codegolf.com/[/url]


Edit: Because counting lines is a questionable thing, they do it by bytes -- which unfortunately penalizes the length of variable names, function names, etc...

[URL="http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-highest-temperature-20120627,0,6805428.story"]Whew! That's hot![/URL]

[QUOTE=rogue;303961][URL="http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-highest-temperature-20120627,0,6805428.story"]Whew! That's hot![/URL][/QUOTE]

"Quarks are the elementary particles from which all other particles, including protons, neutrons and electrons, are made."

Really?

[QUOTE=xilman;303963]"Quarks are the elementary particles from which all other particles, including protons, neutrons and electrons, are made."

Really?[/QUOTE]The same guy as that Jupiter thing. He should have looked more before he lepton it.

[QUOTE=only_human;303964]He should have looked more before he lepton it.[/QUOTE]

:doh!:

:ignore:

:orly emu:

[QUOTE=Dubslow;303968] doh!, ignore, orly emu[/QUOTE] That seems like a lot for my weak pun. My pun was poking at the LA Times science article curator and not Paul, just to be clear.

[QUOTE=only_human;303972]That seems like a lot for my weak pun. My pun was poking at the LA Times science article curator and not Paul, just to be clear.[/QUOTE]

I know, it was just so [i]bad[/i]. :razz: (We don't have a face-palm smiley.)

[url]http://i.imgur.com/aSG3k.png[/url]

This really deserves to be read [i]all[/i] the way to the bottom.

From my favorite magazine:

[URL="http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/132523"]How the 50 States got their names[/URL]

And another interesting article:

[URL="http://www.livescience.com/21427-fullerene-buckyball-growth-explained-nsf-bts.html"]How Buckyballs grow[/URL]

[QUOTE=rogue;304397]From my favorite magazine:

[URL="http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/132523"]How the 50 States got their names[/URL][/QUOTE]

An "Also of Interest" link from that article:

[URL="http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/113640"]When Did Americans Lost Their British Accents?[/URL]

It seems that modern day American is actually closer to 1700s English than modern British. :smile:

Oh David...my old man came to KS from Ros a' Mhil...I come by my stubbornness honestly :)

[QUOTE=rogue;304397]From my favorite magazine:

[URL="http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/132523"]How the 50 States got their names[/URL][/QUOTE]One of my ancestors was involved in the naming of one of the states.

And you thought 4G was fast....
 

[url]http://en.webfail.net/image/a-single-sperm-win-picture.html[/url]

Yes but think for a second about the %packet loss!

[SPOILER]Only one packet gets delivered! [U]Even if[/U] it gets delivered!
13257709 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 2003ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.273/0.371/0.543/0.122 ms
[/SPOILER]

[QUOTE=Batalov;304606]Yes but think for a second about the %packet loss![/QUOTE]Clearly only suitable for short-haul simplex

[url]http://www.reddit.com/r/Physics/comments/wgqki/lets_get_this_right_the_higgs_boson_does_not_give/[/url]

Some redditer is pissed off about "Higgs gives us all mass", pointing out that 99% of the proton mass is the strong force, not the Higgs mechanism.


PS: If the quarks were massless, they'd be moving at the speed of light, so it wouldn't be possible for them to be bound in any way, right? So even though proton mass isn't directly due to the Higgs mechanism, without it there'd be no such thing?

[QUOTE=Dubslow;304633][url]http://www.reddit.com/r/Physics/comments/wgqki/lets_get_this_right_the_higgs_boson_does_not_give/[/url]

Some redditer is pissed off about "Higgs gives us all mass", pointing out that 99% of the proton mass is the strong force, not the Higgs mechanism.


PS: If the quarks were massless, they'd be moving at the speed of light, so it wouldn't be possible for them to be bound in any way, right? So even though proton mass isn't directly due to the Higgs mechanism, without it there'd be no such thing?[/QUOTE]That reddit link seem to be in agreement with this [URL="http://axelmaas.blogspot.com/2011/10/mass-from-strong-force.html"]Mass from the strong force[/URL][QUOTE]The electrons actually get their mass from the Higgs, so that is alright. But they make up less than 0.05% of the mass of the atoms. Thus, one can forget about them for this purpose. Then there are the nuclei. They are made up out of protons and neutrons. These in turn consist out of quarks. But the quarks are rather light, and make up not more than one percent of the mass of the protons and neutrons, and thus of the nuclei. So where does all the remaining mass comes from?

Well, this comes this time from the strong nuclear force, QCD[...][/QUOTE]Accepting that quarks are less than 1% of the mass of a nucleon, it is interesting to know that the lightest quark gets most of its mass from the strong force too:[QUOTE]There is another thing you may wonder about. The quarks have all very different masses due to the Higgs effect. Is the contribution due to the strong interaction also very different for the different quarks? The answer to this is actually no, the contribution from the strong force is about the same for all quarks. Thus, it makes up about 99% of the mass of the light quarks, but less than half a percent for the heaviest one. Thus, while the Higgs makes a difference between the different quark (and lepton) species, the strong force does not. Why this is the case is also yet unknown, and one of the bigger mysteries. Since the different quarks and leptons are also called different flavors of quarks and leptons, it is said that the strong force is flavor-blind, it makes no difference between different flavors. On the other hand, the Higgs makes a different between different flavors.[/QUOTE]
So, your question about massless quarks would would require hypothesizing a particle that ignored both Higgs and strong force effects. I really parrot what I read in lay material about these things. Perhaps Xilman or a couple of other illuminati might pitch in. QCD isn't going to let a quark fly off without making at least one more quark, I believe, from the forces of pulling them far apart, but the talk of fleeing hadrons and asymptomatic freedom is above my pay grade.

[QUOTE=only_human;304638]So, your question about massless quarks would would require hypothesizing a particle that ignored both Higgs and strong force effects.[/QUOTE]Like the photon and graviton perhaps?

[QUOTE=xilman;304642]Like the photon and graviton perhaps?[/QUOTE]
O, Illuminati, three quarks for Muster Mark; he was asking about if quarks were suddenly massless. Still a palpable hit and I should have been more careful. I definitely could have mentioned the photon as meeting that criterion. The graviton though, the only thing I know about it without checking is that it is supposed to be spin 2.