Sunday 20 July 2014

Trivia for 20 July 2014

Some Assembly Required: 1906
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave
Some Assembly Required: 1906
“Great Lakes Engineering Works, Ecorse, Michigan. Steamer James Laughlin at left”
Now where’d I put that instruction sheet?
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How much pressure did it take to pop the top off Mexico’s Popocatépetl volcano?
On June 17 2013, the Popocatépetl volcano in the state of Puebla in Mexico belched out a pretty impressive looking volcanic plume. Fortunately for us, it was caught on webcam, at a town a safe distance away.
Aatish Bhatia presents a video and some very impressive maths in Wired.
Go read for yourself -- and thank whatever higher power you might believe in that we do not have lava flowing at upwards of 130mph in the UK.

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Darwin referred to humor as “a tickling of the mind.” But seriously: What actually happens in our brain when we laugh?… more

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via BoingBoing by Mark Frauenfelder
The Art of Manliness has reprinted “37 Conversation Rules for Gentlemen” from a 1875 book entitled, A Gentleman’s Guide to Etiquette by Cecil B. Hartley.
The rules are still valid!
For example:
33. When asking questions about persons who are not known to you, in a drawing-room, avoid using adjectives; or you may enquire of a mother, “Who is that awkward, ugly girl?” and be answered, “Sir, that is my daughter”.
37 Conversation Rules for Gentlemen

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Jewels from the Mud: The Elegance of Water Lilies
via Encyclopaedia Britannica by Richard Pallardy
Ponds aren’t often glamorous bodies of water. They lack both the grandeur of oceans and lakes and the racing energy of rivers and streams. They can, at their least pleasing, be stagnant and fetid, little more than lenses of water over pits of muck. Yet the langorous movement of their currents and the rich organic matter lining their bottoms support life-forms that defray their olfactory and aesthetic liabilities: the gem-like water lilies, otherwise known as the family Nymphaeaceae.
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Water lily, Humboldt Park, Chicago. Credit: Richard Pallardy

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
In 1943, after his parents died in Treblinka, Raphael Lemkin invented a word to describe the crime – genocide – and helped to make it illegal. Why hasn’t the law worked?.. more

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How We Confuse Time and Space
via Big Think by Lee Smolin
The whole history of physics has been a history of diminishing the nature of time and diminishing the role of time. Take a very simple example. When you see something move through the air – that’s something that happens in time. And then you could take a film that you made of that and call that an experiment or call that a record of motion.
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via Gizmodo.com
What is it about humans that make us love–and hate–being lost?
Since the time of ancient Greece, we’ve been figuring out ways to entertain ourselves within extraordinarily confusing structures. There are dozens of different types of mazes: there are standard mazes, which feature “multi-route” paths; and labyrinths, which only have single routes. Then there are indoor mazes, plain air mazes, hedge mazes, corn mazes and so on.
Here's the link to a collection of 23 fascinating examples that give us a glimpse into the cultural history of getting lost–on purpose.

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
The Internet was supposed to open a golden age of global interconnectedness. Instead, it’s made would-be cosmopolitans of us all… more

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No, Everything Does Not Happen for a Reason. Thank God for That.
via Big Think by Nicholas Clairmont
“Everything happens for a reason” is my very least favourite thing for someone to say. It is bad philosophy, bad theology, bad thinking, and bad advice. It manages to combine the maximum of ignorance with the maximum of arrogance.
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