Saturday, January 28, 2012

If you judge a fish by its ability to fly...

Here's a great 1-minute video animation that visualizes classical music as a roller-coaster.

Ellsworth Kelly, Red, Dark Blue, Dark Green, 1986. Is it painting, sculpture or installation? Perhaps it's better to think of it as Line, Shape, Color.
Beer mavens: the sky is falling! Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) endangers micro brewer. (You know, the natural gas isn't just gonna jump out of the ground.)

See if you can tell whether the painting is by artist or ape. I fear taking tests like this but got them all right (this time).
Do you lie awake at night wondering why eπi = -1? Science to the rescue.

Lest you think science is all about flashy mathematical proofs, it's good to know that in these days of obsessive multi-tasking and short attention spans science is also taking a very long view of some fundamental issues. Just like the owl who determined that it takes 3 licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop (young children - you should just Google that), an 80+ year experiment shows that it takes pitch (a tar-like substance) that long to produce 9 drops. The pitch drop experiment at the University of Queensland set out to demonstrate that things that act like solids in some circumstances act like liquids in others. This behavior is less esoteric than you think. Ever notice how Silly Putty will slowly drip like chewing gum but if you jerk on it with both hands it will snap? That's an example of strain rate behavior - when the strain is low the material acts like a liquid. When the strain is high it acts like a solid.

In addition to leering men, what exactly are the dangers of wearing high heels? Science to the rescue!
You've probably never seen Newton's laws of motion as delightfully animated as in this video.

This may be as close to a Monty Python reunion as we can expect. Terry Jones will direct Absolutely Anything, a "sci-fi farce," with former Python members voicing the characters.

B-17G Flying Fortress - just because

Are there fundamental laws of cooking? Yes, the first of which is that I shouldn't do it. The second law says that good food pairings share the same underlying molecular components. For example, shrimp and Parmesan cheese share 1-penten-3-ol.
While doing my regular reading at Allure's Daily Beauty Reporter blog, I came across this doozy: should perfume be banned in public? Of course, the answer is "no." But if this law survives New Hampshire's legislature I'm gonna lobby for a ban on saggy pants, tongue piercings, comb-overs, and coffee breath.

There's no need to ban exposed nose hairs now that we have CHOLOLI, an web-based service for anonymously policing those with exposed nostril follicles.

Does this look like multiplication to you? Me neither. But watch this video and prepare to think.
Find out who's using all teh interwebs with this real-time internet traffic monitor from Akamai.

Astronomy pr0n: NASA's latest high resolution satellite image of the earth: Blue Marble
Oral sex may cause more oral cancer in men than smoking. (Seems kinda obvious - oral sex, oral cancer, duh.)

A North Carolina inmate is believe to have smuggled a .38 caliber revolver into jail concealed in his rectum. Silent but deadly? Protection against prison rape? Fell on it after slipping in the shower? Gives new meaning to "stick up?" Explosive diarrhea?

...it will spend the rest of its life believing it's stupid. ~Albert Einstein (paraphrased)

2 comments:

Francis Shivone said...

Loved the musical roller coaster. It's amazing what some people can do.

John said...

I like those types of little black and white animations too. Sorry it was the first thing in the post. I'll try to keep your attention longer next time.