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Today’s slide show is 20 shots of migrating monarch butterflies.
This explanation of why some languages (such as Japanese) sound so much faster than others (like French) is fascinating. They all actually fit the same amount of information in the same time frame, which is why when you watch subtitled films the words being shown on screen don’t fly by in one language and spool out slowly in others.
This is the only known footage of Mark Twain, filmed by Thomas Edison in 1909.
Trevor Prideaux has become the first person to have a cell phone built into his arm.
As the ice sheet covering Greenland melts, it gets darker. Which encourages more melting. And here's a visual from NASA showing how the water covered by ice sheets in the Arctic have decreased by over 4 million square miles below the average for this time of year.
Charles Pearce has a post about Neil Armstrong, who died this past weekend. Read the first two sentences of his essay. Now, I too only own a single autograph from a celebrity. Guess who’s it is? I’m not kidding. (Mine’s on a photo, not a 3 x 5 card.)
Rocks remember, and so do we is a nice tribute to Armstrong as well.
Trivia (20 Biomes points): Members of which early 20th century occupation wore these kinds of shoes?
Stephen Hawking explains how to build a time machine.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a poll that showed anything like zero percent of blacks back Rmoney.
Strangers on a bus. Esther Kim rode coach buses for 3 1/2 years and recorded strategies riders used to keep other passengers from sitting next to them.
You can’t always get what you want. The Rolling Stones’ 404 message page.
If you’re a geek whose trying to understand current fiscal policy, then this is the article for you. Save Us, Ben Bernanke, You’re Our Only Hope.
Gorillas in the missed. Three brothers are reunited after three years.
I know this shouldn’t be funny, but being an Onion piece, it’s at least equal parts humorous and cultural criticism.
Krugman: Ryanomics is and always has been a con game.
Take a look at some of Dean Crouser’s amazing animal watercolor paintings.
You work your whole life to get to the Olympics and lose your fencing match because the 15-year-old volunteer forgets to restart the clock with one second left.
Forget Rmoney’s gaffes - The real worry is he has nothing to say.
The Times has an obit for Phyllis Diller.
A full fact-check of Niall Ferguson’s very bad argument against Obama. This is some wicked inside baseball stuff, but it’s a classic lesson on how the right is allowed to outright lie with virtually no challenge from the mainstream “liberal” media.
According to The Times, Helen Gurley Brown “...died on Monday in Manhattan. She was 90, though parts of her were considerably younger”. Golf clap.
The Atlantic has a photo essay of the Pussy Riot trial and protests in Moscow that even got chess champ Garry Kasparov arrested.
The American Bird Conservancy has done a study on killer cats by attaching “kittycams” to outdoor housecats, and have found that pet felines are responsible for the deaths of 4 million birds, lizards and other wildlife each year. I don’t hate cats, but I like coyotes better.
Eight years until “Glacier National Park” is just “National Park”.
Morford: Mitt Romney vs dead potted plant.
Albino Monday: Gustavo Lacerda’s series on albinos. Click the image for the next pic.
Here’s some very good news. Millennials, those who came of age during the Bush disaster, are less likely to identify as Republicans than any other age group.
What a great photo. This is a guy named John, who takes his 19-year-old German shepherd into Lake Superior each night for a swim.
What if you put your face in front of a really powerful fan? Here are some shots of people who volunteered to do just that.
Occasionally when I need to recharge with some non-thinking time, I’ll spend a few hours with Not Always Right. I’m sure most of the stories are made up, or at least embellished, but I still find it amusing. Another good down-time time-killer, but one where you can still learn quite a bit, is what I call “wiki surfing”. Start at a random wikipedia entry, read it, and then choose one embedded link in the article to bring you to another wiki page. Lather, rinse, repeat. Also, too, it turns out I didn’t invent the phrase.
Timewaster of the week: Play around with the tonematrix.
The evolution of the uneven bars event from the 1950’s to the present.
Listen to Devo’s new cut, “Don’t Roof Rack Me, Bro!”, about Rmoney’s dog Seamus.
How the presidential candidates use the web and social media.
