Mystery No More: The Sliding Stones of Death Valley
A team of scientists has finally figured out what makes those mysterious moving rocks in Death Valley move – and caught it on camera!
Links
Drought maps of California from 2011 to this week.
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-g-california-drought-map-htmlstory.html
Drought maps of California from 2011 to this week.
Has humanity produced enough paint to cover the entire land area of the Earth?
Another XKCD What If? analysis tackles the question: “Has humanity produced enough paint to cover the entire land area of the Earth?” I wonder if the asker was inspired by the Sherwin-Williams Paints logo showing an upended paint can, burying a globe in paint with the slogan “Cover the Earth.”
Related to that earlier post, a look at at how smartphone gyroscopes work.
Related to that earlier post, a look at at how smartphone gyroscopes work.
Wow. Even without access to the microphone, it’s possible to measure how sound waves
Wired: The Gyroscopes in Your Phone Could Let Apps Eavesdrop on Conversations
Wow. Even without access to the microphone, it's possible to measure how sound waves move the phone's position sensors precisely enough to identify nearby speech.
If you live in California, you should read this.
If you live in California, you should read this.
Interesting: It’s possible to correlate a record of your driving speed with your starting
How Fast You Drive Reveals Where You Drive
Insurers’ data-gathering devices give enough info to determine your location, say Rutgers engineers
Interesting: It's possible to correlate a record of your driving speed with your starting point and street layouts, and figure out where you went.
Oooh….Can I bring myself to wake up at 5am on Monday? (Probably not. Chances
http://urbanastronomer.blogspot.com/2014/08/jupiter-venus-conjunction-closest.html
Oooh….Can I bring myself to wake up at 5am on Monday? (Probably not. Chances are it'll be overcast anyway. But it sounds awesome…)
“So what’s in those nearly 1.1 million public comments? A lot of mentions of…
“So what's in those nearly 1.1 million public comments? A lot of mentions of the F word, according to a TechCrunch analysis. But now, we have a fuller picture. The San Francisco data analysis firm Quid looked beyond keywords to find the sentiment and arguments in those public comments.”
A stark reminder that local conditions, remote conditions, and overall averages are not the
A stark reminder that local conditions, remote conditions, and overall averages are not the same thing.
This would fall under “reuse,” right?
This would fall under “reuse,” right?
Recycled Smartphones Used To Save the Rainforests
Researchers at London Zoo are leading a pioneering project that uses recycled smartphones to make listening devices to protect some of the world’s most endangered rainforest animals from illegal loggers and poachers.
Hyperbole and a Half describes what it’s like to be in the depths of depression…
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html
Hyperbole and a Half describes what it’s like to be in the depths of depression, with the usual crude drawings and (yes) humor. The bit that always sticks in my mind is the metaphor of trying to explain the problem with her fish, but no one seems to get it.
Interesting experiment on what “Like” does to your Facebook feed…and to your friends’ feeds….
Interesting experiment on what “Like” does to your Facebook feed…and to your friends’ feeds. Always remember that it’s not just an isolated statement, it’s input for Facebook’s recommendation engine: Not only does it impact what goes into your news feed, it impacts what you actually *see* of your news feed.
Pluto and Charon orbiting each other
New Horizons Sees Pluto and Charon in Motion!
The thumbnail keeps picking up the wrong image, but what's cool is we now have a series of photos that show Pluto and Charon orbiting each other. Follow the link for an animated version. (Cue Jonathan Coulton.)
The article is disappointingly light, but I love the headline.
Cars May Think, But Will They Achieve Artificial Stupidity?
Would we even want a machine that emulated the typical driver’s strengths—and weaknesses?
The article is disappointingly light, but I love the headline.
Interesting comparison: left-wing distrust of GMOs as a technology and right-wing denial of climate change
https://www.vox.com/2014/8/1/5954701/neil-degrasse-tyson-gmos-dangerous-safe
Interesting comparison: left-wing distrust of GMOs as a technology (rather than as an excuse for predatory business practices) and right-wing denial of climate change are both cases in which people reject the scientific consensus in favor of a political one…but while the right wing embraces this rejection to the point that it’s practically required for a Republican politician to deny climate change in order to get elected, the left wing establishment is less willing to throw science under the bus. “Bad Astronomer” Phil Plait has often made similar comparisons between climate change denial as a mainstream part of the Republican platform and the antivaccination movement as a fringe part of the left wing.
Maximize Content-to-Chrome Ratio, Not the Amount of Content on Screen
Hiding the user interface to show more content isn’t always the best way to go. If there’s room for it, show it, so people have some idea of what they can do (and how).
Maximize Content-to-Chrome Ratio, Not the Amount of Content on Screen
On a large screen, hiding the chrome significantly affects discoverability and interaction cost, with virtually no improvement to the content-to-chrome ratio.
Huh. I’ve never encountered issues with pepper before, of any kind, though I definitely
Huh. I’ve never encountered issues with pepper before, of any kind, though I definitely have problems with cashews. Another reason to always be prepared.
I remember being both impressed and disturbed at how easy Chromecast was to set up
I remember being both impressed and disturbed at how easy Chromecast was to set up.
“Rickmote” box Rickrolls Chromecast, forcibly earworms hapless victims
Chromecast is very user friendly, Petro says, which translates, in security researcher terms, into ‘oh, goodie’:
“It just kind of like automagically works, which from a user’s perspective is totally awesome. And it is really is amazing easy to set up, which usually means amazingly insecure.”
“…a grim picture of a world not long ago where it wasn’t unusual for…
“…a grim picture of a world not long ago where it wasn’t unusual for children and adults to die from polio and other diseases, a reality people today are spared thanks to decades of universal immunization against these plagues.”