How Common Is Your Birthday?
(via @stiles)
I think it pretty weird/cool that June 13th is quite a bit rarer than all other June birthdays (except June 31st - hurr hurr).
That’s part of why it was so exciting to see that you and I both have 6/13, tongue-in-cheek!
Boy oh boy do people get busy or what during holiday season.
Well, can’t blame them really. It’s fucking cold outside, we may as well be fucking a lot inside.
- jaime + cersei + tyrion = tywin
- jaime + cersei = tywin - strategy
- jaime + tyrion = tywin - ruthlessness
- cersei + tyrion = tywin - privilege
- jaime = tywin - strategy - ruthlessness
- cersei = tywin - strategy - privilege
- tyrion = tywin - ruthlessness - privilege
tywin raised his true heir, all right. he just raised it broken.
Drawing programs don’t always have a “point”, even if they are fun. Recursive Drawing, however, aims to use a simple and addictive user-interface to explore how drawings could be translated into programming.
On the surface, it’s a purely fun tool (which you can, and should, play with!) to draw crazy-awesome things like Fibonacci trees (like in the video). But deep down, it’s an experiment in translating visual objects into programming commands. That’s called a spatial or visual programming environment, and it’s a way to disconnect the syntax of programming from the logic and math.
Environments like these also let non-English speakers and young people get introduced to programming skills without having to master the language itself. But if you don’t want to pay attention to all that, it’s just really FUN!
Previously: A dangerously addictive online fluid dynamics simulator and a particle/gravity simulator that really looks more like fireworks.
FUN FACT of the DAY: BOOBYTRAP backwards spells PARTYBOOB
(via hellscabanaboy)
Derweze, also known as the door to hell, is a 70 meter wide hole in the middle of the Karakum desert in Turkmenistan. The hole was formed in 1971 when a team of soviet geologists had their drilling rig collapse when they hit a cavern filled with natural gas. In an attempt to avoid poisonous discharge, they decided to burn it off, thinking that the gas would be depleted in only a few days. Derweze is still burning today
(via croclock)
Kind of a cool way to look at things
(via pitselly)
comme des garçons 1994
(via gematriya)
(via proofmathisbeautiful)
Always good to explore and learn.
Good to see how it’s reached many folks. Here’s a reblog in case you’re looking for free courses and help for academics or independent research.
this might be the best thing i’ve ever seen
yes and also hell yes
COOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!
The Lord and Lady of Casterly Rock
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| ASOIAF : PRE-SERIES |
Tywin Lannister - Philip Winchester
Joanna Lannister - Sophia Myles
(via alysanemormonts)
(via fauxkaren)
XNA: The Synthetic Super-Cousin of DNA That Can Replicate and Store Information
The DNA double helix that we’re all familiar with is a molecular ladder made of three key parts. The backbone of phosphates that tie everything together up and down, the sugar rings (“deoxyribose”) that serve as rungs, and the bases (A, C, G, T) that invisibly bond the two strands of the helix together, head to toe.
But that helix can be broken or mutated in nature, leading to mutations. And out of all the compounds in the world that could have evolved to carry our information, why just DNA and its cousin RNA? To answer that question, Vitor Pinheiro’s team created a completely new set of information molecules called XNA.
XNA replaces the deoxyribose sugar ring with other chemical rings like threose and cyclohexane. By evolving an enzyme that could read these funny bases, they were able to read DNA into XNA as well as the reverse. Plus it’s super-strong and resistant to breaking or cleaving.
Molecules like XNA could expand the information code for synthetic biology as well as help us answer the ultimate question about DNA: Why that, and not something else? Ed Yong has more great detail here.
The Title Sequence - A Deeper Look
As episodes go by, and new information is released, not only do the names on the title sequence, but also the places on the map change. Throughout the seasons, as new places are introduced in the show, they are also introduced on the title sequence. Some places like Winterfell, Kings Landing etc are shown constantly through all episodes since they are referenced in all episodes. But places like Pentos, the Twins etc are shown only once or when needed since they do not appear in other episodes.
- Kings Landing (Introduced 1x01)
- Winterfell (Introduced 1x01)
- The Wall (Introduced 1x01)
- Pentos (Introduced 1x01)
- Vaes Dothrak (Introduced 1x02)
- The Eyrie (Introduced 1x05)
- The Twins (Introduced 1x09)
- Dragonstone (Introduced 2x01)
- Pyke (Introduced 2x02)
- Harrenhal (Introduced 2x04)
- Qarth (Introduced 2x04)
(via jorahmormonting)
The Quietest Place on Earth Will Drive You Insane Within 45 Minutes
There’s a small room in Minnesota that blocks out 99% of all external sound. That’s an impressive number! Also impressive: nobody can take more than 45 minutes alone in the room before they go nuts.
The Daily Mail describes Orfield Labs’ anechoic chamber—perfect for making extremely sensitive audio measurements. But also perfect for sending you into a hallucinatory hell so hellacious you’ll need a chair:
‘When it’s quiet, ears will adapt. The quieter the room, the more things you hear. You’ll hear your heart beating, sometimes you can hear your lungs, hear your stomach gurgling loudly. ‘In the anechoic chamber, you become the sound.’ And this is a very disorientating experience. Mr Orfield explained that it’s so disconcerting that sitting down is a must. He said: ‘How you orient yourself is through sounds you hear when you walk. In the anechnoic chamber, you don’t have any cues. You take away the perceptual cues that allow you to balance and manoeuvre. If you’re in there for half an hour, you have to be in a chair.’
That sounds swell. Just the serene quiet of you, your thoughts, and the unceasing pounding of the human heart. Your brain can’t take it, apparently, and begins to fabricate sounds that aren’t really there—completely delusional noises meant to block out the churning of your own horrid biomass.
(Source)
(via mixingtheblues)
