Interesting Stuff Thread

freyners

ninja900 wrote: »

Exactly, the international media were, but not Irish media... until...

Maybe the print media, but sites like joe.ie, the journal and couple of others were all over him far before that

Kivaro

Sleep - the mental janitor.
A very interesting NY Times article on why sleep was not eliminated during our evolution:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/opinion/sunday/goodnight-sleep-clean.html?_r=0

robindch

A seven-year old Australian girl writes to the country's national science agency asking if they can make a dragon. The agency obliges:

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/australian-scientists-make-child-s-dragon-dream-come-true-1.1651456

Irish Times wrote:

In what might be a textbook example of how to interest more girls in science, a seven-year-old who wrote to Australia’s national science agency asking for a dragon has had her dream come true. Sophie Lester wrote to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) after her father told her about the work of the scientists there.

“Would it be possible if you can make me a dragon?” Sophie wrote. “I would call it Toothless if it was a girl and if it is a boy I would call it Stuart.” (Toothless is the dragon in the How to Train Your Dragon series of books by British author Cressida Cowell.) The CSIRO posted the letter online and said they were “looking into it”. “Our work has never ventured into dragons of the mythical, fire-breathing variety,” CSIRO said. “And for this, Australia, we are sorry.”

But the letter went viral, leading to worldwide interest and prompting CSIRO to create a blue 3D titanium dragon at its additive manufacturing facility in Melbourne. Her letter was very hopeful and it was very polite and we wanted to encourage her curiosity and encourage her love of science,” said a CSIRO spokesperson. The scientists in the Melbourne lab are used to printing anatomically correct insects, biomedical implants and aerospace parts, so they thought a dragon was possible. “Being that electron beams were used to 3D print her, we are certainly glad she didn’t come out breathing them . . . instead of fire,” the lab’s Chad Henry said.

Toothless is now making the 1,686km journey to Sophie’s home in Queensland’s capital, Brisbane. Hollywood animation studio DreamWorks, which made the film version of How to Train Your Dragon, also got involved.
Sophie’s mother Melissah initially thought the phone call from Dreamworks was a prank. “Someone from Dreamworks called this morning and the director had asked to ask Sophie why Toothless is a girl? They were fascinated that Sophie thought Toothless was a girl,” she said. Ms Lester says her daughter is now very interested in science. “All her friends are now saying they want to be a scientist and Sophie says she now wants to work at CSIRO,” she said. “She’s saying Australian scientists can do anything.”

Ms Lester said that although Sophie may be an internet sensation, she is not aware of it. “She doesn’t know. She knows she was on television on Wednesday evening and she knows she’ll be in the local paper but I’ve left the rest of it out,” she said.

recedite

Kivaro wrote: »

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/opinion/sunday/goodnight-sleep-clean.html?_r=0

Margaret Thatcher used to disparage other politicians for spending too much time sleeping, when she could get by perfectly well on 4 hours sleep. She ended up with dementia.

sbsquarepants

Well, she started off fairly demented to be honest.
Although she wasn't all bad, we do have her to thank for Mr. Whippy style ice cream apparently.

endacl

sbsquarepants wrote: »

Although she wasn't all bad, we do have her to thank for Mr. Whippy

Thanks.

Now I have an image of the Iron Lady in eight inch stilettos and skintight PVC. Advancing slowly. Threatening a 'good time' with 'Mr Whippy'.

I haven't even been naughty.

Seriously.

Thanks.

:mad:

pauldla

^^^

Ewww. Dude.

endacl

pauldla wrote: »

^^^

Ewww. Dude.

Sorry. Forgot that might end up in other heads.

pauldla

endacl wrote: »

Sorry. Forgot that might end up in other heads.

What the fox say?

(Vengence is mine!):pac:

endacl

pauldla wrote: »

What the fox say?

(Vengence is mine!):pac:

OK. I deserved that.

I see your fox, and raise you an Agadoo-do-do!

Bannasidhe

endacl wrote: »

OK. I deserved that.

I see your fox, and raise you an Agadoo-do-do!

:mad:

Stop it.

Now.

irish_goat

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25715736

Atheist Afghan granted religious asylum in UK

pauldla

Bannasidhe wrote: »

:mad:

Stop it.

Now.

Sorry, Bannasidhe. Earworms should not be let loose lightly.

recedite

irish_goat wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25715736

Atheist Afghan granted religious asylum in UK

Well that could open the floodgates. Anyone raised as a muslim in any country with Sharia law could do the same.

pauldla

Can't think where else to post this....

This gem of an article was spotted on today's Global Times paper edition, citing Iran's Fars, a 'semiofficial' news agency snidely dubbed 'False' for its less-than-stellar reporting reputation.

To sum it up, the original Fars report essentially claims that US policies have been guided by an "extraterrestrial intelligence agenda" since 1945.

Link

robindch

Fars or Fark?

PopePalpatine

I'm surprised no-one's dubbed them Farce yet.

Bannasidhe

PopePalpatine wrote: »

I'm surprised no-one's dubbed them Farce yet.

They have now.

Pherekydes

Seems a sensible theory to me.

Just one small hole they might have missed: If Nazis ruled the US what would be their policy towards Israel?

Bannasidhe

Pherekydes wrote: »

Seems a sensible theory to me.

Just one small hole they might have missed: If Nazis ruled the US what would be their policy towards Israel?

This is not the forum for your logic!


Oh...wait... yes it is.

Carry On.

MagicMarker

Sulla Felix

MagicMarker wrote: »

"It's funny how hate can make you do real nice things every now and then." :pac:

FouxDaFaFa

I've really taken to Stanhope recently. I held off watching his stuff because the only people who recommended him to me were utter knobheads.

Turns out I am also a knobhead.

MagicMarker

Not crazy about him myself.

Bill Burr, now there's a comedian, apparently he's massive but I only discovered him a month ago, then realized he was playing in Vicar St but it was sold out... GUTTED!

Knex*

MagicMarker wrote: »

Not crazy about him myself.

Bill Burr, now there's a comedian, apparently he's massive but I only discovered him a month ago, then realized he was playing in Vicar St but it was sold out... GUTTED!

Long time fan of his.

AND, I got to go see that gig. It was fantastic!

As a massive, massive, fan of Stand Up Comedy, going to see him in Vicar Street was the equivalent of finding out the Champions League Final was on in the Aviva, and I could go for 30 quid.

For me, he's up there with the likes of Louis CK and Jim Jefferies, in terms of comedians plying their trade right now.

Most of my friends don't know who he is either. Took a good bit of plaguing for me to get one or two of the lads, who would be into stand up themselves a bit too, to watch them, and they've been hooked on his stuff since too.

recedite

Prototype 3-D printer for metal objects. Low cost and open source.
Its reminiscent of a miniature welding robot, as used in car manufacturing. Current results are not exactly "precision engineering" but its a start, I suppose.

Mitsubishi are supposed to have a better (and very expensive) commercial one in the pipeline. The precision in this one comes from the "milling" afterwards, ie the grinding and polishing off of the excess material.

recedite

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, on a test flight. Like sci-fi, but real.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwm3leZu-O0

Turtwig

Excuse the cynicism what kind of orbited is projected for that tiny little thing?

mikhail

Jernal wrote: »

Excuse the cynicism what kind of orbited is projected for that tiny little thing?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCzsX-LqJ-4
It's sub-orbital. It launches from a larger aircraft and gets up to about 21 km above the earth.

Hotblack Desiato

Sub-orbital was good enough for Mercury-Redstone

SpaceShipTwo is supposed to be able to get up to over 110km. It is released from the mothership at about 16km.

21km is only slightly above the altitude Concorde operated at (60,000ft). Really wish I'd had the chance to fly on that thing