Interesting Stuff Thread

robindch

From /. comes an interview with the folks who analyzed what people are really looking for on the internet:

http://healthland.time.com/2011/05/19/mind-reading-the-researchers-who-analyzed-all-the-porn-on-the-internet/

mikhail

robindch wrote: »

From /. comes an interview with the folks who analyzed what people are really looking for on the internet:

http://healthland.time.com/2011/05/19/mind-reading-the-researchers-who-analyzed-all-the-porn-on-the-internet/

The comments on slashdot tore that study a new waste outlet. It seems that the methodology could have been improved with a tarot reading, and the ethics of the study worthy of a third world dictatorship.

Turtwig

Is it a good thing or a bad thing that I never heard of slashdot until two posts ago?

robindch

Malty_T wrote: »

Is it a good thing or a bad thing that I never heard of slashdot until two posts ago?

That is a Bad Thing

mikhail

Malty_T wrote: »

Is it a good thing or a bad thing that I never heard of slashdot until two posts ago?

It was a big deal ten years ago, but now it's just a slightly more technical version of Reddit with an obsessive focus on privacy, copyright and other IP law, and google. Its only redeeming feature is that it has enough random programmers, engineers and assorted PhDs floating around that there's always a couple of genuinely insightful comments on certain subjects (astrophysics in particular, but plenty of others). Sadly, I think the signal to noise ratio has fallen off over the years. That, or I'm just getting old.

robindch

Swedish prof enthuses about stats:

http://www.gapminder.org/videos/the-joy-of-stats/

Turtwig

COSMOLOGISTS have always had an uneasy relationship with God. After all, cosmology provides grist to the mill for those looking for signs of a creator: what better evidence than a moment of creation such as the big bang? Another trophy, for scientifically sophisticated deists, is the fact that we see the universe as a single observable thing rather than a fuzzy superposition of many states simultaneously.

The laws of quantum mechanics must apply to the universe as a whole, just as they do to electrons. But this suggests that the way to collapse the universe's superposition of states is for something on the outside to observe it. Ask cosmologists who or what plays this observer role and they'll shuffle their feet.

In "When the multiverse and many-worlds collide", we report that cosmologists claim to have found a way to rid themselves of the need for a God-like observer. Along the way, they may have unified two of the most bizarre ideas dreamed up by scientists - the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics and the multiverse.

That will be a relief. Cosmologists can now begin to take God seriously, precisely because they can explain him (or her) away.
Source.

Reading the article now.:)

robindch

Worms found living happily, a mile beneath the earth:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/discovery-of-worms-from-hell-deep-beneath-earths-surface-raises-new-questions/2011/05/31/AGnzJTGH_story.html

Dades

robindch wrote: »

Worms found living happily, a mile beneath the earth:

Galvasean

robindch wrote: »

From /. comes an interview with the folks who analyzed what people are really looking for on the internet:

http://healthland.time.com/2011/05/19/mind-reading-the-researchers-who-analyzed-all-the-porn-on-the-internet/

So from that study they find that porn is not addictive and in countries where porn has become freely available rape has gone down.
Take that conservative America!

Galvasean

http://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/05/23/the-framing-of-scientists/#more-5504

Yes. If you are not sitting next to a series of flasks full of coloured liquids then you are obviously not a scientist. Most of them also have a human skeleton in the background too. This is madness. I’ve ranted before about the ‘labcoat = scientist’ thing in the media (and ironically this show mad a joke about that, despite doing this!). Even if you are a Nobel Laureate, have a Knighthood or Professorship, people clearly won’t buy your credibility as a ‘scientist’ without some coloured liquids.

Turtwig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2ziRRYDfJo

Watch it.

smokingman

What would happen if you put your hand in the beam of the LHC?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NMqPT6oKJ8

robindch

From:

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/06/image-of-the-day-war-of-the-worlds-above-chiles-cordon-caulle-eruption.html

...comes some clouds over a volcano:

Omentum

http://documentaryheaven.com/the-trouble-with-atheism/

"The sulfurous whiff of belief".....

legspin

Omentum wrote: »

http://documentaryheaven.com/the-trouble-with-atheism/

"The sulfurous whiff of belief".....

I would almost call Poe here but but I think he was serious. Gob****e.

recedite

Omentum wrote: »

http://documentaryheaven.com/the-trouble-with-atheism/

"The sulfurous whiff of belief".....

In summing up, the last words of that documentary are;

History has shown us that its not so much religion that's the problem, but any system of thought that insists that one group of people are inviolably in the right whereas the others are in the wrong, and thus must somehow be punished

With this statement he thinks he is proving that "aggressive atheists" are as bad as religious fundamentalists. The aggressive atheists in question seem to be the usual suspects; Stalin, Hitler (but not Pol Pot this time :rolleyes:), oddly enough he does have a new atheist villain; Robespiere & the Jacobins with their reign of terror after the French Revolution.

A quick wiki search for the Jacobins indicates that
1. They were "foes of atheism"

Foes of both the Church and of atheism, advocating deliberate government-organized terror as a substitute for both the rule of law and the more arbitrary terror of mob violence, inheritors of a war that, at the time of their rise to power, threatened the very existence of the Revolution, the Jacobins in power completed the overthrow of the Ancien Régime and successfully defended the Revolution from military defeat. However, to do so, they brought the Revolution to its bloodiest phase, and the one with least regard for just treatment of individuals.

2.An atheistic movement around at the time was called the Cult of Reason, and although many of its adherents overlapped with the political Jacobins and got involved in the reign of terror, in the end they were actually destroyed by the same Robespierre.

In any case, whether or not any of the above bad guys were atheists or not has no relevence to atheists in modern society who do not set out to punish people. So, I think we can say that documentary's conclusion is BS.

robindch

From the World Atheist Conference last week, here's the last talk given by Iranian intellectual, Maryam Namazie, discussing islam today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqHUbK7yW6g

After the speech itself, there's an exchange with the small group of islamists who attended the conference -- they didn't come out of it looking all that well.

Turtwig

Kinda wish the whole world could could get this message.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdnZ1l5TxJk

robindch

The Rubberbandits guide to birds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWfZ4Pw0_oE

Turtwig

The entire 5 part series is worth watching, but this latest little tidbit is poor gold.:D

Turtwig

I have to say my initial reaction is that we may be giving this guy too much credit but if true it's a remarkable story.

EOIN BURKE-KENNEDY

Video of an orang-utan at Dublin Zoo apparently rescuing a drowning moorhen chick has become an internet sensation.

The Youtube clip shows a male Bornean orang-utan, named Jorong, careening over rocks at the edge of his enclosure where an injured moorhen chick flaps about in a pond.

The ape spends a number of minutes patiently coaxing the bird ashore with a leaf before gently lifting it onto grass behind the rocks.

The four-minute long clip then shows the ape carefully examining the bird much to the amazement of onlookers.

The video, which has already been viewed by hundreds of thousands of online users, was only uploaded to Youtube last week even though it was shot some time in 2008.

Authorities at Dublin Zoo confirmed today they had received a number of inquiries about the video over the weekend.

Having reviewed the clip, the animal care team at the Phoenix Park venue confirmed the orang-utan was Jorong who lived in Dublin Zoo for 12 years until he moved to Dudley Zoo in 2008 as part of an international breeding programme.

The ape was born in 1995 in Chester Zoo and came to Dublin Zoo in 1996.

“He had a lovely nature, was always a little inquisitive and very gentle which you can tell from the clip,” a spokeswoman for the zoo said. “During his time in Dublin he fathered a female orang-utan named Mujur, who still lives in Dublin Zoo with the zoo’s group of Bornean orang-utans.”

Last year, the orang-utans were at the centre of controversy when the zoo authorities offered free entry to all red-haired children to highlight the endangered status of the apes in the wild.
Source

MagicMarker

Amazing video!

recedite

A moorhen has about as much chance of drowning as a duck.

WeeBushy

The orangutan didn't know that, however.

strobe

Iran before the Islamic revolution:

http://www.pagef30.com/2009/04/iran-in-1970s-before-islamic-revolution.html

(OP'd by The Thing... in AH)

Turtwig

Ever wondered how to explain evolution to someone new to it in a nice friendly way? Well I think this comic does a darn good job at it.

Turtwig

Posted this in the LGBT thread, forgot to post it here.
Homosexual evolution.

a little snippet wrote:

Natural selection causes traits associated with having fewer children to become less common over time. But natural selection is not the only evolutionary process at work in natural populations. Mutation introduces new alleles even as natural selection removes them. Furthermore, the effects of random chance in small populations creates an effect called genetic drift, which can interfere with the expected operation of natural selection.

Evolutionary biology has developed an excellent understanding of how mutation, selection, and drift interact over time to shape the genetic diversity of populations. That understanding allows us to do some back-of-the-envelope calculations to see how selection might operate on a gene associated with same-sex attraction. In setting this up, I'm following the lead of the evolutionary biologist Joan Roughgarden, who makes a similar point in her book Evolution's Rainbow. Brace yourself for some math!

Turtwig

Watch it in HD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTyKhRZKuZc

Turtwig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2-BS9enJ98

Sometimes there is still a glimmer of hope in humanity's future. One of my favourite youtube channel's and I could not but help smile watching this.:)