Interesting Stuff Thread

coffee_cake

wow felicia day does all the cool stuff

Turtwig

I'm just posting this here, mainly selfishly for myself, but also others who may find it useful when you want to show that Darwin's evolution isn't just held to as doctrine.
(The entire series of debates are very interesting. I just haven't got time to watch them all.:()

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PqMD1vx-qk

Coriolanus

BBC makes a slightly hamfisted link between lack of religion and adultery in the closing paragraph. Wouldn't mind getting a look at the actual data or an abstract at least

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18233843

Coriolanus

Coriolanus wrote: »

BBC makes a slightly hamfisted link between lack of religion and adultery in the closing paragraph. Wouldn't mind getting a look at the actual data or an abstract at least

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18233843

If so few religious people are adulterers those who are must all be secret gay drugs addicts since they're the only ones one ever hears about.

Turtwig

There is always another more ominous possibility religious people are more effective at covering up their infidelity. (Or to save face they never publicly acknowledge the truth.):pac:

fitz0

Well if you're a Mormon, you can just marry the mistress as well.

The Mad Hatter

Jernal wrote: »

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

I don't suppose you'd have any links to what this would look like sped up?

I can do you one better : Felicia Day + Graphic Explanation.
<snippity>
(Check out the vids with Sean Astin too:))



Yeah, Spitzer is pretty awesome. It's so sad when you consider all the love people give Hubble and probably aren't aware of this beaut of a telescope.

Ha! By a funny coincidence, the latest episode of the Hubblecast is on exactly this: Link (Well worth a watch.)

joseph brand

Every Black Hole Contains a New Universe.

http://www.insidescience.org/?q=content/every-black-hole-contains-new-universe/566

Our universe may exist inside a black hole. This may sound strange, but it could actually be the best explanation of how the universe began, and what we observe today.

Intriguing.

joseph brand

Massive Energy Storage, Courtesy of West Ireland

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/02/massive-energy-storage-courtesy-.html?ref=hphp

An Irish company has hatched an ambitious plan to dam five coastal valleys in the west of Ireland, use wind power to pump seawater behind the dams, and release it to create hydropower. The project, which could cost nearly $2 billion to construct, would create the largest water-powered energy-storage facility in the world, quadrupling Europe’s existing energy-storage capacity.

Europe, with its push toward renewables, stores only 10% of the energy it produces, far too little to enable renewable energy sources such as wind and solar to smoothly replace fossil fuels.

Ireland’s wind is abundant and strong enough, particularly in the west, to supply as much energy as half of Iraq’s annual oil production.

Maybe some good news for our little country? Massive project.

Gbear

joseph brand wrote: »

Massive Energy Storage, Courtesy of West Ireland

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/02/massive-energy-storage-courtesy-.html?ref=hphp




Maybe some good news for our little country? Massive project.

I've never liked the idea much and it'll never really be enough.

Viable, large scale storage is still a long way away.

I think we'd be better off waiting for technology to catch up than possibly wasting billions on projects like this.

mikhail

Gbear wrote: »

I've never liked the idea much and it'll never really be enough.

Viable, large scale storage is still a long way away.

I think we'd be better off waiting for technology to catch up than possibly wasting billions on projects like this.

We have the technology.

recedite

joseph brand wrote: »

Massive Energy Storage, Courtesy of West Ireland

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/02/massive-energy-storage-courtesy-.html?ref=hphp

I've heard Pat Kenny plugging this more than once on his TV and radio shows, but not a peep from the government or politicians. They have no problem throwing tens of billions at failed bankers and property developers, but this project struggles to raise €1.6 billion privately.
The basic principles/economics of it are; Pump the seawater uphill using electricity at off-peak tariffs, at night or in windy weather. Then in daytime or calm weather, reverse the flow and the pumps become generators. The process is only about 70-80% efficient. But off peak electricity sells for about 50% of peak rate.
So the 20-30% difference is your margin. The question for the moneylending beancounters is how long it takes at the 20% margin for payback of the capital costs. For those seeing the bigger picture however, the timescale is irrelevant because we are also looking at long term import substitution (of oil and gas) and immediate job creation; both very beneficial to this economy.

Turtwig

This is for those of you with those really high res screens and multiple monitors.

shizz

I always loved the idea of terraforming. Lets hope that we give it a go at some stage

Map of a terraformed Mars.

Turtwig

Indeed, that terraforming of Mars idea was the only bit of my chemistry textbook that I read at all with interest.

This Super Genius Heist, is just utterly fascinating and amazing! Set aside a half hour, grab yourself a cuppa and amaze yourself at a modern day mystery of intrigue and intellect.
(Sensationalism purely intended to get your lazy arse to click the link.:p)

Calibos

Its always going to be cheaper and easier to fix whatever the problem is here on earth than Terraform Mars which also has a tiny 1000 year life span before the lack of magnetic field lets the Sun strip off the 'New' Atmosphere.

shizz

Calibos wrote: »

Its always going to be cheaper and easier to fix whatever the problem is here on earth than Terraform Mars which also has a tiny 1000 year life span before the lack of magnetic field lets the Sun strip off the 'New' Atmosphere.

Well its fairly obvious that it's an expensive endeavour, the reality is the species is doomed if we stay on one planet only.

If it's possible to terraform it in the first place how would it be impossible to keep it "topped up", so to speak, and prevent that from happening?

Turtwig

shizz wrote: »

Well its fairly obvious that it's an expensive endeavour, the reality is the species is doomed if we stay on one planet only.

If it's possible to terraform it in the first place how would it be impossible to keep it "topped up", so to speak, and prevent that from happening?

But if we can terraform Mars then why wouldn't we just attempt to terraform Earth?

shizz

Jernal wrote: »

But if we can terraform Mars then why wouldn't we just attempt to terraform Earth?

Sorry I should of been more specific. I'm referring to an event that is out of our control such as an asteroid impact etc. Something which can wipe us out in an extinction.

Turtwig

shizz wrote: »

Sorry I should of been more specific. I'm referring to an event that is out of our control such as an asteroid impact etc. Something which can wipe us out in an extinction.

My apologies I should have still made that connection.

Turtwig

Disclaimer : I have not read the paper but the substance sounds interesting.

A Paper that claims deaf people have a better perceptual span than non-deaf people. In other words the non-deaf person's brain probably sees the letter "A" and maybe the "P"'s of "Paper". Whereas the deaf person is likely to see significantly more peripheral information, possibly the entire word. Cool eh?:)

recedite

Jernal wrote: »

This Super Genius Heist, is just utterly fascinating and amazing! Set aside a half hour, grab yourself a cuppa and amaze yourself at a modern day mystery of intrigue and intellect.

I see J.J. Abrams will be producing the movie (after he finishes the next Star Trek sequel).

Turtwig

recedite wrote: »

I see J.J. Abrams will be producing the movie (after he finishes the next Star Trek sequel).

Ah feck, now I know how it ends.

shizz

Jernal wrote: »

Ah feck, now I know how it ends.

I can only imagine how many lens flares the reflected/refracted light from the diamond will produce.

MagicMarker

I actually didn't mind the lens flare in Star Trek, I thought it was used to good effect. But then I watched Super 8, where the lens flare was beyond ridiculous at times, and now when I watch Star Trek again it pisses me off.

Pompey Magnus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-52AI_ojyQ

CerebralCortex

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-52AI_ojyQ

A young Bricktop?

Hotblack Desiato

recedite wrote: »

The question for the moneylending beancounters is how long it takes at the 20% margin for payback of the capital costs. For those seeing the bigger picture however, the timescale is irrelevant because we are also looking at long term import substitution (of oil and gas) and immediate job creation; both very beneficial to this economy.

If we're really serious about reducing oil and gas imports we should just go nuclear.

Return on capital is very important, whether private or public capital, and the fact that we've put money into other black holes doesn't justify another potential black hole. If we want to spend a billion and get guaranteed return on investment, just build Dart Underground already.

I haven't seen anything to convince me that Spirit of Ireland is anything other than a fanciful proposal whose sums don't quite add up. I've never heard them address the issue of salt leaching into the groundwater, either. The Romans knew all about salting the land of their enemies...

Gbear

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-52AI_ojyQ

Ah right.

I went to school in France for 4 years (Yay! Secular education!:)) and the discrepancy between the 2 systems left me completely baffled for a few years until the standard Irish short system usurped it again when I came back home.

robindch

The order in which colors got their names:

Empirical Zeal wrote:

In Japan, people often refer to traffic lights as being blue in color. And this is a bit odd, because the traffic signal indicating ‘go’ in Japan is just as green as it is anywhere else in the world. So why is the color getting lost in translation? This visual conundrum has its roots in the history of language.

http://www.empiricalzeal.com/2012/06/05/the-crayola-fication-of-the-world-how-we-gave-colors-names-and-it-messed-with-our-brains-part-i/