Indeed

All the gold in the world

Thu, 10 May 2012 18:46:52 -0700

My own second-favourite way-to-visualise-the-quantity-of-something is that all the gold in the world (not including gold we have yet to dig up or somehow extract from seawater) would make a cube only 20 to 22 metres on a side, depending on who you ask. To help visualise the size of the cube, 21-ish-metres is about the length of two city buses parked nose to tail.

I think the conclusion is that we’re really bad at estimating volume.

Love the alt text. Btw, there’s alt text ;-) (via xkcd:...

Tue, 08 May 2012 22:01:58 -0700

Love the alt text. Btw, there’s alt text ;-)

(via xkcd: Ten Thousand)

Leave Only Footprints (by iain blake)

Mon, 07 May 2012 06:02:03 -0700

Leave Only Footprints (by iain blake)

did-you-kno: If you put a finger in your ear and scratch, it...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 23:24:31 -0700

did-you-kno:

If you put a finger in your ear and scratch, it sounds like Pacman!

The History of Nintendo - Brawl in the Family (by...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 23:23:31 -0700

The History of Nintendo - Brawl in the Family (by BrawlintheFamily)

New CGI of How Titanic Sank (by NationalGeographic)

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 22:30:58 -0700

New CGI of How Titanic Sank (by NationalGeographic)

Half a million secrets (via TED.com)

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 21:43:28 -0700

Half a million secrets (via TED.com)

Economist Debates: Airport security

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 20:45:17 -0700

Economist Debates: Airport security:

Airports are effectively rights-free zones. Security officers have enormous power over you as a passenger. You have limited rights to refuse a search. Your possessions can be confiscated. You cannot make jokes, or wear clothing, that airport security does not approve of. You cannot travel anonymously. (Remember when we would mock Soviet-style “show me your papers” societies? That we’ve become inured to the very practice is a harm.) And if you’re on a certain secret list, you cannot fly, and you enter a Kafkaesque world where you cannot face your accuser, protest your innocence, clear your name, or even get confirmation from the government that someone, somewhere, has judged you guilty. These police powers would be illegal anywhere but in an airport, and we are all harmed—individually and collectively—by their existence.

via The Brooks Review

Wind Map

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 20:39:29 -0700

Wind Map:

designlanguage:

Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg’s beautiful animated map of wind patterns in the US. It even shows speed based on the contrast. Oh, and the map is almost in realtime.

Riding the Booster with enhanced sound (by interbartolo)

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 23:13:40 -0700

Riding the Booster with enhanced sound (by interbartolo)

No, really, pi is wrong: The Tau Manifesto

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 17:18:10 -0700

No, really, pi is wrong: The Tau Manifesto:

Happy Tau Day!

Buzludzha, Bulgaria (via Forget Your Past – Timothy Allen)

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 20:08:53 -0700

Buzludzha, Bulgaria (via Forget Your Past – Timothy Allen)

(via Beautiful Macro Photos of the Insides of Musical...

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 08:26:23 -0800

(via Beautiful Macro Photos of the Insides of Musical Instruments)

(via Know Your Meme)

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 23:51:58 -0800

(via Know Your Meme)

(via Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal)

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 16:24:25 -0800

(via Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal)

designlanguage: A lenticular map of NYC by Christopher Cannon....

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 15:59:59 -0800

designlanguage:

A lenticular map of NYC by Christopher Cannon. Isotope 221’s website has a nice description of the project. (Via Raffertyesque)

Clever. I wonder if it will be easy to use in real life.

Teller Reveals His Secrets

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 16:41:30 -0800

Teller Reveals His Secrets:

Teller is a surprisingly good writer.

Magic is an art, as capable of beauty as music, painting or poetry. But the core of every trick is a cold, cognitive experiment in perception: Does the trick fool the audience? A magician’s data sample spans centuries, and his experiments have been replicated often enough to constitute near-certainty. Neuroscientists—well intentioned as they are—are gathering soil samples from the foot of a mountain that magicians have mapped and mined for centuries. MRI machines are awesome, but if you want to learn the psychology of magic, you’re better off with Cub Scouts and hard candy.

(via An Insane Non-Manipulated Photograph of a Keel Walk Stunt)

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 15:54:01 -0800

(via An Insane Non-Manipulated Photograph of a Keel Walk Stunt)

Temporal Distortion (by Randy Halverson) I love the aurora...

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 00:02:05 -0800

Temporal Distortion (by Randy Halverson)

I love the aurora sequences.

(via Dilbert)

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 09:53:50 -0800

(via Dilbert)