Archive for the 'Off Topic' Category
Dying Alone in Japan: The Industry Devoted to What’s Left Behind
July 30th, 2018Via: Bloomberg: Han is director of Tail Project, a six-year-old company based near Tokyo that specializes in cleaning out and disposing of the property accumulated by the deceased, a service that’s increasingly in demand as Japan’s population ages and shrinks. For Han, today’s job is relatively simple. She and her crew of three started at […]
The World’s Only Homemade Spacesuit Is About To Get Its First Life-or-Death Test
July 29th, 2018Via: Medium: Cameron Smith has never been to space, but this autumn he’ll get close. In a few months, Smith and the small team of volunteers that comprise Pacific Spaceflight will travel to an undisclosed location on the West Coast where Smith will don a homemade spacesuit and attempt to pilot a hot air balloon […]
Liquid Water ‘Lake’ Revealed on Mars
July 25th, 2018Via: BBC: Researchers have found evidence of an existing body of liquid water on Mars. What they believe to be a lake sits under the planet’s south polar ice cap, and is about 20km (12 miles) across. Previous research found possible signs of intermittent liquid water flowing on the martian surface, but this is the […]
Find the Best Second Passport for You
July 20th, 2018Via: multinational.io: Best second passport for you based on your current nationality – sorted by increase in ease of travel/quality of life etc.
14,400-Year-Old Flatbread Remains That Predate Agriculture
July 17th, 2018Via: Atlas Obscura: BREAD-MAKING AROUND THE WORLD HAS evolved from a similar, ancient approach of combining flour, water, and sometimes yeast. But for prehistoric societies with limited tools, making bread wasn’t so simple. Given how laborious it was to make bread thousands of years ago, it’s long been associated with settled Neolithic societies—and only after […]
Hear Stanley Kubrick Explain The 2001: A Space Odyssey Ending In A Rare, Unearthed Video
July 11th, 2018Via: Esquire: I’ve tried to avoid doing this ever since the picture came out. When you just say the ideas they sound foolish, whereas if they’re dramatized one feels it, but I’ll try. The idea was supposed to be that he is taken in by god-like entities, creatures of pure energy and intelligence with no […]
Did Stonehenge Builders Use Pythagoras’ Theorem 2,000 Years Before the Greek Philosopher Was Born?
June 23rd, 2018Via: National Post: THE builders of Britain’s ancient stone circles such as Stonehenge used Pythagoras’s theorem 2,000 years before the Greek philosopher was born, experts have claimed. A new book, Megalith, has re-examined the geometry of Neolithic monuments and concluded they were constructed by sophisticated astronomers who understood lunar, solar and eclipse cycles and built […]
What’s Going On In Your Child’s Brain When You Read Them A Story?
May 25th, 2018Via: NPR: In terms of Hutton’s “Goldilocks effect,” here’s what the researchers found: In the audio-only condition (too cold): language networks were activated, but there was less connectivity overall. “There was more evidence the children were straining to understand.” In the animation condition (too hot): there was a lot of activity in the audio and […]
Headphones?
April 24th, 2018VERY OFF TOPIC! — I’m going to give my Audio-Technica ATH-M50s to my wife to replace her 17 year old, nearly-dead-and-not-good-to-start-with ATH-M20s. I was pretty amazed with the sound of the M50s when I got them back in 2010—at least for the first few minutes. After that, I went through multiple phases of modifying the […]
China Sending Plants, Insects to the Moon
April 13th, 2018Via: Quartz: Almost half a century ago, the first human landed on the moon, marking “a giant leap for mankind.” This year, China is sending seeds of plants and insects there. Seeds of potatoes and arabidopsis—a small flowering plant belonging to the mustard family—along with silkworm cocoons, will hitch a ride with the Chang’e-4 lander […]
