[Keanery]*˚

Video

Sun, 27 May 2012 21:27:37 -0400

YYEEESSSSSSSS

Wed, 16 May 2012 20:54:22 -0400

The largest-ever study of coffee drinkers find those who imbibe are less likely to die.

If the sky fell,

Sat, 12 May 2012 21:30:46 -0400

All the oxygen, nitrogen and other stuff in Earth’s atmosphere has a whopping combined mass of 5 quadrillion tons, so a falling sky would mean that nearly 10 tons of molecules — roughly the heft of a school bus — would drop on every square meter of Earth’s surface.

Or better still—instead of the sky falling on us, what if it suddenly disappeared?

As all the birds and airborne insects plummeted to the ground around us like rocks, lacking an atmosphere to beat their wings against, and as the world fell eerily mute, lacking the air that normally carries sound, we would all die of oxygen deprivation in less than three minutes.

The site is called Life’s Little Mysteries. It is extraordinary.

If the Earth orbited the sun "upright"

Sat, 12 May 2012 21:15:16 -0400

at a 90º angle to its orbital plane, the sun would never set at the poles, and instead endlessly circle the horizon.

But we have a tilt. Interestingly, the tilt changes each year. The Tropics of Cancer and Capricon—the northern- and southernmost points where it’s possible to stand under the sun without casting a shadow—are moving 15 meters closer to the poles with each passing year.

To live alone, in paradise, with tortoises…

Sat, 12 May 2012 21:02:44 -0400

To live alone, in paradise, with tortoises…

The surprisingly violent Quidditch World Cup

Sat, 12 May 2012 09:31:15 -0400

The surprisingly violent Quidditch World Cup:

“Let’s monopolize the bludgers,” says our 39-year-old co-captain Josh.

“And then just let the chasers do their thing,” says our 28-year-old top scorer, Dan.

I am flabbergasted.

Sat, 12 May 2012 09:23:58 -0400

I am flabbergasted.

WOOF.

Wed, 09 May 2012 20:08:29 -0400

WOOF.

Included in the history of chairs...

Fri, 04 May 2012 17:53:13 -0400

…was this interesting tidbit:

After the Visigoths sacked Rome, their habits of squatting and sitting on the ground became the predominant ways for commoners to sit and until the Renaissance even wealthy feudal households had very little furniture because they had to keep moving around to avoid getting sacked themselves. The richest families would have had a single massive chair for the exclusive use of the master of the house; this chair was typically too heavy to move (to keep it from getting stolen when the house got sacked). Tables were boards on trestles, which were set up in front of the chair rather than the other way around, a practice that we still reference today in the phrase “chairman of the board.”

Video

Tue, 01 May 2012 19:47:03 -0400

Binyavanga on why Africa's international image is unfair

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 18:09:24 -0400

Binyavanga on why Africa's international image is unfair:

Let us imagine that Africa was really like it is shown in the international media.

Africa would be a country. Its largest province would be Somalia.

Bono, Angelina Jolie and Madonna would be joint presidents, appointed by the United Nations.

…The truth is, we will never look like what CNN wants us to look like.

But that’s fine - we can get online now and completely bypass their nonsense.

More than a quarter of all the meat produced worldwide is now...

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 18:04:23 -0400

More than a quarter of all the meat produced worldwide is now eaten in China, and the country’s 1.35 billion people are hungry for more. In 1978, China’s meat consumption of 8 million tons was one third the U.S. consumption of 24 million tons. But by 1992, China had overtaken the United States as the world’s leading meat consumer—and it has not looked back since. Now China’s annual meat consumption of 71 million tons is more than double that in the United States. With U.S. meat consumption falling and China’s consumption still rising, the trajectories of these two countries are determining the shape of agriculture around the planet.

Ladies and gentlemen, Cornelia Konrads

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 18:02:07 -0400

Ladies and gentlemen,

Cornelia Konrads

Talking with your fingers

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 17:59:29 -0400

Talking with your fingers:

According to one estimate, if Homo sapiens had existed for 24 hours, writing only came along after 11 p.m.

Yet the brevity, improvisation and in-the-moment quality of e-mails and texts are those grand old defining qualities of spoken language. Keyboard technology, allowing us to produce and receive written communication with unprecedented speed, allows something hitherto unknown to humanity: written conversation. In this sense, they are not “writing” in the sense we are accustomed to. They are fingered speech.

But ... don't you want to cure cancer, or something?

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 17:50:38 -0400

A board-certified anesthesiologist with a medical degree from the University of North Carolina, Dr. Burke is, according to his website, the “first physician in the United States to formally dedicate his career to the treatment of hangovers.”

Earlier this month, he unveiled his new treatment clinic, a 45-foot-long tour bus emblazoned with soothing blue and white graphics and his business’s name, “Hangover Heaven.” Inside the bus, it looks like a cross between an ambulance and a conference room at Embassy Suites. IV drips hang from the ceiling, patients are swathed in blankets, but there are also spacious leather sofas with built-in beverage-holders and flat-screen TVs. EMTs administer relief to patients in the form of branded medical cocktails. The $90 Redemption package contains one bag of saline solution, vitamins, and an anti-nausea medication. The $150 Salvation package includes a double shot of saline solution, the vitamins, the anti-nausea medication and an anti-inflammatory as well.

Ludicrous.

Pretty good, TNT. Pretty damn good.

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 22:06:11 -0400

Pretty good, TNT.

Pretty damn good.

I would have gone my whole life...

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 22:37:27 -0400

…without considering this:

It is good to say “more than one passenger was hurt,” although more than one equals at least two and therefore logically the verb ought to be plural were not singular was!

"Walser: Behind us are two thousand years that have been marked by questions about God. Today’s..."

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 13:02:45 -0400

“

Walser: Behind us are two thousand years that have been marked by questions about God. Today’s atheistic calm, even from intellectuals, is equal to the eradication of our intellectual history.

[The European: Why?]

Walser: Because we would have to admit that we were crazy. You cannot spend two thousand years trying to understand God and then simply abandon the question and declare that we’re not interested in it anymore.

”

- Martin Walser, in an interview with The European.

Snow Crash is a great read, btw

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 22:57:42 -0400

Neal Stephenson discusses his reasons for starting the Heiroglyph Project:

That’s a problem, says Stephenson, author of modern sci-fi classics such as Snow Crash. He fears that no one will be inspired to build the next great space vessel or find a way to completely end dependence on fossil fuels when our stories about the future promise a shattered world.

After lamenting the slow pace of technological innovation, Stephenson was surprised when his audience leveled blame at sci-fi authors. “You’re the ones who have been slacking off,” said Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University and co-founder of the forward-looking think tank the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes.

To be sure, 20th-century sci-fi prefigured many of today’s technologies, from smart phones to MRI scanners, as you can see if you spend 30 seconds on YouTube reviewing such “Star Trek” gadgets as communicators and tricorders.

That didn’t take long.

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 22:00:09 -0400

That didn’t take long.