laughingsquid:

Street Illuminated with 55,000 LEDs at 2012 Light Festival Ghent

(Source: afterthesmoke, via adozenbluebirds)

kateoplis:

jtotheizzoe:

Mind-Melter of the Day

It turns out that if you divide 1 by 998,001 you get all three-digit numbers from 000 to 999 in order.

Except for 998.

(via Futility Closet)

Mathematics is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

998 is missing…

thedailyfeed:

Mitt Romney earned $21.6 million in 2010 — and paid just 14% in taxes, far less than Newt Gingrich’s 31.7% or Obama’s 26.3%.

In fact, the Romneys paid a higher tax rate to foreign countries, handing over 18 percent on the almost $375,000 that they garnered abroad. The former Massachusetts governor also shelled out almost $3 million to charity, roughly 16 percent of his post-tax haul.

(via ilovecharts)

ilovecharts:

Where Do Your Members of Congress Stand on SOPA and PIPA?

via arnndffr

Click through for the rest of this monstrously good interactive chart, by the monstrously good at data-wielding ProPublica.

nerdology:

Google.

Truth.

(Source: pinkwhiskey, via togetlost)

laughingsquid:

Strida 5.0 LT Bike Neon Green Folding Bike

(Source: bossettecocky, via americanshaft)

beyondthebrew:

The Math Behind Beer Goggles!

(via brookston beer bulletin) - This isn’t exactly news, the effect known as “beer goggles” — where after a few pints people appear more attractive — was confirmed in 2002 and the mathematical formula was announced in 2005. Whether Matt Damon wrote it out on a hallway blackboard one late night is still not known. But How Stuff Works (under the TLC Cooking imprimatur) has a nice summary of the formula.

The first study I recall seeing was in 2002, and was conducted by the University of Glasgow. Both the BBC and the Daily Collegian had the story. Then, in 2005, researchers at the University of Manchester stumbled upon the formula for how it all works. They also discovered that “alcohol is not really the only factor affecting the drunken perception of beauty. Other factors, according to their research, include:

• How brightly lit the area is
• The observer’s eye-sight quality
• The amount of smoke in the air
• The distance of the observer from the observed

The formula is laid out below.

Here’s how to decode the formula:

• An is the number of servings of alcohol
• d is the distance between the observer and the observed, measured in meters
• S is the smokiness of the area on a scale of 0 – 10
• L is the lighting level of the area, measured in candelas per square meter, in which 150 is normal room lightning
• Vo is Snellen visual acuity, in which 6/6 is normal and 6/12 is the lower limit at which someone is able to drive

The formula works out a “beer goggle” score ranging from 1 to 100+. When ø = 1, the observer is perceiving the same degree of beauty he or she would perceive in a sober state. At 100+, everybody in the room is a perfect 10.

And one last odd finding of the second study. “A nearsighted, sober person who isn’t wearing his or her glasses can experience a beer-goggle effect equivalent to drinking eight pints of beer.”

(via malibueinstein)

malibueinstein:

*Image represents a finite universe (top) and infinite universe (bottom two)

How Does It All End?

The universe is filled with tons of stuff, and this stuff is “matter” so it has “mass.”

Because this stuff has mass, and also takes up space, it has a certain density. (Mass over volume = density)  Everything from semi-trucks to feathers to air molecules have density. 

Ending of the Universe - Spoiler Alert:

If the density of the universe is higher than a certain level, the shape of the universe is spherical, like a ball.  The density of matter could pull the very fabric of space back in on itself and cause a great contraction, maybe resulting in the universe shrinking down to a small super dense point, like the center of a black hole.  Space will be brought back by the gravitational force of this dense universe, and all time and space will crash in on each other in a “Big Crunch.”

Right now the universe is not in “thermodynamic equilibrium.”  That means that there is heat and energy disproportionately available in certain places, and it can “do work” when it goes to some other place that doesn’t have that same level of heat and energy.  Think of it like this: it’s much hotter below the Earth’s surface than above the Earth’s surface.  When there is a break in the Earth’s surface, steam can rush out to the colder area, and we can capture it and use it to make electricity. Iceland has been working this system for years with aplomb.

Anyway, if the density of this universe is less than the critical density, then space expands infinitely, everything gets pulled further apart, and all the heat and energy in the universe dissipates as space stretches, thus cooling down to absolute zero. No more work can be done.  No work, no power, no “structures” can be made, living or non-living.  Here the universe ends in a vast, maudlin cosmos of nothingness. 

It’s looking like the expansion of the universe theory is most likely, and to further research the how and why of that I’ll direct you to some reading about dark energy.. Trust me, it’s a good time.

Want to know even more?  NASA has you covered.

jtotheizzoe:

neuromatic:

Yup. Fuck SOPA.

Wanna know what I think, Uncle Sam?

[REDACTED]

Read it. Then re-read it. Then think about why you vote/who you vote for.

(via malibueinstein)